July 7th, 2009, New Delhi, India: After successfully launching CBSE, PSEB, HSEB XII class, IIT-JEE and SAT courses, TopChalks.com announces another milestone in building on its vision of "Democratizing Education" in India by introducing "CATScan", an ONLINE CAT Prep Program with its partner Career Launcher India Limited. This program will provide the students with an unlimited access until Dec 31st, 2009 for an incredibly low price of Rs.800/- only

TopChalks.com and Career Launcher have designed the CATScan program to help every MBA/CAT aspirant build confidence, the necessary conceptual and reasoning foundation, the required SPEED and the much needed practice in taking the 2009 online CAT Exam successfully. With over 1000 questions and 75 hours of fully explained concepts and solutions, delivered in a ground-breaking browser based audio-visual format, every aspirant gets to practice answering questions online, instantly checking answers and getting a top-of-the-line Career Launcher Faculty to become a "personal coach" in explaining the relevant concepts and solutions.

"Every MBA/CAT aspirant can now learn from the esteemed faculty of Career launcher India Limited, from any part of India or for that matter any part of the world, by accessing the program innumerable times, 24 X 7, using just a PC or a laptop even with a low-bandwidth connection like a Data Card", says Dinesh Mehta, Founder and President of Catura Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Explaining the CATScan program benefits further, Dinesh said, "This program serves many classes of students including those who have enrolled in a formal coaching class, those who are preparing on their own using books and those who are preparing using a correspondence course because this program is available for access anytime and anywhere; from their homes, offices and internet-caf�'s".

"Our vision is to shatter the unwieldy constraints of TIME, PLACE & COST in accessing high-quality education without compromising on the time tested instructor-led classroom like instruction", he concluded.

R. Shiva Kumar (popularly known to his students as Shivku), co-founder of Career Launcher India Limited, and a significant contributor to the CAT-Scan program said, "Every CAT is full of surprises. But if you critically look at the contents there is only incremental shift, from the past year�s papers. So a critical analysis of the past papers is a "must" for every CAT aspirant. It is bound to give a huge advantage both from the perspective of preparing for the "relevant" stuff and also in managing one�s time effectively. We have provided multiple ways of solving a question based on sound concepts and reasoning, resulting in a treasure chest of tricks and short-cuts".

In addition Shivku said that over the years, the CAT exams have become extremely competitive and the difference between success and failure is literally getting just a FEW more questions right. That is why he surmised, "The CATScan program is a MUST HAVE for all CAT aspirants irrespective of their other methods of preparation".

TopChalks.com is a property of Catura Systems Inc., based in Gurgaon, India and Santa Clara, CA, USA. It is funded by one of the premiere venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley, Draper Fischer Jurvetson (DFJ) that has also funded some of the most successful companies like Skype, HotMail and Baidu among many others.

Career Launcher India Limited (CL) is Asia's leading education service provider with presence in over 130 locations across India, Middle East and the United States. CL provides test-prep education to enable school and college students gain admission to professional courses. It is also actively involved in the field of mainstream education, mainly through its growing network of play schools and secondary schools.

TopChalks.com announces a SAT/PSAT preparatory course as a compelling alternative to studying from Books or taking expensive coaching classes.

Comprehensive solution with unlimited access for only
Rs. 999/month

In order to address the need of millions of students and their families who can ill afford expensive coaching classes or private tuitions during these tough economic times, Catura Systems has launched a digital SAT/PSAT preparation solution on its education site www.topchalks.com. PSAT and SAT are critical exams that are required to be taken by every student who aspires to go to college in the United States for higher studies. This solution offers a serious alternative to learning from a multitude of dry books or expensive coaching classes by providing an interactive, engaging and truly effective audio-visual learning platform without compromising the time tested, instructor-led classroom teaching methodologies.

Over 125 hours of fully explained SAT / PSAT concepts tested in English and Math, hundreds of problems and solutions and full length interactive tests with articulated and described solutions are provided at topchalks.com at the cost of a single SAT / PSAT book. The content is created and articulated by some of the best minds from Stanford University, UC Berkeley and Caltech who have consistently scored at the 99th percentile.

