Athena

In simple terms, Athena is a website designed to improve high-achieving and/or poor students' knowledge of STEM subjects which for the near future, are math, physics, chemistry, and biology. The way Athena achieves this is by beginning with a diagnostic test to assess a student's level in the subject that they wish to advance in, then artificial intelligence comes into the fray identifying from where the student should start learning the subject in order to build the strongest fundamentals. Along the way practice questions will be presented to the students after their detailed lessons on specific topics, these practice questions will increase and decrease in difficulty depending on how the student does and give recommendations of what to review if needed. Progression will be entirely algorithmic with Athena being able to sense when a student is excelling and when they need help. Reinforcement learning is also something utilized by my product, with students being able to earn AthenaPoints and spend them in the shop allowing them to sponsor donations using a certain number of points, or simply purchase accessories for their customizable avatars to show off to friends. This work-reward system has been proven to work effectively on websites such as KhanAcademy and Imagine Math and will allow Athena to build on a sense of familiarity. In addition to this Athena allows for students to find a study-buddy within the website to keep track of progress alongside others. In this sense Athena not only deviates from the traditional norms of a learning website but by doing so reduces the amount of stress and anxiety felt by students relating to friendships and relationships. Athena also makes clever use of algorithms that track how a student is doing, the goal is not to show them that they got the question wrong, but uplift them after, whenever a student is not performing well motivational messages will pop up on their screen and should they choose to interact with them, they will be directed to our mental health/general AI chatbot for students to get a helping hand when they need one mentally or mindful advice on how to deal with real world problems. The Athena website will be something young learners not only visit to learn but also a safe space for them to confide in during rough times. We strongly believe that true learning only occurs with a healthy mind and a happy heart and every student is family. Wrapping up, giving students a way to express their creativity, deal with emotions, and learn valuable information at the same time is not every run-of-the-mill learning platform, Athena is seeking to do what has never been done before and not only revolutionize the education history but the world as a whole through our means of innovation. True education is something that rarely happens in classroom environments, and that's if students actually have access to schooling, with Athena, curious minds will blossom into the flowers of tomorrow. 

Athena's custom learning algorithms will seek to identify the interests of every child, especially priority learners which include K-8 learners. With easy-to-understand explanations, visual representations for image-based learning, as well as kinetic and auditory approaches tailored into topic lessons, Athena is using the most innovative techniques to reach and teach young minds. For children with learning disabilities, Athena does what many mentors can not: provide a stress-free environment for students to get comfortable with failure because on our platform failure is not something that is punished or avoided, rather it is understood and students are given the motivation to try again as well as friendly explanations about what they got wrong. There is truly no niche of learners that Athena is aiming to target, however in terms of K-8, we shine with the amount of support we provide both inside and outside of education to our users and students. In terms of Black and Latino learners who often do not have the resources needed to achieve a fulfilling education, Athena is and forever will be completely free to use, all that is required is an email. The platform will be accessible everywhere and will only need a browser and the internet to work and begin enriching the minds of students. However, a perfectly plausible question to address is, what about the students without internet or devices? Athena recognizes this issue and intends to take action, after our first operational months, through means of donations, Athena plans to pursue philanthropic work providing internet access and devices to many poverty-stricken areas in the United States. As the operational years go by this will become a global operation with the company aiming to reach as many countries and learners as possible. This is not an entirely perfect approach but with the constraints present in today's world, Athena is doing its part in providing learning to all that it can reach. In addition, at first glance, it may seem like mathematics, science, physics, and chemistry are not suitable for all ages K-8 but here at Athena we believe it is imperative for students to begin learning about these subjects because the future is STEM. Lessons do not start off at maximum difficulty and building block topics are available, an example of this would be a topic in the math cohort such as "counting basics" catered towards very young children. Throughout a student's educational journey, Athena intends to be there every step of the way, building them up towards greatness because it is clear that in today's world, greatness is nurtured, not passed down. 

