Client Name, Location, Industry

TecShare, China & India, Ed-Tech

Project Duration

8 Weeks (1 week of In-Person Training + 7 weeks of Software Development)

 

Introduction

Welcome to the journey of Project Bread, where 10 engineering students from Institute of Engineering & Management and Heritage Institute of Technology, both from Kolkata, India along with a few members of Caravel Labs worked with an ed-tech non-profit TecShare to solve a specific, non-trivial problem of building a self-managed Digital Library Platform for the children and schools of the underserved communities across India & China.

Project Bread was an initiative under the umbrella of the flagship Caravel Labs Summer Internship Program – Sunrise. Through the Sunrise internship program, the 10 engineering students as interns, start the transformation of their careers from an academic scenario to a more professional one.

Team Members and their Roles

Name	Role
Swapnanil Ray	Lead Engineer
Saptarshi Mondal	Lead Engineer
Meghna Bharadwaj	Customer Success Manager
Tim Kachko	UX Coach/Mentor
Prashant Kashyap	Engineer
Kulsum Kamal	Engineer
Archisman Mukherjee	UX Generalist
Somtirtha Datta	Engineer
Om Sharma	Engineer
Shagil Islam	Engineer
Sayak Roy	Engineer
Debarpan Jha	Engineer
Aparajita Kumari	Engineer
Himon Sarkar	Engineer

Special Mention

• James Liao
• Subham Kundu

 

Problems To Be Solved

The team worked with an ed-tech non-profit TecShare that develops custom software for children in schools where there is a lack of teachers and sustainable infrastructure to encourage and promote the practices of reading and learning. TecShare specifically works with schools of underserved communities around China & India.

In this project we partnered with Knowledge Tree, a non-profit school in Kolkata, India that provides primary education to children aged 6 – 13 at no cost.

Picture 1: Knowledge Tree School in Kolkata, India

 

Our primary focus in this project was to modernize and revamp an existing solution from TecShare called MyLibrary. It is a self-managed digital library solution introduced almost a decade ago by TecShare in over 500 schools in China that helps the students nurture a healthy habit of reading consistently while also developing various soft skills like management and ownership, by running the library themselves without any major interferences from adults like teachers or supervisors.

Since the solution is over 10+ years old, and has various constraints (portability, ease-to-use, user experience based on current trends etc.), it was due for a complete revamp.

 

What happened during this project?

This project was divided into 2 phases. The first phase included 1 week of in-person training bootcamp and the second phase included 7 weeks of software development.

The first week kicked off on June 12, 2023, in Kolkata, India. The 10 interns along with the Lead Engineers, CSM, UX Coach – Tim Kachko as well as the Product Owner – James Liao (acted both as CL Representative & TecShare Representative), participated in this.

Picture 2: Project Kickoff and Setup during Week 1

The first week included various learning sessions being conducted by CL team members, exploration workshop, ideation sessions, including Sprint Simulation.

During the exploration workshop, the product owner gave a thorough idea of the existing solution and the various constraints that the application possesses, and what they expect from a complete rebuild of the application.

During the week, the interns also got the experience of creating a backlog from the learnings of the exploration workshop, and formulating a well-defined season with structured user stories, to have a hassle-free development experience during the weeks 2 – 8.

After the exploration workshop, various ideation sessions throughout the week were conducted by the UX Coach including visiting Knowledge Tree to talk to the children and to develop a preliminary idea of the what the final solution might be like.

At the end of Week 1, all of us had a very good understanding of what the various constraints were in the previous solution and what is expected out of the new application.

During the weeks 2 – 8, we rebuilt the application from scratch by developing an effortless Book Check-in/Check-out process using QR Codes and in-built cameras from Tablets, fetching details of various books using Google Books to reduce human effort of adding book details manually to the library, introduced a web app to ensure portability, used cloud databases for storing, managing, and analyzing huge volumes of data. We also added a Proxy Server for Google Books so that it’s accessible from within China. Additionally, we also introduced features like Reading Habits, Reading Streaks, and Word Cloud & Book Suggestions by leveraging simple AI techniques to make the application even more engaging considering the sensitive audience we were targeting (kids aged 6-13).

 

Accomplishments

During the project, our team achieved remarkable milestones and successes, displaying our commitment to excellence. Some of our notable accomplishments include:

1. Effective Development & Smooth Testing: We successfully developed, without any major disruptions and tested the system with the children from Knowledge Tree NGO & representatives from Tec Share on multiple occasions receiving positive and encouraging feedback.
2. Multi-Region Release: The system that we developed will be released in schools in India & China.
3. High Performing Team: Even while having 10 young professionals, who were very new to the principles, practices and the technology pursued at Caravel Labs, we maintained a prominent level of productivity and completed all the features that were planned.
4. User-Friendly Interface: We focused on developing a user interface that was very intuitive and easy to use for children aged 6-13.
5. Efficient Team Velocity: We maintained an incredibly good velocity, such that we were able to take in features planned for future seasons, complete and deliver them.

Picture 3: Burn-Up Chart & Team Velocity for Project Bread

 

Special Note

This was the most wholesome project that we have worked on so far in Caravel Labs. Developing an application for children while being challenging, was also just as much exciting.

We got to meet our “little users” on multiple occasions, and seeing the smile on their faces every time they met us, and used the application that we were building for them was indeed a very fulfilling experience.

As Lead Engineers, we extend our heartfelt gratitude towards Caravel Labs and TecShare, for letting us do this project. Through this project we understood that software isn’t always meant to be for complex use-cases, generating revenue worth millions, or is the means for a company to run its business, but rather even the simplest of software like a digital library can create a huge impact. To speak of numbers, the existing solution from TecShare is deployed in over 500 rural schools across China, and soon the new software developed by Caravel Labs for TecShare would also be rolled into action, starting with Knowledge Tree in Kolkata, India.

A more exciting ending to the project was TecShare being invited to the Bett Conference UK 2023, the world’s largest Ed-Tech conference with over 30,000+ attendees and 600+ innovative Ed-Tech companies exhibiting their ideas. TecShare plans to showcase the newly developed MyLibrary solution at the conference, and that is something that we’re very proud of.

 

Having Fun

These are some of the moments that the team shared with each other during the 8-weeks.

 

Picture 4: CL Team with students and teachers of Knowledge Tree

 

Picture 5: CL Team having fun-filled-conversations with the students of Knowledge Tree

 

Picture 6: Team Picture at Week 1 Closure

 

Picture 7: Team engaged in setting up their dev environments for the project

 

Picture 8: In action - Setting up of the Barcode/QR Code Printer supplied by TecShare

 

Picture 9: Team Dinner at Week 1 Closure