Chennai
Started in Feb 13, 2010 by Vikram Shah, Vaibhav Barnwal and Kedar Kulkarni, the enterprise was incubated at C-TIDES at IIT Madras. Talking about how it all began, Kedar, co-founder of Lema Labs, says, “We had represented IIT Madras and India at the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) in 2009 and 2010. IARC is a premier global aerial robotics competition where top teams participate. Post the competition, we visited many colleges to understand the state of their co-curricular activities and robotics.”
He explains, “We realised that most colleges were not equipped to teach students about solving real-world problems through technology. We spoke about these issues to our professors at IIT Madras - TS Natarajan, LS Ganesh and Prakash Sai. Under their mentorship, we decided to start an outfit that will strive to teach students emerging technologies such as robotics and work towards equipping students to solve real world problems.”
For the first two years, while they were still studying at IIT Madras, they focused on establishing the robotics curriculum in colleges. “We established dedicated robotics labs and provided learning resources in the form of theory classes, practical sessions, tests, competitions, etc. More than 1,200 students joined this programme in 2010 and 2011.
“After graduating from IIT Madras, my co-founders decided to part ways. I continued full-time with Lema and took over as the CEO. Post IIT, it was a very tough phase for six months as we did not have enough funds to hire people or develop new programmes. It remained like that till few colleges decided to give us a chance and introduced our programme to their students. In 2012, we decided to shift from the video lecture format to trainer-based learning programmes,” says Kedar.
The new approach paid off as the company has sustained and grown. Now, they have trained more than 3,500 students enrolled on robotics and other emerging technologies. The eight-member team, through Lema Kaizen Robotics Program train students on emerging technologies. The curriculum comprises of various six month programmes - Basic, Advanced and Advanced Electives. They have also created Kaizen Careers, a programme for graduates who are seeking to work in the technology sector in India. Their future plan is to build an affordable learning platform that is aimed at guiding a million college students every year.
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