6 Finnish EdTech Startups you should know about
*Learn more about Edtech & Education Innovation on this Medium blog, the Edtech Tours website & on twitter!*
Seppo: Creating educational games has never been so easy
Seppo is an authoring tool for creating educational games. The startup founded by Riku Alkio, a history teacher for 20 years, the idea came to him while in Rome with a group of 12 graders that wanted to create a game and visit Rome through it. He has never seen them so engaged and excited about learning, in Rome no tech was involved but he rapidly realized it could had something.
“We want to take learning from inside the classroom to the outside world”
The teacher creates the game tasks, which the students solve in teams using mobile devices. Seppo works on all educational levels from pre-school to university. The game can be played in the school premises, in the city centre or in a field trip location. The map of the selected area works as a game board. During the game the teacher monitors the game, assesses the answers submitted by the teams and gives feedback. Earning points and working together motivates the students to keep going.
Seppo has been through the finnish xEDU Edtech Accelerator (1st cohort). It got an overall pedagogical viability of 98%, the highest score ever achieved by a company assessed by Kokoa Agency, developing pedagogical standards for Edtech products.
Mightifier: an amazing tool for Social and Emotional Learning
Mervi started Mightifier because she was tired that personal development within organizations was focusing to much on one’s weaknesses and what to do to make someone a better person. What about our strengths? things that make us unique? valuable? Mightifier is all about positive peer feed-back, it helps kids to become masters with their social and emotional skills. Teachers see more positive class atmosphere, less bullying and better focus on learning and classmates give each other positive feedback based on strengths. Teachers support progress from their own dashboards. The app is working on tablets and can be used daily by teachers who decide who is giving feed-back to whom to make sure no child is left behind.
Mightifier has also been through the xEDU Edtech Accelerator program (1st cohort).
3D Bear: bringing 3D thinking to schools
3DBear helps create a learning environment in which people can learn 3D thinking in the classroom with help of 3D printing, Virtual Reality (VR) and others.
3D Bear wants to empower students of all ages by teaching them the fundamentals of 3D modelling, printing, and robotics. To further enhance the immersive experience, they harness virtual and augmented reality. Yet, the team does not want to have a tech-driven approach but by people: Their aim is to develop cohesive learning modules that cultivate creativity and a growth mindset in solving everyday problems by applying kinesthetic learning, collaboration and communication. They wish to make 3D printing into a keystone to connect all STEAM subjects and beyond — to history, biology, and geography just to name a few.
3D bear was part of the second cohort of xedu.
LUPO: the interactive card game to foster creativity
LUPO is a card game series with which its team envisages to empower educators as designers of 21st century teaching and learning. The first title of this series is called LUPO: The Space Adventure, a collaborative and creative storytelling card game that turns any classroom into a ridiculous sci-fi adventure. Planet Earth turned into a raisin and students form a space crew to find and build a new town for humanity, e.g. on a No Gravity World where Social Zombies live and the new town has to look GIGANTIC. The teacher plays the Ambassador of the Intergalactic Committee and guide students as an in-game character. It is up to the teacher and students how they want to bring their ideas to life, be it pen & paper or building an actual spaceship. The digital component to LUPO is their online platform LUPO World, where teachers will find a library of exciting pedagogical packages that help them to transform their classroom into a playground of 21st century teaching and learning. LUPO is part of the third cohort of xedu.
Fun Academy: Encouraging 21st century early-childhood education
Fun Academy supports early education teachers to develop their own pedagogy and boost it with 21st century skills with high quality trainings. The founder, Sanna Lukander deeply believes learning should be fun at all ages: According to her fun learning philosophy, learners are truly engaged when they love what they do, find a passion, are all appreciated for who they are (celebrating the differences) and when learning becomes a healthy addiction. This is what Fun Academy wants to share with kindergarten teachers in their trainings.
“With our hands-on teacher training we are promoting a different learning approach supporting the liberty of movement for kids, learning by playing approach, communication skills, active creativity because that’s what learning and schools should be about.” Sanna Lukander, CEO of Fun Academy
Mehackit: Every high school student can become a Maker
Mehackit is a high school course where students design and build technology projects.
Its high school courses have given young students in over 50 towns and cities in the Nordics and UK the chance to experience coding through art, music and hardware! 1/5 of all Finnish high schools are offering the Mehackit course. Examples of courses are: ‘programming your own music with Sonic Pi’ or ‘Making visual art with programming, algorythmic design etc.’
‘Mehackit carefully chooses open source technologies into its curriculum in order to promote equality in learning tech skills and making every learner feel that they can do it.’ Heini Karppinen, CEO of Mehackit
Schools pay for the course (7 weeks/38hrs) which are delivered by teachers supported by Mehackit instructors (mostly passionate IT university students).
Learn more about Edtech & Education Innovation on this Medium blog, our website & on twitter!
