Project acronym: IMPACT EdTech
Project full name: Incubating High-IMPACT New Generation EdTech Disruptors for Inclusive & Personalised Learning
The innovation action IMPACT EdTech, co‐funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 871275, launched its exceptional IMPACT EdTech ‘Remote Schooling’ Open Call, targeting EdTech solutions that address common challenges faced by schools during the COVID19 crisis.
Call Publication
The call was published on the project IMPACT EdTech project website (https://impactedtech.eu), and on the Horizon 2020 – Participants Portal (http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/other/ competitive.html). Full call details were published on https://impactedtech.fundingbox.com/. The following channels were also used to promote the call:
- IMPACT EdTech online community provided by project partner FundingBox: https://fundingbox.com/c/community-Impact-edtech
- IMPACT EdTech social media:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/impactedtech/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/IMPACTEdTechEU
- Partners’ social networks and newsletters
- Enterprise Europe Network
Number of IMPACT EdTech proposals received and selected for financial support
- 165 proposals submitted
- 147 eligible proposals evaluated, addressing the following challenges:
– 22 in Development of digital skills;
– 26 in Inclusive education;
– 41 in Personalised Learning;
– 58 in Pedagogical Continuity. - 65 proposals were evaluated by the Steering Committee during the Consensus Meeting
- 25 proposals were selected for the Jury Day
- 10 in the first list of pre-selected for financial support 2 proposals in the reserve list (1 of them currently in the list of selected solutions)
- 11 solutions selected to join the programme, following the eligibility checks
The selected solutions are:
| Company Name | Project Name | Project Challenge | Country | Funding Requested |
| LabsLand Experimentia SL | LabsLand | Pedagogical continuity | Spain | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| Key2enable Assistive Technology | Key2enable Assistive Technology | Inclusive education | Netherlands | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| BLUTICK LTD | Blutick AI Maths Platform | Personalised Learning | United Kingdom | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| Utelias Technologies Oy / Curious Technologies Ltd | Elias Robot | Pedagogical continuity | Finland | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| Otto DIY Workshop s.r.o | Otto DIY Workshop s.r.o | Development of digital skills | Czech Republic | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| 99math OÜ | 99math remote learning | Pedagogical continuity | Estonia | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| TOMANSA | Kinems Learning Games | Inclusive education | Cyprus | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| Maker Toolbox, Lda | The Inventors Digital | Pedagogical continuity | Portugal | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| HSTRY LTD. | Sutori | Pedagogical continuity | Belgium | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| Karin Bente Cornelia Malmberg | Notebloc Scanner | Inclusive education | Spain | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
| SOWISO BV | Bolster Academy | Pedagogical continuity | Netherlands | A fixed lump sum of up to €110,000 per EdTech Trial is offered, including up to €20,000 of voucher-based business & educational expertise and specialized resources. |
Dates of the call publication and closing, IMPACT EdTech evaluation and selection:
- Call Publication date: 3rd July 2020 10:00 CEST
- Call Closing date: 30th September 2020 13:00 CEST
Phase | Time | Approximate Date | Pass to the next phase | |
Evaluation | Eligibility Check | 1 week | 4-10 September | 165 |
Pre-scoring | 1 week | 1-17 September | 147 | |
Consensus Meeting | 1 day | 1 October | 25 | |
Jury Day | 3 days | 13-15 October | 12 |
Annex 1: Brief description of the selected proposals for financial support
LabsLand
LabsLand aims to improve the quality of STEM education by providing access to
effective and affordable experimentation through real online laboratories and
equipment for schools and universities. It provides:
• flexibility (experimentation available 24/7)
• lower costs (institutions do nott have to buy and maintain expensive labs and other equipment)
• more choices (single institution can access, teach, and share labs of numerous institutions)
• remote learning (ensuring educational continuity during periods of severe educational disruption).
The real laboratories (not simulations) are available through the Internet for schools
and universities. The labs are hosted and co-developed with universities, but
accessed by schools as well. Interesting future features will include Virtual Reality,
Artificial Intelligence for self-evaluation and learning guidance.
Key2enable Assistive Technology
Key2enable offers a complete platform that empowers teachers and professionals in the field of inclusion to improve the way they welcome children into the schools and inside regular classroom so that they can learn quickly and at the same time with quality. The company has developed an essential set of Assistive Technology that helps children with disabilities that are unable to use computers and mobile devices due to motion limitations or lack of fine-motor coordination. The solution Key-x primarily works as a keyboard and a mouse and brings digital accessibility by providing innovative tools for accessing computers with greater autonomy, even using eye blinks or slight body gestures, for communicating, learning, gaming and living. Together with the unique and easy to use educational platform, children with intellectual disabilities efficiently use computers and mobile devices for school inclusion.
