Press Release

The Keyboard Teachers
Classrooms versus Cyberspace, and why some teachers are beginning to opt for the later.
http://www.rediff.com/search/2001/mar/30teach.htm

www.rediff.com,
Friday, March 9, 2001

Exam Fever Infects the net
This years Exams have triggered a flurry of online revisions...
http://www.rediff.com/search/2001/mar/09exam.htm

The Financial Express,
Tuesday March 6, 2001

Compassbox.com offers exam helpline.
compassbox.com, a teaching company, with online and offline activities has launched an exam helpline service which has been catering to queries from about six countries for the standard ten board exams which begins this week. The company recieves queries through fax, e-mail, online chat requests and phone calls and has a 65 member team answering queries. The service covers the CBSE and Maharashtra state syllabi and is free of cost for a limited period. The service can be accessed by dialing (022) 8780151 after registration on the site.

The Asian Age
6 March 2001

Call Exam Helpline Service for Study Help.

It's exam time and everybody is busy preparing for them. Doubts and Queries always exist and with all that tension students need somebody to guide them. Anticipating this, compassbox.com has come out with an Exam Helpline Service.
At compassbox.com they have already answered over a thousand questions form anxious students in places in India as well as Doha and Dubai. Through faxes, e-mails, online chat requests and phone calls queries have been coming in this company whose services was announced a few weeks ago. Answers are sent directly to the student and also put up on the website www.compassbox.com for all other students to see so that the students needn't be restricted to the teachers and coaching classes.
In places like Oman, where there is dearth of tuition teachers, they can always e-mail compassbox, call them up and their queries will be answered in few hours. They have recently released CBSE Class X Preparatory Series CD-ROM.
compassbox creates higly valuable educational content that goes beyond prescribed textbooks.

The Financial Express,
Friday, October 6, 2000

Studentsguild in strategic pacts with compassbox, FirstandSecond.com
Kavita Nair

Studentsguild.com, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the Norwegian firm Studentsguild dot com Pvt. Ltd. has entered into alliances with compassbox.com, the education site which deals with school syllabi and Firstandsecond.com, the online bookstore. Studentsguild.com has signed an MoU with compassbox.com, whereby the latter will provide all its current content and back-end services for classes IX, X, XI, and XII across CBSE and State Boards. compassbox.com will also provide every student registering though studentsguild.com a one-week free trial of its product and certain discounts to students coming through Studentsguild.com.

The two sites will provide career counseling services through a link on a co-branded page, according to Mr Vinod Kumar Chand of compassbox.com. Mr Kurt Venkatraman, CEO, Studentsguild.com who is based in Norway, said in an e-mail interview with the FE, "studentsguild.com plans to invest in excess of Rs 10 crore in India and has registered 25,000 users from all over the country. The cost of acquisition per user is Rs 175, and the revenue generation has commenced." The company's revenue streams comprise of fees for the online training and intranet-based training courses, which are available on the site as well as in the form of CDs, Digital Advantage (DA) Workshops for companies and the Education Delivery and Management Systems.

The DA Workshops enable companies to evolve online training programs. These workshops are conducted on a regular basis in the UK by Business Lab (www.businesslab.co.uk), and Business lab and studentsguild.com Pvt Ltd will jointly conduct seven of these workshops starting from December 4, according to Mr Venkatraman. The Education Delivery and Management Systems called Admin.sys comprises of open courses for students, wherein students can also answer tests online.
Mr Venkatraman said, "for the Indian companies this is available as an Application Service Provider version, if they do not want to make the initial investment in the software."

Studentguild's future products include www.educatorsguild.com- a forum for educators and www.worldcurriculum.com- a repository of online courses. The company expects to break even by 2001 end, according to Mr Venkatraman.

Bombay Times, The Times of India
Tuesday, 19 September, 2000

These Goregaon-based entrepreneurs have their site (sorry sight) on the entire country. Having focused on the syllabi of Indian schools, covering ninth to twelfth standards of the CBSE, ICSE and state boards, these online educators are set to make school learning a more interactive process.

Comprising experienced school and college teachers, some of whom have been examiners and examination moderators in the past, compassbox.com boasts of panel of eminent educationists. "More importantly we have a teacher-student ratio that is unbeatable, says Rajan Nair, co-founder of the site, "There are 8 teachers for every student. They are available for personal guidance and respond to the students' queries in 24 hours." Besides the personal inputs of teachers, the principal study material is stimulating and exciting. Enhanced by value additions like a gigantic question bank, fact files, teacher comments, creative diagrams, geographical maps that can be zoomed into and even a Math Explanator, that explains the basic concepts involved in solving an arithmetical problem step by step, learning is literally made child's play.

As Nair points out, "The site is meant to make learning fun and children love it. Our attempt is to supplement school learning, not substitute it.

However, there are several areas where online learning has distinct advantages. For one, each student can move at his own pace and is unaffected by the rate of learning of other students. It removes the inhibition a student may face to ask questions in front of his companions and best of all, the teacher never tires." Equipped with concepts like the timeline, the site allows the teacher to mark the entry level of each student and track and monitor his progress. Moreover at registration, parents are asked to provide the teacher with their own e-mail addresses whereby the teacher can keep them informed about their ward's progress or the lack of it.

Unlike other online educational sites, compassbox.com is a pay-for-website and requires the user to open an account before being able to access the study material. "For a nominal annual fee, we offer our students a chance to get a quality education through personalized coaching," avers Nair, "definitely, a far better choice than joining a coaching class, which merely emphasizes rote learning." Besides individual accounts, the site offers institutional membership as well. Several Indian schools have availed of this opportunity, enabling their teachers to use this site to prepare their daily lessons.

