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Amazon Academy India

academy.amazon.in

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Re: Amazon Academy India

#21

Post by palerdot »

yunohn wrote: post #16
gooftop wrote: post #7

Whoa.. talk about disrupting the IIT-prep cottage industry! Of course, I haven't seen the details of whether it's an effective tool or not, but as a free service that can only improve and scale over time .. should be a gamechanger. (For those outside India who are not aware of the exam that the academy is targeted at, its for admission to a collection of premier Engineering schools in the country. The exam is taken b…

> IIT-prep cottage industry I'm not sure "cottage" industry is the right characterisation. It's worth over 2B$ [1], and has existed for over a decade. There are behemoths like Byjus, Kota, FIITJEE, etc. and innumerable informal options. 1. https://inc42.com/datalab/with-the-largest-share-of-funding-...

> I'm not sure "cottage" industry is the right characterisation.

GP's comment is more about mushrooming of tutorials/tuition centers on every nook and corner for IIT JEE prep, similar to any cottage industry.

Re: Amazon Academy India

#22

Post by strikelaserclaw »

disown wrote: post #18
gooftop wrote: post #7

Whoa.. talk about disrupting the IIT-prep cottage industry! Of course, I haven't seen the details of whether it's an effective tool or not, but as a free service that can only improve and scale over time .. should be a gamechanger. (For those outside India who are not aware of the exam that the academy is targeted at, its for admission to a collection of premier Engineering schools in the country. The exam is taken b…

> The exam is taken by over 1 million students annually, with a ~ 1% acceptance rate. Maybe india needs more "premier engineering schools" if the acceptance rate is so low. Harvard and MIT have acceptance rates near 5%.

Definitely agree, for a country with close to 2B population, it is absurd how their education system is divided into "a couple exceptional schools and the rest are really bad"

Re: Amazon Academy India

#25

Post by imranq »

As someone who has worked at Amazon as a PM, it's always surprising how many different verticals that the company expands to. But it's probably not all that surprising: 1. Long-term approach in attracting the best technical minds in India via brand value and staying relevant with the new generation. 2. Lots of eLearning platforms internally so easy to build out 3. Amazon selling books --> Amazon helping with exams isn't that big of a stretch

Re: Amazon Academy India

#26

Post by ffpip »

yunohn wrote: post #16
gooftop wrote: post #7

Whoa.. talk about disrupting the IIT-prep cottage industry! Of course, I haven't seen the details of whether it's an effective tool or not, but as a free service that can only improve and scale over time .. should be a gamechanger. (For those outside India who are not aware of the exam that the academy is targeted at, its for admission to a collection of premier Engineering schools in the country. The exam is taken b…

> IIT-prep cottage industry I'm not sure "cottage" industry is the right characterisation. It's worth over 2B$ [1], and has existed for over a decade. There are behemoths like Byjus, Kota, FIITJEE, etc. and innumerable informal options. 1. https://inc42.com/datalab/with-the-largest-share-of-funding-...

Byjus is irrelevant in the IIT cottage industry. They are newer, and only online. And no company can convince Indian parents that online is better that 8am-8pm classroom coaching.

Re: Amazon Academy India

#27

Post by ffpip »

disown wrote: post #18
gooftop wrote: post #7

Whoa.. talk about disrupting the IIT-prep cottage industry! Of course, I haven't seen the details of whether it's an effective tool or not, but as a free service that can only improve and scale over time .. should be a gamechanger. (For those outside India who are not aware of the exam that the academy is targeted at, its for admission to a collection of premier Engineering schools in the country. The exam is taken b…

> The exam is taken by over 1 million students annually, with a ~ 1% acceptance rate. Maybe india needs more "premier engineering schools" if the acceptance rate is so low. Harvard and MIT have acceptance rates near 5%.

It is not ever a 1% acceptance rate. 15,00,000 students take the exam and only 10,000 qualify. From that, only 3000 get into the ''premier'' IITs

Re: Amazon Academy India

#28

Post by finnh »

ffpip wrote: post #26
yunohn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IIT-prep cottage industry I'm not sure "cottage" industry is the right characterisation. It's worth over 2B$ [1], and has existed for over a decade. There are behemoths like Byjus, Kota, FIITJEE, etc. and innumerable informal options. 1. https://inc42.com/datalab/with-the-largest-share-of-funding-...

Byjus is irrelevant in the IIT cottage industry. They are newer, and only online. And no company can convince Indian parents that online is better that 8am-8pm classroom coaching.

Does "no company" include Amazon?

I'm going through this with my (young) children and coronavirus. Having seen the varied abilities of their elementary school teachers makes me think a top-flight online course could do much better than some of the actual people working at their school.

There's no question the best teachers will outperform the best online content. But what are your odds of hiring the best teachers?

Re: Amazon Academy India

#29

Post by 908B64B197 »

disown wrote: post #18
gooftop wrote: post #7

Whoa.. talk about disrupting the IIT-prep cottage industry! Of course, I haven't seen the details of whether it's an effective tool or not, but as a free service that can only improve and scale over time .. should be a gamechanger. (For those outside India who are not aware of the exam that the academy is targeted at, its for admission to a collection of premier Engineering schools in the country. The exam is taken b…

> The exam is taken by over 1 million students annually, with a ~ 1% acceptance rate. Maybe india needs more "premier engineering schools" if the acceptance rate is so low. Harvard and MIT have acceptance rates near 5%.

The real question is how many serious applicant to they get?

I assume there are a lot of kids who simply won't bother applying to MIT and Harvard just because they know they aren't going to be competitive. But it sounds like the IIT entrance exam is almost mandatory (and used by other colleges?).

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