Sangeeta and Ashutosh Khurana are co-founders of the Delhi-based Mind Edutainment Pvt. Ltd (MEPL, estb.2007) which offers in-school programmes for developing high order thinking skills (HOTS) of K-VIII students. During the past six years since it was founded, MEPL has firmly established its credentials. In 2010, it was acknowledged as one of the country’s top 15 innovative and upcoming enterprises, and conferred the Power of Ideas Award by the widely read business daily The Economic Times.

Currently, MEPL (annual revenue: Rs.2 crore, headcount: 32) is aiding 50,000-plus students in six states countrywide to develop their cognitive and emotional intelligence through its flagship ‘My Thinking Programme’, which uses 17-20 physical thinking tools and mind games resourced from international corporates. Among the schools which have signed up with MEPL are Delhi Public School, Mathura Road, Delhi; Ryan International School, Delhi; St. Stephen’s School, Chandigarh; Ryan International School, Kundanahalli, Bangalore; The Palace School, Jaipur and Christ Academy, Bangalore.

Newspeg. From the start of the new academic year beginning this month, ‘thinking classes’ for the ‘My Thinking Programme’ will be conducted in special HOTS labs equipped with MEPL’s tools and games. HOTS labs are under construction in six client schools as a pilot project. The duo’s business model is to provide each client institution with the ‘My Thinking Programme’ at a price of Rs.7 lakh, which the management converts into a per capita charge ranging between Rs.60-80.

Direct talk. “By setting up special HOTS labs, our purpose is to help students develop high order logical thinking skills through experiential learning, as is done in science laboratories. Our programmes are based on the fundamentals of child and human development, psychology and the educational frameworks of Bloom and Anderson and Krathwohl’s taxonomy — an established classification of cognitive skills devised by American education psychologists Benjamin Bloom, Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl,” says Ashutosh.

History.  Graduates of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Ashutosh and Sangeeta experienced a considerable disconnect between their education and job skills requirements while working in Himachal Futuristic Communications, Pidilite Industries and Reliance Communications (Ashutosh), and the Noida-based Dharampal Satyapal Group and ISHA Home School, Coimbatore (Sangeeta).

“We realised that although schools are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, with digital boards and school management software, the education system doesn’t stimulate young minds to think deeply. That’s how MEPL was born, with its flagship ‘My Thinking Programme’ launched in 2008 in three schools,” says Sangeeta, director (product research and innovation) at MEPL. In 2008, Ashutosh quit the corporate world to come aboard MEPL, which was started with a self-funded investment of Rs.65 lakh. Currently, the company employs 32 professionals and thus far 50,000 school students have benefited from the programme.

Future plans. Continuous research related to brain development and cognitive skills is a prime focus area of MEPL. “We are currently working on developing high order thinking programmes for college students. Also in the pipeline are 100 HOTS labs by 2013, as well as a plan to reach 500 schools by the end of 2014,” says Ashutosh.

God speed!

Swati Roy (Delhi)

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