COVID-19 has been tough on each one of us and students happen to be among the worst affected by this pandemic. The Assam government had declared all educational institutions shut till March 29 from March 15, 2020.
The Central government has declared nationwide lockdown till April 14.
In an effort to help the students of the region who are suffering due to complete lockdown during this pandemic, a start-up from Guwahati is helping students by solving their queries for free using the social media platform of WhatsApp. Their mobile application is also to be launched towards the end of April this year.
The start-up – Personal Guru which was incorporated for the people of Assam in December, 2019, has been selected for the second round of NERES 1.0, a start-up pitching competition organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
Personal Guru has been recognized by the department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade as a Private Limited Company. This is an online-offline education service provider which unlike other applications aims at all round development of its students.
Many a times, students do not enjoy studying in the institute or stream they are enrolled which is why the organization focuses on such students and provides them with necessary educational counseling.
Personal Guru also provides an opportunity to Science students that have passed Class XII exam in the Science stream to avail fully residential JEE/NEET coaching with 100% seat guarantee. The educational service provider has a limited number of seats for this program which comes with an assurance of complete tuition fee refund in case a candidate does not secure a seat in the Institute of his or her choice.
Their journey started back in 2010 when Mukhlesur Rahman, Co-Founder and CEO of Personal Guru got selected in Super 30 for free coaching. He then made a promise to himself that he would devote his effort to give back to the society in this field of education.
With this vision in mind, in the year 2015, he started teaching students right from his graduation years. He also started a coaching centre in his final semester of B.Tech at NIT Silchar.
Their tagline Personal Guru – Always with you; Exam ke pehle bhi, Exam ke baad bhi, ensures guidance both before and after a student sits for an examination. They offer services such as on demand instant doubt solving, 24×7 Personal Mentoring, Admission Counseling and Offline Coaching.
They also plan to offer scholarships of 1 Crore rupees to help 100 students with 1 lakh rupee each and will also provide a free online Crash-course for JEE and NEET starting 28 March, 2020.
The mission of Personal Guru is to help students with exam preparations, selection of institutes, constant mentoring and financial support by reaching out to every student personally.
Every student is unique and this organization is on a mission to provide personal care and attention to each one of them. Their vision is to enhance the quality of education in the industry and to inculcate essential knowledge with skills among students by helping them with their academic as well as non-academic needs.
“Where there is a will, there is a way”, believes Anoop Kumar Prasad, Chief Data Engineer & Public Relations Officer.
“Coming from the small town of Barpeta Road, I always faced obstructions while accessing opportunities. Even after securing a distinction in HSLC, I suffered in my HSc days” he says.
On being asked why he decided to collaborate with and be a part of such an initiative, Anoop says, “I have observed lack of quick and proper guidance in the region which is similar to what I had faced. Due to this, students tend to lose interest in self-studying and having personally experienced the same, it is my dream to help as many students as possible. Through Personal Guru, we aim at solving such problems of students which they face perpetually in their most crucial years of learning”.
Including the core members, interns, ambassadors, teachers and mentors, more than 150 people are currently working together day and night to help students at this hour of need.
Alongside the CEO and Co-Founder, Mahibul Islam, Co-Founder and CTO, Amit Kalita, Business Development Manager, Anoop Kumar Prasad, Chief Data Engineer & Public Relations Officer, Mosquir Rahman, Customer Relations Manager and Shabnam Hafiz, Customer Relations Manager form the core team that keeps their noses to the grindstone for a generous initiative such as this. Personal Guru is currently helping around 500 students directly and thousands of other across the state indirectly.