Many great things start off with a stimulating conversation with the right person, and that is also the case when it comes to SABAQ. Speaking to IDG Pakistan is the co-founder of Sabaq.edu.pk, Hassan bin Rizwan,
“So SABAQ Started off with a very interesting conversation I had with one of the co-Founders now, Mr Adnan Asdar. One day we’re just discussing some startup ideas related to something I have a keen interest for; data mining and analytics, and he floated the idea of working in the education sector and leveraging technology.”
Ever since the inception of their idea they have had the opportunity to work with Ilm ideas and their program on education innovation. Speaking of their journey he said, “It has been about a year and we have created a lot of content keeping in view Pakistan’s national curriculum and the culture, so we creating content for kindergarten and great one for Urdu and math and some content for Sindhi and English.”
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“We piloted about twenty six governments schools in Karachi and Lahore and our partner called Progressive Education Network is a nonprofit based in Lahore.”
SABAQ has already made its entry in government schools, and have received an overwhelming response thus far, in their pilot phase.
“I could safely say that SABAQ right now is the biggest tech company in Pakistan that is working on local content. There are the other companies that are creating content but for international clients, I don’t think there’s any education related company that is creating content at the scale that we are creating at, especially for the Pakistani national curriculum. We’ve brought teachers on board who obviously have a background in creating digital content then we brought in people who had an experience in creating digital content but not for the education space. We have also brought in people who are game developers and software engineers and have experience in creating educational games especially for Pakistani students.” Said Hassan bin Rizwan while he talked about what SABAQ is currently doing.
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According to him they are creating content in the most creative way by making animated stories, mobile games etc in order for schools to have easy access to their content. They have also partnered with the Sindh Education Foundation and are creating content for them.
However according to Hassan digital alone will not solve any problems when it comes to the concept of learning and teaching. The role of a good teacher is equally important and that technology can really help leverage the level of education in the country.
Speaking about the future Hassan said, “The future plan is to change the world, starting one child at a time! I think by 2020 if we could just take our content to at least a million people who could learn a thing or two, starting with the basics of being able to read. We want to be one of the mature players in the education technology industry in Pakistan and create content not only for Pakistan but also for the international clients.”
To find fun and engaging content you can visit their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube where they will be creating and uploading fun videos for kids by typing “Mera SABAQ.”
Interview conducted/edited by: Team IDG
