India's education technology startup, Dost Education, claims $25,000 global tech prize

LONDON: India's education technology startup 'Dost Education' has bagged a $25,000 tech prize along with two other winners from Tanzania and Egypt. The Next Billion Edtech Prize 2019, run by UK-based Varkey Foundation, recognises the most innovative technology destined to have a radical impact on education in low income and emerging world countries.

Dost was awarded for its ability to empower parents to take charge of their child's early education by creating short, friendly audio content that is sent to them via their mobile phones.

"Dost software, audio content, and toolkits make it easy, fun and addictive for parents to boost their child's early development, so low-income families need no longer send their children to primary school behind and without a chance to catch up,” noted the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF), where the award was announced in Dubai last month.


"It's really exciting to bring Dost to the global stage at GESF and be one of the three winners of the prize, it motivates us even more to keep working on our mission to help parents to unlock their child's full potential,” Dost CEO Sneha Sheth said in a statement.

Six finalists were chosen to pitch on the main GESF plenary stage in front of over 1,500 delegates. Besides India's Dost, the other winners to also receive $25,000 each included Ubongo from Tanzania and PraxiLabs from Egypt.

Sunny Varkey, Founder of the Varkey Foundation and the Next Billion Prize said: "We use the ‘Next Billion Prize' to highlight technology's potential to tackle the problems that have proven too difficult for successive generations of politicians to solve. “Our fervent hope is that the prize inspires practical and persistent entrepreneurs the world over to come forward with fresh tech ideas.”