A note from the founder

Hi, I'm Akshay. I'm a high school student from San Francisco. Here's a picture of me at media day my last basketball season:

I founded Deskpad in June of 2025 with one singular question in mind:

Is it possible for an AI to actually help education?

The underlying reason I was asking this question was much deeper. The truth is, I was scared. As unchecked AI barged itself into classrooms and writing assignments, I saw many of my fellow classmates offloading entire assignments to it, and with it, their critical thinking skills. “Chatting” something, meaning uploading it into ChatGPT for completion, became a widely-used term at this time.

AI is one of the most polarizing technologies ever created. I get it. Concerns around hallucinations, the environment, privacy, all of them are legitimate. But I'm working on Deskpad because at my core, I am fundamentally techno-optimist. I believe that with the right people, and with the right intentions, AI can become a democratizer of learning in a way that has never been seen before in human history. But especially in education, this technology has not yet been properly addressed.

We are a fully student-led team. We hope you can join us on our mission to bring sustainable AI into schools everywhere.