Tell us about your
journey.
I have been an entrepreneur for the last 12 years. I worked in industries as diverse as construction, food processing and design & technology. I was not happy with the school in which I wanted to admit my daughter and by the time my son was born in 2016, I was even more determined that I needed to do something and it became all the more consuming. Leo & Mike was born a year later. Giving schools that extra edge Giving schools that extra edge
What is the USP of your company?
All our programs use Project Based Learning (PBL) methodology. In a Project Based Learning system, students get opportunities to put their knowledge, skills and experience to use as they attempt a real-world project. Creating programs that are Project-based requires intensive and deep work in designing, training the trainers and delivering the programs. We have created a learning framework through which we can scale program designing and program delivery.
Our focus area is S.T.R.E.A.M. S – Science, T – Technology, R – critical Reading, wRiting and Reasoning, E – Engineering, A – Arts & Design and M – Multimedia.
All our programs are interdisciplinary learning projects that allow the children to reinforce classroom learning and also learn useful skills and topics that will make kids future ready.
What are the products, services or courses that you offer?
We currently have three main products
Afterschool makerspaces – We are setting up afterschool learning centers where children can learn diverse topics on a regular basis. Just like how kids learn karate, sports or music.
The range of programs that will be part of these centres include UI/UX, Graphic design, Photography, Animation, VR/AR, IoT, AI, NLP and ML, Robotics, Programming and coding, Design Thinking, Medicine and human body, Space and physics, Electronics and IoT, Life sciences and chemistry, Entrepreneurship, Visual communication, Food Science and gastronomy, Creative writing, Oration and Debating, Storytelling, Film making, Game design, Fashion and textile design.
Summer and Holiday Camps and Teacher Training:
We empower the teachers with followinga.
Different methods in which student centric learning can be delivered: Project-based Learning, Experiential Learning, Design Thinking
b. Learning taxonomies: Pedagogy to prepare the learners for the future and equipping them with 21st century skills
c. Building project-based, experiential and design-based curriculum modules
d. Facilitation of brainstorming, ideation and problem-solving session within classroom
e. Classroom management: Managing 21st century ready classrooms
f. Gamifying classrooms: Introducing rewards and consequences in order to achieve behavioral and learning outcomes
What facilities are provided by you?
Our company focuses on building learning outside classrooms. We do this by setting up afterschool learning centers in schools and also in independent locations.
What is the philosophy followed by your company?
Our mission is to make learning relevant and accessible. We define relevance in terms of what children should or could be learning versus what they’re currently learning due to what is available to them.
We believe that every child has innate potential. And the only way to bring them out is to allow them to explore different fields and areas. Usually, students’ interests lie at the cross-section of different disciplines. Also, different students learn differently. Therefore, diversification and personalization are the bedrocks upon which our programs are built.
We take inspiration from our patron saints Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Our emphasis is on hands-on and the focus is on driving learners towards an empathetic approach towards problem solving.
Tell us about your associations and camps.
We have had a team of curriculum designers working extensively on project-based learning systems to build a hands-on curriculum for summer camps. The camps are already underway in six locations in Hyderabad and we have secured partnerships with acknowledged brands like Amar Chitra Katha, Oakridge, and Pioneer World School. We are progressing towards our goal of enrolling 1500 learners for our camps this summer.
What are the future plans and goals for your venture?
We aspire to make learning a fun activity and take out the redundant and ineffective elements from the contemporary classroom schemas of learning. Our focus on outside classroom programs ranges from Summer and Winter camps to teacher training, and we intend to expand these platforms to all major cities in India. A lot of our time and energy is also being put into building project-based curriculums with utmost emphasis on the elements of Design Thinking. Within end of 2019 we would have 10 afterschool makerspaces in Hyderabad. Early 2020, we will expand to two other cities.
