What's in the Bag?
The concept
An edu-tech platform to enable digitalised educational system in the higher educational institutes (HEIs) for students, professors, parents and management.
How did it all start?
The curiosity behind questions
Flashing back to the college days, not everyone in the class were studious. To many it felt like making a fish climate a tree. A highly competitive environment where a majority of students were still trying to understand if they are competent enough or not. They are in that explorative phase and engineering was just a time buyer to them.
Engineers where evidently mass produced as institutions oversold hope and security to parents (the decision makers) inspite of the fact that only 23% of the graduate on average got placed/year and leaving the rest in ambiguity. This exposes the quality of education and inefficiency in the system.
Being a victim, rolled my sleeves to walk against the wind and make an attempt to transform the educational approach and pedagogy that hasn't changed for several decades.
What did we discover?
Listening Deeply
Once we had the questions in hand, the next step was simply to listen. We reached out to over 60+ engineering students and asked them what they had actually been through. Every response carried a clue, a pattern, a struggle, a blind spot that needed attention.
We sat with all the answers, mapped them, grouped them and started seeing connections. The image below captures how we clustered responses to remove clutter and bring clarity.
Insights
Only 30–40% of Class Understood
Most students grasped less than half of what was taught, citing one-way lectures with little real-world context.
42% Chose Engineering by Compulsion
Parental pressure, societal expectations, or lack of exposure led most to choose engineering.
53% Feel Lost During Lectures
Students often zoned out during lengthy sessions, unclear delivery and pace mismatch were recurring issues.
Insights
Only 30–40% of Class Understood
Most students grasped less than half of what was taught, citing one-way lectures with little real-world context.
“ Most lectures felt like reading a manual out loud. I’d nod, pretend to take notes, but my mind had already shut off. No one asked if we were with them. I didn’t feel dumb, just disconnected. And that stayed with me longer than the subject ever did. ”
Ritika Sharma
(Final Year, CSE)
Backlog Recovery is a Struggle
Those with backlogs struggled to catch up. No guided support system, no personalised path to relearn or revise.
68% Lacked Curriculum Clarity
Few had a full picture of course structure or semester flow, many entered with zero idea of what lay ahead.
Less than 18% Landed Jobs (placements)
Placement rates were low. Most left college feeling unprepared, unsupported and unsure.
71% Faced Backlogs
More than two-thirds experienced at least one backlog, driven by unclear teaching, pressure, or weak foundation.
Backlog Recovery is a Struggle
Those with backlogs struggled to catch up. No guided support system, no personalised path to relearn or revise.
68% Lacked Curriculum Clarity
Few had a full picture of course structure or semester flow, many entered with zero idea of what lay ahead.
“ I didn’t choose engineering, I just didn’t know what else was out there. Everyone said it’s safe. But safe for what? I kept waiting for clarity about the syllabus, the path, the future. Instead, it felt like walking through fog, ticking boxes, hoping it would all make sense someday ”
Nikhil Patil
(3rd Year, Mechanical Engineering)
How did we solve?
Designing for Change
Once the patterns became clear, it was time to act. We began translating these insights into tangible solutions starting with the students, but never stopping there.
The goal wasn’t just to create a digital interface but to reimagine the experience of learning itself. So, we designed an application that helps students make sense of what they’re learning, track their progress, and stay on course.
But fixing the student experience wasn’t enough. To really shift the system, we needed every stakeholder to see value i.e professors, parents, and admins included. So we dug deeper, ran similar research with professors, parents and admins to shaped features and workflows for each of them based on user specific goals and tasks.
How could it work?
Designing for Change
What would success have looked like for each of the users? The solution could have transformed the academic experience for every user group involved.
For Students: Clarity, confidence and control. They could enter each semester with awareness of the path ahead, backed by tools for preparation, revision and backlog recovery. Learning would feel structured and interactive and not chaotic.
For Professors: A smoother and effective way to teach. Lecture planning, doubt resolution, assessments, and feedback loops would become intuitive. Less time juggling tasks and more time teaching with impact.
For Parents: Real-time visibility into attendance and academic progress reducing the information gap without overstepping boundaries. A quiet but powerful way to stay involved.
For College Admins: One control centre to streamline academic coordination from student onboarding to fee management and performance insights. Decisions could be data-driven and not delayed.
Why did it fail?
Key earnings
Hard truths, deeper insights and what it really taught me. Despite solving real problems this platform wasn’t adopted and that failure became one of my most transformative design experiences.
Mobile Phone Restrictions on Campus
Many colleges had restrictions on phone usage within the campus. Using the platform meant violating that rule which managements weren’t willing to do.
Professors Belief Systems & Comfort Levels
Not all professors were comfortable or open to interacting with students at the level the application enabled. Many followed strict protocols and didn’t see value in deviating from that.
Offline-Centric Content Ecosystem
Uploading course content onto the platform required several prerequisite steps, as the majority of existing material was still in traditional physical formats like books, papers, and handouts.
Perceived Workload in Digitisation
Translating content into digital formats was seen as a major workload. Many professors were not technically skilled and viewed the change as burdensome.
Fear of Reduced Class Attendance
Faculty believed that digital access to content would further reduce in-person attendance as it removed the formal fear of missing out.
Existing Informal Ecosystems
Students had already created class/section and or branch specific Facebook groups to socialise and share academic updates informally and on demand.
Rise of WhatsApp File Sharing feature
Around the same time, WhatsApp had begun to allow document/file sharing which diluted the perceived need for a new dedicated platform for the students.
