Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
Pragati Sharma: I started like most people, running the corporate rat race. That did provide me with an insight on how to build work structure, manage teams and deal with clients. Luckily, circumstances led me to find my calling in the education industry. From working with regional to international schools, I experienced the joy of being in the education industry and also closely observed many loopholes in our educational structure. The big problems I found were hesitation to try new things, inadequate training, and not adopting the right technology for advancements.
Consequently, I started Edmonger (an online media company) with the vision of helping schools and their stakeholders through the power of content and pieces of training. I will pull out all stops to make this vision come to life.
Great Companies: What are the various services provided by EdMonger?
Pragati Sharma: We are an online media company which offers readers a variety of content to consume to understand the technology for education. The edtech product reviews, case studies and research. Along with this, we offer consultation and pieces of training to schools, teachers and parents for their educational technology needs.
Great Companies: What makes EdMonger different from hundreds of other similar service providers?
Pragati Sharma: So, If I talk about media Companies, there are many available. But there is a very limited number which is dedicated to talking about education technology.
Our USP is our content that helps people to understand education technology in the most simplified manner. They can easily read, relate and decide what do they need for the growth of their school, teachers or students.
Great Companies: What were the struggles and challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?
Pragati Sharma: The biggest challenge is convincing stakeholders to consider fresher approaches, new tools, technology and training methods. I’ve noticed people shy away from adopting new things in the educational space. They want to follow what's readily available and do not need a lot of brainstorming and the most significant reason --poor time distribution.
Thank God to Artificial Intelligence they are being forced to change their ways and adopt technology to simplify teaching and learning.
Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for EdMonger?
Pragati Sharma: My vision is that EdMonger reaches beyond 1000 schools primarily in semi-urban and rural areas in the coming years through our content and we can provide them with edtech consultation, and instructional coaching and conduct customized programs for the parent community to empower the educational ecosystem.
Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice for someone just starting, what would it be?
Pragati Sharma: There will be days when you will lose the drive. When the resolve shakes, in those moments give yourself a break. From my experience, I have seen most often that it's simply our mind telling us that it is exhausted and a well-timed breather should do the trick. Apart from this discipline works better than motivation in any situation.