Shiksha Buddy

Being the youngest nation*¹ with very few jobs and high unemployment for youth*² It is Important for India to become entrepreneurial.

To become entrepreneurial, youth need to engage in real world problem solving. 

Typically, there is no focus on real world problem solving in public schools - which serve 55% of the 250M Indian students in school. 

We at Udhyam have been able to take real world problem solving curricula & business projects to 2.9 million students in public schools across 10 states in India. We have also trained 37,000 teachers to implement this curricula.

The business project journey, which is undertaken by close to 50,000 student teams every year, involves a number of milestones that students must complete. Student teams overwhelmingly expressed gaps in timely, patient mentoring through their journeys of problem solving from early days.

In practice, we are only able to connect about 1000 out of 50,000 student teams with business mentors, and only at later stages of their projects. 

Overburdened public school teachers also lack either the expertise or the time to mentor students on their business project journeys. 

For students coming to these schools, mostly from lower socio economic strata of the society, it’s hard to find mentors in their neighbourhoods and networks or families. 

As we continue to scale, a larger number of student teams will struggle with the barrier of not having a business mentor as they try to make progress on their business project journeys.

Through the Shiksha buddy, we are addressing this gap in mentorship by providing a chatbot companion that accompanies students on their business journey. While the chatbot is already being used by thousands of students in public schools in multiples Indian states, we are now expanding its capabilities to solve deeper student pain points.

*¹https://india.unfpa.org/en/topics/adolescents-and-youth-8

*²https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-new_delhi/documents/publication/wcms_921154.pdf

Our solution is an AI-powered mentor bot that will address the need of mentorship for the large number of students embarking on their business project journeys.

The AI mentor bot has the following capabilities:

• Help - responds to challenges that the student (or even their teachers) are facing, in their own language, using the context of the program design, in a way that our students can understand. These challenges can be around their business journeys, conflicts within teams, or related to any submissions that they have to make as a part of the program. Current state: Tested with ~100 students. Iterated using 1000+ actual queries asked by these students. Currently rolled out to 1000+ students and their teachers. Next step: Iterate and roll out to 200,000 students in July 2024

• Assessment and Feedback - assesses multimodal submissions by students - pitch videos, MVP images, audio explanations and provides personalised constructive qualitative feedback using generative AI. Current state: Prototype developed to assess pitch videos and image submissions, validated with scores given by human evaluators for 400+ videos (in Punjabi and Hindi) and 100+ images Next step: Integrate with the submission process and pilot in July 2024

Our solution, Shiksha Buddy, primarily serves high school students in government schools across India, particularly those from underserved communities. While we are at a prototype stage, once deployed the mentorship solution will reach 50000 students, every year, who already use the chatbot, this number is estimated to quadruple next year. The total addressable market for government high school students (grades 9-12) in India is 13 million. 

Currently, this underserved population faces significant challenges - a 73% dropout rate, with many of those poised to join the labor force without adequate preparation. Consequently, a majority of these students are at risk of ending up in the unorganized sector, earning less than $100 per month. 

Our solution aims to empower these students to take charge of their lives by providing personalised mentoring at scale to enable them in their journey of building entrepreneurial mindsets and problem-solving skills, giving them the tools they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Our team at Shiksha Buddy is uniquely positioned to deliver this solution for several reasons:

Direct Community Inputs:

• In Delhi, we have tapped into a strong alumni network, leveraging their insights and support to refine our solution. Alumni are role models for younger students in the community.

• We also actively engage with teacher resource groups, who contribute to the co-creation of our curriculum and content.

Embedded Teams:

• Our implementation team members are representative of the communities we serve.

• By working closely with state governments at different levels, ensuring a deep understanding of their needs and challenges.

• Our state-level teams interact with students on a daily basis, giving us valuable insights and real-time feedback.

Strong Partnerships:

• We have dedicated partnership teams in every state to foster collaboration with key stakeholders, including government agencies, educational institutions, and community organizations.

Subject-Matter Expertise:

• Our team comprises experts in curriculum development, educational technology, measurement and evaluation, product design, and educational research.

• All members of our team are united by a common goal of promoting entrepreneurship and equipping students with the necessary skills and mindsets.

Tech Legitimacy:

• The use of technology to enable and scale educational initiatives is in demand and gaining increasing legitimacy within the government system. This helps in propagation of our innovation within the system. 

