As finals approach and Canvas to‑do lists get more daunting, two Honors College freshmen are offering a smarter study tool to fellow UMD students. IBH student Ibraheem Shaikh ’29 and ACES student Urjit Chakraborty ’29 are co‑founders of ThinkEx, an AI startup they launched this past year.
ThinkEx is a web platform that combines the best features of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude into one visual platform designed just for students. Instead of juggling tabs and apps, you can upload PDFs, lecture slides, readings, recorded lectures, and more into a single space and interact with multiple AI models at once. ThinkEx covers the cost of “pro” credits on the major AI platforms, so users can upload as much as they need without hitting paywalls.
Within each workspace, the app does far more than spit out a single answer to a prompt. ThinkEx can generate lecture summaries and notes, quizzes, flashcards, and even YouTube video suggestions related to what you’re studying. You can highlight passages in a PDF, ask questions directly on a lecture transcript, or bring slides, readings, and your own notes together to help you see the bigger picture. Workspaces are also shareable, making it easy for study groups and project teams to work together in real time instead of losing track in group chats.
This year, the team participated in the Mokhtarzada Hatchery, UMD’s year‑long startup incubator that provides 24/7 access to a workspace in the Iribe Center, $10,000 in funding, and mentorship from the alumni founders of Rocket Money, brothers Haroon, Idris, and Zeki Mokhtarzada. The team has used the incubator experience to run their platform through a “trial by fire” process: they use it in their own classes, then quickly ship features based on what works and what breaks.
“We kicked things off at the Hatchery kickoff in the fall, and from there it’s been about constantly adding features based on what students actually need,” said Urjit.
Recent additions include deeper Google Drive integration and tools for automatically analyzing recorded lectures alongside your slides and readings to reduce cognitive load and help students stay in “flow” while learning.
Although ThinkEx started as a more general AI interface, the team has leaned fully into education, with about 200 daily users, including many UMD students and other researchers who discovered the platform through Reddit. They describe their current focus simply: offering the best educational AI experience for college students.
“We saw other platforms trying something similar, but we were underwhelmed, so we felt we could really make something better for students like us,” Ibraheem explained.
With finals just around the corner, the ThinkEx team is inviting fellow Honors students to try the app for themselves. It is completely free to use during finals season! Bring a messy folder of PDFs, a few recorded lectures, or that intimidating stack of slides from your hardest class, and let the platform help you organize, review, and actually retain what you’re learning. Join the platform at thinkex.app and pick up study tips—on TikTok at @thinkex.app and Instagram at @thinkex.app.
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The ACES program gives students the opportunity to explore the world of cybersecurity and its real-world applications all within a close-knit community. Students gain practical experience through close partnerships with leaders in the field and experiential learning.
The IBH program provides students with access to cutting-edge professional and technical business skills and provides opportunities for broader thinking about the role of business in the world through multiple disciplines.