Besides being a "green" solution that saves trees, every solution at topchalks.com enables the students to study at their own pace, access the content anytime, anywhere, and as many times as they need to master the material. With cool features like "hot" playback, students can play the lectures from any letter, formula, figure, image or a page in the solution. A free vocabulary tool, integrated with Google for contextual search, is also provided at topchalks.com. Catura Systems Inc. is based in Santa Clara, CA and is funded by Draper Fischer Jurvetson (DFJ), one of the premiere venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley. DFJ has funded some of the most successful companies like Skype, HotMail and Baidu among many others.

IIT-JEE Coaching from the legends; Without burning a hole in your pocket

May 1, 2009, New Delhi: Charged with a mission of "democratizing" education in India, TopChalks.com announces a comprehensive IIT-JEE preparation course online from rank-producing coaching legends like Dr. A. Majeed (author of IIT-JEE Math), Mr. R. K. Bandopadhyay (author of IIT-JEE Chemistry) & Mr. Sachin Chabra (author of IIT-JEE Physics). There are over 700 hoursof lectures in Physics, Chemistry and Math, including systematic review of concepts, an exhaustive set of problems & solutions and tests that make up the fully articulated and described IIT-JEE course at TopChalks.com. "Until now parents have had no other option but to pay exorbitant sums of money to branded institutions in order to have their wards prepare for the IIT-JEE." said Dinesh Mehta, President of TopChalks.com. "Our solution and its cost effective pricing enables every student to learn anytime, anywhere at his or her own pace." added Dinesh.

"I am thrilled that now I can impart my knowledge and help lacks of students from all over India and other parts of the world in realizing their IIT dreams." said Dr. A. Majeed. "It would be impossible for me to personally reach and teach so many students without TopChalks.com's revolutionary digital technology and I am confident that every student using this program as a part of their study strategy will immensely benefit from it." added Dr. Majeed.

"Our technology brings a better than classroom learning experience over the internet (even at low-bandwidths, like with a data card) with great user experience such as the "hot" playback feature allowing the students to play from any point in the lecture or a solution to a problem with just a click of the mouse." said Zia Siddiqui, Vice President of Market Development at TopChalks.com.

"Our goal is to provide the students with maximum flexibility and provide them with the ability to purchase the IIT-JEE Prep content up to the granularity of a single chapter in a single subject. Students can opt to buy one or more chapters, an entire subject, or all three subjects for period of one or more months, for an entire year or for two years. This makes TopChalks IIT-JEE a very compelling, flexible and an affordable solution to lacks of students including those who are attending coaching classes or taking tuitions" added Zia.

TopChalks.com is witnessing a tremendous amount of interest and excitement among students and their parents. Kiran, an IIT aspirant, said, "I have three words to describe the TopChalks IIT-JEE solution- IT IS AWESOME". Another student, Gaurav said, "I get to learn whatever topic I want, when I want and however many times I want and best of all I do not have to not pay over a lack of rupees to try and succeed in the IIT-JEE exam. I can now do it with the help of TopChalks.com and its phenomenal instructors".

One is likely to ask "What about those students who do not have a PC or an Internet connection?" To address this hurdle, Topchalks.com is offering to install their IIT-JEE preparation program on the computers within the premises of the schools where students can get access to the same content that is available on the Internet. This solution delivers the entire IIT-JEE preparation content on a Local Area Network (LAN), making it a perfect solution for in-school deployment or for deployment in learning centers.

To broaden its reach further, TopChalks.com will be launching in May, 2009, Learning Centers in Kalu Sarai, New Delhi, Ambala, Haryana and in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. These Learning Centers will be with full-fledged digital hubs offering entire content for IIT-JEE Prep, XI & XII Board Prep, CAT and SAT Prep programs, augmented with qualified faculty to provide coaching and doubt-clearing services for students.

What's next? "Our goal is to make TopChalks.com and the TopChalks Learning Centers a one-stop study destination for millions of students all over India. We will soon be launching programs for AIEEE, AIPMT and an open Forum for students to create study groups in order for them to post and answer each others doubts and questions. We believe that such collaborative environments will create a high level of retention and engage students to learn more effectively" said Dinesh Mehta.

CATURA SYSTEMS INTRODUCES WWW.TOPCHALKS.COM : CLASSROOMS WITHOUT WALLS!!

