Advantage Colleges! Advantage Students! Advantage Parents!
A new and disruptive Enterprise App, 99college.com, launched by Blueleaf Cyberspace offers great advantages to students, colleges and parents ‘in one medium’! The App which takes just 5 minutes to install by clicking on an SMS is unusual in that it offers multiple features that are able to cater to these different segments simultaneously. What is also interesting is that it is able to customise a large number of features to ensure that students, the college management, and the parents get the most value from this interactive app., According to Dr. Joseph Rasquinha, Co-Founder & CEO, “This is not an ERP or an app to run the college or students. Instead it is a totally different concept that generates a lot of behaviour data and also stores a huge number of information for students, the management, and parents to give each one of them different benefits. An app that does all this together is a game changer. In fact, Worldwide, the kind of engagement, interactivity and data generated by 99college is not available in the market”So what does 99college do? For students, they get all lectures, videos, presentations, notifications, as well as class calendars, and syllabus on the app available 24/7. On top of this, there are updates from placement cells as well as add-on information on digital courses like English improvement, additional certifications, extra curricular activities, events, and sports activities. It also connects to news, Ted Talks and a host of other features which are continuously being updated. The system stores millions of records which is accessed only by the relevant student. For the College Management, it has enormous data records on facilities usage, automated attendance and behaviour patterns, to gain a powerful insight on how to save costs or provide optimal services. Wastage or investment in areas which have no traction is another major cost advantage. The data generated runs into hundreds of millions or records and needs Artificial Intelligence to analyse it. For Parents, attendance and feedback on add-on courses is provided to increase their satisfaction and enhance the reputation of the institution their children are in
But what is the competition like? According to Dr Joseph, “The range and depth of features offered, the cost savings, the convenience, and, the value proposition from combining such a large number of useful features and services is not available in the market in India today. Even internationally, parts of 99college features are offered in different Apps or browsers, but the ability of 99college to combine a large number of interactive features and big data is unique”. The other question of course is cost. On this, the company points out that they are still much more reasonable than the college based ERPs in the market who take care of fees, accounts and admissions. ERP’s make a college more efficient. But 99college makes the students more effective and identifies areas of cost saving and efficiencies for the management. Best of all, it provides a differentiator to the college in the eyes of students and parents which is important in a country like India which has an estimated 48,000 colleges. Another question that arises is the populating of the app. Most college staff from administrators to professors are extremely busy and don’t have time to even populate the web portals that college managements have created. However, according to Ganesh Kulal, Head of Implementation of Blueleaf Cyberspace, “For 99college, We have an entire implementation team that populates the app for the college. All the college has to do is send us the relevant data and we ensure that it is updated and kept live. Thus busy college staff are spared any additional work and students get live data on their apps”.
Blueleaf is a 14 month old company with a number of other unusual products for office and field employees. They have received funding from Ferns, a 2,000 crore group with interest in Realty, Hospitality and Technology
