A team of researchers including Arts & Science graduate students Ilya Musabirov, Mohi Reza, Pan Chen, and Harsh Kumar and led by Arts & Science Assistant Professor Joseph Jay Williams has been awarded the US$500,000 grand prize in the XPRIZE Digital Learning Challenge. The team has built a tool that uses AI-driven experiments to personalize students' learning experiences, employing a novel approach that uses machine learning algorithms with statistical models and human decision-making, similar to techniques used by technology companies like Google or Meta to show users content that is relevant to them.
“Think of the toughest times as a student. Maybe you were feeling discouraged because you couldn’t solve a problem, and the way it was explained didn’t work. Or you were shaking with fear before a tough test and nothing you were saying helped you calm down,” says Williams, who is a member of U of T’s Data Sciences Institute and a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.