sAInaptic, co-founded by data scientists Dr Rajeshwari Iyer and Kavitha Ravindran, is designed to revolutionise marking for teachers across secondary schools in the UK.
It all began as a side project for the innovating duo, from Bengaluru in India, but the start-up has gone on to raise around £1 million from investors, with another funding round opening soon. Their app uses natural language processing and machine learning to mark pupils' answers and provide personalised feedback.
Dr Iyer, who studied a PhD in Computational Neuroscience at Imperial College London, shares: “Teachers can spend around one day a week marking and giving feedback to students’ work. Our app can accurately mark students’ answers and provide instant feedback so that teachers can spend more time in the classroom.
“We’ve already seen the impact that AI has had in other sectors and there is now a great opportunity for it to revolutionise education.”
As CEO of sAInaptic, Iyer is an experienced research scientist with an MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge. She has over 12 years of experience in computational modelling and data science, complemented with a background in software development.
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Ravindran as the Chief Content Officer has a PGCE in secondary science from the University of Cambridge, with over 12 years of experience as a secondary science schoolteacher and GCSE examiner. She is responsible for directing the development of sAInaptic’s content in line with the various curricula and leading the pedagogical aspects of the platform.
The name sAInaptic itself is a play on the word synapse, which is the junction between nerve cells that helps in the transfer of information from one neuron to the next. The strength of the synaptic network in the human brain dictates the consolidation of information from our short-term to long-term memory. The co-founders explain that the platform is designed with ease of use in mind which means that getting started is simple and fast.
The co-founders estimate that the app could save teachers hundreds of hours a year spent marking, freeing up more time for teaching. They have seen their innovative app being rolled out in more than 50 secondary schools across the UK and is now attracting interest from schools and exam boards worldwide.
The start-up recently took part in Venture Trek, an initiative run by Imperial Enterprise Lab to give start-ups much-needed international exposure to grow their businesses.
Ben Mumby-Croft, Director of Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London, said: “It’s always inspiring to see our alumni turning their vision into an exciting business that can impact society.
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“Imperial Enterprise Lab has a successful track-record of helping start-ups test new ideas and launch products, services and ventures that address real-world problems.”
*Info: sAInaptic; Imperial Enterprise Lab