AI for Better Education

During this summer, Ayush from Grade 12 took part in a three months Kaggle Artificial Intelligence (AI) competition that was hosted by a Georgia State University and CommonLit, a non-profit education technology organisation. As a result, Aysuh further developed his skills and interest in AI technology and winning the bronze medal, his third medal in a Kaggle competition. We reached out to Ayush to learn more about the competition and his experience.

I am very passionate about machine learning and have been doing it competitively for the last 2 years – Ayush, Grade 12

Kaggle competitions are hosted by companies and research labs, such as Georgia State University and IEEE. The competitions are organised with real-world problems at the heart that need to be solved. The competition that Ayush took part in was international, with over 3600 teams. The organisers hosting the competition, required an AI to understand and rate the complexity of reading passages for Grades 3 to 12. Teachers will then easily find right level texts which they will use for resources. “This is very important in the pandemic, as they empower more than 20 million teachers to teach in an online format with categorised teaching material and learning resources”, says Ayush, who joined the competition to gain experience and at the same time help the organisation and their purpose. “With this specific AI, Georgia State University and CommonLit aimed to develop public school curriculums that can be accessed by anyone to improve the quality of education provided across the world”, says Ayush who understands how difficult it is for teachers to scan material for appropriate resources, and wanted to make this easier for them by using AI.

Teams in the competition were allowed to make 5 submissions per day and see their score. Based on their daily scores, they could then improve their programs. Ranking in the top 10% of the competitors, at 326 place, Ayush received a bronze medal. “I was super excited when I won the bronze”, says Ayush, who received his third medal on Kaggle. “It is a super competitive platform, and even the top AI researchers and engineers participate, so winning here is difficult”, explains Ayush, saying that this has given him confidence that he is learning more and progressing in AI. 

Ayush wishes to pursue AI as a career, and feels that the competition has given him invaluable experience with new state-of-the-art AI technologies, as well as opportunity to collaborate with top researchers in the field. To read more about Kaggle and find a competition that you would be interested in, visit Kaggle’s website.