edYOU is a pioneering innovative platform that combines AI, wellness, and personalised learning. Dr. Michael Everest, the founder of edYOU, is the latest guest in Dinis Guarda YouTube podcast, where he shares insights into the challenges in AI-enabled education through conversational AI learning experience, that focuses on wellness, addressing the mental and emotional needs of students. The podcast is powered by Businessabc.net, Citiesabc.com, and Wisdomia.ai.
Dr. Michael Everest is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of edYOU, a Web 3.0 education company focused on creating immersive and adaptive learning experiences using artificial intelligence. During the interview with Dinis, he highlights the challenges faced in a wider adoption of AI-driven solutions.
Michael explained:
“edYOU is a study buddy that helps with the flipped classroom aspect. Right now, there is a big vacuum in education, where a lot of the big players followed the Web 1.0 learning model, with video-based learning. The whole education system is having a hard time adjusting to the Web 3.0 world and the future. So, there is a lot of resistance, especially from educators who are ignorant about how AI can be harnessed properly and can really help humanity.”
Michael clarified how edYOU’s AI supports teachers by offering updated curriculum materials, personalised for each student, while maintaining the highest levels of data security.
edYOU: AI for personalised learning and emotional health
Michael described how edYOU’s platform uses an AI-driven conversational assistant to enhance learning:
“Let's say that you have asked a question to Hannah (the conversational AI assistant on edYOU). Hannah absorbs that question, goes through our personal ingestion engine that ingests the question to see if it's relevant. It then sends it out to an LLM for natural language processing; it comes back, and it filters through our intelligent curation engine. That's when our neural network comes in and looks at the data through the past interactions of the user to the present and goes and answers.
One may ask: what if this what if the person just signed up? Then we have predictive data based on the question of what may be the correct answer and move in that direction. 9 out of 10 times, it's correct. And as we gather more data just through one interaction with them on the platform, we get an idea of how they're talking. edYOU is a learning platform focused on wellness, safety, accuracy, and having a high toxicity filter around the parameters of what we are teaching at that time.”
Speaking about the wellness aspect of the edYOU platform, Michael explains it to Dinis:
"The goal is not just about teaching academic content but ensuring that students are emotionally well during the process," he noted. This AI assistant is designed to offer personalised learning paths, continually adapting based on past interactions, ensuring each student receives the support they need. Whether it’s providing quizzes, revising classroom content, or having a conversation about personal wellness, edYOU's AI is aimed at holistic student development."
He gave multiple examples of how AI assistant Hannah works:
“When a student went to the school to help with their athletics department and sports learning, he came to the head coach, who is the SuperBowl champion, and said: ‘My kids, they don't even know how to use a washing machine. Can you give them real life support; they're too embarrassed to ask me or their teammate.’ Well, ask Hannah: ‘How do I wash my clothes? I feel very stressed out about my coach having that talk therapy.’ What if someone grew up very insecure, if someone has dyslexia or ADHD or social anxiety, which are real things in this world. They're not going to speak up in class and raise their hand or they may be shy to go talk to their classmates or even their superiors. But now, they have a platform where they feel safe, whether it's 6:00 a.m. in the morning or 2:00 am at night or anything in between. They have someone there that they can speak with, that understands them, that they can learn from and learn with.”
A Step Beyond: Residency Medical Program
Beyond its focus on younger students, edYOU also extends its AI-driven educational model to healthcare professionals through its Residency Medical Program. Michael highlighted how the program supports medical graduates, particularly those from underrepresented communities, in securing residency placements in underserved areas.
“It's really about helping these people that have no chance to be in any mentoring and support system. What we do is we open up the doors by giving the candidates a chance to go and prove themselves in their clinical setting for a year, doing research. If they like them, they give them a chance at an interview, a chance to earn, and turn their way.
We also help in alleviating the residency bottleneck, especially in rural areas. Just outside of Los Angeles, if you go an hour and a half away where there's very desperate populations of indigenous people, there are no doctors to be found there in 40-mile radius. So, what we're doing in that case is sending these doctors, these residency aspirants and fellowship aspirants, to these areas, saying that for 3 years you have to promise to stay here after you graduate and give back to the community because what people do is if they do go do a residency there as soon as they do their residency they leave and come to Los Angeles or go to Orange County and some of these popular areas.
Another thing residence medical is doing is, it is helping start residency programs in community- based hospitals in very vulnerable population areas. We are just starting a Psychiatry program; we start a family medicine program. So, if you bring the program to a community- based hospital, due to regulations of the governing body, ACGME - the accreditation Council for graduate medical education, the hospital gets better because its standards are better. The hospital now becomes a teaching hospital, where this new blood goes to get trained and if they come through us and a program that we've started at a community-based hospital, they have to stay there 3 years after training.
What we found is if someone postgraduate stays 3 years after they have a patient base there, they have nurses and are hired there. So, they're more inclined to stay in that community or at least operate their practice in that community even if they live 10 miles away in a better area. It's been doing this for 25 years; we've helped thousands of medical school students and graduates achieve residency in America.”
edYOU: Empower yourself
As Michael continues to push the boundaries of AI education, his vision is clear: creating a safe, fun, and impactful learning experience. He envisions edYOU growing to reach millions globally, providing a platform where students of all ages, from pre-kindergarten to adults, can engage in lifelong learning while improving their emotional wellness.
“I think that for us it is important to have a safe place where someone can go, knowing their data is not harvested, to have a place where they can learn at their own pace, at their own time, and during that time have someone sentient being there that can listen to their voice modulations and respond accordingly, can see can, can listen to their speech pattern to say ‘Hey! you're doing this a little slower’ and help them through the wellness aspect.
So that when they come on, there's a community built around this, there's a community built around edYOU and how some people come together to learn from each other and really gain experience.
I think that the thing that I am encouraged about in my vision for edYOU and my mandate where I wake up every morning with a thought of safety, trust, and having fun during learning.”
