Catherine

It is a very interesting company because, as mention, most teachers are not well versed in technology and its applications. I particularly like that ReciPROcity tests out new technologies for the faculty. With new products being released all the time it is hard to keep up with it all especially if it is not your area of expertise.

Sorry! I mixed up my comments :( I think this a solution to a very large problem that teachers are facing. I am really interesting in the shift to e-books because of a number of the reasons that you mention. They are much lighter and they can be updated much more easily. The additions to I Read You sound like they would improve them even more. Firstly, live updates and dynamic material is a great way to engage learners beyond the basics that are usually provided in textbooks. Plus the main difference of having different reading levels is an excellent addition because it allows for individualization without needing to find different source material for each student. If I was an investor I would invest in this project, especially if I was a smaller publisher looking to break into the very lucrative education textbook market. I Read You incorporates the trend of personalized learning, which is becoming more important as mobile devices are becoming more prevalent in classrooms. I enjoyed how there was a timeline included in the pitch, because, as with many technological devices, timing is very important. Right now a lot of schools are looking to move towards e-books, so it would be a good opportunity to launch a product like this and move in before the publishing companies make the move to e-books.

It is a very interesting company because, as mention, most teachers are not well versed in technology and its applications. I particularly like that ReciPROcity tests out new technologies for the faculty. With new products being released all the time it is hard to keep up with it all especially if it is not your area of expertise.

This is a really great way to tap into the BYOD trend. Kurzweil is pretty prevalent in the schools I’ve been in and this would be a good way to expand using that brand. What I like about it is that students’ can use it anywhere, both at home and at school.

I think this is a really neat idea because it combines supportive features with a social connection element. I also like how student’s without disabilities can also join because then seems like it would help to keep them in contact with their peers in an environment that can be modified to suit them. Would you have a separate version for different campuses?

This is a really interesting idea. I am always interested in educational projects because it is such a good way bring people out of poverty, and it defiantly would help with the reconstruction costs, and help to repair the country beyond what can be tallied up monetarily. The team seems to be quite strong, there is a good amount of diversity and a lot of experience in educational technology. Plus I like how the content will be kept simple and straightforward so that it will be achievable and will also provide good basic foundations to education. It is defiantly a compelling program and I really like how it is going to make use of some of the major trends in education (like game based learning) to make it engaging and fun. My question as an investor would be the more tangible concerns. How many tablets? How will they be handed out? Who keeps them? And so on. Additionally, would the educational content be already loaded onto the tablets or will students need to access the internet? I’m not informed about the refugee camps beyond the basics, but I would imagine that reliable internet and probably electricity could be difficult to come by. Obviously, getting an aid organization onboard is the best plan, both in terms of funding and operations, but have you thought about a Kickstarter campaign? There are a lot of people that would be willing to donate $2 or $50 to this type of endeavour and it could help to provide the capital needed to get started. Good Luck!!

This would be extremely helpful to school administrators, because there isn’t really any service that can help guide technology choices. I really like how the company comes to look at what is needed instead of trying to place certain products into the environment. The case you make that the company is tied to the market and not to a certain technology is a very compelling one.

This would be really helpful for a lot of students. I’m sure a lot of university and college students would also be able to the app. Things can get messy when you are using highlighters if you change your mind, but a digital sticky note would be easy to reorganize. I was very surprised at the statistic about the essay writing abilities of American high school students. That really set up the pitch in terms of really identifying a pain point and then presenting the app as a clear solution. This would be an application that I would invest in because it would be a fairly small development team and there is a very wide market for it. I liked how the pitch went into detail about the revenue aspect of the application, especially the case for large volume orders because when you see the numbers it is quite convincing. It is a very reasonable price for a school to purchase but would still provide a lot of revenue for the investors. I also liked the clear comparison to the main competition and then an explanation of how StickyNotes is different from Evernote, it also gives some indication of the market that an app in this area would be able to claim. It really linked in nicely because the area where the two are different connects straight back to the pain point, so it is clear as an investor that there is a place for this product.

What a neat idea! I think that students would really enjoy using this product. The sound element is quite interesting and I really like that it is reusable, solar powered, and uses recycled materials as well.

I think this is a very interesting project. Mental health conditions are certainly on the rise and I think this product would be useful in providing strategies to students to help them manage their condition. I really like the use of analytics, which can help to identify pattern for triggers which could be difficult for children to identify. It also works with two really big, and growing, areas, data analytics and wearables. There is going to be a lot of products coming to market in these two areas and if EmoTech was launch now it could be right in the upswing of these trends. The actual pitch was very thorough, addressing the problem clearly and then making a very strong case for the product. If I was looking for start-up ventures in this area I would defiantly invest. By putting a case study into the pitch it really showed how the product would actually work in real life and how it would benefit the child, their parents, and their health care team. By briefly outlining the competitors, the pitch showed that there was an awareness of the marketplace and how EmoTech was going to carve out their own section of it. I also liked how there was a section on challenges, because if I was going to invest it would show me that the person had actually thought about the different aspects of the product, the market, manufacturing, promoting, etc. which inspires confidence in the team behind the product.