Sharzad Madjlesi ( Zahra)
My Smart Teach helps teachers and parents save time by marking handwritten and digital work and giving pupils personalised feedback.
Project
Unique Tech Solution
URL
Year founded
2024
Business stage
Pre-Seed
High-growth sectors
Digital and Technologies
Sector
Digital
Location
East Midlands
Funding
Funded Award Winner
The problem and opportunity
Teachers face a marking bottleneck: handwritten and mixed-format work takes hours to assess, so pupils often wait days for useful feedback. This pressures schools, teacher retention and learning progress, while families and home educators lack affordable insight to support children. Existing tools focus on quizzes, typed answers or final-answer checks, not handwriting, maths, diagrams, method marks or exam-board rubrics, creating a clear gap for MST
The solution and innovation
My Smart Teach uses patent-pending Tri-Modal OCR and a Reflective Consensus Loop to mark handwritten and digital work, including maths, diagrams and multi-step answers. Multiple AI markers assess each response before uncertain cases go to teacher review, keeping educators in control. Built from classroom experience, research with UK schools and pilot feedback, MST turns marking into faster, personalised learning support.
Market and ambition
MST targets a £130m UK opportunity across schools, teachers and home-educating families. With an MVP piloted in schools, our 3-year ambition is to reach 100 schools, 7,000 teachers and 3,700 home-educating families, generating about £2.5m annual revenue.
Founder perspective
As a former physics and maths teacher, I saw how marking pressure limits feedback, learning and teacher wellbeing. After teaching 1,500+ students and researching AI in schools, I founded MST to build responsible education technology that supports teachers, empowers families and keeps human judgement at the centre.
Women in Innovation Award
Recipient of an Innovate UK Women in Innovation Award 2025/26, receiving funding, tailored business support, and access to specialist training and networks. View all winners and highly commended applicants from the Women in Innovation cohort 2025/2026.