Erandi Aprende App

The Erandi Aprende App is a bilingual progressive web app designed to spark curiosity and a love for STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, art and math) in Hispanic girls aged 8-12. Erandi, the AI "amiga" (friend), uses natural language processing to understand girls' questions. It creates a fun and engaging space for girls to explore science and technology through open-ended questions and projects. Erandi personalizes the learning journey by asking questions, explaining concepts, and suggesting activities based on the girl's interests. This helps girls grasp new concepts and see the connection between their interests and future careers in STEM. The app also allows girls to create and work on self-defined projects, encouraging them to imagine, create, and reflect on their own inventions. In addition, parents get reports showing their daughter's progress and suggestions for ways to extend the learning experience.

By facilitating connections between science, technology, personal interests, and everyday experiences, we cultivate self-guided learning abilities and a genuine enthusiasm for STEAM subjects. Our goal is to empower users to explore the diverse opportunities within these fields, ultimately increasing participation rates and inspiring confidence in pursuing STEAM careers. All in all, the Erandi Aprende App is just the beginning, as we aim to develop what we call STEAMLand, a place for everyone in the science and technology world while building a bridge between the physical and digital worlds.

The Erandi Aprende App, directly impacts Hispanic communities in the US by addressing the educational needs of Hispanic girls aged 8-12, a demographic often underrepresented in STEM fields. Through collaborations with esteemed partners and local councils on science and technology, we've positively impacted the lives of 25,000 young minds in Mexico and the US. In regions like Bexar, Harris, and Dallas counties in Texas (our current work is based in Harris county), LA, Riverside, and San Diego counties in California, Miami-Dade County in Florida, and Maricopa County in Arizona, our focus on Hispanic communities aims to bridge the accessibility gap in STEM education.

The Hispanic population constitutes the largest and fastest-growing minority in the US, with one in four children being Hispanic, totaling 6.7 million young girls under 15. By providing accessible and engaging STEAM content in both English and Spanish, Erandi Aprende ensures that we are combating persistent gender norms and low engagement in traditional education broader, as well as access and engagement among priority learners and their educators. Our solution not only caters to underserved populations but also addresses language barriers and cultural relevance, fostering sustained engagement and personalized learning opportunities for Hispanic girls and their families.

Erandi tackles traditional assessment limitations for underserved communities, particularly girls, through its AI-powered approach. Unlike methods focused on single answers, Erandi leverages AI to evaluate open-ended responses, allowing girls to express their unique perspectives. Furthermore, the AI acts as a personalized guide, posing questions ("scaffolding") to encourage creative problem-solving and deeper thinking within STEM. Erandi prioritizes the learning journey over a single "correct" answer, assessing the process a learner takes to solve challenges. This fosters a growth mindset and allows girls to learn from their thought processes, making Erandi a powerful tool for inclusive and engaging STEAM education.

We are uniquely positioned to deliver this solution since we have firsthand experience with the problem we are solving. Miroslava and Hope have faced the challenges of being the sole female representatives in STEM fields, while Andrea and Elissa have grappled with gender roles and impostor syndrome, leading them to opt out of pursuing careers in these areas. These personal experiences underscore our commitment to ensuring that future generations do not encounter the same obstacles.

Furthermore, our team's diverse backgrounds contribute to a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving, allowing us to leverage specialized expertise effectively. Miroslava, a full-stack developer, collaborates with Hope, our UX-UI designer, on product development  and user testing. Andrea, with a background in social sciences, focuses on sales, public relations, and partnership building. Elissa, leveraging her communication background, oversees communications, social media, marketing, customer support, and community management.

In fact, Andrea, Miroslava, and Elissa are Hispanic themselves and two of them live in Harris county, providing us with a deeper understanding of our target demographic since we can have direct interactions with our ideal customers. With remote work spanning Mexico and the US, we harness a broad spectrum of perspectives to drive innovation and ensure our solution resonates with and meets the needs of our diverse audience.

Besides, We prioritize community involvement throughout the development of our app. We actively engage Hispanic girls aged 8-12 and their mothers from the beginning. This ensures the app addresses their specific needs and interests. As an example, we hold fun events called "fiestas" (parties) where families and girls can learn about STEAM subjects together. These fiestas help us understand what girls are interested in learning and inspire new features in the app.

