Edulabs by I'deffect Limited

Problem: The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technology in Caribbean high/secondary schools. Because of its sudden onset, there was not a structured approach to digital learning which forced teachers to utilize multiple technologies to create and disseminate learning content and provide feedback to students.   

Solution: Edulabs employs the Personalized Eduvelopment Plan, as a mechanism to support students through a system of analytics and personalisation. Teachers are able to:

• In conjunction with students can collaborate to create academic goals and tailored teaching strategies, 
• Create and deliver learning materials through a unified platform and
• Provide feedback on student progress through learning analytics.
• Provide advice to students on careers most suited based on academic skills & behaviors displayed.   

If scaled globally, this solution has the potential to assist teachers in helping their students realize their full potential, given they would have access to a comprehensive profile of the student.  

Secondary school teachers who teach in an online learning environment, feel discouraged/frustrated because the preparation of teaching material takes on average > 3 hours to prepare (presentation, video, notes, quizzes, homework, feedback, career advice etc.). To deal with this, teachers utilize on average 3 or more platforms for delivering content of differing types to students, despite this being a disjointed and complex process.

I'deffect surveyed approximately 100 high school teachers within Trinidad and Tobago. Approximately 70% of teachers who responded indicated that the delivery of educational content is unstructured and they utilize three or more education platforms to create and disseminate educational content, assessments and provide feedback to students (even on their potential careers). Also, 94% respondents stated that in the current online environment, it takes three hours or greater to prepare teaching material. It can therefore be concluded that there is a correlation between number of platforms and the time taken for curriculum planning.  

A recent report done by the UNICEF on the impact of COVID-19 on the education system in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) stated only 10 of 34 countries in the LAC region were prepared for online learning when the pandemic began. 

Also " learning  in  secondary  education is inadequate by  international  standards;  the  implemented    curriculum    is    outdated    and    poorly matched  with  labor  market  needs". This is a direct quote from an IADB report which assessed Secondary education in LAC. As such, providing teachers access to a tool which would assist in advising on career pathways for students in alignment with leading practice is of very great importance.   

Edulabs is a learning platform which allows teachers to provide learning content in a unified environment which caters to the individual learning styles of their students. This process is facilitated by each student's Personal Eduvelopment plan (PEP) which allows for collaborative goal setting and goal achievement strategies between teachers and students. 

The system also records and analyses student behaviour within the classroom as reported by teachers.

Lastly, the systems also utilizes Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning, to give teachers tailored insights into the your areas of strength of their students and those in which students need to improve from an academic and soft skill standpoint. 

When these profiles are combined, that is the soft and academic skill profiles of students, it gives teachers a clear future sight of the careers which are most suited to their students and allows for targeted interventions so as students can achieve their academic and career goals. 

We are seeking to meaningfully improve the lives of secondary school teachers and students in the Caribbean and Latin America by extension. 

Within the Caribbean, secondary/high school teachers are underserved in the digital learning environment given that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of digital learning technologies and some countries were not ready for this change. As such, ad-hoc approaches to learning digital learning was a feature of the pandemic which forced teachers to utilize multiple learning platforms to create and deliver learning content and even disseminate assignments. For example, Edmodo is sometimes utilized to disseminate assignments given Google Classroom may not be able to do such. 

Also students do not have access within the Caribbean, to skill frameworks and/or defined career pathways which outline the competencies (soft & hard skills) needed for the careers they wish to pursue. Further, there exists no mechanism which provides feedback on how aligned their current academic skills and personality traits are aligned to their potential careers. 

In our initial market research, we had interviews with over 100 teachers and 300 students within Trinidad and Tobago, informed by framework designed by MIT Innovation Bootcamps, to gain insights into their pain points and possible products and services which would alleviate these pain points. For example, our research amongst teachers informed us that teachers believe that the feature sets we should prioritize in the initial version of the prototype include analysis of skills, alignment of syllabus content to learning content, and facilitation of adaptive learning. Also, 97% of students surveyed indicated that they would want tailored career advice based on their academic strengths and personality traits. 