Embedded Leadership:

• Our team lead, Mekin Maheshwari, is deeply involved in the design, input, monitoring, and student engagement aspects of our solution, ensuring a hands-on approach to implementation.

By combining our embedded approach, strong partnerships, comprehensive expertise, experienced talent, and active community engagement, we are well-positioned to deliver a scalable and impactful solution that addresses the entrepreneurial needs of high school students in government schools across India.

We have strategically selected the prototype stage for our AI-driven entrepreneurship mentoring and assessment solution to ensure a seamless and impactful rollout. Here's why:

1. Robust Foundation:

• Over 400,000 students across 3 states participate in business projects - these programs are institutionalized in the state’s education departments.

• Our WhatsApp bot is an established part of the business projects, engaging over 50,000 students.

• This existing infrastructure provides an ideal testbed for prototyping and scaling our solution.

Advanced Development and Testing:

• The core AI Mentor and AI Assessments components are in advanced development stages.

• The AI Mentor has undergone testing with over 100 students and alumni, allowing for valuable feedback and refinement.

• The AI Assessments prototype is ready but not yet user-tested.

Strategic Timing for Scaling:

• The prototype stage enables thorough testing and iteration, tailoring the solution to user needs.

• This rigorous process positions us for a seamless rollout in July 2024, coinciding with the new academic year and peak student engagement.

Robust Infrastructure and Capabilities:

• Our organization has the necessary human resources and technological capabilities to support prototyping, testing, and scaling.

• This infrastructure allows us to dedicate resources to the prototype stage, ensuring a comprehensive and user-centric approach.

By selecting the prototype stage, we balance our advanced progress with the crucial need for comprehensive user testing. This strategic decision enables us to refine our solution, gather invaluable insights, and ultimately launch a well-calibrated, high-impact innovation that can drive entrepreneurial growth among students at an unprecedented scale.

We are driven to apply to MIT Solve because of the remarkable synergy between our innovative solution and Solve's mission to address global learning gaps through technology-driven approaches.

At the core of our solution is an AI-powered mentor bot designed to support students on their business project journeys. This bot communicates in local languages, tailoring its mentorship to the program design and student’s context as they navigate their real-world business projects. This bot aims to complement interactions with teachers and fills in for expert mentors from business world when the students are in early stages of their projects, creating scalable learning experiences.

MIT Solve offers an invaluable opportunity to rigorously test and refine our prototype solution under the guidance of a renowned institution. Their validation would not only strengthen our approach but also reinforce the credibility of our solution's potential for far-reaching impact.

Aligning with Solve's holistic perspective, we recognize that tackling complex global learning challenges requires a multifaceted strategy combining technological innovation, inclusive practices, societal impact considerations, and cross-stakeholder collaboration. This resonates deeply with our core values and approach.

Moreover, MIT Solve's institutional network has extensive experience in similar economies. Insights from other organisations and experts would enable us to design a more nuanced and robust solution across diverse contexts as we attempt to scale our reach globally.

Through our engagement with MIT Solve, we seek to:

1. Enhance our solution's product-market fit by leveraging advancements in AI technology to deliver deeper, more personalized, and engaging experiences for users.

2. Leverage expertise of monitoring and evaluation specialists to better understand our impact through analysis of user engagement data.

3. Unlock funding opportunities to rigorously experiment and scale our solution to diverse geographies.

MIT Solve's multidimensional support would empower us to refine our solution continually, amplify its positive impact, and ultimately unlock the entrepreneurial potential of learners worldwide through inclusive, technology-driven mentorship.

Our solution takes an innovative approach by directly engaging with students from government schools - mentoring them through their business project journey and giving them personalised constructive qualitative feedback on their actions using generative AI. We have built the AI mentor bot on WhatsApp - which is widely adopted in most parts of India, especially post-COVID. >70% of students enrolled in government schools in states where we are operating have access to a smartphone and internet.

By making the entrepreneurial experience and support system on the journey accessible through familiar technologies, our solution fosters an inclusive environment not just for aspiring entrepreneurs, but for all students who develop an entrepreneurial mindset through this experience. 

We have been able to build strong partnerships with state governments and institutionalised programs where students default engage with our tech solutions as a part of the design. We intend to leverage this foundation to scale our solution to a large student population across the country.

