TECH TALK: Digitising O/A level past papers one topic at a time

 Despite witnessing great traction since the coronavirus outbreak, edtech in Pakistan is becoming a boring (and unimaginative) space with most players — incumbent or new — offering some variation of either learning management system, marketplace or content. Beyond these three areas, not many solutions exist and that’s a gap Anthive is trying to change.

Anthive.co is a Karachi-based startup digitising O/A level topical past papers. Working on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, it can integrate with a school’s own online portal/learning management system and allows students to simply log in and solve exams in an interactive manner. They can check the solution from a mark scheme right there or take mocks in a test setting.

The startup has so far digitised 16 subjects — popular locally, spanning over 12 years, and comprising more than 18,000 questions in total.

It basically started as a hobby project for Hunaid Hameed in 2012, then just entering A levels, after learning PHP programming.

He launched a website by the name of Automatic Papers where one could solve past exams of Cambridge International Examinations in an interactive manner.

For years, it continued as such with the founder getting a few individual customers here and then. But back in November 2019, he partnered up with his first cousin Salman Popatya, who has been in the IT industry for two decades, and a CIE teacher Mohsin Adhi to establish Anthive.

Anyone with a background in CIEs would probably be thinking why is there a need for Anthive when Xtremepapers is doing everything for free? The lucky ones even get their practicals leaked over there.

“If you want yearly past papers then of course there already are options that don’t cost a dime but no one is doing topicals at the moment, which is our unique selling point. Plus, we offer an interactive testing environment and grading [for objective questions] instead of downloadable PDF files,” says Hameed.

Though like most local early-stage companies, Anthive’s biggest competitor is not some online startup operating out of a fancy incubator promising to disrupt the education scene but rather the traditional players: the booksellers.