As we development the prototype, we are seeking feedback from both teachers, students and school administrators, on the usability of the software, if it meets there needs and how it can be improved. This was done via live demos of the software. During these sessions, we created scenarios for teachers and students, for example, teacher sets up a lesson and student accesses the lesson created. Subsequently, participants were asked to complete a survey on the systems' usability, whether it meets their needs etc. As we develop further features of the platform, a similar user-centred approach to design will be undertaken.   

Edulabs will positively impact our target population in the following ways:

1. It will allow teachers to create and disseminate tailored learning content in a unified environment to students
2. The system facilitates collaboration in academic and career goal setting
3. Utilizes data analytics so that teachers can efficiently identify student skill sets. This information will be used for tailored interventions to improve academic performance where needed and for the recommendation of resources (eg. universities, courses, career coaches) which can assist a student in achieving their career aspirations.  

Education systems within the Caribbean region are not well organized from a digital perspective in that teachers have to utilize several learning platforms to plan and deliver learning and assess student skill. Further to this, there are also no mechanisms/technologies which match students' technical and soft skills, to career paths best suited to them and/or where resources are provided so that these can be utilized in support of their career goals. 

Based on the above, Edulabs will assist teachers in designing teaching strategies and learning content aligned to a students' learning style. Further the analytics embedded in the platform will recommend career paths most suited for students and the resources required for them to achieve said career goals.  

The Prototype stage was chosen as our stage of development given that:

1. I'deffect is currently conducting User Acceptance Testing (UAT) on our prototype learning platform amongst high school teachers and students to gain feedback on its usability and its ability to add value to their school. 
2. Feedback is also being gathered from school administrators who participated in the UAT, as to their willingness to pay our proposed subscription fees for students and teachers, in the event a decision is made to utilize I'deffect's learning platform.  

Edulabs provides a significantly improved approach to the educational experience in that:

1. The personalized eduvelopment plan is used as the catalyst to provide structure to the educational experience by facilitating a system of academic goal setting and tailored strategies to achieve learning outcomes
2. The platform captures data on user behavior (student and teachers) and is able to utilize AI and ML to identify patterns in user behavior. From this data, analysis is performed to determine areas that can lead to improvement 

The prototype is a new application of existing technologies, using PHP and MySQL alongside bootstrap for the front-end. The final release will be developed using MernStack, which is a combination of MongoDB, Express.JS, React.JS and Node.JS. We further intend to leverage Python through the application of Machine Learning and AI (Natural Language Processing). 

The use of these technologies, that is Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and AI will be utilized to:

1. Improve student learning outcomes
2. Personalize learning content delivery
3. Skill Assessment
4. Providing more detailed insight into student behavior
5. Identification of factors which lend towards student performance
6. Aiding teachers in aligning students learning with career aspirations

Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning is used in K-12 education settings globally in the following ways:

• Personalized solutions are developed through a student-centered approach, in accordance with students’ specific satiation and needs.
• AI has changed the whole education process, taking the place of human in teaching and disrupting previous models to educate students in accordance of their aptitude
• Big data and machine learning are used for the analysis and evaluation of students’ daily performance and examination results.

These uses of AI and ML in K-12 classroom setting was found at the following source: deloitte-cn-tmt-global-development-of-ai-based-education-en-191108.pdf

A learning platform which uses AI in its product offerings has also been shared via the link below:

• Cognii - Products

With any technology that collects data for analysis, the risks introduced would be focused on privacy and how that data is utilized.

Through our end user agreement, we will outline how data will be collected and utilized. All users will be required to agree or disagree to the terms of use, including its clauses on data collection and use of such.

All data will be encrypted and technologies such as blockchain will be used to ensure transaction viability. 

Our solution is at the prototype stage and therefore currently does not serve any people.

Within one year we hope to serve at least 20% of the markets in which we serve:

• Trinidad and Tobago: 20% of secondary school population -->300 teachers and approximately 20,000 students
• Jamaica: 20% of secondary school population --> 2,400 teachers and approximately 50,000 students 

Within five years we hope to have a presence in the following markets:

1. Trinidad and Tobago
2. Barbados
3. Jamaica
4. One state in the United States of America

The above number of people (teachers and students) which would be directly impacted by our solution would be in access of 500,000.

