Hello WU Friends!
While Indonesia has the fourth largest education system in the world, with over 50 million students and four million teachers, it is one of the lowest performing.
What is Ruangguru?
The country ranked 62nd out of 72 countries in the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a benchmarking study by the OECD that assesses the achievement and application of key knowledge and skills of 15 year olds.
Ruangguru was launched in 2014 to tackle these challenges. Ruangguru is a tech-enabled education provider whose first product was a tutoring marketplace. Since then, the startup has launched a range of products aimed at accelerating educational outcomes. Its flagship product, RuangKelas, is a freemium Learning Management System (LMS) that helps students prepare for exams using content tailored to the national curriculum, and helps teachers to crowdsource and distribute educational content to students.
With this service, Ruangguru is supporting the Indonesian government in its efforts to advance the national education system. The startup has forged partnerships with 32 of Indonesia’s 34 provincial governments and more than 325 city and regency governments, many of which are using RuangKelas to help students prepare for high school entrance exams. As of the end of January 2018, Ruangguru, now an established business with 254 staff, had attracted over seven million registered students and reached 900,000 monthly active users.
Complementing Ruangkelas is a range of paid supplemental education services offered outside of school, including RuangBelajar, an integrated learning video subscription service; Ruangguru Digital Bootcamp, a social learning education solution for group-based distance learning; RuangLes, a private tutoring marketplace; RuangUji, an online exam simulation product; and RuangLesOnline, an on-demand tutoring service.
Author: GSMA
Source: https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Ruangguru-Accelerating-Indonesia%E2%80%99s-educational-outcomes.pdf
About the Founders
Muhammad Iman Usman and Adamas Belva Syah Devara are two young social entrepreneurs from Indonesia and co-founders of Ruangguru.com, a web-based learning platform founded in 2013. Ruangguru, which means "teacher's room" in Indonesia language, is Indonesia's largest online learning platform-enabling students to access national exam prep materials, as well as tutoring lessons on a vast range of subjects.
Both Iman and Belva have always been leaders in solving issues within their community at the interface of civic engagement and education. Before founding Ruangguru, Iman initiated a number of social initiatives, including the first ever youth-parliament assembly in Indonesia to encourage youth civic engagement. US-educated, he attended Columbia University in New York City, graduating in 2014 summa cum laude, in International Education Development.
Belva is equally qualified, bringing information technology and business acumen to launch the early stages of Ruangguru. Belva holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Sciences and Business from Nanyang Technological University, and an MBA from Stanford University and MPA from Harvard University.
Belva and Iman have won multiple awards and recognition from the highest leadership in Indonesia to organizations around the world. Their achievements have been lauded numerous times and featured in local and international news channels.
Like many entrepreneurs, Iman and Belva's business idea grew from personal experience. The 'aha' moment happened when they were preparing for the GMAT and GRE exam to go to graduate school and realized the difficulty involved in finding a suitable tutor in Indonesia. They saw a gap in the market, which they later sought to fill.
Hope this article about Ruangguru inspires you, and give you an idea for the day!
Author: YouthActionNet &
Source: https://www.iyfnet.org/sites/default/files/library/YouthActionNet_CaseStudy-Ruangguru.pdf