Abstract  

Amable, a Bangalore-based children’s education organization, was co-founded by Ratnesh and Aditi Mathur, a husband–wife duo who wanted to provide innovative education to children. Amable was started as Geniekids in 2002 at Indiranagar in Bangalore, which organized summer and weekend programs for children. Geniekids developed a Train The Trainer (TTT) program, which enabled a continuous stream of high quality faculty and also provided an additional revenue stream to the organization. By 2004, Geniekids had a critical mass of parents who were ready to enroll their children in a school based on Geniekids learning philosophy. Geniekids initiated full-time learning programs for pre-primary children; and by 2009, this was expanded to children in 6–14 years age group through Aarohi Life Education. Aarohi operated as a trust and Geniekids continued to operate as a for-profit organization. In 2013 Geniekids renamed itself as ‘‘Amable’’, which was derived from the words ‘‘I am able’’.

The core team at Amable believed that children have the ability to learn from and for life, and therefore have the capacity to make choices on what, when, how, and how much they want to learn. Amable envisioned an ideal learning environment to be a place where the child chooses his/her goals (curriculum), paces him(her)self, and assesses him(her) self vis-à-vis his (her) goals. Amable had several programs, which enabled reaching out to children, parents, and teachers. Children’s programs were designed to make learning a process of self-discovery. Other programs included TTT programs, parent counseling sessions, workshops for parents, etc.

Changing demographics of Indiranagar had reduced the number of participants and Amable was actively looking at options such as conducting programs at residential complexes and company premises to increase its reach. Ratnesh and his team looked at the challenge of spreading ‘‘organic education’’ in a sustainable manner. They wanted entrepreneurs to become Amable community members and spread the philosophy. What should be the ethos of such community of edu-entrepreneurs? Amable wanted parents to have the option of an alternative organic education across the country. First step towards influencing adoption was to create awareness. Then for the aware, Amable will need to make their services easy to consume.

Learning Objective

The case can be used to assist in the teaching of core or advanced Marketing courses at an MBA or executive MBA program. The case is suitable for teaching marketing of services, marketing for not-for-profit organizations, service delivery models, and also in courses related to entrepreneurship.