My team and I are very well poised to deliver this solution because we are all students. Being in the schooling system, we see its difficulties every single day, from sleepless nights to mental health problems, it's clear that something needs to be created for students to get the edge in the topics they struggle in most, and more importantly, give younger students a head-start into crucial STEM curriculum inspiring the new generation of scientists and engineers ready to change the world. My fellow team members and I almost all have younger siblings, and we notice their curiosity as they grow up and become more independent. To us, there is nothing more prevalent than the need for a guiding light in the field of education because in the grand scheme of things, education is the key to unlocking all solutions. Raising future generations is becoming more and more complex due to new factors coming in constantly, however, Athena intends to take an unmovable stance as a crucial component to aiding in the development of a child. Our proximity to the community we are serving is unbelievably close, as students, we think like students, and we know what students truly need. We realize that the resources that we were never provided with have now become a necessity for the world to continue to ride the wave of success of new inventors and scientists. Our solution is designed for the community, by the community, and with family as such a big aspect of everything we do, feedback is something we do not take lightly. It is what we build upon and grow from and we value it very dearly. In shorter terms, the target population is us, and due to this we know the target population very well. The team consists of a lot of passion, many parts of our schooling system are as flawed as they can be and the members of the team realize this and want to help in our own special way and that is Athena. Something like this has never been attempted before, it's truly a melting pot of ideas coming together to form one feasible product, but with the current state of education throughout the world, we have no doubt in our minds that our platform will be a success. As for the design, we focus on simplicity and minimalism, not too much and not too less, giving our users exactly what they need to see and cutting excess information. In our minds, this is exactly what a learning platform should function as, simply a place for enjoying what science and mathematics has to offer for free and nothing more. 

So far research has been conducted into the need for this solution, we have served no educators or learners but have received validation from many regarding the potential impact of our product. We plan to accomplish a functional platform after this challenge.

Surveys have been conducted of learners mainly in the K-5 range and the idea that has always come to light is that students would like to learn what interests them as well as have fun whilst doing so. This is exactly what we are here to provide. 

Homepage Interface:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11KjA3dnp8mzbtvpyCsNakeIf5kbetfPu/view?usp=sharing

Dashboard Interface:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IyouLyyLwdiTALJtnBqlA_VzyTLjLIAb/view?usp=sharing

Athena tackles the problem of effective education with a fresh outlook. No longer do students have to spend time searching for a level that suits them, our diagnostic assessment and algorithms place them at that level immediately allowing them to learn as fast and efficiently as possible. A mental health based approach has also never been taken with a learning platform and at Athena we see the lack of emotional support within learning as a massive flaw in the education industry. Something so small yet so effective is exactly what children nowadays need with the never-ending pressures of stress, the constant need to perform well, and just everyday issues overall. Here at Athena, it is strongly believed that learning can only occur with healthy and happy minds. For so many children today, lack of a teaching figure in their lives leads them down wrong paths and makes them begin to despise education as a whole, however, at Athena, all students are family and we are here to not only understand their needs but act on them and help them to the best of our extent as well. Our platform has the ability to change the market/landscape due to it creating knowledge-filled young minds ready to succeed in the future, with core STEM concepts under their belt they are ready for higher learning such as high school and college and eventually will make their mark in the world due to the support given to them via Athena so early on in their lives. 

First and foremost, Athena will use reinforcement learning to perfect our diagnostic assessment algorithm intended to place students at the correct level needed for them to begin in any subject of math, physics, chemistry, or biology. Adaptive learning paths will also utilize Machine Learning to better refine ways for students to progress in their learning journeys, the goal is not to bombard them with questions but to build their skills in way that is right for them. As for creating quiz questions, Generative Models will be made use of to create unique sets of questions for every topic. At Athena we realize it's no fun to get the same questions every time you take a practice quiz or test so we ensure that fresh questions will be presented to students every time. Eventually, we also plan on using computer vision for some new subjects we plan on adding in the future catered towards young ones such as a course on handwriting, CV will help us analyze their accuracy and determine their strengths and weaknesses better allowing us to help them grow. Finally, for the foreseeable future, our mental health chatbot will use ChatGPT with a custom prompt designed to provide students with the best support possible, this is largely due to the effectiveness of GPT across multiple domains and research that has affirmed its usefulness in areas such as therapy and psychology. 

