One of the many highlights for me from BbWorld 2012 was to accept on behalf of all the colleagues I work with at NIU, the 2012 Blackboard Catalyst Award for Community Collaboration. This award recognizes leaders within the Blackboard user community who encourage collaboration, and share advice, insight, content, and effective practices with fellow educators outside their own institutions. Accepting the 2012 Blackboard Catalyst Award from Ray Henderson, President and Chief Technology Office, Blackboard Our center was recognized for its long history of collaborating with others in the support of teaching with technology, sharing advice, insight, and best practices. This was the second year in a row our Center was recognized with a Blackboard Catalyst Award, with last year’s award being for excellence in professional development. I am indeed blessed to work with an amazing team of colleagues at NIU and look forward to the future as we together we continue to make every effort at being "catalysts" in support of the the teaching mission of NIU.

Pluralsight, a Salt Lake City-based online training platform for technology professionals, has raised a $135 million Series B led by Insight Venture Partners with participation of ICONIQ Capital and Sorenson Capital. The round brings Pluralsight’s valuation close to $1 billion reports TechCrunch. Pluralsight previously raised a $27.5 million Series A in January 2013 from Insight Venture Partners. Key Takeaway Founded in 2004 by Keith Sparkjoy, Aaron Skonnard and Fritz Onion, Pluralsight became one of the trusted online course providers for tech and creative professionals. According to WSJ, the company’s revenue grew from $16 million in 2012 to $38 million in 2013 and will surpass $85 million this year. With the fresh round of funding, Pluralsight now aims to grow its footprint in the corporate space as well as developing new courses, related interactive content and certifications. "We have this vision of Pluralsight becoming the de facto training module in corporate groups. We see Pluralsight emerging as its own certification standard." Aaron Skonnard, co-founder and CEO of Pluralsight told TechCrunch. Companies pay $300 per year per seat to the e-learning startup, individual learners pay $29 per month to get access to the entire course library. The customer base spreads across 150 countries with most users coming from the U.S., U.K. and India. Analysis Similar to lynda.com, Pluralsight grew organically over a long period before raising its first outside investment last year. Pluralsight then acquired four smaller competitors in eight months, boosting its content library to over 3000 courses. Skilled workers to fill the programming and creative jobs are in high demand. Therefore, we are currently experiencing a massive spike in funding and activity among startups and established companies alike that cater the space through their respective e-learning portals. Udemy is currently preparing for its European entrance by opening an office in Dublin and has also hired three seasoned executives to focus on scale and international growth. Skillsoft, another Dublin-based established player in the field of e-learning for tech professionals, got acquired for $2 billion back in March. lynda.com is also acquiring smaller competitors in the space to beef up its course library and has hired a Chief Revenue Officer to prepare the company for an IPO. Given this massive Series B round, Pluralsight now also is a candidate to join the stock market. Further Reading Pluralsight Raises $135 Million in Series B Funding Led by Insight Venture Partners | Businesswire $135M in Series B funding: What it means for you | Pluralsight blog E-learning Co. Pluralsight Raises $135M in Record Round for Utah | Wall Street Journal Pluralsight Raises $135 Million At A Valuation Approaching $1 Billion | TechCrunch Related Links HEDLINE: Pluralsight acquires Digital-Tutors for $45 million Udemy hires Seasoned Execs - Focus on Scale and Growth Udemy to open first Overseas Office in Dublin lynda.com hires former Ancestry.com and EF Englishtown executive Andrew Wait as CRO HEDLINE: Skillsoft acquired by Charterhouse for $2 billion Links pluralsight.com | Twitter | Facebook | CrunchBase

I’ve never used my blog before to vent….so this will be a first.  But, after my recent nightmare of an experience flying home from BbWorld 2012 on United, flight 6115, service from MSY to ORD on Fri, 7/13/12, I feel obligated to share my experience publicly in hopes that United may take notice and respond.  I’ve already submitted this complaint to United’s Customer Care form, but am skeptical that I’ll ever receive a response.  If I do, I’ll gladly share United’s efforts at making the situation right. — Date: 7/13/12 Flight: 6115 Departure: New Orleans, LA (MSY) Arrival: Chicago, IL (ORD) While our flight was scheduled to depart at 6:15AM from MSY, due to the crew needing some additional rest, the flight was originally delayed until 7:45AM. This delay was understandable. However, the following events were absolutely ridiculous. The issues began once we boarded the plane at around 7:15AM. A full flight, we were informed by the pilots that there was a mechanical issue concerning a hydraulic pump that would need service. After deplaning at approximately 7:40AM, we were informed initially that we would be delayed approx. 