DreamBox Learning

Organization: Teaching math to young children requires flexibility and individualized lessons. Current educational computer games usually follow a rigid script; the most adaptation the software can do is to repeat a level when a child misses a certain number of questions. DreamBox produces a revolutionary education product that continuously adapts lessons based on the subtler parts of children's performance, taking into account how long they took for different kinds of problems, how quickly they're improving, and how many hints they needed. In studies, this approach has yielded significant increases in math test scores.

Role: As a thirteen-year-old in ninth grade, I was selected from a pool of college graduates in Computer Science to work at DreamBox developing features that would ship with the next release of the product. For two months during summer 2007, I worked on interactive, onscreen tools for use in DreamBox's lessons. Among the tools I created was a virtual abacus, a number grid, and a text-to-speech module. Dan Kerns, the VP of Engineering, gave me an unsolicited letter of recommendation in August 2007:

"Ankur far exceeded our expectations, regularly demonstrating depths of understanding and coding skills sometimes lacking even in college graduates. He worked well with all members of the team and has made a significant contribution to our development effort. He will be greatly missed."