Malavika, a first semester MBA student at Anna University in Coimbatore is one of the 75,000 happy and surprised students of Anna University Coimbatore today. She never expected that the results would be announced in just 15 days from the day she had finished her exams. Malavika even got her marks sheets printed and delivered with her photograph and with an authentication code embedded that makes her certificate worthy among millions of such certificates. “Thanks to the university for announcing the results so soon. I can now plan my next semester with peace without worrying about exams results any more. Even for my seniors in the final semester this would be a boon, as it will enhance their prospects in the job market. Earlier, for many, the delay in announcing results meant losing a chance to apply for higher studies. Now the situation has changed,” says elated Malavika.

Indeed, there is a silent revolution under way. Today the novel software suite, ‘intelliEXAMS’, developed by the Bangalore headquartered Mindlogicx, a player in the knowledge management and delivery domain, handles the complete life cycle of Anna University’s high-stake semester examinations. The system totally automates all the examination processes like electronic delivery of question papers in a secured network just few minutes before commencement of the examinations, enable digital evaluation of handwritten answer scripts, provides facility for result processing and publication, prints mark sheets and degree certificates with unique Global Access Code to eliminate faking of the certificates besides allowing college authorities to generate and print hall tickets online along with the photograph of students embedded, thus completely eliminating impersonation problems. In addition to this the system efficiently handles program management, fee and attendance uploading, distributed authoring of question bank etc. Dr. R.Radhakrishnan, Vice Chancellor of the Anna University believes, “This would herald a new digital trend that showcases the power of IT in the education space, virtually in a transparent, efficient, and foolproof manner.”

Suresh Elangovan, CEO of Mindlogicx has a strong reason to feel proud. He believes that the solution can rejuvenate the higher education system built over the past about two centuries. When Elangovan founded Mindlogicx in 2002, he intended to build a business, which should revolutionize the knowledge space. A successful IT consultant - who happens to be a die-hard admirer of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy - with a vision of delivering technology to a common man is now all set to build a great company in knowledge domain. “If you see the evolution of any successful company, you see a great vision behind it. It might be the solving of an existing problem or addressing an untapped opportunity. In our case both are true,” says a prideful Elangovan.

Addressing The Problem, Social Impact

From a university perspective, conducting hassle free examinations has been a Herculean task. There are over 367 universities across India and over 18,000 colleges, half a million teachers, 11 million students, 1,500 management colleges, 3,500 engineering colleges, and 1,200 medical colleges. Each university, on an average, conducts over 650 examinations in different subjects during summer and about 500 in the winter every year. And also there are several other institutions and government bodies, which conduct various competitive examinations, which are being attended by lakhs of candidates every year (See Table). Imagine if technology could help save billions of rupees, all universities and institutions put together, which are spent on conducting examinations and on several related activities, which are now carried out the traditional way, and also help them in making their students’ future even brighter. “Certainly technology has been doing it,” asserts Dr. Radhakrishnan.