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Countdown to Slow Pitch EdTech Think Tank Summit at SXSWedu

We’ve got about 5 days until we debut the Slow Pitch: An EdTech Design Think Tank Summit at SXSWedu 2016. 

Check out our website with details about the schedule, the selected startups, and the mentors: http://slowpitchedu.org

Check out our SXSWedu schedule info and add it to your conference schedule: http://schedule.sxswedu.com/events/event_PP54541

SEE YOU THERE!

SXSWedu Summit – Seeking EdTech Startups to join #SlowPitchEdu

Slow Pitch: An EdTech Design ThinkTank

startuppitch

I am delighted to announce that details and plans for our SXSWedu 2016 Summit are nearly complete! Our very last detail is to find 5 amazingly interesting edtech startups who would like to work towards developing/revising/rethinking a product that can transform teaching and learning in PK-12 subject areas and be successful penetrating the PK-12 market.

You can find all the details at my super specific website: http://slowpitchedu.com

Or, you can just launch into the application right now.

Apply now

SXSWedu summit: Slow Pitch – the new way to develop innovative edtech

UPDATE: Our summit was accepted for SXSWedu 2016! Stay tuned for information on how edtech startups can apply to be one of the featured participants!

There are 85 SXSWedu 2016 proposals with the word “pitch” in their titles. Our 4-hour summit proposal, Slow Pitch: An Edtech Design ThinkTank, brings together educators with amazing ideas, edtech startups, funders, developers, students, teachers, parents, school administrators, school directors of innovation, and educational researchers to do what should be done when pursuing new ideas for education – think hard about the ideas collaboratively. SXSWedu’s icon of a head/brain perfectly fits the goals of our summit.

Best of all – our summit will be highly interactive. While we have a mentor panel, the audience will bring additional perspectives and expertise that is so worthy that you’ll have multiple ways to get your comments, questions, and ideas on the floor during the session. We also will have amply breaks!

Here’s a run-down on our summit, which includes way more details than what’s up on SXSWedu’s proposal. Please vote YES for our summit – to support the development of new edtech that supports, transforms, and penetrates into teaching and learning.

How long do you imagine the summit running?

This would be a half-day summit (4-hours). In anticipation of audience not committing to the entire summit, we have events set up in 30 minute increments (with 5 minute transitions/breaks between each) with the ability for audience feedback (i.e., voting) to occur on a rolling basis. Results will be shown and discussed after each “slowpitchedu” 30-min session but also again at the culmination of the summit.  Note that we will not have a “winner” as is typical in most pitch sessions, but instead each edtech startup will emerge with deep ideas and generative feedback from their 30-minute slowpitchedu thinktank session. The outcome for all involved is to learn from the experience, not to select a winner.  

What does the timeline within your summit look like?

Workshop in Session

    • Introduction (5 minutes)
      • to panel mentors and companies
      • announce optional tech that will be used during session: twitter, polleverywhere
      • clarify the design thinktank summit is intended to bridge across edtech to help emerging edtech advance and innovate.
    • Slow Pitch Exhibits (20 minutes)Transition back to tables/seats (allowing 5 minutes)
      • Each edtech startup has an exhibit area to share information about their company / ideas/product(s)
      • Participants in the session get to talk with them / browse
      • Participants in the session can talk with mentors
    • Edtech SlowPitchEdu (this is repeated 5 times; once for each participating edtech startup, 30 minutes each)
      • Fast pitch 90-second pitch. (2 minutes) [This is mostly to get everyone grounded again; remind everyone in room of the focal company under discussion.]
      • Q&A alternating b/w mentors, audience tweet, and audience open mic (25 minutes)
        • Mentors ask questions.
        • Audience may tweet questions (We will have a graduate student monitor these to pull ones to be asked.) (questions posed by grad student)
        • Audience open mic (line can form)
      • Final feedback to edtech startup (2 minutes): Startup Response – Response to feedback. (1 minute)
        • GoogleForm for audience: final analysis on criteria related to: innovative concept, transforming learning, transforming teaching, potential to penetrate K-12 market
        • GoogleForm for mentors only: final analysis innovative concept, transforming learning, transforming teaching, potential to penetrate K-12 market
  • Breaks (5 minutes between each edtech startup slowpitchedu, total of 20 minutes)
  • Closing: What did the slowpitch edtech design thinktank make you think more about? (30 minutes)
    • Mentor comments (1 minute each, allow 13 minutes)
    • Startups – comments (1 minute each, 2 min in actuality – allow 7 minutes)
    • Audience comments – open mic (1 minute max, 10 minutes)

How many more speakers should we expect?

