Leveraging technology to improve education across Africa is what software startup FlexiSAF commits its activities to achieve this goal, Intel® Liftoff for Startups, members accessing the computational power they needed to solve technical challenges.
FlexiSAF’s recent product Distinction AI was designed to support students and provide personalized learning at scale. With over 500,000 curriculum aligned practice questions, interactive flashcards and an AI Tutor that allows students to learn interactively they have 12,000 students from 150 universities and facilitated 1.8 million practice questions.
The platform also automates content creation and grading for lecturers that allows them to focus on qualitative feedback and personalized instruction.
The Genesis of FlexiSAF
The inspiration for founding FlexiSAF came from the combination of founder and CEO Faiz Bashir’s experience in programming and his observations of the challenges in his high school years faced when compiling reports.
To solve this, he developed a software solution to enhance this process. By the time he was in university, he had launched the first version of the software, and got positive responses from numerous schools. That was the moment when he realized that FlexiSAF was a full-time job.
Challenges Faced by Educators & Students and how FlexiSAF solves them
Many universities and colleges in Africa are confronted with revenue & data loss, manual and cumbersome processes, and data integrity issues. These problems hinder the institution's effectiveness and growth.
With SAFrecords, their cloud-based Educational Institution Management System, has been able to solve these concerns by streamlining both administrative processes and learning management.
For the students, they generally face difficulty in accessing content in line with their curriculum and have limited access to quality study resources.
FlexiSAF's Distinction AI addresses these issues by using AI to provide curriculum-aligned learning resources and an AI Tutor that the students can engage to learn based on materials relevant to them.
Initial Obstacles and Intel®’s Contribution
When Distinction AI was launched, they faced several stumbling blocks, including latency issues and ensuring content generation without repetition. Additionally, the limitations of token constraints presented scaling issues.
The Intel Liftoff program has been instrumental in helping us address these obstacles. Through access to the Intel Developer Cloud and its GPU resources, we were able to explore and experiment with a variety of AI models. The platform's robust capabilities have enabled us to push the boundaries of what is possible for our platform.
Moreover, the support from the Intel technical team and the vibrant community within the Liftoff program has been an invaluable asset to our AI initiatives. We are able to move faster and many of the things we were not sure about are now very clear and our vision for Distinction AI is on spot.
Impact on Education
FlexiSAF has made a profound impact on the education sector through the deployment of their solutions that have been utilized by over 800 schools, managing the records of more than 2 million students and empowering over 20,000 teachers.
Distinction AI, is a very important milestone for FlexiSAF. Since its launch, it has engaged over 12,000 students from 150 universities and facilitated 1.8 million practice questions.
Looking to the future, FlexiSAF is very excited about the potential of Distinction AI and the traction they have already gained. Their vision is to expand their capabilities o to provide scalable, personalized learning experiences for students. What the future holds
FlexiSAF’s growth strategy includes broadening their reach to higher education institutions across Africa, with the goal of empowering millions of students through advanced, accessible educational solutions. By focusing on localization and customization, they aim to address diverse learning challenges and expand our impact on a global scale.
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As a Software Tools Ecosystem Specialist at Intel, I’ve had the privilege of working on the dynamic GenAI initiative. My focus is on driving engagement with the software developer audience. I'm a proud team member of the Intel® Liftoff for Startups and the Developer Engagement, Relations, and Studio team.