Key points:
- Startups can improve education through thoughtful and equitable use of data, analytics, and AI
- See article: 3 things to consider when designing digital learning experiences
- See article: Reaching edtech harmony in your classroom
- For more news on digital learning tools, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page
This post originally appeared online and is republished here with permission.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) in early January announced 15 startup companies selected to participate in the inaugural AWS Education Accelerator. Announced in October 2023, the AWS Education Accelerator supports edtech startups who are innovating to enhance the teaching and learning experience and improve educational outcomes.
As education continues to evolve, data-driven decision making is a powerful strategy to transform teaching and learning practices and unlock new opportunities for student success. For startups, this represents an opportunity to change the trajectory of education through the thoughtful and equitable use of data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to power solutions and solve some of education’s greatest challenges.
The participating edtech startups are focused on a wide range of solutions for PK-12, higher education, and workforce education customers. By leveraging AWS to develop the next generation of edtech solutions, these startups aim to address education challenges such as student engagement, financial literacy, student health and well-being, upskilling, and operational inefficiencies.
The 10-week Accelerator program kicks off this week at Amazon’s Headquarters in Seattle. Each of the participating startups will receive up to $100,000 in AWS computing credits, hands-on workshops, an individually curated curriculum, business mentoring and technical guidance, insights from Amazon leaders and teams, networking opportunities with potential investors and customers, and ongoing advisory support. The program will culminate with a virtual Emerging Technology Showcase in collaboration with OMNIA Partners to increase visibility with education customers.
The ultimate goal is for edtech founders to leave the program ready to close new customer opportunities, expand their partner networks, raise funds and fast-track their edtech startup.
Meet the cohort
We’re excited to announce the startups that will make up this inaugural cohort. The cohort members were selected from a competitive field of thousands of applicants and chosen by a diverse committee of AWS startup and education experts based on the strength of their idea, technical readiness, and an extensive application and interview process.
Learn about the startups and the problems they aim to solve:
- Augmental Learning Inc, County of Sussex, DE
Augmental provides an AI-powered learning platform that empowers educational content creators by offering next-generation personalized learning, intelligent content creation, and data-driven analytics. - Blackbullion, London, UK
Blackbullion is a financial well-being platform and app equipping students with financial skills. The platform houses the UK’s largest hub of support funds, scholarships, and grants for students. - enlightenAI, San Francisco, CA
Enlighten AI is creating an AI-powered personalized teacher’s assistant designed to enhance educators’ impact while making their work more sustainable, including grading and giving feedback. - Hilight, New Orleans, LA
Hilight empowers teachers and school staff to post highlights and share the many small wins happening across their schools and districts every day. Hilight helps users capture the meaningful moments that often go unnoticed to enhance educator satisfaction, well-being, collective teacher efficacy, and retention. - Infini‑D Learning, Provo, UT
Infini-D Learning has developed an immersive platform that transforms classroom learning by combining story-driven narratives with collaborative problem-solving to help students tackle real-world challenges. - Lessonbee, Mount Vernon, NY
Lessonbee facilitates equitable student access to standards-aligned health education and provides teachers with tools and resources to help drive health equity in schools. Lessonbee’s whole-school wellness solution provides data to help teachers improve student self-efficacy and well-being. - Listening, San Francisco, CA
Listening provides a mobile app designed for students and researchers to transform textbooks and research papers into audio, providing insights and note-taking ability on-the-go and helping to streamline the research process. - Oblio, Inc., Murrieta, CA
Oblio is improving the university admissions process with an innovative AI tool designed to help admissions officers, faculty, staff, and coaches send hyper-personalized emails, streamline communication, and embrace multilingual inclusivity. - OneRange, New York, NY
OneRange is helping companies to automate the management of individualized learning budgets. Its platform enables discovery and access to the right resources for each individual by leveraging data across all formats of learning, including courses, books, conferences, and more. - Perlego, London, UK
Perlego is an online subscription for more than one million academic textbooks. It is designed to provide a more affordable and sustainable textbook solution for learners around the world, by partnering with publishers and eliminating the cost of print, distribution, and retail markup. - Praxis AI, Sacramento, CA
Praxis AI is a digital education and research company powered by generative AI. Their anytime, anywhere solutions combine student-teacher interactions with personalized mentoring, assessment, and support. - Quizard AI, Inc., Dover, DE
Quizard is an academic app designed to help students study for tests and quizzes. Available in multiple languages, Quizard is making personalized learning accessible to students across the globe. - SchoolBI, San Francisco, CA
SchoolBI is a user-friendly platform that helps deliver data-driven insights. The platform is designed to reduce traditional inefficiencies, time constraints, and bottlenecks and improve the ability to easily report results across departments. - Sown To Grow, Oakland, CA
Sown To Grow is a support platform that empowers schools to improve student social, emotional, and academic well-being through an easy and engaging reflection and feedback process. Designed by a team of former educators for practical classroom impact, Sown To Grow is funded by the US Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, Digital Promise, and New Schools Venture Fund. - The Juice, Miami, FL
The Juice is an interactive learning platform designed to develop students’ reading comprehension, critical thinking, information and media literacy skills, and civics knowledge using fun and engaging original content.
Go deeper on AWS Cloud for data-driven education
Discover how AWS empowers EdTech innovation to improve learning outcomes and secure student data. Plus, learn more about getting support from AWS Education Competency Partners and the education and learning solutions in AWS Marketplace, trusted technology providers, and consulting experts that offer educational institutions a wide variety of cloud-based solutions.
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