Sunbird is an open learning infrastructure that is configurable, extendable, and highly modular - a set of common technology building blocks for the creation of multiple digital learning platforms and solutions, enabling extensive use and re-use of technology for education.

It is architected for scale and designed to support multiple teaching and learning solutions supporting multiple languages and available for online and offline use.

The building blocks are called microservices. A microservice provides critical and core functionality that are unbundled from the learning/teaching solution. It encapsulates functionality into atomic, independent, reusable services. Sunbird offers over a 100 microservices which are grouped under various categories and subcategories. To understand the idea behind a microservices based architecture, refer to Thinking Microservices.

A demonstration of some powerful solutions that are built using these lego blocks are, 

Going Phygital - Energised Textbook Solution 

Sunbird enables the linking of digital content and QR codes through the DIAL framework. DIAL is an open source framework for codifying (providing IDs) and linking physical resources such as textbooks with online resources in a dynamic and extensible manner using QR codes, augmented reality, voice navigation among others. Sunbird offers a range of services for the management and implementation of QR codes through the DIAL module. This module is used in combination of the data services - to offer a robust and iterative solution.  

India’s national teacher platform (DIKSHA) is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. Sunbird is being used as the infrastructure for the DIKSHA  platform. One asset which was abundant in the Indian context is the school textbook - every school teacher and student has these books. The idea of energised textbook emerged as a scalable solution to enable teachers and learners to access wider content by bridging their physical world (textbook) with the digital world (curated, relevant digital content). The bridging happens through QR codes in relevant pages of the textbook, which is linked to the relevant digital content, accessible through the app or web interface. In 2020, every textbook issued by the government of India will have QR codes that provide access to quality teaching/learning content, accessible through both online and offline. Ove