An artificial intelligence (AI) based start-up founded by two innovators from Bengaluru claims to be revolutionising marking for teachers across secondary schools in the UK. sAInaptic, co-founded by fellow data scientists Dr Rajeshwari Iyer and Kavitha Ravindran as a side project, has since gone on to raise just under GBP 1 million from investors.
Their app, which uses natural language processing and machine learning to mark pupils' answers and provide personalised feedback, is now in the process of beginning another funding round.
"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," Iyer, who studied for a PhD in Computational Neuroscience at Imperial College in London, said in a statement this week.
"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," she said.
The co-founders, both in their early 40s, 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.