IIT Kanpur graduate launches new company in Seoul

SEOUL: Pankaj Agarwal, a 35-year-old IIT Kanpur graduate, has founded a start-up company, TagHive, with a few like-minded professionals in

Seoul

to pursue his passion for improving education. His mission is to revolutionise everyday experiences with a smart tag solution -- a combination of a button type tag, a smart app and back-end analytics that are targeted at reinventing interactions for kids at play and at school.

Based in South Korea since 2004, he had earlier worked with Samsung Electronics. Samsung encouraged him with support for his endeavour. TagHive is a technology company that was spun off from

Samsung Electronics

in April this year.

TagHive’s new solutions are TagPlus and LEAP. While TagPlus, an award winning solution, is the world's first toy-centric social network for kids, LEAP is a low cost clicker (Classroom Response System) along with an app (

iOS

and

Android

) that will keep students engaged, parents informed and help teachers effectively manage their classrooms.

Speaking to TOI, Agarwal said that TagHive will commercialise LEAP in South Korea in the first half of 2018 and enter the Indian market in the second half of 2018. “We are looking to partner with schools in India willing to ride the new wave of affordable smarter classrooms,” he said.

TagHive pilot tested the LEAP solution in Ambience Public School in New Delhi, as well as in South Korea, with encouraging response.

Some of the key features of LEAP are “one-click attendance” which reduces the morning chaos of recording attendance with students simply clicking their tags. Teachers can now utilise the time saved more productively in teaching more, Agarwal said.

LEAP allows teachers to have an accumulated score for their students on a daily basis and the students will be given incentives to improve their behaviour. It further allows teachers to create their own quizzes and polls for various subjects. Students can record their responses by clicking their tags.

“Teachers can view all student records like attendance, score and quiz/poll results for one day, one week, one month or for the whole semester,” said Agarwal. It also automatically sends students’ performance updates to their respective parents. Parents will also have an app where they can track their kids’ progress in real time.

“I have a 10-year-old son, and I want the best for him,” said Agarwal.

Agarwal is the founder and President of IIT Alumni Association of Korea (IITAAK). He also has an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School. He said IITians have left their mark in most parts of the world and IITAAK wants to replicate that in South Korea and strengthen the reputation of brand IIT.

“We hope that this will not only make our lives here more meaningful but also help in forging more productive cooperation between South Korea and India,” he said.