November 20th, 2008, New Delhi: If you ever missed a lecture at school or college or wanted your instructor to teach a topic just one more time, you will find www.topchalks.com an invaluable asset. Problems like chasing friends to help you with the lecture notes, seeking private tutors to cope with the exams that are just around the corner, trying to remember the lessons that were taught months ago, desperately trying to understand complex problems that you once understood are all too familiar. Sounds strange though, but with a few mouse clicks, you may now reach out to an innovative educational resource portal – “TopChalks.com”. Once there, the site itself will play the role of your friend, your class teacher or any private tutor at the same point of time. You can attend the class lectures virtually, taught by some of the best instructors in the country – word by word, variable by variable, equation by equation, repeating as many times as you want to - going through all the chapters and sections that you may have missed.

All this and more, were demonstrated and announced through a press conference held here today, during the launch of TopChalks.com. The portal was launched as a part of a bigger vision of the promoting company, Catura Broadband Systems Pvt. Ltd, that envisions to ‘Democratize today’s education’ by making education – at all levels – accessible to one and all at the most affordable rate. As a first step to meet its commitment of making available course materials of almost any courses (at any academic level, starting from the board exams to SAT, GMAT, CAT, Engineering, Medical – practically anything), the company has on offer a comprehensive curriculum based and instructor led course for CBSE XII board exam for the science stream.

TopChalks.com is an initiative taken by Mr. Dinesh Mehta and Mr. Narender Oruganti, two US based NRI entrepreneurs, both sharing the same passion of bringing a revolution in the world of education. To support the social vision of the company, leading US based venture capital firm Draper, Fisher & Jurvetson (DFJ) has joined hands with the promoters to fuel its growth and be a part of a revolution in the making.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Dinesh Mehta, Founder, President said, “If you look at the bigger picture, you will realize that in today’s time, it is hard to come by quality faculty members across any stream, as many experts find other professions more lucrative than teaching. Hence, TopChalks.com, with the ability to bring the best of the breed faculty to masses, has the potential to become an instant success by offering everyone the best course content, in any field, from the very best academicians in their respective fields or expertise.”

Mr. Oruganti pointed out, “At TopChalks.com, students may study the subject of their choice at their own pace and in their own preferred environment. Be it in the morning or in the evening or at late night, students may study the same chapter repeatedly, without feeling the pressure of mugging up pages from their text book. Every step – mathematical or otherwise – is explained with animations, diagrams and detailed references at a pace and tone to make even a first timer understand the entire chapter without referring to class notes. TopChalks.com breaks all barriers of space and time and levels the playing field for every Indian, even at the remotest of locations, to be able to learn from the best.”

At TopChalks.com, a teacher’s class-room lessons are seamlessly captured without burdening the teacher to know or learn any technology. The true scalability in this model lies in the fact that knowledge is captured once, and then made available to millions over time to consume it as many times as needed. Each course has been designed and delivered by the best of the current and former teachers from highly reputed schools in Delhi (for the portal’s first offering – the CBSE Std XII courses) such as DPS R K Puram, Air Force Bal Bharti, DPS Maruti Kunj, DPS Faridabad and Salwan Public School.

The USP of TopChalks.com lies not only in its easy usability, but also in the price that a candidate needs to pay to access it. A candidate needs to pay just Rs. 99/- per chapter (for whatever subject in CBSE XII that the student is studying) with a month long unlimited access. Keeping pace with its innovative strategies, Catura has signed an MOU with chipmaker Intel Technologies India Private Ltd and has joined Intel Powered Classmate PC WW Alliance Partner Program to offer Catura’s
 e-learning solutions on Classmate PC which is a fully functional and affordable Notebook for Learning designed specifically to accelerate localized education for students. Both TopChalks.com, an Internet based e-learning platform for students and PowerChalks, an in-class content solution for the teachers, will be available for consumption on the Intel powered Classmate PC. Catura has also moved ahead to forge various strategic alliances with leading educational institutes – schools, colleges, higher learning tutorials and technology companies and ISPs, to ensure that the best academic content may reach out to millions of aspirants across the length and breadth of the country, who may not otherwise have access to quality learning at the local educational establishments.

Its continuous effort to improve the quality, breadth and depth of content will surely transform the educational landscape and create a virtual education and training destination in TopChalks.com for the benefit of the country and the world.