Most educational platforms feature a core trait such as learning, discussing or problem solving.
Function Space, a social learning science network, wants to bring the three together for free in a cross-platform learning portal aimed at corporate research and students at any level.
With 18 different categories ranging from quantum physics and cosmology to calculus and artificial intelligence, users can browse custom activity feeds to find scientific articles, problems to solve and discussions.
Today, the company is launching its iOS app, where users can browse article feeds and participate in discussions, but cannot access problem solving sets.
The key focus for the web app is blending the three steps together, says Adit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Function Space.
“It’s not just about learning but about interacting with people and solving problems,” he said. “We don’t have any direct competition.”
It’s kind of like bringing Coursera for reading, Quora for discussion and Brilliant.org for problem solving, together in one platform. The user can customize their skill level and learning ideas from reading articles and books or watching video lectures.
Users can then ask a question and discuss it with peer groups or experts, and the app will provide real-time updates on the latest discussions and opinions.
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The platform uses a computational engine to solve value-related problems, perform functions, use matrices, and solve hyperbolic problems, among more.
Function Space, which launched last year, is free at the moment, but the company is looking to monetize the platform in the future.
The company, which raised an undisclosed seed funding round in December of 2013 led by Nexus Venture Partners, has a team of volunteers from MIT, Cornell, various Indian Institutes of Information Technology and Indian Institutes of Science.