1 hr. while the airplane was serviced. Every hour or so, the delay was extended another hour. Passengers needing to get to Chicago to connect with another flight seemingly were being booked on other airlines. However, those of us, myself included, who’s final destination was Chicago ORD were simply expected to wait for the plane to be fixed. As the afternoon dragged on, those of us waiting in the gate area no longer were provided with any updates on an estimated departure time. Not until 5:00PM, after repeated requests for information, did a gate agent finally say that a part needed to fix our plane was arriving by another plane, and it would be approximately 7:30PM before we could leave. The agent did at that time finally provide me with a $20 food voucher. By 7PM, we were instructed by the gate agent that we were switching planes and would need to depart from another gate. Upon arrival at the new gate, we were quickly checked in and asked to board the plane so that we could depart before the crew would "time out" for the day. Once boarded, the crew deliberately delayed our departure so that they did indeed "time out" and for the second time, we were told to deplane. After waiting at the airport for 15+ hours, the flight was cancelled and United put me up for the night in a hotel, booking me on a 7:30AM flight the next morning on American to ORD. The gate agents were furious at the crew, telling us passengers that there was no reason we couldn’t have left, as all that needed to happen was for the door to be closed and we would’ve been cleared to takeoff. Speaking with another traveler who is 1k and has flown for more than 100k mi/yr for past 10 yrs, he had never seen or heard of such horrendous service. We all should’ve been booked on other flights much earlier that day, or another plane should’ve been made available. Rather than waiting until the evening to then cancel our flight and then expect those of us flying directly to ORD to take a flight the following morning, every effort should’ve been made to get us to our destination that same day. The crew should be reprimanded for deliberately sabotaging our departure on our replacement aircraft. Unfortunately, those of us few remaining passengers who really needed to get to our final destination at ORD were caught in an obvious power struggle between the crew airline gate personnel, which was incredibly unprofessional at best, but I would describe as childish. I will think twice about ever flying United ever again and will certainly not be recommending United to others following this incident. The meager $200 travel voucher that the gate agent finally provided me with hardly compensates for the situation, especially considering on my flight to New Orleans the flight was overbooked and the airline was offering $400 transferrable vouchers for anyone who would voluntarily be bumped to a later flight. How is it United that someone who voluntarily gives up their seat is offered a $400 transferrable voucher, yet someone who spends the entire day in the airport and after the flight is finally cancelled, is offered a $200 nontransferable voucher? Again, if United reaches out in an effort to truly make amends for this debacle, I will certainly share those developments here. **Update 7/30/12** I did receive the following email back from United in response to my complaint, along with a $250 travel voucher to be used within the next year. Dear Mr. Rhode; Thank you for contacting United Airlines. I am sorry we were unable to respond to your request sooner. The merger of United and Continental Airlines has been a successful one, but there have certainly been challenges. An airline merger of this size has never been accomplished before now. Some facets of our airline may be different, but our fundamental commitment to our valued customers has never wavered. Please be assured we do understand your concerns, and they have been documented for review and appropriate internal action. Please visit us online at www.united.com as additional travel needs arise. While my reply is brief and not as detailed as I would like, I want you to know I very much appreciate your business. To thank you for your patience and loyalty, we are sending an electronic travel certificate to you under separate cover. You will receive the travel certificate within the next three business days. We are building an airline that will earn your confidence and approval, and we look forward to welcoming you on board your next United Airlines flight. Sincerely, Dan Thompson Senior Manager

