Reimagining education for a better future.
Education is the core of a society above which everything is built on.
A good education is essential for the strong foundation of the society. It is not limited to the classroom and exams. Its main focus is to build character and help build decision making skills. Its main purpose is to – help an individual live a better life. A happy life.
An attempt was always made to improve education whenever a new technology came to surface. We put education on the radio. We put it on television. We then went on the internet. Regardless, nothing major has happened. Education still remains inefficient and expensive. After the Gutenberg printing press no major event happened in education.
The reason Gutenberg helped is “it was the first time knowledge can be stored, transmitted and accessed for a large number of people.” The process still remained the same. We brought structure such as a schooling system. We brought measurements such as examinations. And society kept adding to what we call today “an education system.”
An attempt to solve learning and build a better system for education using computers have been made through the last half century. From Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI), Computer-Based Training (CBT) to ITS (intelligent tutoring system). Many types of digital dictionaries and devices have also been tried. Some of them are useful as well.
Last decade was full of effort trying to improve education. Schools, colleges, coachings and all stakeholders of the education system tried to include technology to improve education. From Management software to online education. MOOCs, recorded video and quiz based systems. MOOCs offered a great way to connect with lots of learners to quality educators but it lacked — retention. The majority of the students never complete the course they start. Additionally, MOOCs are mostly static in nature. An individual is still left with doubts, and issues with being regular.
Then came artificial intelligence, especially LLMs in the last 5 years. Many attempts have been made to use LLMs to enhance study outcomes. But given the limitations with reasoning and world model – They remain somewhat less effective. Additionally, they struggle with hallucination and reliability remains a big question.
In 2019, after dropping out of college I put myself for the task of figuring out the next version of the education system. I was highly inspired by the thought of Henry Ford. He had himself a dream to build a universal car and the result of that was – Model T. I kept wandering for almost two years. I was trying to come up with the hypothesis for education.
"What would a truly universal education system look like? What would be its characteristics? How will it function? What would a truly universal education system look like? What are its fundamental characteristics, and how must it function to serve every person?"
So, we set out on a mission to give our best.
In 2021 we started our journey to solve the problem of education for every person in the world. Rather than just jumping on building products and using all sorts of startup jargon (MVP or other) we first set on a mission to – Understand education, its need and how an individual person would have his education in order to achieve his best. We studied and researched for four years. We deep dived into Computer based technologies (CBT, Intelligent tutoring systems, etc), psychology, and many other aspects of education and learning. We also deeply studied the great educators such as Benjamin Bloom's 2-sigma problem, Maria Montessori, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Jerome Bruner, Richard Feynman and other great educators.
Our key finding was that most of the highly successful people are self taught. They had a self passion. They do need a teacher, books and all are important. But the major goal is to find where an individual person feels ease in learning and feel passionate about. As our education system is mostly standardized it lefts out individuality. Individual way of thinking, learning and setting their personal goals. It is not an easy problem.
We also found the major difference between a really good student and a student who is performing poorly doesn’t happen instantly. It occurs over a very long period of time and from the early day of studies. It takes slight deliberate effort to be good in any subject. It also takes a long time for students to perform poorly if proper attention is not given. The same gets reflected in the students' day to day life.
We found the system – exams and tests, are equally inefficient. The gap between learning a concept, validating whether a student has learned and then awarding the student – all have gaps between them. If possible, it should have happened instantly.
We also found one major issue – with accountability. Parents think their work is done if they send kids to good schools and pay. Teachers have their autonomy. Exams just simply decide based on one exam day performance. There is no single fix point or person who can take accountability. Though this is a social problem, it is worth exploring for technological solution.
We believe education shapes the way we live our live. It's a continuous and life long process.
We believe the best education system will be the one who will nurture an individual and cater his needs uniquely. Help them to think. And most importantly – have a happy and fulfilled life.
Our four years of research have some great results. We have figured out how to build an AI home tutor which is reliable and trustworthy. As our core is different from current trends (LLMs and deep learning) which provides us shield from hallucination. In future we will be fully able to mimic a teacher's behaviour in a private one-on-one session. Ultimately building an UNIVERSAL AI Tutor to cater any need of knowledge.
And this is just the beginning. We are bringing innovation to all aspects of education.
We are reimagining how the education system entirely can be built from the first principle. A universal education system.
One step at a time.
We are a Gurugram based tech startup.