One of the main challenges of education is a lack of flexibility to accommodate for different styles of learning. What if we could use available online content to detect and categorise learning styles, understand what is the best way to deliver content and evaluate someone’s progress, and provide a learning experience that is tailored to each individual’s unique learning style?

Alpha challenges participants to ideate and rethink the future of education. The main problems to be addressed are:

Find online educational courses and collect metadata in the form of comments, reviews, likes from different learning tools. 
Analyse existing online educational resources (and their communities) to understand and model the preferences and learning styles of different people with different needs (games, logical exercises, etc).
Prototype intuitive ways to deliver the educational content in a motivating and natural manner.

Imagine the time when you can ask: “Hey bot, give me a question on renaissance english literature that a 14 year old should be able to answer”. 

Profile:

• Data scientist / machine learning expert
• Creative developer (interfaces, VR, hardware)
• UX/UI designer
• Psychologist with expertise in pedagogy

Alpha is an innovation facility based in Barcelona. It was established by Telefonica in January 2016.  Alpha was created to address some of the biggest problems in society by conceiving and delivering radical solutions and breakthrough technology. Alpha supports the creation of Moonshots.  An Alpha moonshot is multi-year development project that addresses a big societal problem. These moonshots typically encompass several exploratory ventures that all contribute to the principal moonshot goal. The hope is for these moonshots to one day evolve into successful business models in their own right. At Alpha, we bring together the very best minds in the world in order to tackle the world’s greatest challenges, and create solutions that are truly unique.

*Alpha Intellectual Property Policy: We see the Sónar+D Innovation Challenge as a great opportunity to meet like minded people that are eager to generate an impact through technology. After this challenge, we hope that you’ll become part of our knowledge hub and continue to collaborate on future projects. As a sponsor of the Sónar+D Innovation Challenge, we need to guarantee ownership of the IP coming out of the project, however as a company with a long term interested in young talent and innovation we would encourage all participants to continue working on this topic on a purely academic, non-commercial context and we will be considering potential opportunities for future collaboration, after completing the challenge.

Participants working in Alpha’s challenge will need to adhere to the following IP clause: “Any intellectual property rights developed wholly, or in part, by Party 2 during the course of its engagement with Party 1 as part of the Sonar Innovation Challenge 2018 shall vest in Party 1 and Party 2 shall take all reasonable steps that Party 1 may request to ensure such rights are accordingly assigned or registered to Party 1. In such an event, Party 1 will, in good faith, consider potential opportunities to continue to work with Party 2 post-completion of the Purpose. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Party 2 shall be entitled to use and develop their Party 2 contributions for any non-commercial purpose, whether scientific, academic or otherwise, including sharing with third parties provided such third parties are subject to confidentiality obligations no less strict that set out herein.” (“Party 1” refers to Alpha, “Party 2” refers to the team of creators that participate in the challenge)