Ardusat, a Utah-based education company focused on enhancing student engagement through hands-on experimentation, launches a platform that will enable K-12 students to remotely control small satellites called "cubesats" carrying science experiments. The company aims to get more kids interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields by letting them track storms or study solar flares from space. It also claims that this new platform will democratize access to space for a new generation of students who won't see NASA's shuttle program in action. The platform is itself available to K-12 schools during the 2014-2015 school year, with initial participants from classes in the U.S., Brazil, China, Guatemala, India, Indonesia and Israel. Truth be told, Ardusat wants to make business with schools. Schools have to purchase the Ardusat classroom package to be able to access data from the satellites. That said, Ardusat will also produce curriculum based on its cubesat experiments that will be free for any teacher to use in the classroom. More details in the press release Ardusat Releases Satellite-Powered Web Platform, Takes STEM Education Into Space for K-12 Schools Ardusat platform will enable K-12 classes in the U.S. and internationally to easily conduct experiments in space Real-time data will be available to any classroom with an Arduino kit and free curriculum to teachers In addition, Ardusat announces partnership with Association of Space Explorers, which will host a competition for 15 classes SALT LAKE CITY — August 27, 2014 — Ardusat, an education company focused on enhancing student engagement through hands-on experimentation, today announced the release of a technology platform and curriculum that will enable K-12 students and teachers to conduct multidisciplinary experiments in space. The signature feature is the ability to control — via remote upload — experiments conducted on small satellites called "cubesats," which contain sensors built to collect scientific data. The platform will be available for the first time during the 2014-2015 academic year, with initial participation from classes in the U.S., Brazil, China, Guatemala, India, Indonesia and Israel. The release comes amid efforts by the U.S. Department of Education to increase the number of college graduates in high-demand science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Currently, there is nearly 50 percent attrition among students seeking bachelor’s degrees in STEM disciplines. The federal government currently dedicates more than $3 billion toward STEM education initiatives each year. "We strongly believe that there is a direct correlation between making STEM education more engaging and getting more students involved in these critical fields," said Ardusat President Sunny Washington. "The broad commercialization of space is opening up unprecedented opportunities to engage in space education and explore career options in STEM fields. In previous generations, kids grew up idolizing astronauts who were the select few to exceed earth’s boundaries. We want to give future generations direct access to the cosmos so they can see science-based education from a whole new perspective." Students will be able to use the Ardusat platform to find learning resources and to prepare a range of custom experiments, which could include tracking storms, studying the association of atmosphere and temperature and looking at solar flares. The experiments will be run on cubesats, which transit the planet in low-earth orbit at 4.79 miles per second. They will collect data on sensors that measure everything from light to temperature to even radiation levels. Based on the open-source Arduino standard, the technology used to access space will provide students with a meaningful way to interact with both hardware and software through their exploration. "My students and I couldn't be more eager to take part in Ardusat's release during this school year," said Rachelle Romanoff, chair of the science department at Bakersfield Christian High School and contributor to the Ardusat curriculum. "As a teacher, I'm always looking for ways to make learning an immersive experience for my students, and this is the most dramatic example I can think of for STEM education." The cubesats are capable of gathering a variety of measurements simultaneously. Any class that purchases the Ardusat classroom package will be able access data from the satellites. Ardusat will also produce curriculum based on its cubesat experiments that will be free for any teacher to use in the classroom. In connection with the release, Ardusat announced today a partnership with the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), the unique organization of astronauts who have orbited Earth, to issue the ASE AstroSat Challenge. This offers the opportunity for high-school aged students to propose their own experiment using a real satellite on orbit. The top 15 ideas will be selected by ASE, but all proposers will have an exciting experience learning about the satellite and developing their own experiment. Ardusat received initial financing through Spire (formerly Nanosatisfi), a San Francisco-based company that builds cubesats for commercial use. Ardusat experiments will operate in Earth's orbit via Spire cubesats, which