Fast-paced math and computer science major Karam Khanna (25C) is bothered by inefficiency. During the final exam period last fall, he found himself frustrated by the laborious, tedious act of creating review materials, which stole valuable time away from actually studying the material. For busy college students around the world, time is absolutely precious.
Being a computer science major, Khanna has a strong interest and advanced knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI), which got him thinking about how he could use this new technology to replace this“terrible, terrible system,” and solve the issue of inefficiency so prevalent in studying.
By winter break, his solution was born. Khanna built what is now to be known as Eightball, a website that uses the power of AI to make studying more efficient and easier.
Upon returning to Emory after winter break, Khanna recruited his two entrepreneurial friends Shaan Bhasin (25CB, 25C) and Ben Craver (25C) to join the team and help bring this startup to life. Bhasin runs growth and community outreach and Craver runs digital branding.
“Seeing as we're all students, you know, we're at the intersection of understanding the current technology coming out, and the actual student experience, as in the pain points and the difficulty parts,” Khanna said. “And so, our goal is to merge those two together, and build the first kind of app that leverages AI to build a whole suite of services for students.”
The team seeks to “save students’ time, enhance the learning process and empower educators” with their mission statement.
Eightball’s website was officially released about two weeks ago. It welcomes and motivates student users with a border of A+’s written surrounding the Gen-Z-popularized phrase, “Academic Weapon.” Currently, the website’s only published tool is an instant flashcard service, that’s webpage is branded by the slogan “Never write flashcards again. Work hard. Work smart.” The flashcard service allows users to upload materials including lecture slides and typed or handwritten notes, then it will automatically spit out flashcards based on the uploaded material.
The origin of Eightball coincided with the rising popularity of ChatGPT, which garnered a lot of intrigue and excitement, as well as fear, especially within academic contexts.
“ChatGPT was kind of that last push we needed to jump in the pool, because it validated that students want to use AI for their workflow,” Khanna said. “But, ChatGPT is an all-purpose tool for everyone and everything. Our goal is to refine that and make it really targeted to students who we understand the experience of their pain points to make the student experience better.”
This flashcard feature is only step one in the grand plan of Eightball. The team currently has two more features in the works, expected to be released on the website by mid March. The first creates practice tests and corresponding answer keys, and the second is a homework helper, which they consider their next major feature.
Bhasin said that this homework-helper service is distinct in that it does not promote mindless cheating, like homework solver platforms, which blatantly give students answers instead of teaching them how to solve the problem.
“We feel that we have a moral responsibility,” Bhasin said. “Our goal is not to solve your homework, it's to be the companion, to be that tool next to you. It is not that tool, like Chegg, or like any of these other services that simply just spits out the answer. It is a tool that is going to help you genuinely learn your material.”
Khanna eagerly whipped his computer out of his bag to demonstrate the flashcard feature in action, easily creating a batch of 40 intelligent flashcards derived from his uploaded class notes. The website is equipped with simple, clearly-written instructions for how to upload files and export the flashcards once they’ve been generated. The whole process took about two minutes.
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“It'll come up with really powerful and intelligent flashcards,” Bhasin said. “These aren't like true or false flashcards; the algorithm that we're using is piercing through your data, it's piercing through your notes, and it's reading that, taking that in, and coming up with very relevant flashcards.”
Eightball uses Open AI on the backend of the operation, which allows Eightball access to relevant information from the internet in addition to the information from the uploaded file in order to create comprehensive flashcards.
Khanna describes the process with a clear adoration. He speaks rapidly, intent on getting every detail across to fully showcase this project’s immense capabilities.
“The same way that ChatGPT just knows things, it’s the same way Eightball works,” Khanna said. “It has a lot of background information to enrich things.”
One of the biggest challenges of working on Eightball at Emory has been the fact that the University is lacking in entrepreneurship and startups.
“For the fact that we’re a top 20 school, if you compare us to, like, UC Berkeley, or other schools of our tier, it's just pathetic,” Khanna said. “They have like 100 companies a week launching. And, I know of literally zero startups launching from Emory in at least the two years that we’ve been here.”
They have entered into Emory’s two entrepreneurship competitions, Emory Entrepreneurship and Venture Management and Emory Entrepreneurship Summit. The vast majority of the grunt work has come from themselves. This has further motivated them to continue growing Eightball, in hopes to consequently grow the startup scene at Emory. One challenge they’ve had to overcome is working on a “tight” budget to develop the company.
“As students, we've got like $10,000 to make this work,” Khanna said. “It's really fun and exciting to see how we can hack together and save like every last cent because we're really bootstrapping this from the ground up.”
Despite this challenge, Eightball has gained attraction and earned lots of praise.
Emory Student Alena Balassa (25B) used Eightball to study for her ISOM quiz. “The flashcards saved me hours of work and provided me with thought-provoking questions based on my lecture notes,” she said.
Through spearheading virtual branding for Eightball, Craver has been able to track engagement. He uses platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Discord and Reddit to get the word out about Eightball. Since this social media marketing effort, the app garnered roughly 60 daily users.
The website has also had an international impact. Craver has tracked use in the UK, China, Canada, Lebanon, the Philippines and more. Eightball has also been used by Harvard Law students, and it seems to be particularly useful to medical students and law students enrolled in courses that involve high volumes of complicated material.
“A law school student, or even just someone in a really advanced class or with a really heavy course load, simply doesn't have the time or the brainpower to go in and create hundreds of flashcards,” Bhasin said.
Khanna said that the team’s biggest asset lies in being students themselves and having a first-hand understanding of the student study experience and genuinely wanting to help ease the pains that come with that.
They also have unique strengths in their speed. Khanna’s advanced understanding of the technology allows him to create new features in rapid time—-he built a mobile version of the website in one day. Bhasin is promptly connecting with students, organizations, professors and teaching assistants on campus to increase exposure. Craver has quickly created a “virtual backbone” for the platform through his digital branding strategies that established a community of people behind the product.
On a larger scale, the team hopes to one day replace Quizlet. They believe Quizlet is just a “middle man,” since the student is still the one putting in the effort of creating the flashcards. Khanna said that he has built their exact products in a demo and could easily put it out for free.
“We're a way more powerful tool, we’re way more effective,” Bhasin said. “And, growing on a college campus, the world is our oyster.”
Khanna, Bhasin and Craver said that they are committed to this project for the long run.
“Our end goal is we're not gonna be happy until students who use Eightball can't go back to not using it,” Khanna said. “If we got to live our startup dreams of raising money and hiring employees, that would be great, but for the meantime we're most excited about just adding value to people's lives where we can.”
The “8” on a Magic 8 Ball can be interpreted as a symbol for infinity, and when you shake a Magic 8 Ball, it responds instantaneously. Eightball grants instantaneous aid and infinite knowledge—nothing short of “magic” for busy students.
