Every crisis is an opportunity! COVID-19 surely has negatively impacted the global economy, but for learners, it is an opportunity to up their sleeves and pursue uninterrupted knowledge online. However, it is indeed required that e-learning companies look beyond providing just academic, prep or K-12 courses. Aligned to this dire need, companies now are disrupting online learning by introducing various need-of-the-hour courses. ArthShikshan is one such unique initiative aimed to bring the knowledge of Finance and Fintech to the fingertips of every person; in their own mother tongue or regional language. It is a user-friendly online platformcoaching institute with an exclusive focus on digital financial literacy everything fintech, including all the popular financial competency oriented topics subjects in over 5 regional languages (Marathi, Hindi, English, Gujarati, and Telugu). ArthShikshan encourages e-learning and is designed to provide specialised support to its learners at an affordable fee without undergoing a usual burdensome and prolonged program. Appreciating this one-of-a-kind initiative established by Prachi Kulkarni, Women Entrepreneur India engages in an exclusive conversation to know more about the brand and her journey towards transforming digital financial literacy in India.

Give us a brief overview of your brainchild and highlight its uniqueness.

ArthShiskhan is a video-based Edtech platform focused on catering to financial education in regional languages. We provide a personalised and easy to use learning dashboard to enable the learners to learn in a language they understand. In fact, ArthShikshan means semantic education focusing on helping people get comprehensive hands-on skill oriented practical knowledge and not just surface-level learning. This platform is open to any individual who is keen to selflearn and achieve financial literacy. Our effort is to mainly reach out to the rural population, underprivileged segments, high school students and elderly people. This will create self-reliance for the consumer thereby meeting the financial inclusion guidelines. We also welcome NGOs, Self-help groups, banks, and government bodies to use this platform and reach rural and underprivileged segments and achieve our vision on a broad spectrum.  Our courses are meticulously designed according to RBI guidelines with engaging methods of selfassessment, games, simulated tools, practice tools, and flashcards. The content is concise and straightforward. We have leveraged technology to merge best practices like the use of videos in local and regional languages with a brief content and engaging methodologies. All of it is backed by testing and certification after evaluating the learners.

What is some important vital financial knowledge the candidates get from your platform?  

Mobile wallet, USSD, AEPS etc.; to fully achieve the motto of Digital India. We equip the community to stay in pace with new digital banking  and financial solutions offered by startups, banks, and  knowledge to the users and reduce bank visits time and call centre support costs to the financial firms.  Through our courses, people can get financial skills from daily operations and paying bills to budgeting and credit management to financial management and  nvesting. We also ensure that people are aware of several government schemes and help them apply for the same. We operate in both B2C and B2B2C models where we serve consumers directly or address them through financial organisations.

"Through arthshikshan, we bring digital financial literacy to the fingertips of the user and improve its accessibility and reach through lo language and regional content"

What prompted your foray into entrepreneurship by ideating a unique platform for financial education?  

During my tenure in the banking & securities FinTech  and training as many people as possible. Although government and financial organisations are putting  great efforts, they are unable to reach the rural segments. I felt that there is a need for a channelized and focused platform to reach the diverse population of the country. Nonetheless, even urban people encounter  problems with digital finance, let alone the remote  ot fall prey to any scams, fraudulent activities or any other trouble. All these factors led me  to take a step forward and launch a platform where people can learn everything about finance and digital payments under one roof.

What are the various roles & responsibilities that you shoulder as the Founder of ArthShikshan?

 I am keen to understand the banking side as well as the consumer user requirements. I focus on talking to them, based on which we decide on developing core products with appropriate and relevant content, and design activities to support that knowledge. Alongside, I’m also working on creating distribution channels, marketing, and partnerships to reach the right audience. Hiring talents and managing operations are also important aspects of my role.

In your opinion, what are some of the most significant milestones that you have achieved so far?

Having started with a small women's group conducting workshops, today we are able to grow multifold through our channel partners; actively reaching at least 1000  people per month across rural towns in Maharashtra. The response from the consumers, students has been extremely positive and heartening. The confidence they gain is very evident and we have  also seen people getting jobs after completing our certification.

Prachi Kulkarni, Founder, Arthshikshan

Hailing from an engineering background in computer science, Prachi has been an IT professional for over 20+ years in the Capital Market and Fintech domain. Her exposure lies in various electronic trading platforms for the global market, right from emerging markets like Africa to developed markets like Japan and USA. She is a full-time director in Fidel Softech Ltd. And is active in daily operations.