are launched into space through rideshare opportunities with larger satellites or similar devices. "Under Sunny’s leadership, we see Ardusat as an incredible vehicle to radically shift the paradigm for STEM education globally," said Spire CEO Peter Platzer. "At a time when NASA's iconic shuttle program has been discontinued, this platform can be a vehicle for recapturing the imaginations of young people by giving them access to space in an unprecedented way. Ardusat’s extraordinary and unique offering will inspire innovations through real science that connects people across the boundaries of age, language and background and allows them to help unravel some of our planet's most vexing problems." About Ardusat Ardusat is an education technology company that provides the unique opportunity to connect the universe to the classroom. With our next generation learning resources, students can create their own satellite experiments and collect real-world space-data. We provide teachers with STEM curriculum resources, professional development, and hands-on materials that give students an experience that is truly out of this world. Ardusat is the exclusive education partner of Spire, a worldwide leader in CubeSat technology. ### Contacts Tyler Hoffman, Method Communications 415-548-6608, tyler@methodcommunications.com

Over the past couple of months edtech founders across the globe were invited to submit their startup to the Global EdTech Startup Awards. The awards are organized by a group of edtech incubators and accelerators including MindCet, p.a.u. education, Edtech Incubator and Socratic Labs. You might remember them from the Open Education Challenge earlier this year. The GESAwards don’t offer a monetary reward or investment but the winners will be invited to visit the different incubators over a period of four months, getting free workspace and mentoring. The four winners will be announced on September 15th, three by a panel of judges and one by the audience through social media. Makers Empire | Australia Makers Empire created a 3D design software for the classroom. The software is integrated into a complete learning program, teaching students in K-7 schools the basics of designing objects and 3D printing. Makers Empire supports Android, iOS and Windows based tablet devices. Links makersempire.com | Twitter Spongelab | Canada Spongelab is a global science community around a technology platform that enables teachers to create STEM lessons with content-rich immersive teaching tools designed around discovery-based learning. Spongelab also offers custom production services for the global education community. Links spongelab.com | Twitter EDpuzzle | USA EDpuzzle enables teachers to personalized web based video content. They can crop videos using a simple video editor, add their own voice narration and embed quizzes. EDpuzzle also offers analytics tools to track student performance and engagement. Links edpuzzle.com | Twitter mejorando.la | Spain mejorando.la is a learning portal for web professionals in Spanish-speaking countries, offering courses in digital marketing, programming and graphic design from industry professionals. Links mejorando.la | Twitter Nittio Learn | India Nittio Learn enables teachers to create interactive learning apps within minutes. The platform uses interlaced learning which mixes interaction material with teaching material in order to make learning more engaging. Links nittiolearn.com Gibbon | Netherlands Gibbon is a casual learning platform, enabling everybody learn and teach with existing content from the web through easy to use playlists. A playlist is a collection of articles, videos, presentations and more around a specific topic. Students can follow these crowdsourced playlist and learn anything, anywhere, step by step. Links gibbon.co | Twitter Infantium | Spain Infantium creates learning apps for young children based on cognitive science and adaptive learning. The startup combines its neuroscience infrastructure with content from leading creators. Links infantium.com | Twitter Lingua.ly | Israel Lingua.ly created a browser extension, helping language learners to practice new words from articles on the Internet. Learners can add new words to their practice list, review vocabulary with flashcards and quizzes and compare their progress with other community members. Links lingua.ly | Twitter BrightBytes | USA BrightBytes is an education data analytics platform, helping educators and school leaders to make educated decisions on where to spend money on technology or where training and teacher development is needed.. Its flagship product Clarity aims to make data simple, fun and actionable. Links brightbytes.net | Twitter EducaTablet | Colombia EducaTablet is a digital content distribution platform for schools and universities, enabling students to access their school and academic books anytime, anywhere. Links educatablet.com | Twitter

If you don’t blink, you will catch my split-second cameo appearance (around 1:45) in this recap video from BbWorld 2012 (thanks Andrea for the heads-up!)

