In any playground where both parents are present, you will find fathers encouraging the child to swing just a little higher, ride their bike just a little faster, throw the disc just a little harder. While moms will be encouraging the child to be careful. Mothers protect and fathers encourage children to push the limits. Unknowingly both are teaching their children something in their own way. Hence,
fathers are just as essential to healthy child development as mothers.

This is why today fathers have plunged into the daycare industry to make a difference with the vision to make it safe, secure and well rounded.

Mr Alok Kumar Modi, Chairman, Maple Bear India & South Asia Region : He is a young technocrat and entrepreneur. Mr. Modi belongs to one of India’s foremost business conglomerates  -The Modi Group of Companies. Through Maple Bear, Mr. Modi endeavours to allow every parent to hold onto the promise of bringing out the independent thinker and problem solver in their child with the confidence to succeed in all walks of life, and to ensure their child’s future is in safe hands.”

Emron Samuel, Founder Director, The Learning Curve :  He is a Chartered Accountant with decades of experience in Banking, Finance and Mutual Funds at top-tier firms like J.M. Financial Investment Banking, Standard Chartered and Tata Mutual Fund.  Emron Looked at the poor infrastructure and facilities that his kids got during their preschooling days, and he was very clear what he wanted to build a brand for the next generation of Kids.  He emphasizes he has learned from the mistakes he made when his kids were in preschool & he did not bother to check the curriculum, cleanliness at school, relevant teachers, the right food, etc which we have tried to capture at the Learning Curve.

Aditya Khurana, Head of Strategy, M & A, Key Accounts, Klay Prepschool & Daycare : Aditya did his Masters from XLRI Jamshedpur & started his career with ITC. After 6+ years with Citibank & Avendus Capital, he decided to follow his passion for education & joined The Little Company team which is now part of Klay.

He further reinstates the importance of fathers playing an active role in the daycare sector by suggesting that fathers bring in their unique skills. He adds that “Every child has two parents and the recognition that both have a role to play is hugely beneficial for a child. As a parent, I have built this environment first for my own child. Hence I believe we have a much better understanding of what is important to parents of children of this age group. This business requires both heart and brains to work in parallel as just a ‘business’ view point or just an ‘all hearts’ perspective will not create either a sustainable or suitable unit. As dads I think we get a unique blend of both”.

Raghavan Jawahar, Co Founder & Director Amelio Early Education : He is an economics graduate and has a Master’s in Econometrics, also from Madras University. He was into advertisement sales in the media and then got into leather trading, before heading to Hong Kong. It was the brain child of his wife Sridevi and he partnered with her to launch Amelio aiming to ameliorate the situation of working mothers in India. They were also inspired by a curriculum method called Reggio Emilia, which is an Italian method that involves the participation of families and community to create a vibrant early childhood care and education system.

Pranab Saxena, Head of Business Development, Ipsaa Daycare : Pranab Leads the corporate tie-ups vertical and also key initiatives in sales and marketing for IPSAA Daycare. He shares his reason of joining the daycare sector “As a child I remember the harrowing time that me and my sister had to go through for after school day-care since both my parents were in the evening teaching profession and there were no reliable and quality crèches around then. Many years later when me and my wife became parents – we found ourselves on similar crossroads which eventually led my wife to give up her high paying career to rear our son! The opportunity to join Ipsaa – a Premium Pan India day-care and preschool came at the right time. I opted for this assignment because of my own personal struggle with childcare and getting a chance to help countless similar working couples across the country cope up with this challenge and get a new life line support to sustain their careers yet be able to ensure un-compromised love, care and attention for their little children!”

Sujay Bharatiya, CoFounder, ChicaNino Childcare : He is IIT IIM Alumnus and worked for 11 years in the corporate world, however  parenthood provided him much needed inspiration for co-founding ChicaNiño with Mohit. He shares his unique reason of getting involved into the
daycare business and starting a daycare with a unique vision “ As a parent, I was not happy with the fact that the daycare my son went to, it did not give him the choice on how he wanted to spend his day. The long term detrimental effect of this; something seemingly so innocuous, drove me into getting into the business of daycare with a completely differentiated vision – that of being fair to the child. As a dad, I realised that the customer, the mother , thinks through everything and would expect the same out of anyone she entrusts her child with and this drives me to stay unassuming and seek constant betterment”.

These fathers are truly changing the rules of the daycare industry as its always been  women dominated. On one hand these fathers are driving the daycare industry, on the other hand there are other fathers who are using the benefits these daycare are providing for the betterment of their children.

— Anshika Srivastava, Digital Marketing Lead, ProEves –