Interviewed by Syed Md. Rakeen, Team MBR

As the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Reinforz AI, Yaseen Nur’s journey has been rooted in full-stack development and AI engineering. He has had the privilege of serving as a remote software engineer for esteemed companies across Singapore, the USA, and the UK. Currently, he is in the final semester of his Computer Science degree at BRAC University, adding a formal academic foundation to his practical experience in the software industry. Team MBR was in conversation with Mr. Yaseen Nur to learn about Reinforz AI and its role in the automation of academic tasks.

Syed Md. Rakeen: The EdTech industry has experienced a meteoric rise in the last decade, with more and more startups emerging in this sector. Would you kindly share your inspiration behind building an AI-powered EdTech learning platform?

Yaseen Nur: Our personal experiences as students and educators shaped our journey into the EdTech realm. As students, we consistently needed more comprehensive practice materials when preparing for exams. Even when we did find questions, receiving timely and constructive feedback was a challenge unless we sought the help of a teacher or engaged a private tutor. Later, as we transitioned into roles as home tutors and coaching centre educators, we witnessed firsthand the intricate challenges of crafting test questions and the time-consuming nature of grading student answers. During our time in university, we recognised AI’s potential to bridge these gaps. This realisation became the catalyst for our AI-powered EdTech learning platform, designed to streamline the educational experience for both learners and educators.

Syed Md. Rakeen: Reinforz AI is a cross between EdTech and AI designed to facilitate learning by automating academic tasks for both students and teachers. Would you kindly share the features of your platform, along with its pricing models and subscriptions?

Yaseen Nur: Reinforz AI is an innovative platform at the intersection of EdTech and AI, designed to provide customised solutions for educators and students. Our platform boasts a myriad of features that cater to a wide spectrum of academic needs. Our key features are as follows:

Question Generation: This tool is at the heart of our platform. Users can effortlessly generate questions from a variety of sources, be it a textual passage from a book, uploads in formats like PDF or DOCX, or even YouTube videos. Impressively, we support content generation in 50+ languages.

Interactive Examinations: Once you have curated your questions, you can simulate an exam environment. This allows users to gauge their strengths and areas for improvement. Coupled with our ‘replay’ feature, students can revisit questions, reinforcing their understanding and mastery of topics.

Community Engagement: We have fostered a community-driven approach. Users can invite peers to attempt their quizzes, vie for top positions on leaderboards, and even explore quizzes curated by fellow learners.

Auto-Grading: In our pipeline is an exciting feature that uses AI to automatically grade subjective answers. This promises to reduce the manual effort for educators and provide timely feedback to students. Our commitment is to offer premium features at an accessible price point. We currently offer a singular pricing tier at $12/month for a yearly plan and $15/month for a monthly plan. Recognising the unique needs of different markets, we are in the process of introducing tailored pricing for our Bangladeshi audience.

Syed Md. Rakeen: Generally, EdTech platforms are more inclined towards catering to the needs of B2C customers as opposed to B2B customers. Would you kindly specify the current and future target markets for Reinforz AI?

Yaseen Nur: Reinforz AI is gearing up for its B2C launch, with the target release date set for September 1. While our initial focus is on individual consumers, we are expanding our vision beyond just the B2C sector. Post-launch, we are poised to explore the B2B landscape as well. We have already initiated conversations with several institutions and businesses to understand how Reinforz AI can address their unique challenges and requirements.

Syed Md. Rakeen: Exams, assignments, and quizzes vary depending on the different educational levels and subjects. How does Reinforz AI design personalised questionnaires depending on the diverse range of educational curriculum, levels, and subjects?

Yaseen Nur: Currently, we are not following any particular curriculum and are a more generic platform where educators and learners can generate questions. We are in a more distributed market where each educator and learner might have preferences. But we do have plans to allow the educators to generate assessments catered to their curriculum of choice, whether primary, high school, college, or university.

Syed Md. Rakeen: The quality of questions generated can be enhanced by vetting by subject matter experts and experienced teachers or faculty members. Have you collaborated with any experienced teachers or subject-matter experts to ensure the appropriateness of the questions generated?

Yaseen Nur: Absolutely. Ensuring the quality of the questions generated is paramount to us. To that end, we have collaborated with seasoned educators domestically and internationally. We invite them to engage with our platform with the specific aim of garnering their invaluable feedback. This feedback loop is integral to refining Reinforz AI before its official launch.

Syed Md. Rakeen: Reinforz AI possesses the ability to revolutionise the future of standardised testing and assessment in schools, universities, and job placement centres. Do you plan to partner with educational institutions given the sheer volume of questions needed during exams, quizzes, and assignments by the aforementioned institutions?

Yaseen Nur: Most definitely. While our immediate goal post-launch is to cater to the B2C market, we are keenly aware of the transformative potential of Reinforz AI for educational institutions. Our vision colleges, coaching centres, and other learning entities. The capacity of Reinforz AI to assist these institutions in generating vast amounts of quality questions for exams, quizzes, and assignments is a compelling proposition. We have already been approached by several institutions expressing interest in leveraging our platform for their benefit.

Syed Md. Rakeen: Reinforz AI has already made waves by garnering interest from students at different universities. Have you gone on any fundraising rounds for Reinforz AI till now? If not, are you planning to raise funds in the near future?

Yaseen Nur: Reinforz AI has been developed with a bootstrapped approach. Since we are software engineers, we had the advantage of building the platform from the ground up, significantly reducing our costs. As a result, we could bootstrap the startup, reducing our financial burn rate. While we have yet to initiate any fundraising rounds to date, we are certainly considering it as a strategic move for the near future.

Syed Md. Rakeen: As per a report by UNESCO, the global market size for AI in education is expected to reach USD 6 billion by 2024. Do you plan to take your services global and include foreign investors in the mix?

Yaseen Nur: Certainly. From its inception, we designed Reinforz AI with a global audience in mind. About 65% of our current user base hails from countries outside of Bangladesh. Our vision extends beyond being successful. We aim for Reinforz AI to firmly place Bangladesh’s name on the global startup map. As we look to the future, we are certainly open to collaborating with foreign investors and venture capitalists during our upcoming fundraising rounds. We aspire to become the first unicorn from Bangladesh with a significant international client base, and our strategies are directly aligned with this vision.