Sindy Labs

We welcomed over 350 University of Melbourne staff and graduate researchers for a day of in-depth discussion on #ArtificialIntelligence and #HigherEducation, and how educators and students are responding to rapid change.   We would like to thank all our attendees for their amazing engagement throughout the sessions. Special thanks go to our speakers, panelists and moderators for sharing their expertise, which made for a lively exchange throughout the day.

Big shoutout to Galileo Ventures for live roasting our pitch deck. Lots of good feedback.

Just got back from the US. Here's what I've been up to: 1. Played terrible drinking games and partied to techno music at UC Berkeley with some unbelievably funny Norwegian guys. 2. Lived in a San Francisco hacker house with some of the most intelligent and intentional people I've ever met (especially you two Allison and Niamh). 3. Snuck into every backyard social and networking event we could find, including some ones we probably weren't allowed to be at (sorry Jordan). 4. Gave a live pitch and demo for Sindy in front of 600+ crowd at the Silicon Valley Investing Summit. 5. Went for lunch with 3 billionaires in New York and Boston. But I'll save that for a different post. 6. Co-hosted a Sincidium x Design Buddies networking event in SF for over 180 founders, creatives and investors. Thank you Grace Ling for making this happen. 7. Became a (micro) Angel Investor at Fractal Fund in NYC thanks to Marwan Refaat. 8. Co-worked with friends from Next Chapter. Special thank you Ghita Houir Alami for the lovely taco dinner you hosted for us, and to Max Marchione for the elite community you've built. 9. Finally met Julius Ritter and Anders Rodem in the flesh – two of the most generous and hospitable people I have come to know. 10. Sat down with professors and researchers at Stanford, Berkeley, UCSF, Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Rochester and UT Southwestern, as well as some of the founding members of the world's hottest and most ambitious biotech/technology companies (Moderna, DeepMind, OpenAI, Mammoth, Colossal, Editas and Nebula). 11. Was introduced to some of the most well-connected investors in the Bay Area, including Z Fellows, Thiel Capital and PearVC. 12. And my favourite... saw Hamilton on Broadway... for the third time. Some say that The American Dream is dead, that US hegemony is on a slow decline and that capitalism is in its final death throes. I say there is still no better place on earth to unlock human potential.

We're #hiring a new Account Manager Enterprise Sales in Melbourne, Victoria. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We're #hiring a new Animator Intern in Parkville, Victoria. Apply today or share this post with your network.

We're #hiring a new Software Engineer Intern in Parkville, Victoria. Apply today or share this post with your network.

"91% of students have tried ChatGPT in their studies" 📚 🤖 How do we know that students have learned? This is the question on every educator's lips at the moment as AI becomes a very frequent tool for many students. This leaves schools and universities with 2 options... Option 1: Limit AI Usage by blocking websites, using AI detection software and shifting more work to paper. Most teachers and students are not fond of this option for a few reasons: 1. AI detection systems are very flawed. 2. Does not prepare students for the real world. 3. Creates a bad student-educator dynamic as students find ways to break rules and teachers are forced to enforce them. Option 2: Allow students to use AI and try to manage its misuse. This is also challenging. How can we know what prompts are acceptable and what prompts aren't? ChatGPT can also occasionally make up information. Is this a reliable source? How do you think we could manage the use of AI in high schools and universities? 🤔 #aiineducation #university #assessments

☠️ Has AI destroyed education? Students can now dish out essays by the minute and construct perfect answers to complicated questions in a matter of seconds. Schools and universities now need to decide how big a role AI will play in student assessments and learning: The Pros: - Real work readiness - Students finish content quickly The Cons: - Poor understanding of content - Ruin student’s work ethic How much should we adopt AI in universities and high schools? 🤖🏫 #AIinEducation #EdTech #EducationDebate

We have gathered eye-opening statistics underscoring the urgent need for innovation in online education:  - 🇩🇪 75% of 300,000 German students feel disengaged. - 📚 Barnes and Noble Education reveals 33% find instructors unprepared, and 24% question university readiness. - 🇮🇳 In Delhi, 47.3% miss teacher-student interaction, 48.1% prefer offline classes. Sindy is upping the ante this year! Our mission? Not just to make learning great again 😂, but to fundamentally transform teaching, learning and assessments with the power of AI 🏫🤖

What a ride it’s been! As we wrap up an extraordinary year, I’d like to take this moment to reflect on the phenomenal progress we’ve made at Sincidium. Oliver Cucanic, Jim Lim, and myself have immense pride in what our team has accomplished in such a short time. 🚀 🌟 March: From rivals to co-founders, we entered the UoM Pitch Comp with a groundbreaking idea for assessment tooling that cannot be gamed. 👨💻 April: Welcomed Jim Lim as CTO and onboarded our first software engineer, Taha Ansari. Completed our company registration and began drafting our shareholders agreement. 🏆 May: Triple Victory – 1st at UoM StartUp Comp, 3rd in Web3 Hackathon, and bagged the Melbourne InnovatEd EdTech Grant. 👨💻 June: Big Wins – Built an early prototype and globally-renowned AI expert Prof Eduard Hovy joined as our research advisor. 🔄 July: Pivot Time – Shifted focus towards building enterprise software to help learning institutes become AI-enabled, inspired by insights from James Tynan and Max Marchione. 🍕 August: Alpha Product Test Success – ‘The Pizza Party Experiment’ with 20 students, and the resulting analysis from our data scientists, proved that we were on the right track. 🏛️ September: Major Milestone – Landed a large-scale trial at Australia's largest university, completed PIA, and got the green light from Human Ethics. 🎨 October: A jaw-dropping demo and sleek website designs, courtesy of Cintia Sofia and our design team. 🤝 November: Global Outreach – New pitch deck, investor memo, and financial model reviewed by 20+ global VCs. Our team expanded from 2 to 16, adding in-person events and co-working sessions. 🛠️ December: MVP Done – A month-long surge allowed us to complete our fully functional enterprise software stack. This has been an incredible year. But it would not have been possible without all the contributions from our team members and early supporters. Each and every one of you has acted as a forcing function for both my growth as a person, and our growth as a company. Thank you to Abhishek Maran, Adam Miller, Adrian Petersen, Allen Zhu, Andrew McLean, Annie Liao 🇦🇺, Ariel Hersh, Ashwin K., Brandon White-Harris, Bryant Anderson Ciputra, Chery C., David Sha, Eric Tran, Fan Zhang, Geoffrey Yang, Harrison Langdon, James Harrisson, Jethro Cohen, Julius Ritter, Joy Yin, Katrina Engle, Katrina Gaskin, Liam Bussell, Mim Ingvarson, Nicki Cranna, Nina Porter, Pearl Paguio, Rob Greco, Sachin Shah, Tristan Latcham. Now, it's time to wind down for the year, shut off our laptops and connect with our families. Everyone deserves a break. ...Yes, you too! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I love you all. ❤️