Mumbai: After seeing great success for their online platform, EdTech startup WhiteHat Jr. today announced its plans to bring their AI and robotics coding curriculum to schools across the country. Coding and AI has gained immense interest amongst schools in recent times, not just for future-proofing the next generation, but also as a result of government policy.
Earlier this year, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) decided to include AI in their syllabus for students from class 8 to 10 as an optional subject and coding is quickly spreading as a viral phenomenon amongst kids across the country.
WhiteHat Jr. will collaborate with schools in three different models. In the first model, the company will license their curriculum to schools where they will train teachers on the curriculum and on how to best deliver it to students. In the second model, WhiteHat Jr. will supplement the school’s existing computer science class and teach students in the schools’ computer labs via 1:1 live, online classes. In the third model, WhiteHat Jr. will help schools form post-school coding clubs and conduct coding classes to complement their existing computer science curriculum.
Mrs. Kajal Chhatija, Principal, Global Talent International School, said, “Learning coding and AI from a young age will soon become a culture. We are in the age of collaboration and integration in which they are essential skills to make our students future-ready and should be taught right from an early age. The concepts must be introduced in the foundational years like recognition of alphabets, numbers and phonics. As educators, we face difficulty in translating a highly technical field like coding into a structured, sequential curriculum that can be learned by the children across all ages. WhiteHat Jr’s specially developed curriculum covers technologies like AI and Machine Learning in an interactive and engaging way and the best part are the 1:1 online classes. We’re excited to collaborate with them to make our students at GTIS future-ready for coding and AI.”
About the initiative, Karan Bajaj, Founder and CEO, WhiteHat Jr. said, “While kids today learn the basics of computing in schools, there is an immediate need for a comprehensive and well researched approach to teaching them coding. We’ve developed the world’s first coding curriculum for kids which includes cutting-edge fields such as AI, robotics, machine learning and space tech. Our curriculum has been created by MIT/IIT computer scientists and we have seen proven results over the past year. We believe that there are great synergies for schools to collaborate with us and we are witnessing an overwhelming demand from schools across the country. We’re currently in discussions with over 150 schools to roll this program out.”
Over the past year, young kids have created some incredible apps on WhiteHat Jr.’s platform. 7-year-old Hirranyaa Rajani has created a sign language app for the hearing-impaired children while 8-year-old Shrey Shah has created a 24×7 School Communication channel like Slack where parents, kids and teachers can be connected at any point in time and post real-time questions.
The startup backed by Nexus Ventures Partners, Omidyar Network India and Silicon Valley based leading EdTech VC fund Owl Ventures recently raised $10 million in Series A. They have also rolled out a program where top 1% of kids on the platform will have a chance to get an all-expense paid trip along with one of their parents to Silicon Valley to be mentored by top entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
