Rethinking education platforms

In 2014, as an Indian student I thought a single place could fix education. Spoiler: it’s harder. Platforms rarely fail because content is missing. They stumble on discovery, incentives, and trust. 10 yr on, the real work looks like protocols, governance, and portability. 🎓👇

On May 10, 2014 I wrote “The ClassRebels Dream” as a 16 y/o student.

The thesis was simple: education is freedom, and the classroom should be a network. Students find teachers, teachers find students, and notes, updates, and schedules live together. Made by students, for students. I believed a product layer could kick off reform.

Reality was messier, very much about plumbing not polish.

What that “place” really needs looks less like an app and more like a stack:
• Identity and credentials: OAuth2 or OIDC login, verified instructor IDs, portable reputations, programmatic transcripts.
• Interop: LTI 1.3 for tool launch, SCORM or xAPI or Caliper for activity data, Common Cartridge for course bundles, iCalendar or CalDAV for schedules, WebRTC for live sessions.
• Incentives: low friction payments in India via UPI, escrow for refunds, clear revenue shares, a small platform tax that pays for the lights.
• Governance and safety: moderation pipelines, audit logs, role based access, privacy that meets today’s data laws.
I underestimated how much depends on standards, and how little on one feed of notes.

2014 to 2025 surprised me:
COVID pushed learning into Zoom and Google Classroom.
Coordination moved to WhatsApp and Telegram.
Discovery shifted to YouTube and search.
India’s NEP era work like SWAYAM, DIKSHA, NDEAR, and the Academic Bank of Credits pushed interoperability into policy rooms.
UPI made micro tuition normal and powered teacher led businesses like Classplus and Teachmint.
The post 2022 funding reset forced a focus on outcomes and trust.
AI made feedback and assessment cheaper, and raised new questions on integrity and provenance.
One place gave way to an ecosystem.

The durable wins seem to be open standards, credit portability, and credible governance.

I keep coming back to three questions:

1. Can a student and teacher graph run on federated rails like ActivityPub or AT Protocol and still support verified credentials and credit transfer?
2. What is the minimum platform tax that funds quality governance and safety?
3. How do we port reputations and credits across LMSes and national systems without lock in?

Original post for context: https://anandchowdhary.com/blog/2014/classrebels