Rocket Learning using advanced AI to reform early childhood education in India

New Delhi, Nov 23: In a bid to reform early childhood education (ECE) in India, non-profit Rocket Learning is empowering anganwadis and low-income households to provide high-quality early childhood education to children with new-age technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

According to Vishal Sunil, Co-founder and CTO of Rocket Learning, they are also integrating advanced AI to create a game-changing coach and model for parents and teachers, with the potential to impact millions more and eradicate learning poverty in the country.

Sunil told IANS that Rocket Learning is dedicated to establishing India's first universal early childhood care and education system.

According to him, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and cloud technology have really transformed how they operate.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

Q: What is the long-term vision and mission statement of Rocket Learning?

A: Rocket Learning is a nonprofit in India on a mission to bring early childhood education to every child. We're making a difference in the lives of 2 million children across nine states using 200,000 digital classrooms, all through WhatsApp. In the next five years, we aim to impact 30 million children in India.

We've built digital communities for parents and educators, delivering short, practical lessons in the local language using everyday materials. These lessons take less than 20 minutes and promote peer interaction and accountability.

To ensure social motivation, we offer virtual "report cards" and certificates based on participation. We're also integrating advanced AI to create a game-changing coach and model for parents and teachers, with the potential to impact millions more and eradicate learning poverty in India.

Q: How do you distinguish yourself?

A: Rocket Learning is dedicated to addressing complex challenges through innovative AI/ML solutions. Our focus is on collaborating with government initiatives to effectively scale and enhance capacity building

Currently, we are working in partnership with the Ministry of Women and Child Development to promote universal early childhood education through the Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi program, which is part of Mission Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0.

By harnessing emerging technologies and adopting a grassroots approach, we aim to tackle the educational challenges faced by India's 40 million children, particularly those from marginalised communities and first-generation learners.

Through strategic behavior change marketing, we are not only imparting knowledge but also instilling a culture of learning within these communities and empowering parents to take on an active role in their children’s education.

Our work contributes to strengthening India's capacity to reach its full potential, one child at a time.

Q. Tell us about the scale of your operations, and expansion plans over the next couple of years.

A: Rocket Learning is dedicated to establishing India's first universal early childhood care and education system. Currently, we operate in over nine states and are actively working towards expanding our presence to 12+ states within the next five years. Our mission is to impact the lives of 30 million children by providing personalised, interactive play-based learning experiences.

We take a data-driven approach to understand the unique developmental needs of children and continually assess the effectiveness of our curriculum. This involves meticulous monitoring and evaluation. Our commitment extends across the nation, with district-level pilot studies and participation in a national Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) movement to ensure that every child in India has access to high-quality early education.

While our presence is notable in the North, Central, and West zones, we are gearing up for expansion into the South and East zones in response to the substantial demand for quality early education throughout India.

Q: Give us a few examples (success stories) on the impact you have had on students & community through your digital platform?

A: Here are a few such examples:

Firoze from Delhi, father of 4-year-old Farhan: “I go to my shop every morning and on returning, study with Farhan for an hour daily to finish his activities. With E-Pathshala I am aware of what is being taught and can revise at home. I strongly feel fathers should also step up and support the mothers with teaching their children. This way, the children will grow up motivated and interested in studies, knowing both parents are invested, and will also strive to do better!”

Jyoti from Delhi, mother of 5-year-old Disha: “Disha has become very active since starting to work with E-Pathshala. She is enthused to take up ownership of her daily activities such as worksheets, quizzes and puzzles and enjoys learning. Wherever she gets stuck, she asks me. She already dreams of becoming an IAS or an IPS officer and I am sure with a strong foundation built, she will do even better in school and make us all proud!”

Q: How do you go about challenges faced in need of technologies in the EdTech space?

A: The biggest problem is selecting an effective and cost-optimized solution as we grow and serve an ever-increasing user base. We investigated the various AWS services and selected the one that best suits our requirements. When selecting the resource, we also took into account scalability and peak resource use at different times of the day.

Q: What are some of the emerging technologies that will further reshape early childhood education (ECE) and community engagement over the next 4-5 years?

A: Looking ahead, there's an exciting tech-driven transformation on the horizon for early childhood education and community engagement, especially for the underserved in India. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are stepping in to make learning super personalized, adjusting content to match each kid's unique style.

We're talking about Data Analytics and Predictive Modeling lending a hand too, spotting students who might need extra support early on and helping us measure how well they're doing. And how cool is it that Voice Assistants and Natural Language Processing can be your child's study buddy, helping them with language and literacy?

Then there's the fun side -- Edutainment and Gamification make learning enjoyable, Social Media and Online Communities bring parents, teachers, and experts together, and Remote Learning and Hybrid Models offer flexible ways to learn. Plus, Language Translation and Accessibility Tools bridging language gaps, and Personalized Learning Analytics giving us the inside view on how each child is progressing -- this is truly indicative of the exciting future for education and community connection!

Q: What has cloud technology and AWS allowed you to do that you couldn’t do before?

A: AWS and cloud technology have really transformed how we operate. One big win has been the cost optimization aspect. We can now efficiently run instances and only pay for what we use, which is a game-changer in terms of flexibility.

Our database and storage accounts transitioned seamlessly. It's safe to say that our setup has become more robust and efficient thanks to AWS.

Q: In terms of business outcomes, what benefits have you experienced because of running on AWS? Please provide metrics where applicable:

A: Our move to AWS has really stepped up our game. Our system is rock-solid now, delivering content flawlessly. Plus, we've got some cool Kubernetes options to experiment with. For our backend crew, this migration has been a total game-changer. We're way more self-sufficient when it comes to deployment. That means we can fine-tune server settings to fit our workload like a glove. It's made our operations smoother and less reliant on others in the team.

Cost-saving was a big deal for us, and AWS turned out to be a smart choice for running instances and deploying stuff efficiently. Their "pay as you use" model gave us the flexibility we needed. And the more we dive into AWS, the more we see the benefits of their industry-standard features. Their outstanding tech support and guidance not only helped us cut costs but also handpicked the services that were just right for our specific needs.

AWS offers an extensive range of resources to assist us in identifying our requirements. Our features make use of the wide range of services provided by AWS according to the duration, time constraints, and criticality of the jobs that are performed. .

Effectively fine tuning the various resources provided by AWS, has assisted us in lowering the turnaround time for both the development of our features and the general execution of our functionalities.

The availability of AWS resources has helped us carry our operations in a smooth manner, increasing the efficiency of our features and deliverability of content to our users. The technical support provided by AWS has also enabled us to mitigate our production issues with minimal down-time.

We were able to improve productivity, scalability, and cost-effectiveness through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Some essential techniques and best practices for improving company operations on AWS include Optimization and Cloud Migration Data Administration High availability and scalability Cost Management AI and Machine Learning Compliance and security.

We can now optimize our cloud resources, save costs, and increase operational effectiveness thanks to the move to AWS cloud. Other benefits include improved billing, real-time monitoring with AWS cloud watch, and the ability to send reminders. It also assists us in categorizing and managing resources more effectively by putting into practice a standardized resource labeling system.

We use AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Fargate, or Amazon ECS for containerized apps in order to achieve auto-scaling and performance. Using managed services like Amazon RDS, Amazon ElastiCache, and Amazon Redshift has helped reduce operating costs. As a result, the team members now work together and share expertise in a collaborative environment.

AWS provides a host of services to help us monitor, identify and analyze any risks in terms of any threats to the normal operability of our resources. Reports from cloud watch helps us to solve issues in our functions and provides us information about the utilization of our resources. Using these, we can make an informed decision to optimize our resources and functionalities in the best manner possible.