- Degreed
- Flinja
- Mathify
- MentorMob
- PanOpen
- Modern Guild
- Uvize
- Newsela
- Ranku
- Verificient Technologies
In collaboration with startup accelerator TechStars, education giant Kaplan made the program Kaplan EdTech Accelerator, a grand success. Each EdTech startup was offered office space, mentors, and $20,000 in funding (from TechStars). The startups also had access to the “Kaplan Way for Learning” program, which brings together Science, Technology, and Instructional Design to create learning-based products. The program’s Demo day event took place on Wednesday, 12th of September, 2013. Let’s briefly learn about the 5 of those innovative edtech startups which were showcased on the Demo day.
Degreed:
Theme: Jailbreaks the degree by tracking your lifelong education, both formal and informal.
Degreed is a new startup from San Francisco, whose mission is to “Jailbreak the degree” and help students, professionals and lifetime learners with a new form of academic credentialing.Degreedhelps you discover the best resources the world is offering and provides you with real-time reflection to track and achieve your learning goals. The main aim of Degreed is to help people learn what they need to unlock relevant employment and educational opportunities.
Fund raised: $900,000
Flinja:
Theme: Giving support to students’ financial need by utilizing their passion & reducing the confusion about future professions by creating great pre–work histories.
Flinja is a San Francisco based company, founded by Victor, Rebecca, Calvin, Ken, and David in 2012. It utilizes the talent and passion of college students to create a freelance workforce. It focuses on the 18-27 year old demographic. It offers students an alternative to the status quo with a college-centric service provider community specifically for students, staff and alumni on campuses across the nation- a place where you could post a service, get hired, make contacts, read and post reviews, and give and receive payments in the same place.
Fund Raised: Raising $1.5 million, has $900,000 committed.
MentorMob:
Theme: Step-by-step learning through the Internet’s best content, ordered by people like you.
MentorMob is an online learning platform that allows anyone with a passion for what they do to curate websites, videos, blogs, and more into Learning Playlists. It is a community of innovative learners that helps students find out the best online learning resources for the skills and knowledge they wish to master.
Fund raised: Raising $1.2 million, have 60 percent committed
PanOpen:
Theme: Providing the tools and services that schools need to adopt OERs effectively.
PanOpen focuses on four critical areas: Reduces the cost of educational materials, enables faculty to edit, share, adopt and customize their content, allows faculty to monitor student engagement and progress, and creates a revenue sharing mechanism that compensates and recognizes all the stakeholders.
Fund Raised: Raising $500,000, more than a third already committed.
Playpower Labs:
Theme: Aims to gamify Math learning.
Playpower Labs , a Carnegie Mellon educational research initiative, has developed an online platform of Web and Mobile applications for students of grades K-8. Playpowers has come up with its product, Mathify that aims to gamify Math learning. Mathify redefines the digital textbook by transforming traditional Math problems into highly interactive activities and games; it also optimizes digital instruction to maximize learning and student engagement.
Fund raised: Raising $600,000 with $330,000 committed.
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