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Education Technology Pioneers Announced as Finalists for SIIA Innovation Incubator Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 13, 2013) – The Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) announces finalists, and an alternate, for its Innovation Incubator Program. The program will be held during the annual Education Business Forum [1], Dec. 10-11, at the McGraw Hill Conference Center in New York. The finalists will feature their products during the event, and awards will be presented to the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeed based on votes of conference attendees. The Educator’s Choice Award will also be presented based on votes from educators and administrators from around the United States. SIIA will also award prizes from program partners.

The SIIA Innovation Incubator Program identifies and supports entrepreneurs in their development and distribution of innovative learning technologies. The program began in 2006 and has provided support for dozens of successful products and companies in their efforts to improve education through the use of software, digital content, and related technologies. The program is open to applicants from academic and non-profit institutions, pre-revenue and early-stage companies, as well as established companies with newly developed technologies.

“This year’s Innovation Incubator participants are promising products with tremendous energy, creativity, and entrepreneurship,” said Karen Billings, vice president for the SIIA Education Division. “Innovative products like these play a pivotal role in keeping our students engaged and enhancing their educational experience.” Innovation Incubator Program finalists were selected from the applicant pool based on key selection criteria, including:

All Innovation Incubator finalists will present during the Business Profiles Presentations on Dec. 10, which is immediately followed by the Innovation Showcase & Networking Reception where they will be available for one-on-one product demonstrations and in-depth discussions.

Innovation Incubator Program participants are:

eProf Education Inc, eProf [2]
eProf is the first e-commerce platform allowing education businesses a turnkey solution for taking their businesses online. With eProf, teaching businesses can effectively deliver live, interactive online learning sessions and manage all of the logistics (payments, scheduling, user tracking) of their business. eProf provides a suite of fully integrated tools for online teaching include multi-stream virtual classrooms, HTML5 whiteboards, webinar environments, and Skype.

InstaEDU, InstaEDU [3]
InstaEDU combines the high-quality of traditional in-home tutoring with the convenience and affordability of an online service. Students can get connected to a tutor instantly in InstaEDU’s online lesson space, or browse tutor profiles, message tutors and set up a lesson for a future date. The InstaEDU lesson space offers video, audio and text chat, as well as a collaborative whiteboard, text editor and code compiler.

Leading Edge Certification, Leading Edge Certification [4]
Leading Edge Certification (LEC) is a national certification program in educational technology and curriculum innovation. Created by an Alliance of nonprofits, universities and educational agencies, LEC is the first national certification program of its kind, and is platform and vendor neutral. There are currently 3 LEC programs: Online and Blended Teacher, Administrator, and Digital Educator. Training takes place via a combination of face-to-face and online training, or via online-only training.

LightSail Education, LightSail [5]
LightSail is an adaptive literacy platform for grades K-12. Tablet-based, it combines an interactive e-reader, a personalized library of great fiction and nonfiction texts embedded with objective and Common Core-aligned assessments, tools for collaboration and feedback, and data dashboards into an easy-to-implement application. LightSail’s recent honors include winning the edtech category at SXSW V2V and taking a top prize in the Gates Foundation’s Literacy Courseware Challenge.

Nervanix, Nervanix [6]
Using advanced EEG (brainwave monitoring) technology, NERVANIX determines whether and to what extent a student is paying attention, and then uses that data to inform instruction. Both teachers and online learning systems can use the data in real time to adapt to the attention levels of the learners. Such “attention driven adaptability” underpins the teacher’s ability to personalize the instruction for individual students, quickly and easily.

Net Texts, Net Texts [7]
Net Texts is a flexible system that allows educators to use and customize open educational resources (OER), copyrighted information, and their own material to create virtual courses that can supplement or replace textbooks. The Net Texts system has two parts: (1) a content management website, where teachers select, modify, or create sets of course materials, and (2) a tablet app and website for students to use those materials.

Portfoliyo, Parent-teacher texting [8]
Fifty percent of families never hear from teachers. Portfoliyo wants to solve this problem by using the most effective method for teachers to communicate to parents: texting. While email, blogs, wikis, twitter etc. are all useful, the tool with the highest “open” and “response” rate from parents is texting. Teachers use a web or mobile app to text parents. Parents get the messages on their cell phone via text. Quick question, quick answer, fast and targeted interventions deliver better student performance.

RoboKind, Robots4Autism [9]
Robots4Autism is a revolutionary humanoid robot that delivers research-based interventions and curriculum; teaches and reinforces social understanding; improves a child’s ability to use social behaviors in natural contexts; and displays unparalleled human like expressions, gestural bodies and eyes, face tracking, and conversational artificial intelligence. The Robot was designed around the strengths of children with autism to provide nonthreatening interaction and consistent lesson delivery.

Shindig, Shindig [10]
Shindig allows remote participation for students, professors, parents and administrators with a computer and internet access. On Shindig, a speaker can address an audience of thousands. They can share the stage and take questions from selected audience members, share videos and documents. Meanwhile audience members can themselves network and converse with one another in their own private chats.

TeacherMatch, Educator’s Professional Inventory [11]
TeacherMatch has created a platform that predicts the impact of teacher candidates on student achievement. Our revolutionary, new hiring assessment is designed to identify the top candidates for any teaching position. It also produces a customized professional development report, setting new hires up for success. In concert with prestigious academic institutions, we built EPI on cutting-edge, evidence-based research. What’s more, machine learning makes the platform smarter the longer it is used.

Alternate:

BiblioNasium, Where Kids Flex Their Reading Muscles [12]
BiblioNasium is a safe social network that promotes literacy & supports the independent reading activities for kids 6-13 yrs old. Kids connect to the 3 constituents that most influence what they read, their teachers, friends and parents to create an online community that shares & exchanges book recommendations and encourages reading progress. Integration with Lexile® aids in book selection and digital reading logs, virtual rewards and reports for educators, help keep kids on task and motivated.

For more information about the Education Business Forum, visit siia.net/ebf/2013/incubator.asp [13] or contact Liderby Portorreal at Education@siia.net [14].

About SIIA
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education, and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. The SIIA Education Division serves and represents more than 200 member companies that provide software, digital content, and other technologies that address educational needs. The Division shapes and supports the industry by providing leadership, advocacy, business development opportunities, and critical market information. For more information, visit www.siia.net/education [15].

Media Contacts
• Laura Greenback, SIIA Communications, 202-789-4461, lgreenback@siia.net [16]

• Saul Hafenbredl, C. Blohm & Associates, 608-216-7300 x25, saul@cblohm.com [17]