OneValley Pitchfest

Education serves as the bedrock for societies to integrate and progress, and studies have shown that investment in education is vastly beneficial for those with access to it. However, up until the last few decades, education was not widely available and was primarily limited to traditional institutions. EdTech startups have played a major role in improving this accessibility. Last month, on October 28th, OneValley hosted a pitch night to highlight these cutting-edge EdTech startups around the world that are leveling the playing field for individuals inspired to learn, regardless of their circumstances. The winner of the pitch night was awarded $2000 in cash and a free Passport membership, and the audience favorite received $500.

OneValley

Considered to be the World’s Innovation Community, OneValley is a global entrepreneurship platform for individuals, startups, and corporations seeking innovation and accelerated growth. They provide a highly curated and immersive experience through our innovation centers, enterprise services, and OneValley Passport, the world’s most comprehensive online innovation platform. Passport connects entrepreneurs and emerging startups to key networks, essential tools and resources, and savings on world-class services.

Meet the Pitching Startups

MyClassConnect: Educational technology company that addresses the limited access and quality of higher education systems in sub-Saharan Africa by utilizing cloud software that digitizes teaching and learning, enables fully blended learning, simplifies daily workload, and enables students to track progress. It aims to improve students’ engagement and performance using adaptive and incentivized learning approaches.

Achievable: A digital personal trainer for learning that guides people through a personalized learning path. This allows them to reinforce what they have learned through spaced repetition and gives them certainty that they are ready to pass their exams.

Superbetter: A digital mental health and wellbeing company that brings social-emotional learning to life for middle and high school classrooms by making it practical and engaging through gamification. Over 1 million people have played SuperBetter and the SuperBetter TED Talk has been watched by a global audience of over 8 million viewers.

Chef Koochooloo: As the only patented science, technology, and cooking-focused app that is also designed for classroom use, Chef Koochooloo utilizes software that helps kids Cook to Learn and Learn to Cook. Each lesson walks students through a new easy-to-make international recipe while teaching them STEAM and Social Studies skills.

Upbrainery: An educational technology platform that engages, trains, and helps students visualize learning through AI and NLP. It identifies learning styles, interests, and aptitude for certain skills.

Schoolcues: Helps budget-strapped small schools worldwide manage their school operations through a low-cost all-in-one SaaS platform.

Where would I invest?

I think that all of the startups presented unique and interesting ways to incorporate technology into education. One of the companies in particular that really stood out to me was Chef Koochooloo.

To dive a little deeper, Chef Koochooloo is a company that provides various products that teach kids math, science, life skills, and global competency. The company’s enrichment program blends humanity’s oldest means of socialization – cooking and eating – with its most modern academic lessons through a software subscription service that offers twenty lessons over nine months. Through these courses, the classroom embarks on a scientific culinary journey, discovering a new country during each session. Major projects of the company include a TV show, an educational kid-friendly cookbook, and an app that enables students to learn about relevant academic concepts as they walk through recipes, in accordance with the student’s grade level. Ultimately, Chef Koochooloo’s mission is to excite kids and educators about discovering the world through healthy, collaborative cooking classes and enriched STEAM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts, and Math).

Personally, I really liked the idea of combining gamification with education to teach students necessary academic skills while at the same time developing healthy eating habits that can benefit them throughout their lives. As someone who loves to cook and is always trying to find new and creative ways to go about healthier eating, this is definitely something I would have been interested in growing up and I think that it would have been a good academic motivator.