The Winners of Startup Weekend Education in NoVA

Gulnara Mirzakarimova Jun 7, 2012 Tweet

Almost a hundred people came to Startup Weekend Education in NoVA organized by CIT GAP Funds in partnership with Startup Weekend DC. The event was held this past weekend at Microsoft’s Reston, VA office. After all the pitches were made on Friday night, thirteen teams were formed, and the next 54 hours were spent on testing hypotheses, iterating, coding, and building startups. Throughout the day, teams had a chance to talk to mentors and network with other participants. Fast forward to Sunday evening and it’s time for final presentations, judging and the announcement of the winners!

1st place

Pigeon – “We get you”

This platform is designed to simplify communication between English-speaking teachers and non-English-speaking parents. It provides teachers and parents with templates that can be translated in any language without grammatical and syntax errors. The messages can me sent by email, phone, text or print. In addition, templates have a set of actions that parents can take in order to follow up with the message. Communication is crucial in every aspect of life, and education is not an exception. No more translation mistakes means happier kids, parents and teachers.

2nd place

Goal Tracker – “Measurable results and resources for teachers and parents to help increase student achievement”

This web platform will help teachers record and analyze students’ scores and provide resources for students to improve their knowledge and test results. It allows you to use your computer’s or a docked camera to input tests results. For questions, answered incorrectly it provides remedial classwork. The goal is to help teachers better understand students’ performance and modify and improve schoolwork and the educational process as needed.

3rd place

HelpNathan.com - “Match.com for kids”

This mobile app is focused on live peer-to-peer teaching in a classroom. The goal is to strengthen collaboration among students and to improve the learning environment. They say that the best way to learn something is to teach someone else. This app encourages that with live chart creation, and it randomly pairs students of various levels in a particular skill so they can learn from another.

Data prize

Edunomics – Because this startup graphs relationships between seemingly unrelated data facts, the founding team calls it the “freakonomics of education.” A Microsoft-based platform, it aggregates data from various government and public sources via RSS feeds and API and analyzes it based on the variables you selected. For example, you can visually showcase how teen pregnancy affects drop-out rates in various states or countries.

You can learn about other nine teams here and here.

The next Startup Weekend is on June 15th through 17th and is e-Government Edition. To register for it, go here.