We are planning to have about 10 panelists, who include student, parent, teacher, school administrator, VC/funder, developer, entrepreneur, researcher.

Mentors: (confirmed)

  • Ms. Rafranz Davis, Executive Director of Professional and Digital Learning, Lufkin ISD, Texas
  • Dr. Joan Hughes, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Learning Technologies, The University of Texas at Austin
  • Dr. Janice Trinidad, Ph.D., Veteran Science Teacher & Instructional Coach, Manor New Tech HS and ThinkForward PBL Institute
  • Mr. Marc Wright, 12th grade student, Round Rock High School
  • Mr. Eric Silva, Undergraduate Student, Computer Science, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  • Dr. Gloria Gonzales Dholakia, Ph.D., Parent and Executive Director at Leander ISD Educational Excellence Foundation
  • Ms. Carolyn Foote, Librarian, Westlake High School, Austin Texas  
  • Mr. Lincoln Turner, EdTech Entrepreneur at Wizzimo
  • Ms. Angela Lee, Assistant Dean, Columbia Business School, & Founder,37 Angels

EdTech Startups Selection:

We will have an open call for applications for the edtech startup participation in SlowPitch. Criteria for inclusion will require:

  • an innovation idea or product for the PK-12 market
  • an innovation that targets processes involved in learning or teaching in schools subjects

We will group applicants into three categories of (a) emerging idea, (b) beta product, or (c) tested product. Emerging edtech startups have an idea but have not produced demos or mock-ups. Beta products have functioning products but have not been tested with users. Tested products are functioning and have some user testing completed or perhaps pilot tests conducted. We will randomly choose the edtech startups to invite – ensuring that we have at least one edtech startup in each of the three categories, with the two other selections to be from any of the three categories.

Slow Pitch: An EdTech Design ThinkTank (a 2016 SXSWedu Proposal)

In collaboration with Sean Duffy, founder of the EdTech meetup and co-founder of EdTech Action, an edtech incubator, we developed what we hope will be a transformational summit for all participants and attendees at SXSWedu 2016. We’ve summarized our proposal below and would love your feedback. We still need to get our proposal accepted so stay tuned – later in August, we’ll call upon you to vote for it in panelpicker! If we are lucky to earn a spot at SXSWedu next year, we’ll open up an application process to invite edupreneurs, teacherpreneurs, and edtech startups to apply to participate.

Slow Pitch: An EdTech Design ThinkTank (#slowpitch)

Organizer: Dr. Joan E. Hughes

Moderator: Mr. Sean Duffy

Join an interactive pitch session where startups, mentors and the audience will dialogue and hone startups’ products so that they will transform learning and penetrate school markets. Selected edtech startups (follow @techedges and @dearmrduffy to apply) will provide demos, evidence of real/potential impact, and marketing/monetization plans prior to SXSWedu. At the summit, we’ll cultivate a focused, generative dialogue between the startups, the 10+ educator, research, and business mentors, and the audience. Audience participation will be curated throughout with twitter, polls, and open-mic opps. This design thinktank will help emerging edtech advance and innovate.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Experience a design process for edtech development that includes input from a wide array K-12 and business mentors to increase technology adoption
  2. Assist edtech startups in crafting their products/missions to transform young people’s learning and/or teachers’ instruction
  3. Work through edtech goals, design, development, funding, and business complexity with mentors from education, technology, and business

Mentors:

  • Ms. Rafranz Davis, Executive Director of Professional and Digital Learning, Lufkin ISD, Texas
  • Dr. Joan Hughes, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Learning Technologies, The University of Texas at Austin
  • Dr. Janice Trinidad, Ph.D., Veteran Science Teacher & Instructional Coach, Manor New Tech HS and ThinkForward PBL Institute
  • Mr. Marc Wright, 12th grade student, Round Rock High School
  • Mr. Eric Silva, Undergraduate Student, Computer Science, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
  • Dr. Gloria Gonzales Dholakia, Ph.D., Parent and Executive Director at Leander ISD Educational Excellence Foundation
  • Ms. Carolyn Foote, Librarian, Westlake High School, Austin Texas  
  • Mr. Lincoln Turner, EdTech Entrepreneur at Wizzimo
  • Ms. Angela Lee, Assistant Dean, Columbia Business School & Founder, 37 Angels
  • Developer, to be announced

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