Here is a theory of change describing how our solution aims to address the problem of lack of economic opportunities and drive community upliftment through entrepreneurship education:

The Problem: 

Being the youngest nation* with very few jobs* and high unemployment for youth*, it is important for India to become entrepreneurial.

To become entrepreneurial, youth need to engage in real world problem solving. 

Entrepreneurial Mindset Education and Business Projects as a Solution:

Hands-on entrepreneurial experience through real-world business projects.

Education to support emergent agency; venture creation using local funds of knowledge; foster competencies, mindsets behaviours  

Our Intervention Prototype

We want to enhance our already existing Whatsapp Bot to evolve into a reliable and ever present mentor who accompanies students through their business projects journey, answering doubts and providing valuable insights along the way.

AI mentor bot - helps students facing challenges on their business project journey, by sharing solutions / next steps they can take to make progress. The bot will also provide personalised qualitative feedback to students on their actions and submissions. 

The need for these inputs has been shared by a large number of students and their teachers from our programs. As our mentor bot scales, we expect to see an increase in the number of students engaged in real world “doing” and an increase in the quality of their actions and submissions.

Outputs:

• Increased entrepreneurial knowledge and skills among students

• More viable business ideas generated

• Higher success rates for new student-led businesses

Outcomes:

• Rise in student entrepreneurship and new business formations

• Job creation through these new ventures

• Increased income levels and economic empowerment for entrepreneurs and their communities

Impact:

• Youth expand India’s economic pie by choosing entrepreneurship as a way of life

• Youth well-being emerges out of an enhanced capability to self-determine

• Broader economic opportunities and upward mobility

• Upliftment of communities through enhanced economic participation and growth

Our theory of change demonstrates a logical pathway from identifying the root problem to implementing our solution's key activities, leading to measurable outputs, outcomes, and ultimately, the desired long-term impact of community upliftment through entrepreneurship-driven economic development.

Impact Goals:

1. Reach: Expand our program's reach to a targeted number of students across multiple states in India. The 2024-25 goals outline ambitious plans to deepen engagement in states where Udhyam already has partnerships with state governments - Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Telangana, as well as introduce programs in new states - Kerala, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Chhattisgarh.

2. Adoption: Ensure adoption of and engagement on the AI-powered mentor bot and assessment + feedback tools by a >70% of students enrolled in government schools.

3. Quality and Impact: Enhance the quality of our programs and deepen their impact on participants. This includes fostering entrepreneurial mindsets, facilitating competency development, and ultimately enabling successful business startups by students.

Measuring Progress:

1. Reach: We track the number of students participating in our programs across different states, comparing it against our targeted goals for expansion.

2. Adoption: We monitor engagement by the number of students actively engaging on the mentor bot, and no of students submitting their actions submitted. We also correlated these metrics with surveys conducted by our monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team to understand “doing hours” associated with student actions.

3. Quality and Impact:

• We benchmark and track "doing hours" as a metric of program outcomes, aiming to establish correlations between doing hours, competency shifts, and entrepreneurial mindset development among participants.

• We have partnered with global scholars to conduct impact assessment to quantify the program's effect on entrepreneurship, employment, and longer term life outcomes.

Furthermore, Udhyam has aspirational goals to foster a self-sustaining alumni platform, engage local communities as influencers and partners, capture and disseminate inspirational stories of impact, and potentially establish a nationwide competition centered around student teams tackling real-world challenges aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

By continuously monitoring these impact goals and associated metrics, we can iteratively refine our solution, amplify its positive effects, and contribute to creating more inclusive and transformative learning opportunities for students across India.

Our solution - the AI mentor bot is built on WhatsApp. We use the Glific platform to build WhatsApp flows, and these flows are integrated with APIs by OpenAI to use GPT models. 

The AI mentor bot has two capabilities - helping students move forward when they are facing a challenge, and providing students personalised qualitative feedback on their submissions.

The help capability uses OpenAI API to categorise the student’s query and depending on the query use OpenAI API with a custom prompt containing the student and program’s context to respond, or use RAG to find and share an answer from program’s documentation.

The qualitative feedback capability is in a prototype stage - where currently it is able to assess video submissions and validate image submissions. 

