Stuck with your Homework? There is an App for that!

Although Motuto is just a part of a bigger vision of Castle Rock Research’s President and CEO Gautam Rao, I find the service so fascinating in itself that I would like to share it with you today.

Also, as a bonus to my readers of Disrupt Education here on Big Think, you will find the upcoming EDUKWEST interview I did with Gautam earlier today exclusively linked below this article as audio file. Once more, I was wowed by an entrepreneur with a truly big vision for education on a global scale, and once again this entrepreneur has his roots in India.

But back to Motuto, an application that solves a problem we are familiar with from our days in school or university. Doing your homework you get stuck with a problem you are not able to solve. What to do? Back in the days we probably grabbed some more books and searched for an answer, called a friend or simply gave up.

Today, all the student needs is an iPhone or iPad 2. He loads the Motuto app, takes a picture of the problem he needs to solve and then gets instantly connected with a real, flesh and bone tutor. Within the app the student will be able to chat with the tutor and to use a collaborative whiteboard in order to solve the problem. The tutor is trained to not give the answer but to assist the student in getting the right answer on his own.

Sessions are separated into 20 minutes and Motuto are positive that most problems will be solved in that time frame. If it takes longer, another 20 minutes will be charged. Which brings us to the pricing: $4.99 for the first, $1.99 for each additional 20 minutes.

In my opinion, this is one of the smartest products I have seen in education for a while and the potential, especially seen in the bigger picture of Castle Rock Research’s road map, is huge.

EDUKWEST Interview with Gautam Rao, President and CEO of Castle Rock Research