Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-11-02)

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DHIRAJ SINGH/BLOOMBERG

Theswitchtoremotelearningis feeding

demandforprogramminglessons

India, whichboasts the world’s largest poolof

computersciencegradsanda large,low-costEnglish-

speakingworkforce,is uniquelypositionedtobuildan

industryoutofone-on-onecodinglessons,saysLarry

Illg,chiefexecutiveofficerofProsusVentures,oneof

Byju’sbackers.“Inthelast 12 monthsyouseea newcrop

ofIndianstartups,”hesays.

CodingstartupWhiteHatJr.wasacquiredbyByju’s

for $300 million in August. The Mumbai-based outfit has

120,000 paying users, half of them outside India, pre-

dominantly in the U.S., where it began offering classes

earlythisyear.“Thewholeworldis a marketforlivecod-

inglessons,”saysCEOKaranBajaj.

BajajfoundedWhiteHatJr.in2018,whenlivecoding

lessonsforkidswerejustbecomingwidelyavailablein

theU.S.andEuropebutwerealmostnonexistentin India.

Afterspendingalmosttwodecadesasanexecutive

withcompaniessuchasProcter& GambleCo.andthe

DiscoveryChannelin theU.S.andIndia,aswellaswriting

threenovels,Bajajwasreadyfora change.Inspiration

struckwhilehewasatanashramin theHimalayas,train-

ingtobecomea yogateacher.Asidefrompracticinghis

poses,hedevouredbooksaboutparentingandchild-

hoodeducation.“Whenit comestocoding,earlieris bet-

ter,”saysBajaj,thefatheroftwoyounggirls.“Codingis

Legoonsteroids.”

WhiteHat Jr.has an all-female teaching force—

mainlyfromIndiabutalsosomefromthePhilippines—of

12,000(itonlyhireswomen).Its8-hourbeginnerpack-

ageteachescodingfundamentals,the48-hourplan

helpskidsbuilda workingapp,andthe144-hourpack-

agegoesallthewayuptoprogrammingforspacesim-

ulations,suchasplottinganastronaut’strajectoryto

Marsorcreatingvirtualmodelsofblackholes.“Coder

atAge7; MicrosoftCEOatage21:BillGates,”readone

ofthecompany’srecentonlineads.Anotherfeatureda

present-dayimageofZuckerbergalongsideoneofhim

asa youngboy.“Codehard.Makehistory,”it said.

AyeshaSiddiqua,a 27-year-oldsinglemotherand

WhiteHatJr.teacherbased inthesoutherncityof

Hyderabad,gaveupherpoorlypaidjobasa dentist,

earningabout15,000rupees($203)a month,aftershe

sawthecompany’srecruitmentadsonInstagramtar-

getingteachers.From2 p.m.sheteacheschildrenin

AustraliaandIndia;aftertakinga break,shepullsanall-

nightertoprovidelessonsintheU.S.andCanada.Her

monthlyearningshavereached100,000rupees,andshe

saysshe’llneverreturntodentistry.“Ina fewyears,peo-

plewillthinkyou’rebackwardif youdon’tknowhowto

code,”Siddiquasays.�SarithaRai

THE BOTTOM LINE Indian companies such as WhiteHat Jr. are bringing

online coding lessons to the world masses, driven by demand from parents

trying to keep housebound children productive.

ShivankPatelhasbeenlearningtowritesoftwarecode

fora year,andhe’salreadybuilta handfulofapps,includ-

ingonefordonatingfoodtostreetchildren.Nowhe’s

workingona platformtohelpdoctorstrackpreterm

babies.Patel,wholivesnearNewDelhi,is 9 yearsold.

Onlinecodingclassesforelementaryschoolstudents

weretakingoffinIndiaevenbeforetheCovid- 19 pan-

demicacceleratedtheshifttoonlinelearning.Behind

theboomis demandfromparentswhothinkknowledge

ofprogrammingis asessentialaswritingandarithme-

tic,andwhofretoverkeepingtheirhomeboundkidspro-

ductiveduringthecrisis.

Indiaisa hotbedofexperimentationine-learning.

Attheforefrontis Byju’s,a Bengaluru-basedcompany

thatoffersonlinetutoringin math,sciences,humanities,

andlanguages.FundedbyaninitiativeofFacebookInc.

co-founderMarkZuckerbergandhiswife,PriscillaChan,

andotherinvestors,Byju’sis,at$11billion,oneofthe

world’shighest-valuededucationtechnologystartups,

accordingtoa listoftopunicornscompiledbyana-

lytics provider CB Insights. “Coding lessons could be

the next big export from India,” says Abhishek Gupta, a

consultant at RedSeer Management Consulting based in

India, who draws a parallel with the country’s outsourc-

ing boom of the 1990s.

◼SOLUTIONS BloombergBusinessweek November 2, 2020

India’s A-Level

Kid Coders

A codingstudentat

herhomein Mumbai