Our journey So far…

I am delighted to share my story with you. The journey so far has been very enriching and we at Debugsbunny are really excited about the road ahead. We have started a challenging task of reaching out to 5 million Indian households in the next 5 years, to offer their kids quality education at an affordable price. We want to make sure that, a child is excited about learning, and, a parent is not at all worried about the high cost of education. I remember my childhood when I look at kids in our classes today. Kids ask so many meaningful questions and have so many practical doubts. I was myself an inquisitive kid, always fascinated by the stars. With time, I came across the world of man-made satellites orbiting the Earth. Although it was all far-fetched, yet I kept dreaming of being part of a space technology team. Driven by this goal, I learned a lot about satellites and related topics during my growing up years. It was through hard work that I finally achieved my dream, during my engineering days at COEP, Pune, when I became part of the SWAYAM satellite structural team, which was working very closely with ISRO.

In the hindsight, I realized the learning curve right from my childhood to my MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, was a steep one, It demanded constant upgrade of skills and knowledge at every point. I feel my proactiveness has helped me a lot as an individual in being where I’m today.

Unfortunately, during my growing up years, online education wasn’t available. Text Books and knowledge from teachers were all that we had to absorb and till date, none of these can be underrated. Ever since then I and my like-minded friends have been in pursuit of making high-class education accessible to every Indian kid, at a very frugal and affordable cost. This was the seed that gave birth to Acharya Academy.

At Acharya Academy, we have been providing personalized coaching to students to their fundamental understanding of concepts stronger. Our application-oriented teaching was very well received by students and parents alike. The transformation in our students’ scores was a testimony to our efforts. It was our ideology that drove alumni of IITs, IIMs, NITs, and COEP to join us. Their 1–1 interaction with the students and regular query resolution creates a classroom like an environment. Unlike a virtual, computerized teacher to guide you, creating a personal touch is the cause of our success. The results are clearly evident when it comes to school board exams and competitive exams. With the boom in Computer Education, many of our keen students asked us for guidance. True to our philosophy of always keeping your skills updated, we readily suggested they go ahead and take maximum advantage of any opportunity to learn to code.

Pretty soon, parents and students associated with our academy approached us with a common concern, the hefty cost involved in pursuing a formal coding course and lack of such facility in the physical setup. Most of them expressed their disappointment at not being able to afford the exorbitant lumpsum fees. This situation prompted us to revisit our primary motive, making education for kids available and affordable. This led to the formation of DebugsBunny, an online Coding, and Programming platform.

At DebugsBunny, we view coding as a complementary skill set which is not restricted to any domain. Coding knowledge can be applied to Science as much as it can to Social studies, which makes it all the more fun to learn. Our core expert team quickly got on board with this idea and has curated courses based on age groups. These are built in a way that kids adapt easily to the level of coding taught to their age group. Keeping in mind the economical aspect of the course, we follow a very inclusive structure, allowing complete flexibility for kids and parents to opt-out of the program as and when they feel the need to.

The first step is to introduce kids to the world of coding and its basics. For this, a free workshop is conducted to convey the basics of coding, along with examples of its applicability in real life. As applause for the time and effort the kids spend on this class, they will be rewarded with a participation certificate. For those interested in enrolling for regular classes beyond the one above, the designed schedule consists of 12 classes per month, i.e. 3 classes every week.

As coding is a relatively new skill, many are still testing the waters and we provide them with the flexibility to do that. Those interested in trying out our coding course can register and attend the first 6 classes (2 weeks) without any upfront payment. This is where the engagement level of a student can be judged. For those wishing to continue further and attend the remaining 6 classes in the next 2 weeks of the first month, a very economical pay-out of Rs.1000 is to be made before the end of the 6th class, to unlock the remaining 6 classes of the month. From the second month onwards, all the 12 classes for the next month onwards can be unlocked by making the further pay-out of Rs.1000, before the previous month is up. This effectively makes a total of Rs. 12,000 for an entire year, paid at a monthly breakup of Rs.1000.

This kind of structure not only allows flexibility for payment without overloading anyone with an annual pay-out but also allows for the parents and students to gradually observe their liking for coding. The daily growing student base and the feedback from parents is a true reward for all our efforts. I’m very sure, with the zeal and transparency with which we are working, we will be able to empower many kids and hence the future of our nation.