Meet the Builders: PathSetu — a Cloud Run AI mentor for first-generation students in India

Google Cloud Gen AI Academy APAC — Cohort 3
Meet the Builders: 1000 Builders. 1000 Stories.
Program: Gen AI Academy APAC Edition

I am Abhishek Kumar. I am in Google Cloud Gen AI Academy APAC Cohort 3. This is my Meet the Builders story. Early-stage is allowed. A real local problem is not optional.

Watch the story

PathSetu Meet the Builders video — 1080p, about 4 minutes. Same story as this write-up. Google Drive link will be added here after upload (Anyone with the link).

The local problem

In India, career advice still concentrates in a few metro campuses and a few LinkedIn circles. First-generation students in tier-2 and tier-3 cities — Indore, Ranchi, Coimbatore, Guwahati, Nashik — often have the degree, not the map.

They get stuck on the same three questions:

  1. What role am I actually hiring for — PM, BA, operations, data — and what does “good” look like in year one?
  2. How do I turn college projects into a portfolio a hiring manager will trust?
  3. What should I practice this week, not “learn product management” as a slogan?

Generic chatbots hallucinate salary numbers, invent company processes, and give advice that does not match campus placements, family constraints, or Hindi/English mixed interviews.

That is a local access problem, not a content shortage.

What I am building

PathSetu is a student-facing AI mentor on Cloud Run. It answers in plain language, grounded in a curated career knowledge base (role definitions, portfolio rubrics, interview drills, weekly plans) — not the open internet.

If the question needs a human (a specific college placement cell, mental health, a scholarship office), it says so and stops.

Mapped to the Cohort 3 labs:

Cohort 3 labPathSetu equivalent
Personalized customer experience (ADK + RAG)Mentor agent that retrieves role maps, portfolio checklists, and interview drills from approved notes
Location intelligence (Gemini + BigQuery / MCP)Where to run campus workshops first: city/college clusters with high demand and weak mentor supply
Operations productivity agent on Cloud RunPlacement-cell / campus-club assistant for session plans, follow-ups, and weekly practice queues

Architecture (production path)

Path: Student → ADK + Gemini → RAG knowledge pack → Cloud Run → grounded answer, or human handoff.

StepWhat happens
1. AskStudent writes in plain language
2. ReasonADK + Gemini on Cloud Run
3. GroundRetrieve from the curated pack — not the open web
4. DecideCite and answer, or stop and hand off to a counsellor / college office
5. Locate (Track 2)BigQuery + MCP: demand vs mentor supply by city/college
6. Ops (Track 3)Placement-cell agent: session plans and weekly queues

Rules I will not break:

  • No invented salaries, headcount, or “guaranteed placement” claims
  • Cite the retrieved note when the answer is process-specific
  • Escalate when the user needs a human counsellor or official college office
  • Keep student PII out of prompts; treat chat logs as sensitive

Why this matters in APAC

Mentor access is uneven. A grounded agent on Cloud Run will not replace a good teacher. It can give a first-generation student a repeatable weekly plan at 11pm, in the language they actually use, without waiting for a metro mentor to reply.


#MeetTheBuilders #1000Builders1000Stories #GenAIAcademyAPAC #CloudRun #ADK

Comments

Comments

3/Food/post-list

Recent

Subscribe Here

The weekly brief

One practical note on product, AI, or career systems. No fluff. Unsubscribe any time.