Although August is one of the quieter months of the year when it comes to news items for our coverage, this August brought us some interesting stories nevertheless. From Edmodo’s $30 million Series D over Desire2Learn’s $85 million Series B in the funding section to new hires at Teachers pay Teachers and new launches like Junction Education we had a lot to cover. Here are the top ten stories that got the most attention from our readers. Edmodo enters IPO zone with $30 million Series D led by Index Ventures Edmodo has raised a $30 million venture round led by Index Partners, bringing the total amount of funding raised to $87 million. With that amount of money raised it is highly unlikely that Edmodo will ever become an acquisition target which means that all signs are now set on an IPO as we saw with other startups in the edtech space. Read More Junction Education launches a Flipboard for College Courses Junction Education, a startup founded by former McGraw-Hill executive Vineet Madan, aims to provide instructors and students with an easy to use course platform which integrates different kinds of web content into web- and mobile based courses. Junction Education has received investment from two former heads of McGraw-Hill Education, Robert J. Bahash and Peter C. Davis, who are also advisors to the startup along with former Pearson Education Global CMO Gary L. June. Read More Overview: Three EdTech Startups in 500 Startups 10th Batch 500 Startups announced its 10th accelerator batch which will be the second batch in San Francisco with 28 startups from across the globe participating. Ten of the startups did not raise money prior to joining the accelerator program, 24 of them are already generating revenue. 500 Startups is among the most active investors in edtech. In this batch three startups are in education technology. Read More There are over 60 potential EdTech Seed Orphans in the US According to venture capital database CB Insights there are currently 1686 tech startups at risk of becoming "seed orphans" in the United States. Over 60 of these startups are in the education and training sector, scoring the vertical a spot in the top 5. CB Insights put those startups at risk that did raise angel or seed funding in the past 13 months but did not manage to raise a seed extension or Series A yet. 13 months is the usual timeframe in which this follow-on funding takes place based on research by the analytics firm. Read More Infographic: Second Languages in Europe A few of the findings come as little of a surprise. Of course, English is a strong second language in many countries in Europe including France, the Scandinavian countries with the exception of Finland and Italy. Russian has also maintained its strong position in several of the Eastern European countries including the Baltic states and the Ukraine. Read More Radically Re-thinking Language Assessment English language learning is fraught with ineffective products and failed instructional approaches, complicated by disparate proficiency scales and non-standard interpretations of terms like "intermediate" and "advanced." This leads to confusion about what results learners should expect after language study. It also contributes to unclear guidelines for stakeholders who evaluate learners’ proficiency, from university admissions offices to future employers. Read More Desire2Learn raises $85 million Series B for International Growth Founded in 1999, this is only the second round of venture funding that D2L raised. An $80 million Series A took place in September 2012, followed by a series of acquisitions in 2013-14 including Degree Compass, Wigio, Knowillage and Achievement Standards Network. Last month D2L founder and CEO John Baker announced rebranding of its core product, an integrated learning platform (ILP), to Brightspace. Read More Startup Profile: ClassDo Since the advent of VoIP, countless edtech startups have tried to leverage the technology to build learning platforms that connect learners and teachers from across the world. Most of these early startups are long gone but thanks to faster Internet connections, better hardware, new protocols like WebRTC and video calls entering the mainstream, live video lessons have seen a renaissance. ClassDo is one of those new startups aiming to build a global marketplace for lessons of all kind. Based in Tokyo but with an international team, ClassDo has attracted users from all continents mainly through word of mouth. Read More Former Etsy COO Adam Freed new CEO at Teachers pay Teachers One year after John Yoo took over as CEO of Teachers pay Teachers from its founder Paul Edelman, the teacher resource marketplace shuffles its leadership again. Adam Freed, who joined TpT’s board of directors in May as part of its venture round, takes over as CEO. Yoo will go back to his roots as former head of product and focus on mobile strategy and classroom initiatives. Read More EdTech Funding July 2014: WeSpeke, OpenEd, MamaBear, ClassOwl In this EdTech Funding Roundup we take a look at investments we haven’t covered in our regular news rundown in July. WeSpeke, a social network for language and cultural exchange, raised a $3 million Series B. OpenEd, a search and recommendation engine for Common Core aligned resources, raised a $2 million Seed Round. MamaBear, an all-in-one parenting app, raised a $1.4 million Angel Round. ClassOwl, a communication and organization app for college students, raised an $850k Seed Round. Read More

