MindBridge

A free AI tutor for students without internet.

MindBridge runs fully offline from a USB drive on the computers schools in Nepal already have. No Wi-Fi, no subscription, no server. Just a tutor that helps students think.

Partner with us → See how it works
Finn Grennan speaking about AI on stage at the DigitalNow conference
500students across 3 to 5 Nepali schools is the year-one goal

Working with

  • Gloo
  • St. Luke's School
  • FutureNepal
The research behind it

How an AI tutor is built matters more than which AI it uses.

A 2024 Harvard study found students learned more than twice as much from an AI tutor designed around good teaching as they did from an active-learning class. A 2023 study found the opposite with plain ChatGPT: students who leaned on it for answers did worse once it was taken away. MindBridge is built on that difference.

2×learning gains from a purpose-built AI tutor (Kestin et al., 2024)
0internet needed to run MindBridge
$0cost to students and schools

How it works

Built for classrooms where the internet is slow, expensive, or just not there.

  1. Plug it in

    A teacher plugs a MindBridge USB drive into a school computer they already own.

  2. Open it

    A small AI model runs right on that computer. Nothing to download, nothing to sign up for.

  3. Start learning

    Students work through their actual coursework, across subjects, with a tutor that asks before it tells.

A tutor, not an answer machine

Five rules shape every response.

Short

Brief answers students actually read.

One step at a time

Solutions unfold gradually so the student does the thinking.

Questions first

Socratic guidance instead of lecturing.

Encouraging

Mistakes are part of learning, not failure.

Grounded

Pulls from the real curriculum, so it teaches what class teaches.

The person behind MindBridge.

Finn Grennan is a senior at St. Luke's in New Canaan. His work in bringing AI to classrooms in Nepal has been featured by OpenAI, he has spoken at Harvard and CUNY Brooklyn, keynoted at DigitalNow in Chicago, and been a guest on multiple podcasts.

He is part of a faculty-led council at St. Luke's shaping how AI is used across the school, and is currently working on a yearlong STEM Scholar project bringing AI tutoring to classrooms in Nepal without reliable internet.

Where it stands

Now

Research and design

Studying what makes AI tutoring work and talking with students and teachers.

Next

Prototype at St. Luke's

Build a first version and test it closely with students here.

Then

Pilot in Nepal

Go fully offline and adapt for local hardware and language with partner schools.

Let's work together.

Teachers, schools, researchers, and supporters: I'd love to hear from you.

Prefer email? Write to finngrennan@gmail.com