LearnBop Wins Top Honors in “Shark-Tank” Type Competition, Sponsored by Silicon Valley Education Foundation and NewSchools Venture Fund
New York, NY (PRWEB) February 20, 2014 -- LearnBop is a winner of the first-ever “iHub Pitch Games” challenge in Silicon Valley. The competition, sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) and NewSchools Venture Fund, featured 10 companies that pitched their middle school math programs to a panel of sharp critics – educators and business leaders – who grilled them about their programs, then picked the top four. Think TV’s “Shark Tank”.
“This was a perfect collaboration of educators and entrepreneurs. It was a great success all around,” said SVEF CEO Muhammed Chaudhry. “What better way to bring product and user together to figure out how to best utilize each other’s knowledge and to benefit students. LearnBop is a prime example of the quality of the talent represented in that room.”
As a result of its success in this competition, LearnBop earned the opportunity to put its on-demand, automated math tutorial to the test with Santa Clara County teachers -– called “iHub Fellows” – in their classrooms from February to May 2014.
According to LearnBop's Founder & CEO, Bharanidharan Rajakumar, “LearnBop was created to help teachers ensure that every math student receives individualized attention according to his or her unique learning challenges. Our authoring system and tutorial software has enabled some of the nation's top math teachers to replicate how they would teach each individual student in a one-on-one tutoring scenario. The teaching and learning experience is supported by the collection of user data that provides insights into student learning not possible from traditional teaching methods."
The “iHub Pitch Games” is the first event to come out of the SVEF-NewSchools Venture Fund’s “Learning Innovation Hub (iHub)” project, a network that offers product testing and feedback for e-learning tools. The project is funded by a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant.
Continuing Rajakumar said, “We are very proud that LearnBop stood up to the three hours of intense Shark-Tank-like grilling from this stellar panel of leaders in education and technology. It will be exciting to collaborate with Santa Clara County teachers as they discover the ways that our automated tutoring program can help ensure that all students are on track for learning the math skills necessary for success in school, college and career.”
The panel of business leader judges included: Former Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen; Brocade Chairman of the Board David House; NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott; Menlo Ventures Managing Director and Handle, Inc. CEO Shawn T. Carolan, and President & CEO of SGI Jorge Titinger.
The educator panel included: Evergreen School Supt. Kathy Gomez; Santa Clara County Office of Education Director of Technology Programs & Instructional Support Craig Blackburn, and Ida Jew Academy Principal and edtech entrepreneur Blanca Herrera.
About LearnBop (http://www.LearnBop.com)
LearnBop is an award-winning adaptive learning company that originated out of Carnegie Mellon University and is now based in New York City. The LearnBop platform constantly collects data to create feedback loops for continuous improvement of student performance, teacher effectiveness, and even the efficacy of the content within the system itself. Data are organized into intuitive dashboards that provide teachers with a dynamic view of class performance down to each individual student. This means teachers can provide both individualized instruction, as well as better-informed group instruction based on the unique learning contours and performance of their own classroom. Its easy-to-use authoring system enables educators to create adaptive learning experiences for students in any STEM-related subject at the K12 or higher ed level.
Lisa Wolfe, L. Wolfe Communications, +1 (773) 278-2800, [email protected]
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