Spread the news! edinno.lab III is officially in motion. We are excited to introduce 8 dynamic early stage edtech startups who have joined edinno’s third Innovation Lab. Meet DigiPals, Hubble Learning, KOBI by Hopalai, LearnAla, Pedestal, Smartifact, StudyBot, and Tailor-Ed Systems Inc.
The third round of the Innovation Lab is running from November 1st — December 17th, and we are excited to add these early-stage EdTech startups & their founders to the strong, active, and growing community of cohort alumni, industry professionals, coaches, and experts in the edinno network. As an active, application-based, equity-free learning experience, the edinno.lab is focused on supporting these founders in answering critical business and education related questions, developing strong next-step action plans, and building thriving professional networks.
The 6 week program consists of Learning Sessions with experienced instructors who help founders hone their product market fit, deepen their understanding of successful implementations and pilots, and expand their edtech market knowledge; as well as All Cohort Roundtables and Founder Lunch & Learns where founders in the cohort engage in conversations about the edtech founding journey.
Another core component of the edinno.lab is coaching. We are thrilled to welcome 8 coaches to the program who help empower emerging edtech founders in this critical stage. The coaches — Ben Bungert, Kripa Sundar, Sarah Fryar, Holly Woodruff, Catherine Mannick, Erika Tepler, Jean Hammond, and John Faig — bring unique and diverse perspectives and experiences in education and include current educators, non-profit leaders, and researchers.
See more about getting involved as a participant, supporter, and friend at the end of this post!
Now it’s time to meet our cohort and hear all about their goals for the next 6 weeks …
Company Name: DigiPals
Name of Founder(s): Sophie Nissim
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel. Originally from London, England
Year founded: 2019
Company Description: DigiPals is a web-based platform that builds students’ global competence while improving language skills through cross-cultural collaboration and authentic learning. This brings real-world relevance, meaningful experiences, and human harmony to K12 classrooms around the world.
Sophie’s Superpower: I’m a former teacher and global citizen. By traveling to many places around the world and getting the opportunity to live, learn and work in the UK, USA, and Israel, I’ve been able to mix and mingle with people of widely different backgrounds and cultures. These experiences have opened my eyes and heart in many ways and developed strong social, communication, and intercultural skills.
Company Name: Hubble Learning
Name of Founder(s): Andres Garcia Lopez and Brendan Fereday
Location: Boston, MA
Year founded: 2018
Company Description: Initially funded through a Fellowship from Harvard GSE, Hubble Learning is building a science-backed mobile app that personalizes social and emotional learning (SEL) for kids and families at home. Parents are busy and aren’t sure if what they are doing to teach social-emotional skills is effective. Hubble helps them transcend their innate capacities to ensure progress. After two beta pilots, Hubble’s full app will launch in December 2021, with content in English and Spanish.
Andres and Brendan’s Superpowers: Hubble Learning’s two founders, Andres and Brendan, have a deep passion for creating scalable and scientific tools to help children and adults socially and emotionally thrive. They met while pursuing Ed.M. degrees at Harvard GSE. Andres is a two-time entrepreneur, he has 19 years of diverse experience; formerly produced 10 educational TV shows for kids in Chile with limited resources. He also worked at Citi, American Express, and Deloitte. Brendan has 10 years of experience, a former teacher, coming from an Education PhD program at Stanford where he studies moral and social-emotional development.
Company Name: Hopalai
Name of Founder(s): Ursula Lavrencic with Auke Touwslager, Andrej Persolja and Marko Fornazaric
Location: Slovenia / The Netherlands, European Union
Year founded: 2019
Company Description: Hopalai is developing tech (and no-tech) for children who are having a hard time learning to read. Our mission is to make reading a happy experience for all kids. Hopalai’s core product is KOBI, a specialised reader app that provides necessary adjustments, guidance, and progress tracking for kids who struggle with reading. It’s effective, multilingual, easy to use, and beautiful — nurturing the creativity and intrinsic motivation of a child. KOBI has become a trusted brand in Slovenia and is getting ready to enter the international market in early 2022.
Ursula’s Superpower: Creativity and design thinking are Ursula’s superpowers. She is an entrepreneur, designer and award-winning artist with a passion to create tools that help kids learn to read. She believes that writing systems were the most important invention of humankind because they enabled the transfer and accumulation of ideas over space and time. Before co-founding Hopalai, Ursula worked at the intersection of design, art, and science. She has exhibited across North America and Europe and co-created one of the contemporary art landmarks of downtown Pittsburgh.
Company Name: LearnAla
Name of Founder: Bernardo Gonzalez Arechiga Martinez
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Year founded: 2020
Company Description: LearnAla creates personalized learning spaces for organizations. Create, run, and scale your courses, classes, or training under your brand with LearnAla.
Bernardo’s Superpower: I work together with educators to guide the development of LearnAla, deliver measurable value to our clients, and a beautiful experience for everyone that uses our platform.
Company Name: Pedestal
Name of Founder: Aaron Guyett
Location: San Diego, CA
Year founded: 2021
Company Description: Pedestal is a gamified social network that connects mentors to mentees, tracks professional growth, provides data-driven feedback, and gears you up for professional success. It enables people to monetize their expertise and knowledge without having to go through much effort to do so.
Aaron’s Superpower: I strive to bring out the best in others so they can succeed in their field. I love transparency and want to help others grow as much as I want to myself (it’s a lot!).
Company Name: Smartifact
Name of Founder: Konstantin Yevishkin
Location: Ukraine
Year founded: 2021
Company Description: Digital worksheet builder helping course creators to track student progress.
Unlike current solutions like PDF, Google Docs, and Canva files, we provide course creators with the opportunity to see student responses and track their learning dynamics for each particular worksheet. And students don’t need to download or print worksheets, they can fill them out online.
Konstantin’s Superpower: I’ve been working as a marketer in the educational space for more than 6 years, so I can definitely help with brainstorming about GTM strategy, marketing funnel, and marketing stack.
Company Name: StudyBot
Name of Founder: Chris Hopkins and Stephen Aguilar
Location: Cambridge, MA
Year founded: 2021
Company Description: StudyBot is an academic coaching app that helps students succeed in college. We achieve this by coaching them on foundational learning skills relevant across their classes, unlike traditional tutors that typically assist on individual subjects. Students improve their learning experience in a gamified way through micro-lessons focused on research-informed topics (e.g., growth mindset, time management, self-advocacy), habit development, and problem-solving support.
Chris and Stephen’s Superpowers: Chris has 10 years of B2B strategy and product management experience. Additionally, he has immersed himself in the no-code landscape and can speak with other founders considering making their own MVP. Stephen is an expert when it comes to designing educational technologies that foster student motivation and help them improve their study strategies.
Company Name: Tailor-Ed Systems Inc
Name of Founder: Dana Kravchick
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Year founded: 2021
Company Description: tailorEd streamlines student data from all digital learning tools to provide one stop shop for teachers. tailorEd model is to do for EdTech what Plaid did for FinTech. Create a single platform which integrates and presents student’s progress data from all e-learning sources.
Dana’s Superpower: I am curious, I care about other people, and I love learning. My background is in neuroscience and I love to talk, question and think about the cross section between education and neuroscience. In the past 3 years, I was fortunate to work with Khan Lab School (KLS). KLS was founded by Sal Khan and is one of the most cutting edge schools in the country. The knowledge and insights I gained by working with KLS faculty help me see the future of education through the eyes of the people who are actually making it happen.
About edinno
edinno is an open learning community created to support and empower emerging edtech innovators.
We’re on a mission to democratize access to information and social capital, making founding an edtech company more accessible to all.
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