In 2020, we initially offered STEAM kits, courses, and workshops, where we impacted over 25,000 young individuals across Mexico and the US. However, scalability and personalization were limited. Thus, with the rise of LLMs, we developed the Erandi Aprende App, launching on March 8th, 2024 for Betta Users. Since then we have acquired over 130 users through various marketing strategies, leveraging existing networks, and organic growth. We now have 20 active users who consistently engage with our platform, asking questions, spending an average of 10 minutes per session, and sharing their details for upcoming fee implementation in June.

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Erandi Aprende takes a groundbreaking approach to igniting STEAM curiosity and engagement in Hispanic girls aged 8-12. Unlike traditional, passive methods, Erandi puts the learner in the driver's seat. This open-ended exploration allows girls to ask anything and be redirected to engaging STEAM learning paths, fostering a love of discovery. Furthermore, Erandi empowers them to go beyond rote learning by creating their own projects. The impact is evident – we've witnessed the positive change firsthand when speaking to parents. They consistently remark that they haven't seen their daughters engaged in any other learning activity.

Besides, we have developed a targeted solution for underrepresented communities. Our commitment to supporting Hispanic learners, is exemplified by the development of our culturally responsive AI Amiga that will enable us to develop greater capacity to engage Hispanic audiences in science, technology, engineering, and math. Our initiative ensures equitable access to personalized STEAM learning experiences, addressing a critical gap in the edtech market. Hispanics account for 19% of the US population, with one out of four children being Hispanic and represent the vast majority of the population in Latin America. These students face significant educational challenges compared to other demographics in the US, and Latin American Countries score low compared to other mid income countries who participated in the PISA (Programe for International Student Assessment) test; especially in regard to reading comprehension, mathematical and science abilities. Given the lack of targeted Edtech solutions for this demographic, our app fills a crucial gap, making a meaningful impact on Hispanic students' educational outcomes.

Third, we have focused on creating a differentiated product. We intentionally depart from the common edtech approach, avoiding overly gamified experiences that may lead to addictive behaviors and overstimulation. Instead, our app emphasizes genuine enjoyment and intellectual growth, providing parents with a transparent view of engagement. Our goal is to cultivate a lifelong passion for learning and a strong affinity for knowledge, unlike many Edtech products focused solely on short-term outcomes. Our holistic educational approach incorporates guided project-based learning, critical thinking exercises, bilingual vocabulary definition, and STEM question answers, catering to diverse learning styles and interests. This sets us apart from other Edtech solutions and enhances user satisfaction, particularly in re-engaging learners post-pandemic,  a concern many parents struggle with.

Lastly, our venture focuses on fostering enhanced parental involvement. Recognizing the pivotal role of parents in their child's education, we offer insights, tips, and activities to support parental involvement. By deeply understanding parents' needs and prioritizing effective parental engagement, we differentiate ourselves in the Edtech landscape.

At the heart of our solution is a Progressive Web App (PWA), which ensures seamless accessibility and the potential for offline functionality, catering to learners from diverse backgrounds. Leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon Lex, for natural language processing (NLP), our AI "amiga" Erandi is empowered to comprehend and respond to girls' inquiries, fostering an intuitive and engaging learning environment. Moreover, we integrate AI models (Anthropic, Claude) to enrich the app's capabilities to answer open-ended questions and redirect to relevant STEM topics, suggest tailored activities, and elucidates concepts in alignment with each girl's unique interests and comprehension level. 

In a recent study by Jamil & Hameed (Expert Systems With Applications, issue 231, 2023), it's noted that assessing students' learning outcomes can be tough for teachers as students learn more. Some AI models have been proposed to help, but they often can't adapt well to changes, especially with open-ended learning, which lowers their accuracy. These models also use basic methods for comparing answers, making them less precise.

To address this, we will utilize Jamil & Hameed's learnings by using a predictive optimization approach. We will use a deep neural network to learn from data and then adjust it using particle swarm optimization and gradient descent. Initially, we'll use deep learning to compare students' answers to correct ones, using techniques like semantic similarity scoring. This will help us measure how close the answers are in meaning and creativity. We'll then use standard measures like Precision and Recall to make sure our system is grading accurately. Ultimately, our goal is to accurately grade learners’ answers and provide them with necessary feedback to continue with their project through our app.

