#StartupsEverywhere: Shweta Gandhi, CEO and Founder, Strived.io
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Shaping the future of education with data
After a career in corporate finance, Shweta Gandhi transitioned into the education sphere after recognizing the impact of data-driven solutions in addressing educational disparities. With experience in both nonprofit work and EdTech, she founded Strived.io, a program using AI to transform how schools utilize data for personalized learning. We spoke with Shweta about her journey, the future of AI in education, and more.
Tell us about your background. What led you to Strived.io?
I started my career in corporate finance but realized after seven years that it wasn't my passion. A few years into that work, I began looking elsewhere and started dabbling in the impact non-profit space. I happened to meet a foundation that was looking to shut down and give out its remaining funding to help with education in India.
We spent about a year doing some research and trying to understand where the gaps were in India. We ended up starting a nonprofit that supported kids in transitioning from the eighth to ninth grade because that was where the largest dropout rate was happening.
However, after a few years of working on the ground, I realized that we were inadvertently setting up these kids for failure. We were plucking them out of poor government schools and putting them in affordable private schools that we were providing the funding for which seemed reasonable. But unfortunately, most of these kids were coming in at a second or third-grade reading level and an even lower than that STEM level, and we weren't providing any kind of bridge education. Most of them were not even completing our two-year scholarship program and instead leaving school with even less interest to try again
Although I eventually shut down the nonprofit, I remained in India for another four years, using that time to deepen my understanding of how to support the education and nonprofit sectors more holistically. During this period, I launched my second venture, which focused on helping nonprofits enhance their organizational strategy, share best practices, and connect with others serving similar communities. This work also included creating an impact-driven recruitment platform, marking my first step into the world of SaaS-enabled startups.
In 2016, I ended up moving back to the U.S. with my family and found a role with a charter school organization managing their innovation work that was based in California, but active in five states. The CEO was interested in refreshing their policy around education technology (EdTech) and rethinking what they were doing offline. I started looking at their EdTech data, trying to understand what was working, which led me to building a goals-based platform for student edtech work to support them in using the programs bought with fidelity so we can close important skills gaps. After scaling that work, I transitioned out to start Strived.io with the goal of looking at data beyond just Edtech, and integrating more seamlessly into academic and non-academic data.
What is the work you all are doing at Strived.io?
In the education space, there's a ton of data but it isn’t utilized often due to the disparate nature of data walls and sheer time it takes to run analysis in a teachers’ limited day. A lot of teacher-driven instruction is done through anecdotal data or basic paper and pen worksheets and quizzes. Our goal was to help make sense of all of the disparate data that's out there and really share it in the final manner through everyday conversations. Data should not be daunting, nor out of reach in any industry. In the past, with my goals-based platform, we ingested and analyzed all the data manually, and then it became apparent that this is exactly what AI is built for—to look at swaths of data and try to make sense of it.
I didn't come from an AI background, but luckily ended up meeting my now CTO at the end of last year. He took everything that was in my head and was able to build a strong AI -enabled platform that is in continual refinement with the latest models coming out to make sense of the data. We launched our beta in January and our full product this fall. We're going into about twenty schools this winter, and have a couple of data partners that are working with us on sharing their data so we can continue to build towards a better ecosystem of data sharing between schools and vendors with walled data gardens.
We work first at the district level, identifying what kinds of academic and non-academic data they already have in place, whether it's sitting in a warehouse or sitting with a vendor. Then, with that basic level of data, the system essentially runs a series of prompts on the back end and shares recommendations at the district and school leader levels. The users can also interact with the data by asking queries directly. Our goal is to identify the data already available at the classroom level and integrate it to provide teachers with more granular and actionable feedback.
How are you approaching data privacy and security in the education space?
It’s common for schools and districts to feel concerned about data security, often without having a clear understanding of the specific risks or protections in place. Part of our approach is to educate and inform them by transparently outlining the steps we’ve taken to prevent breaches and mitigate potential issues if they occur.
With the rapid advancements in AI, many are navigating uncertainty around data security and evolving policies. It’s a complex and ever-changing landscape, and we acknowledge that some aspects of future regulations remain unclear. However, we are proactively adapting as new information and guidelines emerge.
We are committed to building responsibly with the information and tools currently available. This commitment applies not only to our product development but also to the security measures we implement. Our CTO, who brings extensive experience from the health tech sector—a field known for its rigorous data security requirements—has worked diligently to ensure that our infrastructure is as secure and compliant as possible at this stage of our growth.
We recognize that achieving robust data security can be challenging, particularly for startups where resources are limited. Despite this, we prioritize security as a fundamental aspect of our platform, continuously evaluating and strengthening our safeguards to protect sensitive information.
What grants have you applied for or are planning to apply for, and what was the process like?
We will soon be applying for a Small Business Innovation Research grant (SBIR) for the first time. We previously applied for an Intensity of Education Sciences grant (IES) and brought on an individual that was incredibly well-versed in the space. Without their help, navigating the grant process would have been incredibly challenging. We also partnered with a research-partner who had been awarded a number of these grants so we were in good hands.
For the IES grant I did the whole first run, mainly because I couldn't afford for our consultant to do it. Then she took on the more technical topics that I discussed from a startup mindset and made them more research-focused. Essentially, she helped translate our product using a research lens, as opposed to an entrepreneur pitching to an investor.
I’m excited to collaborate with them on the SBIR as we already have a solid foundation and work well together. We are also a capstone sponsor for the Carnegie Mellon University METALS program, starting in January. We will have four to six grad students, two faculty, and two researchers who are working on a very specific part of our work that focuses on child-based recommendations, looking at the whole child from a data perspective.
Are there any local, state, or federal startup issues that you think should receive more attention from policymakers?
Industry standards for AI could be helpful for guidance and so that districts and other organizations recognize quality. There is still a lot of hesitancy around AI and standards could help improve trust.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email advocacy@engine.is.
