‘Edutech will be a hot commodity going forward’: GREDU co-founder Rizky Anies

With a boom in the edutech industry, many companies are coming up with innovative solutions for the sector. But more players also mean more competition.

Also Read: Edutech in SEA is ripe for acceleration. This is why they can help build a more inclusive society

GREDU is one such company that operates in the edutech space.

Founded in September 2016, GREDU aims to increase the level of engagement in a school environment to improve the overall schooling experience for teachers, parents, and students.

While its co-founder Rizky Anies agrees that the edutech market is a booming industry, he believes that GREDU’s model is unique. This is because its model aims to complement other platforms rather than compete with them.

In this interview with e27, Anies discusses the startup’s growth plans, the future of edutech, and more.

Below are edited excerpts of the interview.

What first got you into entrepreneurship and why did you decide to start your own company, GREDU?

Entrepreneurship has always been my passion, regardless of my background — entrepreneurship runs deep throughout my whole family, so it’s always been an interest for me.

And as for the reason for GREDU, it comes from a personal pain point that I (and the other co-founders) have, with the schooling environment, as a student and as a guardian (for my youngest sister). I always felt that there is a lack of engagement that creates all sorts of issues, and that’s how we came up with GREDU.

Since its launch in 2016, how have the objectives and goals for your company evolved?

The objective and goals always remained the same what differs is our approach. 2016 marks the moment where the founders decided that we wanted to do something in education, but we also realised at the time that the market was not yet ready, so we bided our time and focused on research until we felt the market was ready and we officially launched our product in 2020.

Since ideation in 2016, the iteration has certainly changed, especially towards the needs and implication of technology in the day to day activities, that was only made possible by the advancement of our technology and intimate collection of user feedback to better meet the needs of administrators and educators in their daily work.

What are your short-term goals for 2021 considering the current exponential rise of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia?

The short-term goal for use right now is to expand to targeted cities and be able to help schools as much as we can in their efforts to transition towards online learning, which we know has been a big issue here in Indonesia and other parts of the world.

Our team’s focus is to measure how learning can still be done effectively in online environments and refine our offerings to help teachers and students excel in this new learning environment.

The edutech sector is currently booming and digital learning solutions have risen due to the pandemic. What differentiates GREDU from other online learning platforms?

What differentiates us the most is our service, our aim at this point is not to disrupt but to be a solution to the changing landscape of education that has been forcefully altered due to covid.

Also Read: GREDU raises US$4M to allow Indonesia’s schools, teachers to track K-12 students; performance

Hence, instead of an online learning platform as an alternative to educational materials, GREDU offers tools that enable learning and teaching to still be conducted by schools, effectively and with ease through online requirements.

How do you see the future of edutech?

Firstly, due to COVID-19, now we can no longer separate education from technology, and we see edutech will be a hot commodity going forward. With many players jumping into the scene due to this pandemic and with the competition heating up, there is bound to be a big evolution and breakthrough in the market.

Our solutions do not necessarily compete with other edutech players but complement their offerings. In the future, even after the pandemic, many of the digitisation adopted during this period will continue to be used, resulting in more efficient school administration and targeted solutions for students that create better educational outcomes.

What’s the one piece of advice you would like to give to founders struggling due to the current pandemic situation?

Efficiency and innovation will be the key. If the situation creates a big hindrance towards your business, the first thing to do is to make room to breathe, and then go back to the drawing board for alternative approaches given the changing landscape.

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