Square Panda Emerges Victorious Against 2020
Square Panda adapted well to the demands of 2020, showing our agility in shifting the conversation from consumer-speak to a more government-focused approach. While the pandemic might have thrown us all a few curveballs, we as a company came together in these tough times, by adapting our responses to suit the needs of the hour, merging newer methodologies to our existing AI-based software to impact children, educators, and parents. We stayed true to our guiding pillar of innovation, releasing multiple new programs to impact early learning in India. Read on for our biggest highlights of 2020.
PRODUCT & PROGRAM LAUNCHES
– Launch Of SquareTales: After multiple on-ground studies across states in 2019, the year 2020 began with preparations to launch our new program into the Indian market, namely the revolutionary early literacy app, SquareTales. An independent learning platform, the neuroscience based SquareTales curriculum is designed to build foundational literacy skills, equipping young children with early reading and conversational skills. To create awareness about our early reading app, we launched a campaign in India’s largest news publication, the Times of India. We saw a massive response of 20K+ downloads as a result.
– SquareBox: SquareBox was Square Panda’s answer to the learning loss caused due to schools shutting down because of the pandemic. A special English language ‘schooling at home’ kit, combining both digital and physical learning methods, SquareBox was designed to get young children ready for when school opens. The kit featured our library of educational games that introduced children to early literacy skills through the Square Panda multisensory phonics learning system. It also contained activity sheets, conversation booklets, flashcards, and much more to help children learn at home and develop various skills.
*NOTE: To better focus our efforts towards providing an incredible new early learning experience, we took the hard decision to put SquareBox on hold.
– SquareLand Launch: We introduced our amazing meta game, SquareLand, in the India market. To provide consumers easy and quick access to our programs, we integrated both apps (SquareTales Reading App and SquareLand) under one name, the Square Panda App.
– Business Expansion For Greater Impact: In July 2020 the Ministry of Education released the National Education Policy 2020, which visualises a much-needed change in the educational landscape. As the government was building its approach towards making the NEP 2020 a reality, Square Panda emerged as a formidable partner who has the expertise, the experience, the values and the resources to implement & execute the government’s vision. Our programs and curriculum have always been experiential and blended, with a focus on imparting new age skills to children, parents, and educators. We fit in perfectly with the NEP 2020; this was just the impetus we needed to bring our services to the government’s attention. Square Panda expanded our vision, and are now addressing three different audiences: the government, schools and educational organisations, and consumers.
– Introducing Aarambh: Square Panda officially launched our early learning initiative, called Aarambh, which aims to holistically develop the entire ECCE ecosystem-the Anganwadi workers, the ECCE educators, and the children-through our innovative foundational learning and educator empowerment programs.
– Square Talk: To further help assist educators, we developed an interactive AI-enabled chatbot called ‘Square Talk’. This support tool helps educators with query resolution, study materials, additional notes and FAQs as reference material, for round-the-clock learning, and works on Whatsapp for easy accessibility.
NEW VIRTUAL INITIATIVES
– Sunday Expert Talk Series: The COVID pandemic changed the educational infrastructure and in doing so, transformed the way learning itself was delivered. Formal schooling moved online, and for younger students, shut down completely. The ever-adaptive Square Panda saw multiple ways to help parents, educators, and children. To keep children safe and engaged at home, we came up with a solution to create webinars for both parents and children, called Square Panda Sundays. This series was conceptualised to act as a virtual support for the common parenting issues cropping up like the lack of time to teach little kids, the balancing act required of all parents, and the struggle to find new ways to keep kids productively engaged, and more. Unique because it calls for active participation from both parents and children (aged 2–8), this series boasts esteemed speakers like Ms. Sonia Relia (Author of MY LEARNING TRAIN-Activity-Based Series for Early Years, and Developer Activity-Based Learning Programs-KINOLEARN, KINOPHONICS), who appears regularly as a host speaker. She is often joined by industry experts from varied fields, who share their knowledge and expertise with the eager audience.
– 7Days 7Topics Teachers’ Training Program: This free training series saw participation by more than 4000 teachers and principals from around the country. Panelists included Ms. Fatema Agarkar (Award-Winning Educationist, Entrepreneur), Dr. S.K. Rathod (Founder Chairman & MD-Sanford Group of Schools), Mr. Pritam Kumar Agrawal (Founder Director-Hello Kids, VP & National Core Committee Member-ECA India), Dr. Swati Popat (President at Podar Education Network, President of ECA), and many more. These experts discussed and provided tips on classroom management, socio-emotional learning, fitness through dance, drama, craft, and puppetry, storytelling in preschool, and more.
– Teacher’s Thursday: In June 2020, Square Panda organized another teacher’s training series, designed for 12 sessions. We explored in-depth topics like Multiple Intelligences in Children, Blended Learning, Fairy Tales in STEAM (STEM+Art), to assist educators adopt 21st century classroom management skills, and enhance their own professional development, while increasing their comprehension of the neuroscience behind early learning.
NEW PARTNERSHIPS
2020 saw us joining hands with the below organisations and impact funds to drive early learning to greater heights across India.
CULTURE SHIFTS
– Working From Home: As we moved into the new year, the coronavirus pandemic dominated our every action. To keep our employees safe, Square Panda adapted a remote working style in its offices across the globe.
– Built Our Expert Team Further: To our team of experts — comprising researchers and specialists in cognitive neuroscience and child psychology, experienced game developers, coders, and other technologists — we added educationists, teacher trainers, and India-specific curriculum designers, who adapt global best practices to design additional NEP 2020-aligned programs.
– Virtual Celebrations: Resilience was the word of the year in 2020; we learnt to celebrate our joys, our new beginnings, and our festivals with a digital screen between us.
SUCCESS STORIES
– Project With The Uttar Pradesh Government: Chitrakoot and Sitapur districts in Uttar Pradesh partnered with Square Panda to conduct a comprehensive Educator Empowerment Program for primary and ECCE teachers in government schools, to make them future-ready.
– We Were In The News: Our efforts with multiple governments, impact funds, and other organisations helped us garner press coverage in various newspapers, magazines and TV channels.
– Revenue Growth: While this year has been hard on the economy, our efforts in ed-tech helped us raise 5 times the revenue than the previous year, which we plan to use in creating a bigger impact on millions of children and educators all over India.
MASSIVE 360° CAMPAIGN
Our second AD campaign this year was conducted to introduce our early learning initiative, Aarambh. Starting December 2020, and moving into January 2021, we took a 360° approach for an integrated impact, appearing on three mediums: TV, print, and digital mediums. In this, we took out a series of advertorials, published news stories, and started a special #EarlyLearningMatters series of panel discussions with experts in the field of early childhood education. Our aim is to increase awareness about our drive to build welfare-driven activities with a socio-economic impact for a better and increasingly more literate India.
THE WAY FORWARD
Square Panda aims to build India’s ECCE landscape with our impact goal for 2021, which is to upskill 500K Anganwadi Workers and Primary Educators, and strengthen early childhood education for 5Mn Primary School Children.
2020 has laid the groundwork for a stronger education structure in India, with a focus on foundational learning; Square Panda as an organisation, is looking to bring about a systemic change in the early literacy landscape and the teaching learning process in India, thereby impacting millions of young learners, and subsequently, the future of our nation.