Loksatta
Saturday, 16 September, 2000
- correspondent
(Translated from Marathi)

compassbox.com, an educational website had organized a workshop recently. Approximately 100 higher secondary school principals participated in the workshop, where education through I.T. and Internet was discussed at length. Principals and representatives from Anandilal Podar, Swami Vivekanand, St.Xavier's and many other institutions attended the workshop. The famous Internet Guru Vijay Mukhi and Indus Entrepreneur's Mr.Rajiv Vaishnav were present on the occasion.

Bombay Times, The Times of India,
Friday, 15 September, 2000

Seminar on education and Internet
compassbox, an educational internet site organised a Principal's seminar, involving almost one hundred principals from Mumbai's Secondary Schools. The event was an interactive one-day workshop. The participants spend the exploring, evaluation and suggestion guidelines for implementing an educational scheme on the internet.

Principals from Anandilal Poddar, Swami Vivekanand, St. Xavier's and other schools debated on how teaching had been reduced to the task of forcing information on the students. They almost unanimously agreed that the current education system seems to have forgotten that students need respect, relevancy, immediacy, and active participation. They felt that the government must understand this fact and develop content accordingly, otherwise students would continue to suffer. The topics of the seminar were - experimental learning, holistic learning and successful career building.

Vijay Mukhi, network profesional and Rajiv Vaishnav, director, The Indus Enterpreneurs were the guests. Mukhi mooted the idea of an association of teachers using the Ineternet. According to him, such an association would open a new world where teachers with diverse interests, skills, and backgrounds would meet and learn from each other.

Maharashtra Times,
Wednesday, 13 September, 2000
(Translated from Marathi)

"Spread Internet Education at School Level"
- suggested at Principal's Summit, 2000.
Mumbai, Tuesday (Correspondent) - There were a number of suggestions spelt out at the recently organized Principal's Summit. How I.T. and the internet can be utilized more effectively in school education was the theme of the day.

compassbox.com, an educational portal, organized the Principals' Summit recently. All principals voiced their concern about the present outdated educational system. The government and educational institutions must change the ways of imparting education, so it would become experiential and better career building. Mr. Vijay Mukhi, the famous IT professional, suggested to form an association of teachers using the Internet.

Anandilal Poddar, Swami Vivekanand International, St. Xaviers and 100 other school Principals from all over Mumbai participated in the Summit.

Janmabhumi,
Sunday, 10 September, 2000
(Translated from Gujarati)

Principal's discussion on I.T. and Education.
compassbox.com a leading online Educational Website held a Summit of about 100 Principals from some of the leading Secondary Schools of Bombay and it's suburbs. This was the first summit cum workshop of this type in the country. Instead of a routine lecture oriented event, it turned out to be a very interactive workshop. Throughout the day, the participants (all principals) actively discussed the possibility of applying the progress made in information
technology and internet for the school education. A lot of constructive ideas and information were exchanged amongst the participants. Principals of Anandilal Poddar, Swami Vivekanand, St. Xaviers and other Schools discussed as to how education system has gone on a wrong track and also as to how I.T. can influence students in their educational needs.

Indian Express,
MumbaiNewsline
Wednesday, September 6, 2000

Experts encourage IT training
INFORMATION Technology has dramatically changed the way we perceive and do things. "It is now time for those who can make a difference to come together and help shape the revolution in the field of education where its impact will be felt most", said Vijay Mukhi, Internet guru. He was addressing nearly 400 principals of secondary schools who participated and brainstormed for a day last week on new teaching methods and how the Internet can be used in education. Organised by compassbox.com a newly-launched dotcom company, the conference was a platform to explore how the Internet could be used more successfully in education.(ENS)

The Financial Express
Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Vol 1, No. 58


	Passion Fund bankrolls education site compassbox.com
	PASSIONFUND, the angel fund managed by Mahesh Murthy, former chief of Channel V and Arun Pai, formerly of Arthur Andersen, has angel funded compassbox.com, an education site which has just commenced operations. compassbox, an education site which offers online tutorials for the CBSE and Maharashtra State Board for the moment, is also in talks with leading technology companies like Intel to create joint marketing strategies.

	The deal with leading computer manufacturers, for instance, could be packaging a compassbox account (which costs Rs. 3000) for free with every product. "We are talking to several manufacturers to bundle products for the home consumer who purchases computers largely keeping in mind the education needs of the children," explains Rajan Nair, Co-founder of compassbox.com.

	compassbox has been founded by entrepreneurs Rajan Nair who has been with the advertising industry for about 17 years and Vinod Kumar Chand, an IT professional with several years' experience in hardware as well as software.

	The site which currently caters to the 10th class CBSE and Maharashtra State Board students, has rewritten the entire syllabus for all subjects (barring languages) for Class 10 in a manner which makes use of the multimedia capabilities of the Internet as well as the potential of the Internet for customization.

	The Company has hired teachers some of whom are the authors of textbooks for Physics and Chemistry at the higher secondary level.

	The site's 70-member team which includes 25 teachers, and provides the offline inputs needed to complete the tutorial process.

	compassbox is in the process of creating the online syllabus for the 9th, 11th and 12th classes as well.

	The site currently has a registered user base of 150. Explaining the rationale for investing in compassbox, Arun Pai of PassionFund says: "The market for tutorials is worth about $ 2 billion in India today, there are no national brands where tutorials at the school level go and the Internet provides the opportunity for a one-on-one interaction between the student and teacher". The site has chosen to price the product at the very outset since "putting a cost on a product automatically creates distribution channels" according to Pai who cites the instance of the keen interest from manufacturers who want to bundle the account as a freebie with their products. Interestingly, the site claims that it will not permit advertising at any point, given its positioning as an education portal. compassbox plans on-ground activities at the schools to promote the site.