This technology is the bridge that will be laid upon the void which is currently the modern-day education industry. Currently we have no functional models however through intensive research, here at Athena, we believe that our product can get off the ground very quickly and reach a broad audience due to the reach of the internet and various methods of advertisement we plan on employing. 

Primary Resources: 

https://www2.ed.gov/documents/ai-report/ai-report.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9337975/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10838501/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9796491/

Black Youth Suicide Rates (JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health):

CDC:

Computing bias is something that is recognized at Athena as one of our main threats. In light of this, we've identified some solutions. 

• Unbiased data sets from various ethnic, racial, and financial demographics to create the most intricate and precise algorithms that are true game-changers for everyone, not just a select few. 
• A truly free experience, there are no micro-transactions, paywalls, or anything of the sort within Athena. Everyone on the team believes that monetizing education is one of the greatest evils one can commit. We are here strictly to improve the lives of students worldwide in more ways than one, not to become yet another financial burden for many families across the globe. By making our platform entirely free this allows us to focus on what is important to the world as a whole right now and not on earning a substantial income from our passion and drive.
• Eliminating racial bias within microscopic systems, racism has become a major issue in communities all around the globe, and Athena condones none of it. Our interactive discussion boards within the platform will be heavily moderated and severe punishment will be taken against users who attempt and breach the tranquility fostered within our platform. 
• Due to the platform being hosted on a website, a large amount of computational power is not needed to access Athena allowing for more user traffic and direct benefits to more users.

As of right now Athena consists of 3 workers full-time and around 5 workers on a part-time/as needed basis. 

Athena intends on taking 1-2 months building a functional website, acquiring copyrights, and having one subject, mathematics. After implementing our algorithms, chatbot, and website functionality we will begin rolling out to small groups of individuals and begin looking for feedback. From this feedback we will continue to improve our design and add more subjects and from there exponentially roll out to more and more people. Evidence will be given on a weekly basis once we begin building our frameworks. The first few weeks will be spent assembling a solid team and from there onwards Athena will work on an intensive schedule with the goal of getting our product to classrooms in less than one year. 

In addition to this, one key fact to mention is that our priority learners will make-up the majority of our tester demographic because we value first-hand information directly from the people we are supposed to be catering to. 

R - renewable

I - intelligent

S - sustainable

C - caring

Those four traits are key-values embedded within Athena, renewable means that we are always looking for feedback to make our platform better and keep it as the pinnacle of modern day online education. Intelligent refers to our various uses of artificial intelligence for the purpose of achieving new heights of innovation with our product, this feeds directly into sustainable, Athena's goal is to sustain the thirst for knowledge that has empowered so many brilliant young minds across the years, and finally, we plan on doing this by caring about our students, employees, and the world. Affordability is easily achieved with our platform being completely free towards all, accessibility however is something that many have not been able to achieve in the field. However, in the future, through our own direct work in impoverished communities and philanthropic actions we plan on reaching out to as many students as possible. 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing some of the most awe-inspiring work in the world today, as citizens of the world, we at Athena only intend on furthering their legacy and through their support we will be able to overcome legal and financial barriers that often times disallow great ideas from flourishing. Through the financial help we hope to achieve ease of access through market and cultural barriers as well as technical issues.

The main motto of Athena is: for students, by students. This not only shows our unwavering dedication towards our product but truly, this project is a way for us to give future generations what we did not have, perfect schooling today exists nowhere and in the United States especially, the school system has witnessed no drastic change over the past. A safe, healthy learning environment is what Athena is here to provide and we wish to inspire many that will come after us.