Learning app Akamu wins first round of Unite!4Future

The university group Akamu e.V. is a registered association at TU Darmstadt and has been working on the development of the learning games app Akamu since it was founded in 2016. What it is all about can be derived from its name: Akamu means “I know” in Akkadian. Since Akkadian is a long extinct language, the name is very apt for the basic idea of the app: knowledge is metaphorically revived. The idea of the app is to refresh already learned knowledge in a playful way by dueling with others, as in popular quiz games. The users are students from different degree programmes, and the questions are entered by professors on the associated platform.

Antonia Wüst and Niklas Fix, the chairpersons of the association and Master's students of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt, saw the call for the Unite!4Future competition 2021 as an opportunity to make their idea and app better known and to push their development further. In the interview, they talk about the competition, their victory and the trip to Lisbon.

Can you briefly introduce your university group?

Antonia Wüst: Our university group is a registered association. We meet once a week for about an hour. Our eleven members work on the further development of the Akamu app and the associated web platform. This is ideal for students of computer science to gain practical experience. They programme, work on the app and the game server. In addition, we have the question platform, where professors' questions can be entered and managed.

Niklas Fix: There are also marketing and design tasks. Besides the weekly meeting, we work for the university group for another two hours on average.

What motivated you to get involved in Unite!4Future?

Niklas Fix: We already had an ongoing project with our app Akamu that fit the competition's call for entries. We then brought it into line with the required key values. Our goal was to get more publicity and thus support for our idea and our university group.

Antonia Wüst: Since Corona, it's really hard to be visible and we can use all the support we can get.

How did you proceed?

Antonia Wüst: I took part in the Erasmus programme last year and was at the Universidade de Lisboa (ULisboa) for five months. There I made my first contacts with Manuel Eusébio de Freitas. Through the Metacampus, we were able to recruit Fernando Amador Pla, a Master's student in Aeronautical Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. We know Ariona Jupi, a Master's student in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, and Jonathan Lichtenfeld, a Master's student in Computational Engineering at TU Darmstadt, from the university group and from their circle of friends.

What challenges did you encounter?

Antonia Wüst: The way we applied was challenging, we had to submit a video, we had never done that before. Coordinating the dates was not always easy either. But then it went well.

Niklas Fix: The technical editing of the video was also challenging. And it was difficult to win over the other comrades-in-arms.

You were at ULisboa for a week. What exactly did you do there?

Niklas Fix: As winners of Unite!4Future, four members of our team went to Lisbon. We met the Unite! Team on site and worked closely with the professors. For us as a university group, the output of the week in form of a video was really valuable. We still need to polish it a bit, but then we can use it for marketing purposes. For me, the week at ULisboa had real added value. In workshops, we dealt with entrepreneurship and learned about different concepts to find out what exactly the target group wants. We also conducted interviews with professors and reversed roles: instead of selling our app, we learned what they think and expect from it. And we acquired some presentation skills and got to know the competition.

What did you learn from the Unite!4Future project?

Antonia Wüst: For the first time, we looked at our app from an entrepreneur's point of view.

Niklas Fix: We were taught a lot about founding start-ups and entering the market. That clashed a bit with our goal of keeping the app open source. But we also realise that at a certain point you have to earn money to develop the app further.

Antonia Wüst: It would also be conceivable for the universities to pay for the use of the platform and for the app to remain free for students. But the universities can also help with technical support and constantly expand our question pool. Currently, our users can duel with 1132 questions in eleven modules from three degree programmes. Because we have a “Ersti” pool and a general maths pool, many degree programmes can at least benefit from the maths questions.

Niklas Fix: Playing generates data that can be statistically analysed by professors. For example, they can find out the level of knowledge of their students and readjust it if necessary. And that can improve teaching. In addition, students can help us develop the app further as part of their bachelor's internship, so that the data can be evaluated (anonymously), for example, and students can also post questions in the future.

What advantages do you see for students in Unite!

Niklas Fix: I wasn't really aware of Unite! before taking part in the competition, it would have to become more present.

Antonia Wüst: There are similar courses of study at all universities, it would be great if people could exchange ideas and share knowledge better in the future.

What are your personal plans for the future?

Antonia Wüst: In my free time, I like to do sports and get creative. I like sewing and need something practical and creative to balance it out. I'll soon be writing my thesis, after which I'd like to work in a small company on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Until then, I will continue to develop our app.

Niklas Fix: I would like to do that too. The university group is meant by students for students, because you need the student perspective. It is important to me that it remains in student hands. I'm currently writing my thesis and would like to work in the field of virtual and augmented reality afterwards. As a balance, I like to make music, I play the guitar, and I also like to play with others.

The questions were asked by Mareike Hochschild