Indian American student Samarth Shiramshetty, a graduate of Northern Illinois University (NIU), earned the Grand Prize in Education at Stanford University’s prestigious TreeHacks competition for his team’s concept, HiveMind—an AI-powered platform designed to support student engagement in online learning.
“HiveMind was born from a simple yet powerful idea: How do we help students struggling silently in virtual classrooms?” Shiramshetty explained. The platform integrates with tools like Zoom, OpenAI, and Perplexity to monitor student comprehension in real-time through quizzes and transcriptions. Based on the collected data, students are grouped into peer support nodes to encourage personalized and collaborative learning.
The HiveMind project was recognized for its potential to transform hybrid education by enhancing interactivity, accessibility, and inclusivity. “Winning the Grand Prize in Education at TreeHacks validated our vision,” Shiramshetty said, adding that future plans include expanding its analytics capabilities and launching it across schools and universities worldwide.
The TreeHacks Education Grand Prize, sponsored by Zoom, celebrates technology that improves learning access and engagement. Shiramshetty’s team was awarded $1,000, Meta Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, and Marine Layer Zoom Hoodies.
Reflecting on his journey from Hyderabad, India, to winning accolades at Stanford, Shiramshetty called it “a surreal and humbling experience.” Previously a software engineer at Accenture with collaborative experience with Microsoft, he also interned at Webacy and Episensor before beginning his master’s at NIU College of Business.