Great Britain is unusual. Geographically isolated, densely populated, and equally blessed and burdened with a history of "ruling the waves". The majority of foreign nationals in Britain have always been nationals of the Commonwealth, invited guest workers from earlier in the 20th century. The history of British power has always stood in contrast to Britain’s political need for close ties with the European Union. And over the last decade, there are two things that have really put a strain on the identity of this country: the economic crisis and the expansion of the European Union. EDUKWEST’s kick-off post on Multilingualism in Europe showed that the second language spoken on this island is now not Punjabi or Welsh, but Polish. As Britain is becoming a more multilingual place, why is education policy not following suit? Since starting my business as an independent language teacher here in Britain, I have come across more struggles and barriers to language learning in Britain than I can count. Based on original research carried out by the British Academy the number of GCSE entries in foreign languages is at 41% - compare that to 72% of the population agreeing with the EU’s "Mother tongue +2" Initiatives. So what is it that’s holding Britain back? Can we put it all down to the global dominance of world language English? The following points are observations I have made in my years as a multilingual in Britain, which go a long way towards revealing more behind the British lag in multilingualism than meets the eye. Ghosts of Educators Past Back in the 1960s, new ideas in education were sweeping the nation. Schools stopped teaching Latin in a move towards creating a more inclusive classroom experience, but didn’t stop there - many abandoned grammar teaching in both the native and any foreign languages. Language learning in British schools became a matter of reciting set pieces and focusing on teaching students the kinds of phrases that would be instantly usable. Fifty years later, this means a whole generation of adults can ask for directions to the nearest youth hostel, but very few actually know what a noun is. The damage done is not only a gap in basic education for many, but more importantly it has created a low in confidence like never before. Brits just don't believe that they can learn languages. While calls for reintroducing grammar education are returning, the generation of parents that are unable to assist their children with their English homework has contributed to creating Britain’s particular gap in confidence when it comes to acquiring any language, even their own. Combatting Difficult with More Difficult Leading organisations like the British Council are essential in supporting the British language development. But driven by political emphasis and a push towards potential future trade partners, the focus in primary education has actually moved away from the classic language choices of French, German or Spanish. Instead, schools are encouraged to teach Mandarin. Is this move towards a language that has even less in common with the linguistic construct of English a much-needed palate cleanser, or another blow to the fragile confidence of English native speakers everywhere? The Workplace Gap There seems to be an unshakeable belief in the English-speaking world that language acquisition is never more possible than in an child aged seven or younger, leading to the strong focus of education ministers on plugging the language gap. While it is undisputed that including languages in the primary school curriculum is a positive move, the positive development still stops there. With less than half of the teaching population qualified to teach a language above A1 level, the international curriculum will fail the future workforce in the same way as it is currently doing. The British workforce is experiencing a huge skills gap when it comes to its competitiveness on an international market, and without a wider commitment to saying "Languages boost employability!", Britain will always have a long way to go before it can produce graduate-level speakers of several languages. So What Can Be Done? While academics and researchers are contributing valuable work at the higher level of education policy, the real situation on the ground in Britain is far from ideal. As an independent language tutor based in the North of England, I cannot say that finding hordes of local adults who are keen to learn a language is easy. But the silver lining is clearly showing. Despite a lack of reliable statistics on adult learning in the UK, my anecdotal evidence has been encouraging. I regularly find people fluent in other languages, adults who tell me excitedly about their years spent living and working abroad. Initiatives like Routes into Languages provide an excellent push to encourage young people to take up language learning, but there is a huge deficit in the education opportunities open to the working population. The self-improvement and positivity drive that many adults experience in the United States is not as visible on British shores, and sadly language learning still has not been recognised as what it really is — a path to personal growth, increased intellectual power and much improved employability at any age. The key to boosting Britain's multilingual advantage lies in boosting the status of multilingualism itself, making it clear that personal growth, enjoyment and happiness are part of what language contributes to the learner's life. This move forward should be lead by the most qualified educators and most enthusiastic employers, bringing more language events to the population, boosting export, travel and independent education from providers serving the adult workforce and make a difference to the skills on offer today, and not in 20 years. Picture License  Some rights reserved by Stuck in Customs

