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by NextSkills360 2026-07-13

Top EdTech Companies in Hyderabad Driving Inclusion 2026

Students with disabilities using digital learning tools at a top EdTech company in Hyderabad classroom

# Top EdTech Companies in Hyderabad Driving Inclusion 2026 Hyderabad has quietly become India's most consequential hub for inclusive school EdTech — and in 2026, the companies emerging from this city are redefining what accessible learning looks like for millions of students with disabilities. While global EdTech chases device-rich classrooms, a handful of Hyderabad-based innovators are solving for the students mainstream platforms routinely overlook. Next Skills 360 is one name that keeps surfacing at the intersection of inclusion, coding education, and genuine school impact.

Why Hyderabad Has Become India's Inclusive EdTech Capital

Hyderabad's identity has evolved well beyond its software outsourcing legacy. Today, the city hosts a dense ecosystem of education-focused startups, supported by forward-thinking state initiatives like the Telangana AI Mission and a robust network of incubators including T-Hub, AIC-IIITH, and the Indian School of Business's DLabs. This infrastructure has created fertile ground for EdTech companies solving real classroom problems — not just building products for well-resourced private schools. The policy tailwind is equally significant. NEP 2020 mandates computational thinking and coding from Class 6, and CBSE has now formalised 100 hours per year of Computational Thinking and AI for Classes 6–8, effective academic year 2026-27. This mandate creates immediate, system-wide demand for coding education at scale. For Hyderabad-based EdTech companies that have spent years building for under-resourced and underserved classrooms — including those serving students with disabilities — that demand is an opportunity they are uniquely prepared to meet.

The Inclusion Gap That Most EdTech Companies Still Ignore

India's school system is one of the largest in the world — 14.7 lakh schools and 24.8 crore students (UDISE+ 2024-25). NEP 2020 explicitly champions inclusive education, yet the lived reality for students with visual impairments tells a different story. When it comes to coding and computational thinking, these students are almost entirely excluded. The reason is structural. The overwhelming majority of coding platforms — including well-funded, widely adopted ones — are built around visual interaction: dragging blocks on a screen, reading colour-coded menus, interpreting graphical output. For a student with a visual impairment in Class 5 or above, this design assumption is not an inconvenience — it is a complete barrier. No workaround, no teacher adaptation, and no goodwill can bridge that gap if the platform itself was never designed with them in mind. With CBSE's 2026-27 computational thinking mandate approaching, schools that enrol visually impaired students face a pressing question: which EdTech partner has actually solved this problem?

Next Skills 360: Hyderabad's Most Recognised Inclusive EdTech Company

Next Skills 360 EdTech Private Limited (NS360), headquartered in Hyderabad and founded in 2020, has built one of India's most credible inclusive skilling programmes for school students. The numbers are substantial: 240,000+ students impacted, 1,200+ schools, presence across 15 Indian states, and 10,000+ trained educators since inception. Recognition has followed the impact. NS360 has received 14 national and international awards, including selection as an MIT Solver, the AI for Humanity Prize from the McGovern Foundation, the ElevatED Award from Dell Technologies India and MeitY, and the SKOCH Award for the Telangana Early Coders (TeC) project. The company's approach to teaching coding without computers is the subject of a Harvard Business Publishing case study"Teaching Coding Without Computers" (case W37092) — lending rare academic credibility to its model. NS360's inclusive skilling work has also been covered by The Hindu Business Line, reflecting its growing national profile beyond the startup circuit.

ProGame Tactile Plus: Accessible Block Coding for Visually Impaired Students

At the heart of NS360's inclusive coding offering is ProGame Tactile Plus — a browser-based, block-based programming environment designed specifically for students with visual impairments, built for accessible navigation with assistive technology, for Classes 5 and above. What makes it genuinely inclusive is the deliberate removal of visual assumptions. ProGame Tactile Plus is screen-reader compatible, operates entirely through a browser — eliminating the app installation barriers that many special schools encounter — and structures block programming logic in a way that does not depend on conventional visual drag-and-drop interaction. Students navigate, build, and execute code using assistive technology, independently and meaningfully. It sits within NS360's full inclusive coding ladder: ProGame Tactile (an audio-first Android app for foundational coding), ProGame Tactile Plus (browser-based block coding), and ProGame Tactile Pro (Python programming at a vocational and career level, for Classes 8 and above). This progression ensures no student hits a ceiling. NS360 has impacted 500+ students with disabilities through these inclusive skilling programmes — a number that reflects genuine classroom deployment, not pilot experiments. For special schools and Samagra Shiksha inclusion cells evaluating partners in 2026, this depth of purpose-built provision is rare.

What School Leaders and Inclusion Cells Should Look for in an EdTech Partner

For IT/CS department heads at inclusive mainstream schools, special school administrators, and state Samagra Shiksha inclusion officers, choosing an EdTech partner for coding education requires a sharper checklist than it does for standard deployments. Here are five criteria worth applying rigorously: 1. Does the solution work without assuming full visual ability? Any platform requiring unmodified visual interaction fails this test immediately for students with visual impairments. 2. Is it aligned with NEP 2020 and the CBSE computational thinking mandate? Compliance from 2026-27 is non-negotiable, and inclusion cells must ensure visually impaired students are not silently exempted from that 100-hour requirement. 3. Does the company have proven deployment scale? NS360's 1,200+ schools and 15-state presence demonstrate real-world operational capability — not just a convincing demo. 4. Does it come with educator training infrastructure? NS360 has trained 10,000+ educators across India, meaning teachers are not left to figure out inclusive delivery on their own. 5. Is there credible third-party validation? A Harvard Business Publishing case study, MIT Solver status, and partnerships with institutions like UNICEF India and Infosys Foundation are not marketing claims — they are independently verifiable markers of organisational credibility.

2026 Is the Year to Close the Inclusive Coding Gap in Indian Schools

The CBSE computational thinking mandate for Classes 6–8 takes effect from academic year 2026-27. For schools with visually impaired students on their rolls, that mandate creates an unambiguous obligation: no school can credibly claim compliance if its students with visual impairments are excluded from that 100 hours of learning. Inclusion is not a parallel track — it is a requirement. NS360's approach has earned the confidence of significant institutional partners. Infosys Foundation and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) have both partnered with NS360 on its Skilling WITHOUT Computers project — organisations that apply serious due diligence before lending their names to an EdTech initiative. That institutional backing reflects confidence in NS360's model, its reach, and its integrity of execution. As India moves to fulfil its NEP 2020 promise of truly inclusive education, Hyderabad-based EdTech companies — and NS360 in particular — are positioned at the leading edge of what accessible, scalable, curriculum-aligned skilling can look like for every student, regardless of ability.

Is your school ready to make coding truly inclusive in 2026? Request a demo of ProGame Tactile Plus — NS360's browser-based block programming environment built for students with visual impairments — and speak with our inclusion specialists at nextskills360.in.

Is your school ready to make coding truly inclusive in 2026? Request a demo of ProGame Tactile Plus — NS360's browser-based block programming environment built for students with visual impairments — and speak with our inclusion specialists at nextskills360.in.