Nish, Divya Gokulnath’s seven-year-old son, is a happy camper these days. Like many professionals, his mother, the co-founder and director of Byju, India’s largest educational technology (edtech) company, is much more at home. “And my son loves it,” she says with a smile. Why shouldn’t I? Before the movement restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 34-year-old woman worked 12 hours a day, leaving the office at 8:30 a.m. M. And I didn’t come home until 8 to 8:30 p.m. M. “Besides my maternity break, I have never stayed home that long! ”
Because by her own admission, Divya is a workaholic and continues to juggle board responsibilities, team calls, and her live online classes even during the lockdown. If anything, your schedule has become more exhausting. She had been heavily involved in launching Byju’s free live classes for students when schools across the country were closed. In March, 6 million new students joined the online platform for free live classes, while another 7.5 million enrolled in April. “Students were losing the regularity that schools provide. We wanted to get that back, ”says Divya, who has been teaching daily live classes in biology for students in grades 8-10, and math for grades 4-7.
Like her husband Byju Raveendran, the 39-year-old founder and CEO of her eponymous educational technology company, Divya has great academic prowess and a willingness to share her knowledge. As Raveendran says, Divya is a “master above all.” And that helps her bring “compassion and business nuances” to their shared vision for Byju’s, the company they co-founded in 2011, under the auspices of Think & Learn Private Ltd. “She has been with me on this journey from the beginning and, to be As a teacher first, she has her priorities in place – a smooth learning experience and student improvement are at the center of every decision she makes. “
This has helped Byju’s to become the top valued educational technology company in India with 70 million registered users and 4.5 million paid subscribers. Not surprisingly, given the nature of the business, Byju’s has raised just over $ 1 billion in equity funding this year alone, despite the pandemic, according to data from analytics firm Tracxn.
Divya’s pivotal role in her husband’s journey from Azhikode, a Kerala seaside town, to becoming one of India’s youngest billionaires dates back to his early days. Growing up in Bengaluru, where her father is a well-known nephrologist at Apollo Hospitals, and her mother, a retired show producer for public broadcaster Doordarshan, Divya’s upbringing was academically inclined. He studied at the Frank Anthony Public School and then went to the College of VR Engineering to earn his Bachelor of Technology in Biotechnology.
After graduating in 2007, he decided to take the GRE, an admissions test requirement for graduate schools in the United States. It was then that serendipity led her to the preparatory classes taught by Raveendran. “I heard from my classmates in college that there is a crazy math teacher who teaches math in a very different way,” says Divya. Her first experience with him as a teacher was in the auditorium of Jyoti Nivas College in Bengaluru. It was a crowded room, but his constant questioning during breaks caught Raveendran’s attention. “We like curious people. You should teach some classes here, ”Raveendran told him.
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