New WhatsApp chatbot delivers learning to your fingertips

Khandagale teaches students how to access the chat bot for learning at a rural makerspace in Pabal, Maharashtra

Abhijeet Khandagale, a bright school student who took great pride in creating a Newtonian reflecting telescope in 2005 to celebrate 100 years of physics in 2005, faced his first big academic failure as a second-year engineering student. "I failed in many engineering subjects and had to repeat a year. It was a challenging time. People started ridiculing me for focusing too much on extracurricular activities. I faced a significant setback," he recalled.

Along with a long list of accolades, the 34-year-old mechanical engineer now has more than 35,000 students taking tutorials from his chat bot, ekatra, globally. "I'm a product of a failed education system, and that is why I'm passionate about building solutions that don't let others fail in the same way. It's the driving force behind my work," he explains.

The chat bot attaches humorous illustrations that help understand the topic better

His chat bot aims to break free of the conventional ways of teaching, while also reaching to those who don't have access to education. The WhatsApp-enabled technology is easy to operate, and begins with a single click on a link. When this writer gave it a try, the first question that the chat bot asked was the topic we'd like to begin with. The options included entrepreneurship, climate change or Generate AI course. We opted for climate change, and our course for day one began within seconds.

Abhijeet Khandagale

Geography is fun

The first message delved into the absolute basics - the difference between climate and weather. It read: "Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get," Mark Twain. "Weather is one football game, climate is the history of the National Football League," @MikeNelson247 via @CC_Yale. "Climate tells you what clothes to buy, weather tells you what clothes to wear," middle school student.

ekatra is an AI chat bot created with the aim to break free of conventional methods of education, and increase access to learning

This writer had a good laugh, wondering how easy it would be to understand the phenomenon if these were the definitions that we were given instead of long jargon-filled definitions that we learned (and forgot) word to word in Geography class.

The chat bot then went on to share illustrations to help visualise this difference, followed by a 10-page-long pdf to delve deeper into the subject, climate change. This was complemented by a YouTube link released by the UN, each simplifying terms like pollutants, greenhouse gas emissions, hydrologic cycle, climate variability versus climate change, and more. The PDF has engaging trivia on every page including facts like: Together, electricity, production, transportation and industrial processes account for more than 80 per cent of the CO2 released in the atmosphere. With this, day one of our course terminated. The AI reminded us to come back again the next day to continue the lessons.

Alfred, a feature in chat bot, is named after superhero Batman's butler, and works as a personalised tutor

No limit to learning

Another feature, Alfred, a GPT-4 powered learning assistant, allows you to generate a course depending on what you wish to study. "I consider myself a dreamer, innovator, orator, researcher, explorer, poet, and a hardcore Batman fan. This last bit might seem out of place, but it's an integral part of who I am, and has even influenced some of my work," shares Khandagale, adding that Alfred has been named after Batman's trusted butler. "Alfred is at the heart of what we're trying to do with ekatra. It is designed to be a personalised tutor. When a user starts interacting with Alfred, it asks a series of questions: What topic do you want to learn, how do you prefer to learn it, what's your current skill level in this area, and in which language would you like to learn? Based on these inputs, Alfred creates an entire course curriculum on the fly. Doctors, engineers, and people of all ages have used this to learn various topics. One of the most interesting examples was a user who asked Alfred to teach them Japanese... in Spanish! Our system was able to create that course. It's moments like these that show the real power and flexibility of AI in education," he explains.

Users can choose from a wide range of topics, or create their own course

But does promoting tutoring through AI pose a risk to teachers, we ask. "This is a crucial question, and it's one that I think about a lot. There's a lot of debate around the future of AI and its potential to replace human labour. My stand on this is nuanced, but fundamentally optimistic. Let me give you an example from the field of education. A research paper I read recently compared students who used AI tutoring systems with those who didn't. The students who used AI showed a 127 per cent improvement in their understanding of concepts. That's massive! But here's the interesting part - when these same students went back to regular learning without AI, their performance dropped by 17 per cent compared to those who never used AI at all," he explains. This, he suggests, tells us two things: First, that AI can be incredibly effective in enhancing learning. But second, and perhaps more importantly, AI is most effective when it's used as a tool to augment human learning, not replace it entirely.

Languages to generate courses include Spanish, Hindi and English, among others

"I like to use this analogy: technology is an enabler. It's like a superpower. If you use it as a crutch, it will disable you. But if you use it to empower yourself, you can become a superhero, just like Batman," he signs off.

LOG ON TO bit.ly/ekatra001

What is it?
Ekatra is a WhatsApp-based chat bot which aims to make learning fun, informative and accessible to all.

How it works?
The chat bot is free to use. Its feature, Alfred, works a personalised tutor that can generate an educational courses on any topic and in various languages.

Who it affects/benefits?
The not-for-profit technology helps learners across demographics, and hopes increase access to learning globally.