A social ed-tech startup based in Tripura, aAHARAN, has been selected by Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) for a generous grant for the proliferation of Digital Education in the northeast.
This is a significant milestone for the humble startup which began its journey in 2018 in the hands of two brilliant Tripura youths. The grant has been given under the NRL Ideation scheme which seeks to help emerging startups in the northeast region. The Numaligarh Refinery, located at Golaghat district of Assam, is a refinery which is a joint venture between Oil India and Assam Oil. According to their website, the objective of NRL’s startup initiative is to boost the startup ecosystem in the region and foster an entrepreneurial culture leveraging on innovation. AIC-SMUTBI, a premier incubation centre of the northeast region, supported aAHARAN with the essential connections and network required to secure the grant.
The vision of aAHARAN is to provide a 360 degree one-stop solution via their mobile application for all the study needs of the students of the northeast region. The content in the aAHARAN app consists of a comprehensive collection of video lessons, test series, study materials, mentor support, etc.
To help the regional students who are unable to take advantage of online learning because of language barriers, the content is exclusively available in the vernacular languages of Tripura (Bengali and Kokborok). Currently, aAHARAN has materials for the students of Classes 9 and 10 studying under the Tripura Board of Secondary Education (TBSE).
With the help of the grant given under the NRL Ideation scheme, aAHARAN plans to expand its content for the other classes of TBSE as well as the respective education boards of other northeastern states. This grant will also come in handy for aAHARAN to provide premium education to students at a non-premium price so that anyone can afford it irrespective of their geographic, economic, or linguistic background. aAHARAN has in fact partnered with the Department of Education, Government of Tripura to provide aAHARAN access free of cost to the students studying in select schools of Rupachari RD Block under South Tripura district.
Recognising the efforts of the startup in the field of education in the state, the Government of Tripura had recently awarded aAHARAN with “Best Startup Entrepreneur” title on the occasion of 50th Tripura Statehood Day. As mentioned before, aAHARAN is incubated with Atal Incubation Centre – Sikkim Manipal University Technology Business Incubation Foundation (AIC-SMUTBI).
It is one of the 32 such centres in India and the only one in the entire northeast region with seed funding capability. In the past, aAHARAN has been appreciated by North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. (NEDFi) for setting an example in the startup ecosystem of the northeast region. They also invested a substantial amount of twenty-five lakh rupees in aAHARAN.
