Fortif ying the foundation of India’s futuristic institution
The Co-Founder and Director of India’s largest Edtech company Byju’s, Divya Gokulnath, is an Indian business tycoon and educator giving education a newfound direction. Born in Bengaluru, her father was in Indian Air Force and her mother was a programming executive with the broadcasting company Doordarshan. While growing up Divya Gokulnath was enchanted by the process of learning and realized the value of teaching well, which laid the foundation of the $10 billion behemoth Byju’s. Prepping for the GRE exam she met Byju Raveendran and was mesmerized by his approach to teaching. Post her Bachelors, Divya was accepted to several US colleges but she decided to stay back and honor her values. Her career as a teacher began as early as when she was 21 at Byju’s when it was only an offline centre.
Although her innate passion for teaching paved her career as a teacher, it was her flexibility to learn and adapt to a tech-first environment that set the grounds for the online platform. Though Byju’s was of coherence with the tech-savvy generation, it came as an immense challenge to convince the parents for an online education system over the generations-old offline technique. However, Divya’s outlook on falling in love with learning, is what garnered millions to their platform. Since its launch in 2015, Byju’s has seen a steady growth. But it’s during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Byju’s decided to offer free access. This noble gesture amassed 13.5 million users in March and April 2020 leading the total to 50 million which then rocketed to a whopping 70 million users in just six months. At present, Byju’s has an 80 million registered userbase along with 5.5 million subscribers.
Over the past three years, Byju’s revenues have seen a growth to approximately $400 million at a compounded rate of 125%. Byju’s sure has reshaped the meaning of education in a country with billion brilliant minds. It’s to credit Divya Divya Gokulnath , Co-Founder and Director of India’s largest Edtech company Byju’s, Gokulnath, the young woman full of dreams who dared to break a longestablished tradition to shape India’s futuristic institution!
