Open Tutor

Inspiration

Education is expensive. Lots of people would benefit from one-on-one tutoring, but not everyone can afford it. So, we built Open Tutor. A cost-effective AI solution to help everyone, everywhere take control of their learning.

What it does

Open Tutor analyzes the contents of a textbook, research paper, assignment, or even magazine, and steps the learner through the content. Rather than having to deal with a huge mess of confusing text, Open Tutor breaks down difficult material into simple, easy-to-digest modules. After completing each module, you get a chance to test your knowledge with evaluation questions. Plus, you have a personal AI tutor that can answer any questions and guide you along the way.

How we built it

Azure. Lots and lots of Azure.

The backend application is written in Python (Django). It utilizes an Azure PostgreSQL server, Azure Redis Cache, Azure AI Document Intelligence, Azure Language Service (Document Summarizer), and Azure Open AI.

The frontend application is written in React (Next.js) and Tailwind CSS (♥).

The actual web applications are hosted on Digital Ocean. No offense to Azure (really...we love you), but we ran out of time, and had to put something up fast.

Challenges we ran into

It turns out that generating a customized pathway, itemized summaries, and multiple-choice evaluation questions for each user's learning plan is very time intensive. Originally, our users would have to wait for sometimes up to a minute before proceeding while the learning plan is set up. That sucks. So, we used Azure Redis Cache to setup a Celery broker (and backend) that offloads the time-intensive tasks from the standard request response cycle. That way, users can keep going even while new learning content is being generated!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're really proud of getting this project done in 20 hours! Perhaps a bit more decisiveness early on would have given us more time to work with, but we're proud of ourselves either way.

What we learned

Azure! We actually hadn't used any Azure services before this. But it turns out, there's a whole goldmine of 'em!

What's next for Open Tutor

We think we're really onto something here. The applications are very real, and the initial results are promising. We will definitely be on the lookout for ways to improve our baby.