The Next Einstein COMPETITION ENTRY

ENTRY DESCRIPTION

Expii disrupts the global education sector with a smartphone-based virtual tutor, powered by a hybrid of human and artificial intelligence. Its self-organizing solution combines crowdsourcing and efficient algorithms to scale the ideal one-to-one learning experience worldwide.

Expii solves the universal training/learning problem through a novel self-organizing platform which unites the creativity of the world to deliver on-demand, personalized education for free. In a modern world where content is ubiquitous, the central question is to identify exactly which piece of content a particular learner should interact with right now, based on their knowledge and goals. Expii recasts the general problem of Education as a graph algorithm problem, informed by data collected from the universe of users across the platform. The prototype is live on expii.com, with an innovative user experience that parallels a modern Maps app: indicate what area you wish to improve in, and automatically-selected practice problems will dynamically identify your strengths and weaknesses, suggesting the most relevant lessons for you. Simultaneously, the system learns characteristics about a body of crowdsourced, openly licensed educational content (collected by the platform). The core of Expii’s algorithmic innovation is based on the Elo Rating System, which has revolutionized Chess, online gaming, computer programming competitions, and more, but has not been applied at scale in Education. On Expii, each user has 10,000 ratings (one per concept in the Expii universe), and each problem has a rating. After each user-problem interaction, the problem’s rating and the user’s concept rating both update. The ratings become a new metric for proficiency. Expii’s algorithms adaptively deliver problems that match a learner’s current level, seamlessly moving to more challenging problems as users demonstrate proficiency, going beyond basic literacy, with unlimited growth potential. The solution is inspired by founder Po-Shen Loh’s background: Carnegie Mellon math professor, National Science Foundation CAREER award-winning researcher in network theory, probability, and theoretical computer science, and National Coach of the USA Mathematical Olympiad team.