Educational Initiatives’ (EI) Mindspark has been selected as a finalist of the 2019 UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the “Use of ICT in Education”.
Mindspark, India’s leading edtech company, was shortlisted among the top 10 out of 113 nominations.
An international Jury, consisting of five recognized experts, annually selects two laureates and eight finalists. Mindspark was recognized for its high quality and innovative use of Artificial Intelligence in education.
Mindspark is a personalized adaptive learning software, which helps students improve their Math and Language skills. Few children in India perform at their expected grade level, and teachers lack the capacity to handle the widely varying levels of ability. As a result, low-performing students are permanently left behind as they do not receive the academic support they need. Mindspark uses pedagogical research, and data on learning patterns; and using the power of AI and Big Data, provides adaptive and personalized remedial path for each child.
“We are honoured to receive this recognition for Mindspark from UNESCO, consecutively for two years, in 2018 and 2019,” said Srini Raghavan, Co-Founder and CEO, Educational Initiatives. “Leveraging AI, Mindspark can adapt to the pace, style and level of understanding of the student rather than assuming that the student’s level would correspond to his/her grade. This enables the use of the combined strength of machine (diagnose, assess, and provide data on learning) and human (implement insights from that data to counsel/coach) to improve learning outcomes, moving closer to the long-term vision of creating a world where children everywhere are learning with understanding.”
Funded by the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Prize recognizes individuals and organizations that use digital technologies to expand educational and lifelong learning opportunities. The theme of the 2019 edition of the Prize was the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to innovate education, teaching and learning. Through this theme, UNESCO aimed to promote effective and ethical applications of AI in education that are universally available.
