EdTech & Learning Platforms

Schools in rural Tamil Nadu wanted tablet-based learning but without two problems that come with most implementations: hardware that takes days to replace when it breaks, and apps that assume a stable internet connection. Off-the-shelf apps are built for typing-first, always-online classrooms. A Class 7 school in the Nilgiris has intermittent connectivity and students who learn by writing on paper. A cracked screen cannot be allowed to erase a term's work or stop a lesson.

The central design question was handwriting. Students needed to write homework, notes, and full tests by hand on the glass with a stylus — not tap through multiple-choice questions. That meant capturing ink on-device, scoring it with AI, and giving teachers a way to review and adjust marks before anything was final. During exams the app had to stay locked: no notes, no browser, no way out of the test.

The tablets also had to survive children. A student should not be able to uninstall the app, wipe its data, or leave the lesson mid-session. When a tablet broke, the school needed a spare ready the same day with the student's work already on it — which meant the server, not the device, had to hold all the data.

Scholar Leaf runs as an Android tablet app built with React and Capacitor, backed by a Flask service and SQLite database on a cloud VPS. The handwriting canvas draws ruled lines and faint trace text for younger students to follow. When a student submits work, the canvas exports as an image and goes through an AI vision pipeline on OpenRouter, with a fallback model so a provider outage never blocks marking. AI marks first; teachers get a review queue where they adjust the score, add feedback, approve, or send it back for a re-mark.

Exams run in a restricted mode that blocks learning tools and navigation until the student submits. At the OS level the app registers as device owner and runs in lock-task mode, so the tablet is pinned to Scholar Leaf: it cannot be uninstalled, its data cannot be cleared, and the student cannot leave mid-test. Location sharing is opt-in and student-controlled.

We made the cloud the source of truth so each tablet is replaceable. Every submitted assignment, test result, attendance record, note, and profile lives on the server and restores when a student signs in on any device. Schools keep a pool of pre-locked spare tablets — about three per fifty students. When one breaks, they hand over a spare the same day; the student logs in and picks up exactly where they left off. Notes sync two-way with client IDs and revision tracking to resolve conflicts. One deployment covers multiple schools, with live online classes and separate dashboards for students, teachers, admins, and school managers.