Key takeaways
- Microsoft expands Shiksha CoPilot initiative to 100 schools by academic year's end.
- AI copilot significantly reduces lesson plan preparation time from over an hour to just 5-15 minutes.
- Shiksha CoPilot utilizes Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Cognitive Services for educational content.
- Project VeLLM aims to bridge digital divides through Large Language Models in public education.
- Collaboration with Sikshana Foundation enhances quality of public education in Karnataka.
Microsoft aims to expand the reach of Microsoft Research India's initiative, the AI copilot, Shiksha CoPilot, to 100 schools by the end of the academic year.
The tech giant announced Shiksha CoPilot in November last year and was being tested in 10 schools in Bengaluru, India.
Shiksha copilot was built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and harnessed Azure Cognitive Services to ingest the content in textbooks, including how the content is organised.
The project, implemented in collaboration with the Sikshana Foundation, an NGO dedicated to enhancing the quality of public education, has been initially deployed at several public schools in Karnataka.
Sikshana found the copilot cut down lesson plan preparation time from an hour and more to just 5 minutes to 15 minutes. A majority of the teachers said they only needed to make minor modifications, if any, to the lesson plans generated.
This initiative is part of Project VeLLM (Universal Empowerment with Large Language Models) at Microsoft Research India, which primarily aims to address the digital divide by overcoming language, income, digital literacy, and information access barriers with Large Langauge Models (LLMs).