1. Improve academic success rates at schools which utilize our software (student ages 11 to 19): This would be our main impact goal for our first year. We will achieve this by using our own analytics to measure current student performance against past performance and the drivers (factors) for example, utilisation of adaptive learning content of any increases in performance. 
2. Utilization of data collected to drive increases in student continuing education along career paths: This is one of our five year plan goals. Through the career aspect of our platform we will demonstrate to policy makers how our model (student profile of technical skills and soft skill aligned to most suited career paths) has positively impacted students and the resources students are choosing to achieve their career goals.    
3. Influencing the alignment of curriculum content to current and future career requirements (soft and technical skills) Teacher performance and overall approach to education: Through the use of syllabus analytics, we will analyse student performance in secondary school syllabus areas against against selected career metrics. Again, this data will be presented to policy makers for further actioning  (5 year goal)
4. Introduction of psychometric testing at secondary school level so as to evaluate students' values, situational judgement, emotional intelligence and job fit to their preferred careers. We will recruit a professional to join our Board who has experience in developing this product type. The prototype will be tested at selected schools to gain buy-in and collect relevant data about the prototype's effectiveness. Once a proof of concept has been established we will pitch this product to the Ministries of Education in the markets in which we operate so as to gain approval to roll psychometric testing out to the schools who wish to utilize it.  

1. User satisfaction rate
2. Student Competency increase rate
3. Teaching strategy correlation to student outcomes 
4. Market penetration rate (annual)
5. Revenue generated per user

There are seven part time team members.

1. Three software developers 
2. One IT Governance expert
3. One High school Teacher
4. One Economist/Data Analyst
5. One process re-engineering and risk management professional

We truly understand what it is like to operate in an education system which did not help us as students to identify who we are, what are academic skills and how these when analysed in combination (soft and hard skills) can be utilized to align us to careers which are best suited for us.

Our team will design and provide access to a learning platform, which would deliver personalised learning, access to the necessary support resources and data on career pathways most suited for students.

We have recruited an e-learning professional who is proficient in learning analytics and has deployed several e-learning solutions in the Caribbean. This e-learning professional has also contributed to the IT CSEC framework for the Ministry of Education in Trinidad. Our diverse team also has two members which are differently-abled (hearing impaired & dyslexia), which as professionals makes them uniquely qualified to make our learning platform more inclusive. One of these is an IT Governance professional who has intimate knowledge of IT risk & security and the other is a teacher within the high school system in Trinidad who has graded science examinations written by Form 5 and 6 students Caribbean wide.  

Because we have team members who are intimately familiar with education systems (three), we are aware of the current struggles of teachers and students. We have also sought feedback from both of these groupings in our market research and prototype which we currently testing. These pain points will inform our solution's design and methodology.  

We have built a diverse and inclusive leadership team by including members on our leadership who are differently abled (dyslexia & hearing impaired) and of diverse races (80% East Indian and 20% African). Our two other developers are also of African Descent.  

We are also committed to including women of colour and a member of the LGBTQI+ community on our leadership team within the next two years to best espouse our values of inclusiveness, diversity and equity. 

Entrepreneurs in the Caribbean often have difficulties in determining how best to solve the pain points of their customers in a sustainably scalable way. Further, access to start-up financing to build a business is also quite difficult to obtain even though a few start-up accelerators have emerged.

I'deffect Limited has applied to the 2021 TPrize challenge for the following reasons:

• To gain access to MIT Solve's network of mentors and a the practices of an accelerator which would help build our business to the point where we are able positively impact the education system in Latin America and the Caribbean. 
• One of our founders, Mr. Shiva Ramsingh, successfully completed the summer cohort of the 2020 MIT Innovation Leadership Bootcamp. He therefore thought it prudent, to enter this challenge given that he was exposed to a structured approach to innovation at the Bootcamp and believes if I'deffect is successful in this competition, that MIT Solve's expertise would take a similar approach to helping to grow this business. 

I'deffect is currently seeking:

• Access to resources and mentorship to properly gauge how to model our business, products and services so that they are the right fit for the markets we wish to serve.
•  Assistance in properly developing our brand (Strategic marketing) so that it can be recognized as a leader in the e-learning and human development business.
• Expertise and advice so that we can expand our client base into the global marketplace and enhance the sustainability of our cause.

We would like to partner with Google, given that they have cost-effective APIs which can be utilized on the back-end of our solution. This would assist in bringing our platform faster to market and also assist in reducing development time and costs.