Organization:Mindspark

Ei Mindspark - Learn Maths, Science, English Online

Founded	2007 (2007)
Founder	Sridhar Rajagopalan, Sudhir Ghodke, and Venkat Krishnan
Type	Private
Headquarters	Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Method	Adaptive learning, Misconception diagnosis based on assessment research, and pedagogically sound remediation modules
CEO	Pranav Kothari
Parent organisation	Educational Initiatives
Website	www.mindspark.in

Ei Mindspark is a personalised learning software that allows children to advance effectively at their own learning pace. Every day, Ei Mindspark delivers over 2 million questions, and the data collected is used to enhance a child's learning pathway. Independent evaluations by J-PAL, IDInsight, and Gray Matters have demonstrated learning outcomes to improve dramatically.

Students can use Mindspark to learn Maths (Grades 1-10), English (Grades 4–9), Science (Grades 6–8), and vernacular languages. It is currently available in 9 Indian languages - English, Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and has been used by over 5 lakh students. Students can access Mindspark Maths through an App as well.

Based on each student's response to questions and activities, Ei Mindspark identifies their learning levels and misconceptions. It then delivers content specifically designed for each student's academic needs. It employs a gamified interface with questions, activities, and animated content to engage students. Millions of data from student usage provides information on learning patterns and common misconceptions. These inputs are used to curate individual feedback and learning inputs that are useful to students as well as teachers.

Learning Approach

Ei Mindspark combines over 20 years of pedagogical research and more than 5 billion data points on learning patterns with the power of AI, to provide each child with a personalised and adaptive learning experience.

It is based on the recognition that many students’ learning levels lag behind their expected grade-level competencies. Because of this, many students face difficulties despite attending school. By helping them learn at their competence level, Ei Mindspark helps them improve in a focused and fast manner. It adapts to their pace, style, and level to make learning easy for them.

Mindspark combines the benefits of the strength of machines (diagnose, assess, and provide data on learning) and man (implement insights from that data to counsel/coach) to improve learning outcomes. It helps Mindspark move closer to its long-term vision of creating a world where every child is learning with understanding.

History

Educational Initiatives used its data and research to create Ei Mindspark in 2007 to provide students personalised and adaptive learning. Initially, Ei Mindspark was available for Maths but was later expanded to include Science and Language.

At the launch, it was provided to private schools as a learning software. Later, EI began working with governments, philanthropists, and multilateral organizations to make Mindspark available to students from government schools across the country. It started with a project wherein EI set up Mindspark centres in the slums of Delhi. Over time, it has reached many government schools in rural and urban India and is available in nine vernacular languages. In 2020, due to COVID-19 induced school closures, EI made Mindspark remotely accessible. Despite being at home, tens of thousands of students had access to high-quality learning material during the pandemic.

Learning Impact

Ei Mindspark has been independently evaluated by third parties to measure its impact.

Organization/Agency	Description	Reference
J-PAL	The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted a randomized pilot evaluation of the Ei Mindspark program led by Professor Karthik Muralidharan (co-chair of education). Mindspark was deployed through stand-alone centres in Delhi and subsequently in Government schools of Rajasthan. The findings stated that Mindspark helped create among the largest gains of any education intervention that were observed. Findings from the study in Delhi were published on a paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) titled "Disrupting Education? Experimental evidence on Technology-aided instruction in India."
A study by IDInsight	Ei Mindspark usage was found to produce large and statistically significant gains relative to evaluations of similar interventions among all schools that took EI's international benchmarking ASSET test in a study conducted by IDinsight in 2011–2013.
An assessment study by Grey Matters India (now Convegenius Insights)	Ei Mindspark's efficacy was measured as a part of the Quality Education India Development Impact Bond (DIB), where Ei collaborated with the UBS Foundation, Dalberg, and others. An evaluation by Gray Matters India found a multi-fold increase in math and language scores of students who used Ei Mindspark relative to non-users in control groups. These learning gains not only exceeded the pre-determined targets set in this pay-for-results model but were the highest among all the other service providers who were part of this DIB.

Awards

Award	Year	Position	Reference
Qatar World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE)	2017	One of the top 15 finalists
UNESCO King Hamada Bin Isa Al-Khalida Prize	2018	One of the top 8 finalists
International Design Awards (Education)	2018	Winner

Recognition

Ei Mindspark has been recognized by reputed national and international agencies like World Bank, Harvard, The Economist , Stanford, and many others. Below are the details of the same:

Organization/Agency	Description	Reference
World Bank	Mr. David Evans, a Lead Economist, World Bank, penned a blog post on Ei Mindspark titled - Techno-skeptics pay heed: A computer-assisted learning program that delivers learning results. "Frankly, even the intent-to-treat effects are big: "The ITT effects on math were close to a full grade-level over just 4.5 months (even with only 58% attendance)."
World Bank Group	Ei Mindspark was mentioned in Remarks by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim at the 2018 Annual Meetings Plenary at Bali. "We invited top innovators here to Bali to showcase how technology can accelerate progress toward financial inclusion and improved human capital. For example, the Mindspark app uses millions of data points from student tests to figure out common mistakes children make answering math problems, and the program designs remedial exercises for each student. This platform has helped 80,000 students across India improve math and Hindi skills for a fraction of the cost of attending school."
Harvard Business School	Harvard Business School published a study on Ei Mindspark titled Improving Educational Outcomes in India, written by Professor Shawn Cole.
The Economist	‘The Economist’, a leading magazine with global circulation, has published favourable coverage of Mindspark on two separate occasions. As part of a 2017 story titled ‘Technology is transforming what happens when a child goes to school,’ it documented JPAL's Mindspark RCT in Delhi. Referring to the study, it said, "the progress made in language and maths by those pupils was greater than in almost any study of education in poor countries - and for a fraction of the cost of attending a government-run school." In 2018, it once again wrote about Mindspark, positively covering JPAL's RCT in Rajasthan.
UNESCO	Ei Mindspark was featured in a curated list by UNESCO in March 2020 as "self-directed learning content" during COVID-19 in the article titled "Distance learning solutions."
Stanford Social Innovation Review	Ei Mindspark has been featured in a Stanford Social Innovation Review article, "Leapfrogging Toward Success in Education" by Rebecca Winthrop & Adam Barton, which spoke of the use of education technology in addressing skills uncertainty and inequality across the globe.
Hechinger Report	Ei Mindspark was mentioned in the Hechinger Report in March 2017 in an article titled, "The Potential, Promise and Pitfalls of Blended Learning in India - Mindspark as a tool for blended learning."
KPMG	Ei Mindspark was mentioned in a report by KPMG titled "Enhancing quality of education in India by 2030."
Central Square Foundation	Ei Mindspark's project in Chhattisgarh was highlighted as a case study by the Central Square Foundation in their newsletter, the Edge, in August 2019 in an article titled "How EdTech is transforming education in remote Dantewada."
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers	Mindspark was mentioned in a case study on India by Ashish Dhawan covering "innovations that work" in Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers, an initiative to track progress towards SDGs. "Another innovation that has had an impact is Ei Mindspark, an adaptive learning program that helps teachers provide personalised instruction in an online environment. In a study, students who spent 20 weeks using Ei Mindspark scored 200 percent higher in math and 250 percent higher in Hindi than students in a control group."

See also

• Educational Initiatives