Next Education acquires InOpen’s Computer Masti – Brings home core computer science curriculum
In alignment with its mission to enhance computer education through cutting-edge computer science curriculum, Next Education has acquired InOpen’s Computer Masti as part of an all-cash deal. Computer Masti was created jointly by IIT Bombay and InOpen and is presently being used by 600,000 school students across India. InOpen’s talent pool will merge with Next Education’s 2000+ strong team.
InOpen was incubated in SINE IIT Bombay in 2009 and was co-founded by Prof. Sridhar Iyer and Rupesh Kumar Shah. InOpen investors included Shridhar Shukla, Ventureast, Japanese education giant Benesse, and India’s most prestigious incubator SINE IIT Bombay.
Computer Masti is a core computer science curriculum developed after years of intense research. It was developed with a view to integrate computers into real life to better students’ life skills as well as thinking skills. Computer Masti aims to simplify and strengthen knowledge while dispelling the myth that computer science is a skill-driven science. Computer Masti has received worldwide appreciation, especially from academic institutions like the IITs and the MIT Media Lab, USA.
The acquisition is crucial to Next Education’s position as the most innovative education products company in India. To begin with, Next Education will include the Computer Masti books in its in-house product, NextBooks, to cater to schools for their computer science curriculum.
Shedding more light on the acquisition, Beas Dev Ralhan, Co-founder and CEO of Next Education said, “Computer science education is an integral part of school education. InOpen has built a wonderful product in association with IIT Bombay creating a strong foundation of CS Education in India. Strategic acquisitions give us an opportunity for exponential growth while maintaining our core values. These steps ensure progress towards our growth story. Computer Masti adds to our portfolio and helps us maintain our position as India’s most innovative education products company.”
Rupesh Kumar Shah, CEO of InOpen, said, “Computer science is considered to be the 4th R now after Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. I believe that computer science is a discipline that lies at the cross section of computing, mathematics and applications in science, engineering and social science. Computer Masti was built with this philosophy and ambition to change the way computer science is taught in schools. The acquisition by Next Education will scale Computer Masti, and approximately 3 million students will use CS#101 by July 2017. I believe that it is the largest computer science focused implementation in India. Next Education has an awesome team as well as the largest reach in the country, and this deal will accelerate our efforts in computer science education. We have had some really awesome people and institutions, like IIT Bombay, who invested in us and backed us each and every time we needed them.”
Kamath Raveendranath, CFO and Co-founder of Next Education also said that Next Education and InOpen are natural collaborators with both companies valuing teaching, learning, skill development and logical reasoning above all.
Prof. Sridhar Iyer added, “I am excited about the future possibilities of Computer Masti with Next Education.”
