Startup Bangladesh Limited, the flagship venture capital fund of the ICT Division, today announced that it has canceled a Tk 5 crore investment proposal for 10 Minute School, Bangladesh’s largest edtech platform. The decision was shared on Startup Bangladesh’s verified Facebook page and reiterated by State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak on his own verified page. Attack on students: Quota protesters block Khulna-Jashore Highway “Startup Bangladesh Limited has rejected the investment proposal of Tk 5 crore for 10 Minute School,” Palak posted. Quota protests: NSU, BracU, IUB students block major roads in Dhaka This move comes amid the ongoing protests demanding reform of the quota system in government jobs. Ayman Sadiq, co-founder and CEO of 10 Minute School, has publicly supported the protestors’ demands for quota reform. “We demand quota reform. Merit should be the biggest quota,” Sadiq posted on his Facebook on Saturday, using the hashtag #QuotaMovement. Quota reform protests: Students block several points of Dhaka-Barishal Highway

10 Minute School, an e-learning platform of Bangladesh, has launched Online Batch 2023, a comprehensive year-long study program for students of classes 6-10. Online Batch 2023 (https://10minuteschool.com/online-batch/) will cover the entire National Board curriculum, through 800+ live classes conducted throughout the year on the 10 Minute School app where students will be able to learn without any distractions, according to a press release. Read more: 10 Minute School courses: bKash offers 20% cashback on payment State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak inaugurated the programme at the BCC Auditorium of Dhaka's ICT Tower on Tuesday. Classes will be taken by teachers with years of offline and online teaching experience, who studied in some of the most prestigious universities of Bangladesh, including BUET, Dhaka Medical, and Dhaka University. A total of six subjects will be taught to students to complete their full syllabus in eight months. Students of classes 6-8 will have 22 live classes every month, 6 days a week while students of classes 9-10 will have 40 live classes every month, five days a week, reads the release. Read more: Robi-10 Minute School launches exam preparation course for grades 6-9 10 Minute School started its journey in 2015, and has taught over millions of students in the country through various academic, skill development and job preparation courses.

