What is Prodigy Math? Prodigy is a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that uses similar structure such as popular games like Pokemon, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, etc.. In this game, players assume characters in a live digital world, complete quests, battle enemies as well as other live players. Players collect items, spells, potions, pets and new abilities. New collectible content is consistently updated into the game. Math is embedded into this game as questions are answered in order for players to complete their spells and attacks when they are engaged in battles with opponents. As players successfully defeat their opponents by correctly answering math questions, their characters, pets, spells and items continue to evolve. Prodigy Math has content from all major topics and will seamlessly cover Grades 1 – 8 to help ensure students are ready for standardized testing. It begins with a diagnostic test to place students in the correct grade, embedded assessments, and automatic differentiation,Prodigy is designed in way that students succeeds at their own pace. The original value proposition of this venture was that the founders sought to elicit and track emotional response to math through it’s gameplay and retain interest in this game by increasing challenge levels to continue that response.
Bio of Rohan Mahimker:
Rohan is an entrepreneur and Mechatronics Engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo! Prodigy started out as a project for Rohan and Alexander Peter’s final year in the mechatronics engineering program. He and his Alex wanted to ensure that the game was right for their target market, so they went back to school after they graduated. For about a year-and-a-half, Rohan and Alexander spent every day in an elementary school classroom where they’d watch students interact with their product and get feedback from teachers. On their own time, they would tweak the game based on this feedback.
Rohan and his cofounder presented this project to the school board in Ontario that had taken months to set up. A group of superintendents listened to his pitch for Prodigy and had onboarded the game. On the first day the game was onboarded by the schoolboard, the game had onboarded about 5,000 students organically that same day. Since their launch in 2011, now boasting over one million daily active students around the world and over 20 million subscribed users in total.
The company currently employs just under 120 employees and wants to hire 100 more next year. They are committed to real change in educational practices surrounding math as their mission is to identify knowledge gap and He notes that a practice tool like Prodigy aims to solve that issue by helping identify knowledge gaps to teachers and parents and helping to close them so there’s less cumulative uncertainty building up and they’re more likely to continue to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in the future.
https://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/pitches/smarteacher
Sources:
https://www.prodigygame.com/
https://www.marsdd.com/news/humansofmars-prodigy-helps-students-fun-learning-math/
