With Mobile App powered ‘Self Learning to Self Earning’ as its theme, the GMC Calibrator cohort of 2018 will work towards reaching 0.5 million women and girls as users by 2020 with affordable services and better user engagement.
This Education and Skilling sector focused Accelerator Program has selected eight organizations in its first cohort including 2 not-for-profit organizations.
The cohort has representations from organizations in Skilling, Govt. Exam Test Prep, English Learning, Teacher Capacity Building and Early Childhood Education.
BENGALURU, 19th June, 2018: Gray Matters Capital, an impact investor with a gender lens focused on enterprises working to improve access to affordable quality education and employability in India, has today announced the names of the eight participating organizations in the first cohort of its accelerator program – GMC Calibrator that was launched earlier in April this year.
The GMC Calibrator is India’s first accelerator program focused on improving learning outcomes via better ‘User Engagement Design’ of mobile apps of enterprises in the ‘Learning to Earning’ space.
In line with the impact investor’s gender focus, this six month blended zero-equity accelerator program will have its cohort work towards its mission of reaching one million users by 2020, of which 50% will be women and girls. This is to be achieved through focusing on behavioural understanding of users leading to product tweaks that improve learner engagement. The accelerator will also provide support around product strategy, monetization, optimization, distribution and user testing.
The eight enterprises selected for the first cohort of GMC Calibrator are listed below:
GMC Calibrator Cohort of 2018 | Organization Type | Focus | |||||
1 | Laqsh Job Skills Academy | For-Profit | Vocational Training for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds | ||||
2 | MadGuy Labs | For-Profit | Personalizing Offline Coaching centre experience Online | ||||
3 | Meghshala | Not-For-Profit | Empowering Teachers | ||||
4 | Million Sparks Foundation | Not-For-Profit | Resources for Teacher Capacity Building | ||||
5 | Multibhashi | For-Profit | Upskilling Blue Collar workers in English | ||||
6 | Ockypocky (WhizKidz Media Pvt. Ltd) | For-Profit | Learning experience for Tech-enabled toddlers | ||||
7 | Sarkari Parisha (Graposs Edutech Pvt. Ltd.) | For-Profit | Last mile access for Govt. exams | ||||
8 | Stones2Milestones | For-Profit | Creating a Nation of Readers |
Announcing the 2018 program cohort, Ragini Chaudhary, India CEO, Gray Matters Capital said, “The Jury of the GMC Calibrator arrived at the final eight based on the parameters of vision articulation; potential to address problems at scale; potential to be disruptive; team quality; scope for impact in terms of gender and affordability; and the suitability of the mobile app for the GMC Calibrator. We are betting on the mobile apps of these eight organizations to help change the education and skilling paradigm as well as bridge gender gaps in education and workplace participation in India.”
The Accelerator Program commences with an in-person immersion week in Bengaluru from 20th June 2018 with the cohort members getting mentorship and engaging in on-on-one workshops in the areas of behavioural design, mobile product strategy, monetization and product optimization.
The GMC Calibrator is an accelerator program powered by ZingerLABS as anchor mentors, Final Mile Consulting as user behaviour specialists, besides Indian Angel Network, Amazon’s AWS Activate, EDUGILD and CL Educate’s Worldwide Academia Industry Network (WAIN).
Raj Lalwani (Monetization Lead – Ola Play, ANI Technologies), Siddharth Mathur (Founder & CEO, Fastah) and Vishalini Paliwal (Senior Director, Product Manager, MindTickle) are some of the other mentors besides experts from partner organizations such as Worldwide Academia Industry Network (WAIN) and Final Mile Consulting which the cohort will have access to via growth vouchers for the six month duration of the program.