10 minutes school is the largest online education platform in Bangladesh. Through its networks, Ayman Sadiq, the founder of 10 minutes school, and the team has provided access to quality education for all classes of students in Bangladesh. Recently, the company received a $2 million funding from Sequoia Capital based in India. However, the journey to this point was not easy. Here is the story of 10 Minutes School and how it changed education perception and propagation in Bangladesh. The Story of 10 Minutes School Ayman Sadiq started 10 minutes School as a YouTube channel back in 2014. The initial aim of the platform was to address a few key constraints facing the 40 million students within the national curriculum. One of the key constraints was access to better education and teaching methods. This initiative also focused on democratizing and disseminating knowledge at a free cost. And finally, overcoming the geological barrier of regions and countries, so that anyone can access the same content from anywhere in the world. Read 20 Most Promising Education Start-Ups in Bangladesh Before the YouTube kicked-off, Ayman used to make infographics of the educational content and used SlideShare to publish them. The contents were innovative and engaging for the students. As more and more students got involved with his content, Ayman was approached by a group to make an infographic video titled “One formula to rule them all”. Long story short, that video did not get accepted by the commissioning group. After that Ayman ended up opening a YouTube channel to publish the video. The video became an instant hit overnight. The viral reach paved the way for video-based content and access to a larger audience base. That 10-minute-long video ideated 10 minutes school. Read Angel Investment 101: Is It the Right Track for Your Startup? The Journey to Becoming the Largest EdTech in Bangladesh Ayman and the team focused on solving a key pressing issue of Bangladesh – access to quality education. Though the education curriculum is almost uniform across rural and urban areas, the quality of imparted education grossly differs. The teachers in rural areas do not have access to different training and grooming facilities that are otherwise available in the city areas. As a result, the teachers also fail to properly disseminate knowledge engagingly. This is where the effort of the current government in digitizing Bangladesh helped the likes of 10 minutes of school. The increasing connectivity initiatives meant even a rural child now has access to the internet and smart devices. And a free platform like Facebook and YouTube made it easier than ever to connect content with the students. Read 7 Local Startups Get Tk 150m Funds from Startup Bangladesh Limited The growing popularity motivated 10 minutes of School to focus on curriculum-based content. Within a year, the organization was able to make chapter and subject-wise content for grade 1 to 12 students. But did they stop there? No. 10 Minutes School then moved on to making video lessons and content for different competitive and entrance exams. Today 10 Minutes School has grown much from its initial video lessons days. The platform now engages over 40 million learners through their different channels. With over 2.5 million daily engagements, 10 Minutes School is single-handedly paving the way for educational democratization and access to quality content. Read Sohopathi: An Emerging Online Education Platform in Bangladesh The platform now has over 20,000 video lessons and over 1200 smartbooks. It also houses almost 50,000 quizzes and over 1300 blog content. The 10 Minutes School is a glaring example that with will and effort, it is possible to create a better future for the bright minds scattered across Bangladesh. This innovative venture showed that education, no matter how hard the subject might be, can be fun and engaging. And with the right technology, it can reach anyone, anywhere on the globe. $2 Million Funding from Sequoia Capital: What it Means for the Future? 10 Minutes School and its content has been grossly tech-based. Whether it is content generation or content propagation, a lion’s share of the cost in the process is involved with technological infrastructure . The organization has had a partnership with Robi. Robi is one of the largest Bangladeshi telecommunication companies that has supported 10 Minutes School since its early days. Robi allowed 10 Minutes School to scale up their contents and areas with sufficient funding. Read GP Accelerator Program 3.0: Paving the Way for Successful Startups But to fulfill the dreams of 10 Minutes School more assistance was required. The organization also received co-operation from the ICT ministry. The ministry helped in launching different skill development programs in 64 districts of Bangladesh. It acted as the activation partner whereas 10 Minutes School developed the training content. In addition to that, the organization partnered with the a2i program and different UNDP projects. The aim was to make education and knowledge more accessible across different social denominations. But the pandemic has been a game-changer for 10 Minutes School. The effective closure of the educational institution for almost over a year hindered the participation of students in classroom-based education in different parts of Bangladesh. During this period, 10 Minutes School saw unprecedented growth in its content and lesson engagement across all platforms. This online education platform emerged as an effective alternative to classroom education in Bangladesh. Read How to Test and Validate Your Startup Idea? In 2021, the organization saw a 12% growth in its business amidst the pandemic. It clearly showed that EdTech is the future of education. The students made the transition from age-old traditional classroom-based learning to a more advanced system. 10 Minutes School proved that online distance learning does not have to complement classroom learning anymore. It can be an effective alternative if such situations arise or continue. The team also launched a few paid upskilling courses during this time. The $2 Million funds will be aimed at rapidly developing the content base and expanding to new learners in Bangladesh and globally. Read Can E-Learning Substitute Classroom Learning? The organization plans to launch several live coaching classes for primary-level students. It also has plans for designing interactive textbooks for primary, secondary, and higher secondary levels. The Seed Funding: Lessons for Future EdTechs 10 Minutes School is not the only EdTech in Bangladesh. But it is the first of its kind to receive such a high amount of seed funding. The pandemic and how 10 Minutes School stood up to the test of time can be a great example for future EdTech startups. In today’s world, learning is not limited to physical classrooms anymore. Neither does it have to be constrained to a certain concentration or syllabus. Now anyone can learn whatever they want thanks to tons of resources that are available. What EdTechs can do is ease the process of learning. They can create platforms like 10 Minute School. It can be based on different concentrations and learning agendas. Read Seed Fund Raising for Startups: Things to Know About  Global connectivity and internet access have made the process of disseminating education a lot easier than it was before. EdTechs can emerge as a leader in this new order of knowledge democratization.