• The video assessment extracts audio from the pitch video, transcribes it and then uses OpenAI API with a custom fine-tuned prompt to return assessment scores based on a rubric and rationale for the given score.

• The image validation uses OpenAI’s GPT 4 Vision API to describe the image, and compare it with the transcript of the pitch video to determine whether the image is a relevant / valid submission or not.

WhatsApp is widely adopted in most parts of India, especially post-COVID. We typically see over 70% of students signing up on our WhatsApp flows as a part of our programs, which is consistent with findings from other studies on smartphone and ed-tech penetration in India. 

Udhyam Shiksha (Education Vertical) has 88 employees comprising 74 Full time employees, and 14 Part time employees.

The business projects program operates in 10 states across India.

The team working on the proposed AI mentor solution consists of:

Product Team:

• 3 members for the core product

• 2 members for curriculum operations

State Teams:

• 2 members per state (20 members total across 10 states)

Technology Team:

• 2 in-house developers

• 1 developer from a third-party tech partner

• 1 developer from a third-party AI partner

AI Mentor Solution:

• 1 product manager

• 1 in-house developer

We have been running the business projects program since 2021 in Delhi. The following year, in 2022, we launched the Whatsapp chatbot for students in Punjab. Development of the AI mentor solution, Shiksha Buddy, commenced in October 2023. This AI mentor deployed as a pilot in January 2024, in Madhya Pradesh.

The leadership Team brings experience both within the corporate and social sector bringing in diversity of viewpoint as well us different ways of solutioning. We have 40% to 60% women to men split within the leadership team.43% women and 56% men overall in the organisation.
 Our recruitment process involves trained interviewers from various teams within the organisation to interview candidates. This is followed by a debrief discussion where interviewers share inferences from the data they have documented. The process allows for a healthy discussion and understanding of the candidates from varied perspectives before a final decision is made regarding hiring. Once hired, data from the recruitment process as well as previous work experience/ background information is used for the on boarding process when the employee joins. We ensure gender parity in compensation, and our "Wonderful Udhyam Women" (WUW) project promotes the empowerment and growth of women within the organization. We are on the second leg of this programme and participants have found this a useful space to reflect, learn and grow. We strive to maintain an inclusive and welcoming environment for all team members. This includes a flexible leave policy, allowing state teams to take holidays on local festival days, and a hybrid working model. We also have a hybrid work policy sometimes has helped to acquire great talent but more importantly allows employees to figure out what is the best balance for them as well as teamwork. Additionally, we foster a non-hierarchical culture where open communication is encouraged. For instance, during team meetings, everyone is encouraged to voice their opinions and ideas, regardless of their position. Our commitment to inclusivity and fair treatment is reflected in the results of our 2023 Gallup survey. 80% of employees agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "I feel free to express my thoughts, feelings, and disagreements to my supervisor," while 75% of employees agreed or strongly agreed that "I am always treated fairly at work."

Please access the details Social Business Model Canvas here.

Udhyam is a non-profit and its financially sustainability hinges on the organisation being able to raise as much money as it needs to spend every year. To this end, the following actions, plans and processes have been established:

• Udhyam received its tax exemption status (12A) as well as its 80G status in India that allows it to make donations made to the organisation tax exempt for donors.

• Udhyam received its approval to receive money from foreign donors in 2022 after successfully establishing a track record of three years of seamless operations. This approval will expire only in 2027 and will be renewed thereafter.

• Udhyam has a team of 4 experienced fundraisers working across different fundraising segments - High net worth individuals, Foundations and Corporates. One of the founders also dedicates more than 70% of his time to fundraising. Cross-functional teams are geared to participate in fundraising activities.

• There has been an average growth of 30% in funding raised each year since 2017.

• We have received donations from prominent corporates like Amazon, IndiaMart, Infoedge, Oaknorth and State Street Foundation, and are in the final stages of receiving a multi-year grant from Michel and Susan Dell Foundation.

• We have already secured 61% of the funding needed for FY 2025 and 30% of the funding needed for FY 2026.

• Redemption of pledges is 100% at Udhyam each year due to the deep connects with our HNI donors.

• Udhyam is registered on atleast 3 employee giving platforms. It raised donations through payroll-giving the last year for the first time, and is geared to raise more money through campaigns on those platforms.

• Audits and compliances are in order, making Udhyam a preferred organisation to give to.