Inside CoGuide: Built by 11-Year-Old and 19-Year-Old Innovators Transforming Classrooms with AI

Oct 6, 2025

Janak Panchal, a teacherpreneur and co-founder of CoGuide, and Rishan Dutia, a young CTO who started developing edtech at age 12, share insights on revolutionizing classrooms with AI. They discuss how CoGuide enhances teaching through real-time analytics and language support, focusing on collaborative learning rather than one-on-one tutoring. Janak highlights the project’s origin from classroom needs, while Rishan emphasizes student privacy and engagement. Together, they envision a future where AI reduces teacher burnout and fosters deeper peer discussions.

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ANECDOTE

Teacher-Built MVP From Classroom Experience

Janak built CoGuide after running 250+ Socratic discussions at Acton Academy and experimenting with no-code tools and early ChatGPT.
He sold the MVP to other Actons and used feedback to expand the product with Rishan.

ANECDOTE

Student Cofounder Turned CTO At Age 11

Rishan joined Janak as a young cofounder and turned the no-code prototype into a larger platform.
They sprinted together and evolved the product into Vision OS for smart classrooms.

INSIGHT

Live Facilitation Plus Real-Time Analytics

CoGuide Vision OS can run live classroom discussions, call on raised hands, and analyze participation in real time.
The system provides cognitive-understanding scores, participation heatmaps, and test-readiness recommendations to support teachers.

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Janak Panchal and Rishan Dutia are cofounders of CoGuide, an AI classroom assistant that plans lessons and runs live discussions in 30+ languages. Janak, a former assistant guide with 250+ socratic discussions sessions within the Acton Academy Network, built the first MVP. Rishan leads engineering and builds the Vision OS for hand-raising and participation analytics.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

How a teacherpreneur and a student founder teamed up to build CoGuide
Why AI facilitation goes beyond lesson planning to live classroom discussions
How Vision OS tracks participation and supports teachers with actionable data
The balance between teacher augmentation and student privacy
Where Janak and Rishan see AI in classrooms heading in the next three years

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:02:12] Janak Panchal on turning classroom struggles into CoGuide’s first MVP
[00:04:18] Rishan Dutia on becoming one of the youngest edtech founders at 12
[00:05:55] How CoGuide evolved into Vision OS with live classroom facilitation
[00:09:51] Janak explains “standby mode” and real-time analytics for teachers
[00:11:17] Rishan on building privacy-first AI that works in 30+ languages
[00:16:03] Why CoGuide focuses on collaboration, not one-on-one AI tutoring
[00:27:39] Janak shares how CoGuide could reduce teacher burnout
[00:29:04] Rishan on augmenting, not automating, the teacher’s role

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This season of Edtech Insiders is once again brought to you by Tuck Advisors, the M&A firm for EdTech companies. Run by serial entrepreneurs with over 30 years of experience founding, investing in, and selling companies, Tuck believes you deserve M&A advisors who work as hard as you do.

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