Teaching science to kids in playful manner

It is said that mother knows what her child wants. So what if the mother gets the responsibility to design the curriculum Then the teaching would be fun and easy on the child - in one word edutainment.

Edutainment is comparatively a new concept that aims to educate children with the help of videos, exhibits, tools and practice. But it has not become prevalent in the Indian education system due to high costs involved.

A mother of two and a half year old girl, Deepti, however found this lacuna and went to address this market opportunity, by setting up a new centre for edutainment and games.

“I had always felt that education should be made child-friendly. As a mother, I know that children learns very easily through activity,” said Deepti.

Apart from being games arcade, Plabo has science exhibits on different laws of physics and the activity zone, where children can use smaller models of vehicles, etc. “It took two years for me to conceptualise my idea and bring it to reality. It did take me a long time as there is nothing like this before or a benchmark where I can fall on to,” said Deepti, who hails from the promoter family of construction major NCC.

She spent Rs 2 crore for setting up the first centre.

While the funding for the venture had come from her father, Deepti says unlike most of the other startups, it is the strength of concept that would keep Plabo running and not the money. Already, Plabo has got around 150 dealer enquires from three states — Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

However, she wants to go slow on expanding Plabo’s footprint as she wants to take extra care in ensuring franchisees deliver what is expected of them.

“Since the concept was relatively new and unique, I did not have a blueprint or a fixed model like other businesses. So I had to struggle a lot for design element and to get all equipment ready. In fact, we had to fabricate them as there were anything similar in India,” she said.

Going ahead, Deepti wants to tie-up with schools for setting up Plabo’s science workshop and activity zone in their campuses. “We are exploring opportunities to set up our cemtres in some select schools as our science workshops will compliment what has been taught in the classroom.”

Apart from all the numbers and plans, Deepti says what gives her satisfaction is a primary complaint by most parents: “My child doesn't want to come back home from here.”