Shiv Gaglani (AB 2010, MBA 2016) was a medical student, trying to keep up with his gross anatomy coursework, when the realization struck him that there must be a better way to learn the material. Inspired, he and classmate Ryan Haynes developed a tool for themselves and their peers to collaborate over online flashcards. By 2012, the pair had left medical school to focus on the founding of Osmosis, in an attempt to bring their tools to a wider audience.

A recent profile by the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences explains that Osmosis is an education platform that helps medical students retain information through the use of online study tools and with the help of a vast library of Khan Academy video content. The company has more than 440,000 registered users and 930,000 YouTube subscribers.

The tech platform makes it easier for students to use the most effective, evidence-based study techniques, such as spaced repetition. For instance, while studying sickle cell anemia, a user would receive a push notification quiz question about the disease one day, and then automatically receive another sickle cell question a week later.

In addition, the platform’s machine learning recommendation engine scans a user’s uploaded course documents and automatically recommends related videos, flashcards, and questions based on the content. And if a classmate or instructor uploads documents, every student taking that class will receive the recommendations, Gaglani said.

The company’s core competency is health education for patients and health professionals alike, Gaglani says, and the goal is to reach 1 billion people by 2025. It represents a massive opportunity. “I realized that there were a lot of things that had been discovered or invented, but weren’t seeing the light of day because there was no business plan,” he says.

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