Here’s a feel-good story about two Christian students at Stanford University. It starts:
Hadassah Betapudi and Elijah Kim met at a Christian fellowship at Stanford in 2022 and got to know each other by leading a Bible study together. Soon the duo—with their backgrounds in data organizing and computer science—was building an artificial intelligence startup.
The two sought to solve a problem: They had heard from students needing a lot of guidance on the essay-writing part of college applications. That mentoring wasn’t available to many because of their financial or cultural backgrounds.
So they built an AI (artificial intelligence) – based app that helps kids write their college application essays. It doesn’t write the essay for them, but it gives them specific, high-quality feedback. As expected they recognized the need from their own experience:
Neither Betapudi nor Kim felt that they had entered the application process with a lot of guidance themselves; Betapudi was the first in her family to go to college in the US, and Kim was homeschooled his whole life before college.
“Applying to college was a little scary because I lacked a lot of the insight and guidance that I think a lot of students take for granted,” said Betapudi, who was born in Memphis to Indian immigrant parents. “It’s not just about your test scores or your GPA but about presenting who you are holistically to a college admissions committee, which is very different than the way things are done in India.”
This year the duo launched their startup: an AI tool that provides college admissions essay feedback. The founders see it as more like a guidance counselor and editor, not a content producer like ChatGPT. It doesn’t write essays for students.
And the good news is, they see their tool as a ministry to the poor:
Nguyen grew up in a low-income family. Most students can pay a monthly fee to use the tool, but Betapudi and Kim have enough paying customers to be able to give Esslo access to high schoolers who meet certain financial criteria, like being on free or reduced lunch or being at a Title I school.
“It levels out the playing field, especially since I can’t afford private counselors or special programs,” Nguyen said. “Esslo is a really good example of using AI to the benefit of a lot of people, especially underrepresented and underprivileged people and communities.“
“The truly dystopian outcome of introducing AI into education or into the world is that these oppressive regimes or governments will have access or will develop better AI than the good guys—those who fight for the widow, the orphan, the poor, or the lame,” Betapudi said. “I have been gifted through grace the ability to go to Stanford. … As a believer, my charge is then to build tools that not just benefit the top richest 1 percent who is already using this sort of thing but making it equitable and making it easy to access.”
The article is worth the read in its entirety. When a Stanford Bible Study Led to an AI Startup, by Emily Belz, Christianity Today, November 12, 2024.
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace… (1 Peter 4.10, ESV)