Andre Agassi's technology firm to invest $50 million in India

Tennis legend Andre Agassi-led education technology firm Square Panda will invest $50 million in India over a period of three years to strengthen early child education for five million primary school children.

The company has already rolled out early learning project ''Aarambh'' in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh and now plans to develop the early childhood education and care (ECCE) ecosystem in every state.

"Our company is committed to deploying $50 million over the next three years to India and localisation of our platform, so that it can be used in all mother tongue, dialects and languages," said Square Panda chairman Andre Agassi.

The company plans to provide equitable access to early education, including foundational literacy and numeracy for young learners, new-age foundational teaching, to equip pre-primary and primary teachers and Anganwadi workers with a strong foundation for teaching and digital knowledge.

Agassi said Square Panda will focus on second-hand English language learning with its artificial intelligence platform.

"We strongly feel mother tongue is important and should remain but learning English is crucial to a brighter future and also literacy.

"We have a neuroscience study that goes behind our interaction to help teach language to children. It is like a personalised PhD teacher. We are able to deploy what we have known for a long time," he said.

Agassi, who is also chairman and founder of The Andre Agassi Foundation for Education, said the technology has to become part of our education system.

"We can't remain stagnant. It (education system) has not changed in a lot of years. It is an industry that has not really stepped up to the time to the 21st Century skill set.

"I believe if we can bring that to the table, then we are doing that in the most important area of our existence which is our children and our future. I am excited to be part of some solution," Agassi said.

Square Panda India Managing Director Ashish Jhalani said the company aims to shape the citizens of tomorrow by transforming early-childhood education today.

"To this effect, we aim to upskill 500,000 anganwadi workers and primary educators, and strengthen early-childhood education for five million primary school children," Jhalani said.