Jobs in the creative industry play an increasingly important role for the economy of many countries. The OECD just recently published an interesting report on the growing connection of tourism and the creative industry in countries like South Korea, China, Italy, Japan, the United States and New Zealand. Besides classic creative jobs in photography and design, so called maker shops are getting more attention in tech hubs across the globe. Besides working on projects that are powered by Arduino chipsets, 3D printing is a massive driver for the growing popularity of the maker movement. It is already successfully used in medicine, fashion, construction or even space travel. Makers Empire from Australia wants to prepare today’s students for their future jobs that might very well involve 3D printing through its 3D design and printing app. Introduce your startup and give a short description of what you are doing. Makers Empire makes the world's easiest to use 3D design and printing app. It is designed so students as young as 5 can get started in 3D design and printing. We bundle our software with a Learning Program that is designed for teachers and educators. It includes: Volume licensed software (iPad/Android) Lesson and unit plans Professional development Web portal Support We believe that in the near future 3D printing skills will be seen as essential for every student graduating school ready for work or further study. Who are the founders, how did you meet, what are your different roles in the startup. There are 4 founders of Makers Empire: Jon Soong, Roland Peddie, Anthony Chhoy and Lap Leung. Lap and Jon met in primary school a long time ago! Roland met Lap and Jon at Adelaide University where they were all studying engineering/computer science. Anthony came on board as Makers Empire formed. Jon Soong: CEO Roland Peddie: CTO Lap Leung: Director of Sales Anthony Chhoy: COO/CFO What is the main problem in education that you aim to solve. The NMC Horizon Report recently stated that 3D printing will dominate STEM learning in the next few years. It engages and excites students whilst introducing them to skills they will need to compete in tomorrow's job market. Traditionally 3D design software has been used by engineers and architects - CAD software that is very precise and difficult to use. Software companies have tried to introduce these to schools and have found success with students about 13 years and up. Below this the software is too difficult to use for most students. Makers Empire software is purposely designed for touch devices (iPad/Android) and allows students as young as 5 to design and print in 3D. Allowing younger students to participate in this technology gives them an advantage - they can start with this fantastic technology sooner. It also gives the less technically inclined students an introduction to 3D design and printing - an experience they might otherwise miss out on. Not every student will become a scientist, engineer or architect but it is still important for them to understand this technology. In which markets / regions are you active. What markets / regions are next. We launched in Australia in August 2014. We have a number of schools who have bought our Learning Program in Australia. We launch with a 3D printer distributor and IT services partner in Hong Kong in September 2014. We have agreements with distributors in Spain and Indonesia and are currently localizing our software for these countries. About half a dozen more territories are currently being negotiated. We have had interest from some UK schools and our Learning Program is now aligned against England's National Curriculum - we will be making a push into the UK in early 2015. Our software is currently being trialed in New York by Stan Silverman in their mobile "STEAM" van for the schools in New York state. Who is your target audience. Primary/elementary schools. School students aged 5-13. How do you engage with your target audience. How do you convert them into users of your product. We are currently talking to schools, clusters of schools and government departments to get them using the Makers Empire Learning Program. We have attended a number of conferences and have a number on the calendar for the rest of the year. This is something that we are currently experimenting with - to find the best way to market and sell our program. What is your business model. How much does your product / service cost. Our business model is selling our Makers Empire Learning Program to schools. The Learning Program comprises: Volume licensed software for iPad/Android Lesson and unit plans Professional development Web portal for teachers Support Our pricing is: $999 AUD/USD per 100 students each year. All licensed schools have access to all current and new software. If you raised funding, how much did you raise. Who are your investors. If not, are you planning to raise funding. We have raised: $75,000 from Colin Kuchel - a local (Adelaide, Australia) angel investor $25,000 from Andrey Shirben - a Sydney/Israel angel investor who plans on getting quite involved with the B2C marketing We are planning on raising more money in the near future. Are there milestones you are especially proud of and would like to share. We have built the worlds easiest to use 3D design and printing software! What are the next steps in growing your startup. Sales and marketing - figuring out how to get the Makers Empire Learning Program into as many schools as possible Innovation - continue innovating around our Learning Program and software Anything else you would like to add. Look out for our new "Ollie Customizer" app for the new Ollie robot toy. Customize your Ollie robot by designing and 3D printing mods. Links makersempire.com | Twitter