The Higher Education Review

In recent times, flexibility and accessibility have augmented digital learning. Additionally, digital learning has prefabricated the education system by making learning paradigms more interactive and engaging. It has expanded the learning horizon even at the grass-root level, where STEM education platforms like Modo Edulabs have taken the initiative to educate K-12 students on latest technologies. Modo Edulabs was started by Amalore Jude, who was working with simulation modeling and a few other topics for school children during 2015. At that point, Modo Edulabs was not a formal business entity. It became a private limited firm in January 2018, only after creating fairly exhaustive course contents that could offer much more elaborate learning options to children. Following that, with the intent to bridge the gap between technology and education for school students, Modo Edulabs launched its first product in the market in April 2018.

Modo's Larger Vision for Education
Many small-time institutes have mushroomed that are offering online education on technology with audios, feeds and communities. However, these institutes are not equipping the students with hardware knowledge. "It's not fair when we expect students as early as 10th standard to understand what components are there in a CPU or what constitutes a computer processor, until we discuss with them, right? In the same way, Modo Edulabs is trying to bring that level of understanding and education into various aspects of robotics, automation, artificial intelligence, autonomy of vehicles and 3D printing. They can learn from home, school or from any neighboring tutorial. All mediums have the same level of exposure. That is where I believe Modo Edulabs is unique," explains Amalore Jude, Founder, Modo Edulabs.

Modo Edulabs has created a curriculum framework across five different levels. In very simple terms, they have incorporated basic, intermediate, advanced, expert and super expert levels of learning. For beginners, Jumpstart is the ideal course. Under this course, Modo Edulabs has accumulated topics such as robotics and coding. This Jumpstart course has three variants in which Virtualbot is the most basic one. "Virutalbot comes with a simulated bot. The second variant is Gizmobot, where we are providing an exclusive training kit. This kit is made in India and is fairly cost-effective. The third one is Mbot that has an imported kit, so the price is slightly elevated. Any student more than eight years old can opt for Jumpstart. Now in the next three months, we are launching Step Up, our second level course. This will have two variants. Currently, it is on the final stage. Fact is that we are the only company in India who is even working on simulation software for school children," states Amalore.

"Modo Edulabs has created a group of 100+ students and in schools, this digital learning portal has more than 800 student"

Segmenting the Education Model
Based out of Bengaluru, Modo Edulabs does not involve any formal trainer for imparting digital lessons. Even in schools, whenever they are delivering courses, they only allow coordinators to execute the teaching-learning process. These coordinators ensure that students are performing the coding and robotic activities wholeheartedly. By including such methodologies, Modo Edulabs has created a group of 100+ students and in schools, this digital learning portal has more than 800 students. Adding to this, Modo Edulabs has also extended the team of coordinators and agency folks that work with them in the prominent schools in Chennai.

"In terms of team members, schools and students, we are expanding. We are only with level one now, and looking to launch level two in the next three-four months. It is the primary priority for us. In parallel, we are trying to grow the countrywide presence

by adding field networks. Actually, while working with small centers (where the investment is extremely low) we made several networks. Furthermore, our franchise network and corporate strategies are an area where there is huge potential and we would like to explore more of it," asserts Amalore. Amidst providing online learning prospects, Modo Edulabs depicts schooling into two-dimensional learning. In the first dimension, they highlight the importance of learning languages, mathematics, science and social sciences. They regard it necessary for creating a strong knowledge base of the students. In the second dimension, Modo Edulabs upholds the significance of nurturing a student's extracurricular activities like sports and other art forms.

According to the core Modo Edulabs team, it is pivotal for a student to go pass these two dimensions for discovering the plethora of careers they can have. "There is another dimension, which is at the nascent stage. It is technology education. This is where we are focusing on and shaping computer science knowledge of the students at a very young age. Through our carved out paths, the students can learn how technologies behave. They get tools, kits and rich learning content for understanding the software and hardware. For example, imagine a student sitting in deep interiors of Assam. This student will not have the same level of education compared to others. But through digital lessons, it can. This is the beauty of our digital lessons. Plans are there to gather other technology courses as fast as we can," concludes Amalore.

Amalore Jude, Founder
Amalore has over 17 years of experience in marketing. He has worked for some of the world's biggest organizations like Dell EMC, IBM, Jacobsons and Frost and Sullivan. Before starting his professional career, Amalore completed B.Sc. Statistics from Loyola College. Thereafter he pursued an MBA in Marketing from Maharishi Institute of Management. As an enthusiastic social fortifier, Amalore has volunteered for Rotaract International and Toybank.