This generation of school going kids would be working on jobs that don’t exist today, solving problems that we don’t even know are problems yet and working on technologies that have not been invented yet. How do you prepare the school going kids for such an uncertain yet exciting world? 

Unfortunately, our school system is still largely focused on delivering content and making children memorize information rather than developing their Higher Order Thinking Skills such as analytical thinking, logical reasoning, problem solving, creative and critical thinking – all of which are best built by the age of 14-15.

Therefore, WizKlub was started to ensure that this generation of school going children develop all the necessary skills needed to succeed in the careers of the future. Currently at WizKlub, there are 100,000 students as part of the community and 5000+ students enrolled in deep-learning classes. We spoke with Pankaj Bande Jain, CTO at WizKlub, to get a deeper insight into the work of this EdTech startup.

Q: Why was WizClub started?

We, at WizKlub, nourish young minds to become smart learners, problem solvers, independent thinkers, and creators of the future by providing a holistic approach to building future skills that ensure cognitive and tech excellence. Personally, I have had two startups in the education space in the past which were focussed at students of aged 14 and above. I realised that it is difficult to make a difference to the core aptitude of an individual at that age. While you can train someone on the tools, the professional life gets very hard if the underlying aptitude for a job role is missing. For instance, if a person is not good in logical thinking and problem solving, it is very difficult to make them a good programmer. In comparison, it is easy to train someone on Java, or .net or any other programming environment provided the underlying aptitude is in place. On further research from a study by Harvard Center for Child Development, we found that the core aptitude of an individual gets firmed up in the first 14-15 years which led me to delve into focussing on younger children with WizKlub. In the coming decade, the importance of these core aptitude is going to increase manifold; hence, it is extremely important to make this generation of kids develop these skills in a timely manner.

Q: What programmes does WizKlub offer and for what ages?

WizKlub delivers a personalized learning path for every child for maximum efficacy via two programs: HOTS and Young Product Designers Program.

Our HOTS Program develops higher-order thinking skills to ensure that every child is a smart reader and an adept problem solver. The engaging activities for kids aged 6-14 years let them master 36 Higher Order Thinking Skills, including critical thinking, logical reasoning, problem-solving, and creative thinking. This is done through our easy-to-follow proprietary online courses.

The WizKlub Young Product Designers Program focusses on building lifelong skills and confidence to create tech products by application of coding, design, robotics, and IoT smart devices. Focussed entirely on application, YPDP program takes the kid through the journey of product designing including Hardware, Software, and Design of your own automated working machine learning model. 

Q: Tech plays a key role in building up these interactive platforms today. Can you elaborate on how you’re making your tech and products user friendly for children?

One of our strengths is using technology in innovative ways to impart a great learning experience for the children. During the course of this program, the kid learns to program and control various technologies that they have been seeing as a consumers, like Alexa, Mobile Apps and Smart IoT Devices. This makes it more relatable for them to work on. We offer a one-hour session on introduction to computer programming, designed to demystify "coding" and show that every kid can learn coding fundamentals to be a maker, a creator and an innovator. During the workshop, kids learn programming on a block-based programming interface called Blockly. Kids are introduced to a few basic coding concepts like sequence and loops which they then use to execute a project.

Q: How do you measure a child’s performance during classes and over a period of time?

The programs are scientifically designed to ensure that learners acquire skills at high proficiency levels. The system monitors the progress of each child on these objectives. 

i. Pre-post Assessments: Each learner is given a detailed Pre-assessment that benchmarks the existing level of the child on different skills. Based on this, the system personalizes the program for that child. A similar assessment is taken at the end of the learning module called Post-Assessment and their progress is mapped.

ii. Skill Workouts: Each skill consists of a set of workouts that are designed to ensure that the learner moves to high proficiency by the end of the learning module. The performance of the student in these workouts indicate whether the learner has acquired that skill on a Novice, Intermediate or Expert level of proficiency (Amber, Green or Purple). This skill map is available on a real-time basis.

Q: Overall, how is the feedback from the primary users and their parents? How comfortable are they learning through an entirely online platform?

The response has been overwhelming. We have developed an internal mechanism to take weekly feedback from parents as well as students that helps us understand not only their outlook towards the program but also gives us a chance to improve upon our current offering. Parents are in favour of WizKlub's platform since it is about imparting knowledge and building skills rather than just wasting time on screen. Parents often talk about  the sense of pride that they have while seeing their kids building such projects independently – it gives them a sense of achievement.

Q: COVID has catapulted the market for online learning. How do you differentiate from other learning platforms?

There are many players in the ed-tech space today with each one having a different focus area. Our target, the K-12 market, can be segmented into two - One is that which caters to the curriculum support (Math, Science) and has players like Byju’s and Vedantu. Most of the parents in this segment start looking for solutions in grade 7-8. The other is the early years segment where the parent is looking for programs beyond the school curriculum. This segment is by and large fragmented and suffers from lack of quality solutions. WizKlub is catering to the early years market and is offering affordable solutions that impart quality experience at scale. The strength of the company is to use technology in innovative ways to impart a great learning experience for the children. The core team has been in the field of education for over a decade and has a deep understanding of how to deliver high quality learning experiences at scale. So a key aspect of differentiation for us is that we go into deep skilling the kid, who acquires the skill at a high proficiency level i.e: he/ she is focused on application rather than just knowledge. We ensure that the kid becomes highly skilled and have so far had 85% efficacy for the HOTS program and 95% for the Young Product Designers Program.

Q: What gaps exist in traditional education today that a company like yours is trying to address?

The skills required in future will be very different from what we require today considering the rapid change that we are dealing with at a global level. At WizKlub, we enable kids to solve real world problems and give them exposure to new age technology like ambient computing, blockchain, which they will actually use later at their workplace. We prepare them to start learning things which are going to be mainstream when they graduate. Wizklub is the only company in the world which is teaching kids how to program Conversational AI devices like Alexa using our own Voice Developer Tool which is the base for understanding the Ambient Computing world. This is the way we are trying to address the big gap.

Q: What other courses do you plan to add in the coming months?

We are planning to create an Agent based learning which is driven by a AR-VR Conversational AI agent that will help a child learn future skills on our portal. Our Agent will be available 24X7 and seamlessly connected with the IoT and Cloud Computing world for the kid to learn the technology components by interacting with the Agent. The agent will become a personalised mentor for the child over a period of time.

• Written with inputs from Sindhuja Balaji, edited by Samiksha Mehra