About Us
We are a startup in making!
Smart Paper is a startup incubated at Playpower Labs.
Paper is an integral part of our education system, and it is completely disconnected from the world of digital learning. This motivated us to build the Smart Paper technology. We wanted to give students and teachers freedom to work on both paper and digital. Now, Smart Paper is impacting educators at scale, and we are expanding Smart Paper to more domains for solving critical problems!
Our Story
Powering the future of learning
Many years ago, we started building futuristic education technologies. Our work began by doing learning engineering research to optimize engagement in digital education technologies. To continue our work, we started Playpower Labs, which now offers data science, AI, product design, and software engineering services to some of the leading education organizations in the world.
Meet The Team
Founders
nirmal patel
Co-Founder
Nirmal is a multi-award-winning edtech researcher and a computing child prodigy. He has close to fifteen years of hands-on work experience spanning across programming, data science, AI, and learning science. Nirmal loves innovating new technologies that can solve challenging problems. Nirmal became a Red Hat Certified Engineer at the age of 15. His educational data science research has won multiple awards. Nirmal actively works with India's Ministry of Education, where he uses data to address fairness and equity issues in national tests. Nirmal has also co-authored award-winning educational games that have been a subject of rigorous learning science research.
derek Lomas
Co-Founder
Derek is a cognitive scientist and designer with a deep background in learning science. He received his postdoctoral training at the University of California’s UC San Diego Design Lab with Donald Norman. He has a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Science (Yale, '03), a master's degree in Visual Art (UCSD, 2009), and a doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction (Carnegie Mellon, 2014). He won a Poptech Social Innovation fellowship, a MacArthur Foundation "Digital Media and Learning" award, a Sesame Workshop & White House "Impact" Award, and is an alumnus of Techstars. Derek is now an Assistant Professor of Positive AI at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
Advisors
David GODDY
Advisor
David Goddy is a former senior ed tech executive at Scholastic and consultant to research- and data-based, content-driven ed tech companies and startups. At Scholastic, he led significant turnarounds in three education divisions providing supplemental instructional products, both print and digital, with a particular focus on intervention, reading and supporting the needs of underserved and marginalized students and their teachers.
Product Developers
Darshan PATEL
Software Engineer
Darshan is a hacker at heart, and loves building complex technical systems.
Mithilesh Thakkar
Machine Learning Engineer
Mithilesh is a computer geek who loves creating AI to support classrooms.
Deepjyoti Deb
Software Engineer
Deepjyoti has a knack for creating software that delivers impact at scale.
renesa guha
Product Designer
Renesa is a ninja designer who understands the brand and delivers creative solutions that set every project apart.
DHYEY DESAI
Software Engineer
I love building polished software and paying attention to detail. Always eager to take up new technologies and solve challenging problems.
GYANESH JAIN
Machine Learning Researcher
Gyanesh is a data science enthusiast, who loves to explore new techniques. The aim of his work is to provide a complete solution for modern digital classrooms.
