5 danish Edtech Startups you should be aware of
Let me introduce you to some of the most promising Edtech startups in Denmark ⚡️
EasyCorrect
Meet Niels Josiassen, EasyCorrect’s CEO and Jacob Gadegaard, its CLO (Chief Learning Officer), a high school teacher for 19 years who loves it so much, he still teaches on a part-time basis to maintain hands-on knowledge. Giving feedback on written assignments is one of the most resource and time intensive tasks for teachers. As it is often very repetitive, EasyCorect created a plugin for Microsoft Word in 2012 (and later for Google Docs) which contains a library of standard comments to use and/or personalize, a voice tool to embed voice comments directly into a Word document or a Google Doc, as well as many other features. Already 2500 teachers have adopted the tool in Denmark and Norway. EasyCorrect will soon launch a new product, Edword, an online learning platform also focusing on how students learn from feedback and tailor made for formative practices. The platform will be used as a learning platform that will allow teachers to create assignments directly on it, and students to complete them online. The platform will ease the formative feedback process and obliterates document handling. Teachers will be able to prioritize the feedback, embed YouTube videos, text book pages, etc. Students will no longer receive feedback as a chaos of comment bubbles, but as an organized feedback flow, where students work through the feedback one comment at the time. And the platform reports back to the teacher what students do with the feedback.
WriteReader
WriteReader is a Danish Edtech startup founded by Janus Madsen, a primary school teacher for 16 years and Babar Baig an entrepreneur in the tech industry in 2013. The literacy gap in Denmark and other European countries is frightening: between 15 and 18% of students in Denmark leave 9th grade with a serious lack of reading and writing skills. This is the problem they want to tackle with their tool, which enables kids to be content creators and authors of books. Both founders believe that all educational tools should be based on scientific research: ‘just because it looks good on an iPad doesn’t mean it has educational value’ says Babar Baig. This is why WriteReader has been backed by researchers and independent efficacy study from last year shows an increase in literacy skills for the students that used WriteReader. WriteReader also received a grant from the Danish Ministry of Education to do tests with WriteReader together with the pedagogical university (DPU). The tool is used in more than 50% of comprehensive schools in Denmark and has 100 000 users in the US (the company went through the first cohort of the Intel Edtech Accelerator in SF).
Lix Technologies
Lix is a study platform built and designed for students in higher education. Fighting for an easier student life, Lix offers eTextbooks at cost price along with their platform to manage books, notes, and highlights — online and offline. The company was created in 2013 by Camilla Hessellund Lastein, at the time a 20 years old student who dropped out from university to focus entirely on the company. Lix is used by approx. 35 000 students all over Denmark and recently launched in Sweden. Tashia Dam, Lix’s VP of product introduced me to Lix’s vision for higher education and her point of view on the future of Edtech: for her it will be more focused on the use of data, AI & machine learning to improve the learning interactions and involve students more.
Peergrade
Peergrade was created in 2015 by David Kofoed Wind, a Phd student and lecturer at the Danish Technical University (DTU) that needed a tool that would help him as his class increased from 20 to 150 students. So he basically built a tool for himself, that would ease the feedback process as peers provide feedback to their classmates on the assignment they have to hand-in. This peer feedback allows for more self-reflection, critical thinking and is also a great way to learn tells Pamela Kunkel, Peergrade’s content and community coordinator. The product is now used by 10 000 students in Higher Education Institutions and High schools across 35 countries.
Labster
Labster is an Edtech startup that aims at bringing science education to life with laboratory simulations. It was founded back in 2011 and their virtualized laboratories are used by science students for their experiments. With Labster, universities and schools don’t need to purchase expensive lab equipment and students can conduct potentially hazardous experiments without fear. Jan Stahlberg, head of global partnerships showed me how a million dollar lab looked like in a browser or through VR glasses. Labster’s laboratory simulations are aimed at university and college levels for Biology, Biochemistry, Genetics, Biotechnology and Chemistry and are already in use in 150 institutions globally.
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