Across India, 180 million children start school already behind—and struggle to catch up. While resources are poured into schools, learning does not begin or end there. Homes, where learning often happens - with parents and siblings around a kitchen table, are left under-resourced.
This is where the real gap lies.
Parents are a child’s first teachers, and across communities, we consistently see deep aspiration for children to succeed. But many—especially those with low literacy—lack the tools, confidence, and guidance to support learning. No one has designed solutions for them.
National surveys confirm that by age 10, more than half of India’s children cannot read a simple story or solve basic math—a loss of both human potential and national progress.
Yet the opportunity is clear. With 86 percent of households now using digital devices, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to reimagine learning—not just in schools, but in homes. Decades of research show that when parents are equipped and engaged, outcomes improve dramatically.
Top Parent is a simple, daily home-learning app, designed to fill this missing layer—transforming every home into a classroom and every parent into a teacher, unlocking learning where it matters most: in the everyday interactions between a parent and a child.
Top Parent is a free mobile app that equips parents with high quality resources and strategies to support their young children (3-10 years) at home designed for parents and children together.
Top Parent caters specifically to the needs of underserved communities with a human centered design, vernacular (Hindi & Marathi) interface, audio supported activities and accessible on low end mobile phones.
Once onboarded, each child begins with a simple assessment that identifies their current learning level. Based on this, the app creates a personalized learning journey with short stories/videos, gamified worksheets and live classes, aligned to foundational literacy & numeracy competencies.
Parents receive simple, practical guidance—short “view and do” videos, and strategies for their child’s holistic development. To sustain engagement, parents receive regular WhatsApp nudges—reminders, encouragement, and activity suggestions that fit into their daily routines. Progress is tracked through continuous assessments, with easy-to-understand report cards that help parents see how their child is improving.
Through our AI backed multilingual chatbot and voice-enabled tools, parents can access real-time audio support —making the platform more accessible for caregivers with low textual literacy.
In practice, this means learning does not stop at school—it continues at home enabling parents to play an active role as their child’s first teacher.
Top Parent has spread through a hybrid model that combines organic digital growth with deep community partnerships.
On the demand side, we have built a strong direct-to-parent (B2C) engine - self-serve, low-cost, fast. Parents adopt, share with neighbours, build habits. The app is freely available on the Play Store and has grown to over a million active users with high retention driven by engaging, relevant content. Designed for Bharat, its lightweight, vernacular, and audio-supported interface enables rapid adoption even among low-literacy families.
In parallel, we deepen our impact through partnerships with grassroots organizations and community networks (B2B2G/C), embedding Top Parent within existing systems that already have trust on the ground. Collaborations with organizations like Ahvaan Trust and Hand in Hand India enable us to reach families at the last mile, supported by on-ground facilitators who build trust and drive adoption.
This hybrid model allows us to combine the speed of digital scale with the depth of community engagement—ensuring both - reach and sustained usage across diverse contexts.
Importantly, this reach is translating into measurable learning gains. An independent study by Educational Initiatives found: that children using Top Parent learned 1.37× faster than their peers; 67% of children who started at the lowest performance levels reached grade-level proficiency; and improvements in 9 of 11 numeracy skills.
Since its launch, Top Parent has evolved continuously based on user behaviour, feedback, and evidence from the field.
In the early stages, we focused on building a lightweight, accessible app for low-income families. As we scaled, we saw that access alone was not enough—sustained engagement required ongoing motivation and support. This led us to introduce behavioural nudges via WhatsApp, which significantly improved participation and use consistency.
In response to the Covid-19 Pandemic we integrated an accelerated learning framework which is an adaptive learning journey – that meets children where they are. We also expanded our content formats to include live sessions, blended learning and story-telling modules along with motivational elements like the ability to earn badges and Top Coins, ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ styled quizzes.
Recently, we have integrated AI to enhance personalization and accessibility—through tailored nudges, real-time support for parents via a multilingual chatbot, and voice-enabled features for low-literacy users.
We have also expanded across languages, adding Marathi alongside Hindi, and extended our learning offering to Grades 4 and 5, helping us scale more inclusively.
Each of these changes has been driven by a simple principle: staying close to the user. By continuously learning from how families engage with Top Parent, we have been able to evolve into a more responsive, inclusive, and effective learning tool.
Getting started with Top Parent is simple – Top Parent is accessible anywhere in India and requires only a basic android smartphone.
Parents can download the app for free from the Google Play Store. Once registered using a phone number, they are guided through a quick onboarding process, including a short introductory video that explains how to use the app.
From there, families can begin using the app right away. Children engage with short videos, worksheets, and activities, while parents receive holistic guidance on how to support learning at home. No prior digital or educational experience is required, as the app is designed to be intuitive, audio-supported, and available in the vernacular.
Parents also receive optional WhatsApp messages that provide reminders, tips, weekly report cards and encouragement to stay engaged. These nudges help families build small, consistent learning habits within their daily routines.
For partner organizations, Top Parent can be easily integrated into existing programs, with deep-links created to allow for program specific downloads with simple onboarding support and access to dashboards to track engagement and progress.
In practice, all it takes is a phone, a few minutes a day, and a willingness to engage—Top Parent does the rest.
