Through her own experience, Sophia Khan and her co-founder decided to fix the lack of social equality in Malaysia’s learning system. That is when and how Classruum Technologies Sdn Bhd was founded.
“We wanted to provide quality education to everyone regardless of their social status such as race, religion and financial standing; giving everyone an equal chance at life in general,” said the young enthusiastic Sophia.
How does Classruum work? Imagine yourself in a virtual chat space, instead of just interacting with others you can now get access to educational content provided by educators. In other words, it is like hitting two birds with one stone; learning and also socialising.
“Teachers upload content onto the portal in the form of pre-recorded videos, tutorials, notes, lectures and also exercises where students can then complete later,” added Sophia.
Both teachers and students can create their own unique profiles, chat to one another, take part in educational games and also publish their scores onto social media accounts such as Facebook. There are currently two separate business models for Classruum; one for public schools and the other for private. The cost of public schools are being funded and covered by government and students will get access to the public school syllabus and subscribe to any government school teacher who has an account with Classruum. As for private schools, the access to content is limited to internal users of the school only.
“We currently have 40 public schools in the state of Johor and expect to expand further into states like Perak and Selangor,” added Sophia who is also currently working with a number of private educational institutions to convert their physical content to digital so they can expand their reach.
Although Classruum is only available in Malaysia, make no mistake about its limitations as the team is planning to expand worldwide, starting with countries like Indonesia and India. When asked about the difficulties in managing Classruum, being a young entrepreneur herself, Sophia admits to having trouble with public school sectors where the access to Internet connectivity is limited, however they are working hard and a few meetings have taken place with telco companies across Malaysia to find solutions and provide Internet access for them.
“Just because something has been a certain way for a long time, does not necessarily mean it is right and unchangeable. I don’t feel the need to conform to the norms of society if it does not sit well with me. As far-fetched a dream may be, I for one know that with belief and perseverance, slowly but steadily you will inch closer to fulfilling it,” said Sophia.
For more information about Classruum, readers can visit classruum.com.
Ili Aqilah