Likee Bangladesh’s recent initiative #KnowledgeMonth, organized in partnership with 10 Minute School, has been ended which received wide acclaim from different regions and turned out to be a successful activity owing to its potential to create an enabling and healthy online atmosphere for knowledge sharing. Likee launched the campaign on September 3 to encourage its users creating and sharing videos focusing on various academic and co-curricular skills, which would not only enlighten people but also help them showcase their creative side. During the campaign, a total of 5,470 videos were uploaded by 1,904 users, and a staggering number of 35.8 million engagements were recorded. Likee users have uploaded videos on different categories such as English learning, football, art & painting, cooking with a concentrated focus on two streams - #howto and #education. Read: Likee teams up with 10 Minute School Many famous figures from different fields such as teachers, researchers, sportspersons, artists, culinary and life-skill enthusiasts and renowned nutritionists have taken part in the campaign and come up with enlightening videos. Abdullah Al Shihab, 10 Minute School’s PR and Communication Manager, said about managing the overall operations of the collaborative campaign of 10 Minute School and Likee, “We started this #KnowledgeMonth campaign with a goal of ensuring educational value on the short video platform as Likee which people typically use for entertainment purpose.” The campaign segments were distributed according to the platform users’ need to reach out to each category of them easily. Read: Likee launches campaign to promote cyber safety Tamanna Chowdhury, a clinical dietitian and nutritionist, said about this campaign, “Through my short videos I usually talk about diet tips and nutrition. Of late, I have come across Likee Bangladesh's #KnowledgeMonth campaign, which seems to be a quite a gem for me. I have shared many videos portraying different pertinent aspects related to nutritional needs. I hope people will see those and be aware of their health.” On the other hand, Iffat, another participant, said, “Apart from showcasing my cooking skills, I have also got to learn about different life skills including cooking, art, math, spoken English etc. I am happy as after joining #KnowledgeMonth I was able to create a new cooking account and my cooking account got the verification as well.” Inspired by the response this campaign has received, Likee is encouraged to arrange such campaigns in the future to provide a platform to the video creators for displaying their personal talents and help them expand their career options as well. This type of campaign is expected to create an ambiance where content creators will be able to acquire and develop knowledge together and add value to the fellow users’ experience. Read Short video platforms are new way of building communities: Head of Likee Operations in Bangladesh

Short-video app Likee has partnered with the online educational platform 10 Minute School to encourage users to create and share videos on academic and co-curricular skills. Likee launched the knowledge community development initiative #KnowledgeMonth recently. The campaign, which will run until September 30, aims to create an encouraging community sphere, where a healthy and competitive spirit will boost the users' learning. It will award several lucky winners at the end of the month-long activities. Also read: Learning together with Likee’s #Steps2learn This collaboration of Likee and 10 minute School is set to encourage teachers, researchers, sportspersons, artists; culinary, life-skill and other academic and non-academic skills enthusiasts to come together as a community and share their knowledge. Users can create interesting videos to share their learning, tips, and tricks on different topics like Bengali, Bengali dialect, spoken English, science, puzzle, trivia, economy, culture, humanity, health, medicine, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. These videos will have to be uploaded using the hashtag #AcademicKnowledge, #ArtisticKnowledge, #LifeKnowledge and #UnpopularKnowledge. The videos need to be original and more than 10 seconds in length, according to a media statement. Also read: Likee launches campaign to promote cyber safety "In this era of online learning, Likee believes that it has the power to connect learners through educational video content. Our #KnowledgeMonth campaign is already seeing enthusiastic traffic, and we thank our partner 10 Minute School for their cooperation," said a Likee spokesperson. Ayman Sadiq, owner of 10 Minute School said, "We are glad to have partnered with Likee as together, we can positively use this opportunity to encourage millions of Likee users to share valuable knowledge." Read CID arrests five, inc. Bigo and Likee executives, for app-based crimes

The maiden TEDxGulshan is going to take place at Gulshan in the capital on January 18.

The opening day of the first-ever youth carnival of Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC) saw a huge turnout on Friday when cultural performances and encouraging plenary sessions enthralled the attendees.

Robi 10 Minute School, Robi Axiata Ltd. and Save the Children in Bangladesh signed a tripartite Strategic Partnership to empower girls through ICT in education.  

Dhaka, Oct 15 (UNB)- Bangladesh Innovation Conclave (BIC) has conferred the Social Innovation award 2019 to the country’s largest digital school, Robi-10 Minute School.