Motivated by a goal to introduce an effective, resilient and equitable education system in today's society, Nirdesh Dwa, along with his friends Sujit Pathak and Sanjan Piya, launched Veda in 2015 to better connect parents, teachers, and students. The company currently employs around 70 people and recently secured an investment pledge of Rs 85 million at CNIYEF Nepal StartUp Fest 2022 organised by the Confederation of Nepalese Industries Young Entrepreneurs Forum. CEO of Veda Dwa spoke with The Himalayan Times about Veda, challenges faced by start-ups, and the company's plans.
Excerpts:
What is Veda and how is it revolutionising our modern education system?
We like to call 'Veda' an all-in-one digital platform for education institutions. Veda can ease in keeping proper track of necessary data collected by schools and colleges as well as provide a virtual learning environment. It sets a digital footprint of all the activities recorded in an organised manner, making it easier for parties concerned in evaluating the data collected and other services.
Veda helps educational institutions to keep track of students in terms of their necessary information and day-today progress and organise virtual classrooms for their students. For the institutions, Veda helps to ease the evaluation process of students along with accounting, communication, and document management, among others.
We noticed that there is very low participation of parents when it comes to their children's education due to various reasons and through Veda, we have created a platform to connect the three groups through a digitised medium. The guardians of a student can access the information updated by the institutions regarding their children's progress through Veda.
At the moment, Veda is being used by 800 public and private educational institutes and over 1.6 million daily active users ranging from Montessori to institutions for higher studies in Nepal. Recently, the company started its operation in Brunei as well.
How is Veda keeping the data of its clients secure?
In terms of the security of our clients' data, we are using one of the best security providers in Nepal for accounting purposes and have favoured Amazon Web Services (AWS) for overall security handling, which is regarded as one of the best and most secure security service providers. At Veda, we conduct a regular security audit through which we can easily locate issues with Veda and fix them.
The other half of data protection lies in the hands of the users themselves where there is a higher chance of data breach. The clients should not share their login credentials with anyone, while the institutions can maintain the level of access handed over to the teachers, staff members, and parents.
What do you think are crucial elements for a start-up to attain success?
We have a saying, "Entrepreneurship cannot be taught," although we can see all new kinds of courses being introduced. I have learnt and felt that entrepreneurship is about recognising a problem and working towards solving it. At the same time, one should recognise their level of expertise as well as acknowledge the expertise of their respective team members in executing it. Similarly, indepth research of the market is very important along with proper mentorship and the support of advisers. I would suggest a start-up to focus on networking to grow in the market. Product is just a part of the ecosystem, understanding its outer layers is crucial for growth.
Furthermore, an ecosystem for entrepreneurs is starting to grow in the country. Also, it is difficult to compete in a market with giant players. One should start with a niche market and a long-term vision. In Nepal, one cannot expect exponential growth or forecast success within a few years. Lastly, I would suggest not to dive into entrepreneurship for fame, money or the sake of just doing something. Lastly, choosing your partners well is a must.
Veda received an investment pledge of Rs 85 million at the Startup Fest. What is the next step for the company with or without the investment?
We have plans to expand our reach in the international market. We have already launched operations in Brunei and are piloting our services to other countries as well. Also, we plan to grow our operations in education institutions located across Nepal.
At the same time, we want to add new and innovative features to provide a broader range of services to our clients in our next expansion plan.
Although investment is an integral part of growth for any company, the expansion plan for Veda will move ahead regardless of whether or not the investment pledge is realised.
How do events like CNIYEF Nepal StartUp Fest benefit a company like yours?
I believe there is a need for a robust ecosystem for companies to grow. In the context of Nepal, there was not even a proper definition of start-ups until a year ago. The presence of investors in the market is crucial for the growth of any company. To create an ecosystem between investors and entrepreneurs, such events play an important role. Although it is still at a young stage in Nepal, the beginning of such events is very promising.
For Veda, we received a boost in terms of public relations and marketing through the event. We received more media coverage along with a chance to connect with more people as well as introduced Veda to a much wider range of people.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 17, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
