In my second year of college, I knew starting a company (and that too a deep tech company) is something I am going to pursue in my life. And after that nothing else mattered. I was never distracted. After spending a year figuring out (mostly sitting in college library, youtube & a dozen of projects in my laptop) what to build, I couldn't come up with anything that was big, hard and as challenging as i was looking for. What happens is a thing of the future – But I was sure that I wasn't looking for something small or open a shop in the corner of the internet. I wanted something ambitious and insanely impactful.

An observation I made was – everyone is complaining about education. Parents, teachers, students – all of them. There is always a debate about whether a college degree is a good idea or not! (I know people still do go to college). My whole life has been about education. Either I am studying or I am teaching. To educate myself, I have been through a lot.(First person to go to college in my family). So. I challenged myself.

Can education be disrupted or a better education system be made ?

This was the year when online Edtech and MOOCs were all over the internet. For me it was hard to make sense out of these startups. My hypothesis was – What is that it is replacing ? Does it even measure learning ? And the most important part – where is the student in the product ? The feedback loop is slow or dead. The content is static.

I kept questioning.

Rather than building – product or MVP – I set myself for understanding education. It's structure. It's role in society. The kid/student. The teachers.

I kept researching. What are the fundamental factors in education ? How is it serving society ? And, given the technology at hand, what will the next version of the education system look like?

After seven years … Now I have got something.

This all started during my college days. I used to teach students to support myself. Given my age at that time, it was easy to become more of a friend to the students. Many times, I used to go to dinner with the families I was teaching. Students would open up to me as they would open up to a friend. They would share about their study, school, and friends. I would listen and try to figure out what differentiates between a good student and an average student. I have had excellent students who would score easily in the neighborhood of 90%. I have had students who would do moderate, about 60-80%, and be happy with that. I have had students who would struggle just to pass. It was hard to see their pain.

I started asking.

What can we do for the kids? How can we help them? How do they need us? I would talk to students privately and ask whether they even like to study. I remember one student who scored 94 out of 100 in Maths. He confessed to me that he didn't like math and would only do it till the exam. And he took the law afterward. I remember one more student. A very bright and confident kid, and scoring 80% was always easy for him. But he ended up having a lower score in the exam (73 out of 100) in maths. One other girl I remember scoring 82 in science, who literally failed in preboards. One particular student I was teaching last year, has rejected even taking a tutor. Honestly, I liked his confidence. But, he scored 92%. I taught almost 200+ students over the period of 10 years in private one-on-one sessions.

The one thing I found was that no two students were the same. They all had their own pattern, shortcomings, and strengths. They are at a point in their life where they need genuine care and attention. At this age it's hard to manage emotions, consistency and discipline. And they need help. And the help they needed was different for different students. And this help is not just for helping them to get great marks but to build character to face challenges in life.

My search started with these interactions.

I started listing factors that would affect them.

Does one student enjoy learning more than others? Surprisingly, if we consider the early study, the answer is no. Initially, they all would enjoy the new concept almost similarly. It is when things get a little complicated that they take different routes. Some would struggle and persist, and some would leave it for another day. There is the difference. The key learning was that there is not much difference, between the student who just passes and the other who scores 90% comfortably, in the beginning.

The difference occurred in the minor issues.

Do they have someone to get help? If they do, what was the patience level of the help they received? I have seen students sitting for hours (8-10 hours) during exam time and yet not getting enough marks. Even with the students who scored better, they would sit and work and read the content unnecessarily. Some students perform well with less time.

The major issues were not associated with the exam or subjects but rather with the behavior and nature of help they received from family, teachers, and friends. The kind of books and tests they did.

To name some issues.

Getting help at the right time comes to number one. You will be surprised to know that only 8% of students ask for help from teachers, 92% are failing in silence.

I have seen that most students would try but lose interest as soon as there are some issues. That is understandable given the age and nature. And here they get the gap.. Delaying help simply widens the gap. More than 60% of students do nothing when they encounter an issue.

Doubts get aggregated and this becomes hard to overcome. And, over a period of time you would find two different kinds of students. A high-performing student is one who gets help, and a low-performing student is the student who couldn't get help at the right time. It's the timing that plays a very big role. I was surprised to see that this was only slightly correlated with money.

Maintaining consistency for a long time was the major factor. A simple consistency of 1 hour could just make a difference of 20-30% in the exam. Another factor here was how things like revision, tests, and practice were managed over the period of a year.

Most of the time, I have seen students just get tasks thrown at them without much prior thought. They get it because they all get it. They do it because the school says it or coaching has instructed them. There is no consideration on why and what they are studying. How is the content related to their goal?

The third major issue was how we guide their difficulty level. This one is one of the most important issues and yet ignored entirely.

You can not bend them too much, as they might start hating it. This is what happens mostly when they are just said to do a set of questions without individually judging their level.The topper of the class may enjoy it but the back bencher won't even open the book. At the same time, we can not leave them alone as they are kids. We have to guide them in a way that is slightly difficult that they will be able to solve and then gradually guide them from basic to boards to jee main to advance. And then "The sky is the limit."

If I summarize everything in a few lines, it would be.

With these experiences, and with the aim that every child experiences joy, in learning. I spent researching technical solutions for more than 5 years. Going through psychology, curriculum framework, learning, and many aspects of behaviour, We have designed algorithms and architecture to tackle the issue described above. Our AI tutor has empathy of a tutor and the precision of the code. We have coded for the "patience help" student needs.

That smile when a student learns something. That smile when they understand the question on their own. My mission is that every child can experience that smile and joy again and again. And in that process, they achieve the best of their potential.