Ontario Tech Students Propose AI Platform to Preserve Indigenous Languages

Indigenous Languages

Prime Highlights:  

Ontario Tech University students developed EduLine, an AI-powered education platform focused on preserving Indigenous languages and improving access to education in rural Canada. 

The platform is designed to work offline, addressing limited internet access in remote areas while providing educational features on coding and Indigenous language preservation. 

Key Background: 

A team of students from Ontario Tech University has developed an innovative AI-powered platform aimed at preserving Indigenous languages and improving educational access in rural Canada. The proposal, called EduLine (Education Offline), was created as part of the Design for Change pitch competition hosted by Wilfrid Laurier University. 

The project was initiated by Anupriya Dubey, a fourth-year Computer Science student, who has been focused on leveraging STEM disciplines to create sustainable solutions for global challenges. Upon learning about the competition, Dubey teamed up with Mosarrat Rumman, a master’s candidate in Computer Science, and Nishtha Desai, a fourth-year Technology Management student. Together, they identified the challenge of limited Internet access in rural Canada and the urgent need to preserve Indigenous languages as critical issues to address through generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). 

EduLine is designed to function offline, making it an ideal solution for areas with unreliable internet connectivity. The platform includes educational features focused on coding and Indigenous language preservation, ensuring accessibility even on low-resource devices. The team worked closely with experts from the National Research Council of Canada to refine their ideas and develop a lightweight AI model capable of running without high-end hardware or constant internet access. 

Their innovative approach earned them a spot in the top five of the competition, which saw over 400 student participants across the country. Dubey, Rumman, and Desai emphasized how their diverse backgrounds and collaborative efforts enabled them to tackle the problem from various perspectives, signaling their readiness to contribute to impactful, real-world solutions.