Our approach to ensuring equity and addressing bias in AI implementation is multifaceted. We begin by deeply understanding the diverse backgrounds and requirements of our learners, achieved through our community building fiestas and analyzing their interactions within the app. This direct engagement enables us to gather valuable insights for tailoring our solution effectively. 

To combat algorithmic bias, we maintain strict oversight over our development and implementation processes, ensuring diverse and inclusive datasets and conducting regular audits to detect and address biases for Hispanic children. Additionally, we prioritize the development of scaffolding within our prompt engineering process, providing structured support and guidance tailored to individual needs. Recognizing the importance of age-appropriate vocabulary, especially for young learners, we adapt our language and prompts to optimize engagement and comprehension, ultimately enhancing the language acquisition process.

We have 5 people working on the solution and two advisors. Out of the 5 employees, the two founders work full time and the other three on a volunteer basis. The list goes as it follows: 

• Andrea Remes (co-Foudner & CEO): Full-time
• Miroslava Rodriguez (co-Foudner & CTO): Full-time
• Javier Olán (Senior Developer): Volunteer
• Hope Myers (UX|UI): Volunteer
• Elissa Casas (Communications): Volunteer
• Barry O'Neill: Advisor
• Metta World Peace: Advisor

As mentioned beforehand we are currently refining our Beta prototype, which is currently functional and being tested by initial users. We aim to enhance the user experience and address any bugs or issues identified during this testing phase. By continuously collecting feedback and insights from our beta testers, we will iteratively improve the app in preparation for its first public launch on June 8th. 

Following the initial launch, we plan to monitor the app's performance closely on a monthly basis. This includes assessing user feedback, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing necessary updates, features, and enhancements to enhance the overall user experience. Our goal is to ensure that the app meets the needs of our target audience and delivers a seamless and engaging learning environment. 

To track our progress towards these goals, we will maintain detailed records of user feedback, bug reports, and development milestones. Additionally, we will regularly review key performance indicators (KPIs) such as user engagement metrics, app store ratings, and retention rates to measure the app's success and effectiveness. By staying responsive to user feedback and continuously iterating on our product, we are confident that we will be pilot-ready within the next year and positioned for long-term success in the market.

To ensure our solution is available, accessible, and affordable to priority learners at scale, we have developed a multi-faceted approach. Firstly, we are committed to offering our application across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, and web-based versions, to maximize accessibility for learners with various devices and connectivity options. Additionally, we are exploring partnerships with schools, community centers, and educational organizations to provide access to our solution in underserved communities.

To address affordability, we are implementing a tiered pricing model that offers both free and premium subscription options. The free version provides essential features and content, while the premium subscription offers additional benefits and advanced features at a reasonable cost. Furthermore, we are actively seeking funding and grants to subsidize or waive subscription fees for learners from low-income backgrounds.

In terms of scalability, we are leveraging cloud-based infrastructure and scalable technologies to accommodate growing user demand without compromising performance or accessibility. By utilizing cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), we can dynamically scale our resources to meet increasing usage requirements while maintaining affordability and accessibility.

We are applying to this challenge to make our wildest dreams come true: help bridge the STEAM gender gap, build confidence and create engagement in STEAM education while working alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MIT network. Our social venture is composed of technology at its core and we have used MIT education methodologies to develop the latter. Thus, we are aware of the fact that having the support and knowledge from experts from both organizations  (especially having mentorship from experts in AI for creative learning and the edtech world) will allow us to continue developing our “STEAMLand '' with a more thorough and sound scope.

As our app is in the pilot stage, sales funnel conversion rates, growing our team and community (that supports us in our efforts of developing "STEAMLand"), product market fit and selecting the best technologies remain our main concerns. We believe that we would benefit from all the help provided by your network to be able to build, grow and continue developing our business in order to reach more girls, support them to turn into remarkable STEAMers and ensure that the team becomes recognized in the STEAM e-learning domain.