Blutick AI Maths Platform
Built by teachers and powered by Artificial Intelligence, Blutick puts tutors and teachers in control of their students’ learning. It teaches and guides students through mathematical concepts with a unique combination of video content, worked examples and interactive questions. Instead of telling students they’re wrong, it offers encouragement and meaningful help, which increases engagement and results. It covers mostly students between 11-16 years old but it’s scalable to other formula based subjects. The Artificial Intelligence capabilities make Blutick a live learning platform, engaging the students and helping them learn while completing tasks, giving line-by-line feedback. Blutick tracks progress, giving summaries of what they are good at and what they need to practise.
Elias Robot
Elias Robot is an innovative language learning app that changes the way of learning languages by using AI (artificial intelligence) and robots. It combines fun and effective robot-assisted learning with a gamified voice-app that allows students to practice speaking skills at any time and place. The benefits of this method are scientifically proven: fun and engagement, increased emotional safety and accessibility. The only way to learn languages is to speak. Elias Robot is a language learning app that encourages to use the language without fear of making mistakes, and guides the learner step by step towards real life speaking situations. In addition to the ready-made curriculum, users can create their own interactive learning material and share them with each other. This makes a platform flexible and compatible with different local curriculums. Elias Robot gives instant and individual feedback on progress and users can easily notice what they should practice more.
Otto DIY Workshop s.r.o.
Otto DIY brings kids and adults closer to technology using a hands-on approach by learning the logical connection between mechanical components, electronics, and code. Parents or children can 3D print their own robots with a kit that can be bought online with electronic components and mechanical parts. Otto DIY has a number of modular designs that you can choose from, and a variety of open source robots that you can pick and choose. Households or schools without a 3D printer can buy builder kits that come with the robot parts 3D printed for them and ready to assemble, at home, or in a workshop setting using common household tools. Both types of kits, (Builder and Maker), have detailed instructions and guides on how to use, build, code, and design.
99math remote learning
During remote learning, schools face new challenges in pedagogical continuity and student engagement in the new learning situation. 99math has developed a social mathematics platform for primary school teachers and students that raises students’ motivation to practice mathematics and develop their mathematics skills. The prototype allows the use of the solution both in faceto-face classrooms and remote learning environments (both synchronous lessons online and self-paced practice). Developed in Estonia in collaboration with teachers of the top education system, the platform is designed to also suit other countries' school curriculums with the aim to scale the solution into other countries.
Kinems
Kinems is an innovative educational platform designed to help students with multiple learning disabilities achieve goals and skills, which will assist them in long term objectives. It is developed to overcome any challenge concerning the teacher as an individual or the district, in general. As an evidence-based intervention, Kinems is supported by a growing body of peer-reviewed research. Scientists have been investigating the effectiveness of the Kinems platform in a wide variety of student populations. The findings from peer-reviewed publications repeatedly show, via pre- and post-test questionnaires, interviews and in-depth studies of kinetic and learning analytics, that Kinems has a positive impact on children's academic performance and improves their cognitive, motor, and academic skills.
The Inventors Digital
The Inventors Digital provide inspirational education programmes for children ages 6-12. They develop educational programs aimed to address the development of 21st century skills while building confidence, curiosity and inspiring the generations that will build the future. They use their past experience in the tech world to create exciting activities across all sorts of engineering, arts and design subjects. The Inventors is already one of the leading labs in Europe for the development of educational content, with the goal of preparing new generations for the challenges ahead. Their programmes turn children into makers by engaging them in exciting activities such as building their own electric guitar with amplifier, electronic pianos/synthesizers, their own board game, learning the principles of programming, building a bionic arm, and many more.
Sutori
Sutori is a collaborative instruction and presentation tool for the classroom. For all age groups, Sutori is the perfect partner for Social Studies and English Language and Arts (ELA) multimedia assignments. The ability to embed any media and resource out there (Google Docs, PDFs, Padlet, Flipgrid etc.), the integrated comments and quizzes for formative assessment and feedback, as well as real-time collaboration, have made Sutori the ideal partner for blended and distance learning. Instructors of all boards, in particular social studies, language and arts teachers, have taken to Sutori's versatility for online learning and teaching, as much as its simplicity and visual quality. The ability to have everything in one place, and not scattered across platforms, tabs and windows, has made Sutori the go-to tool for organising and keeping students focused on the task at hand, in particular with the shift to distant learning.
Notebloc Scanner
The company believes in the power of Education to transform and make the world a better place. In this sense, it is essential that every single student on Earth can also access the available technologies applied to the Education field. The Notebloc Scanner app is a 100% free mobile scanner and document organizer. The app was developed with the aim that students from all over the world could benefit from a powerful scanner app: Notebloc is always free and therefore there are no payment barriers from their side to let students have access to their technology. With Notebloc, students can make digital copies (scans) of their notes, have them always accessible (not only through paper but on their phones or tablets), keep their school notes and documents organized in folders, create PDFs to send to peers and/or teachers, extract texts from images using OCR, etc. The Notebloc scanner app is available for Android and iOS and it is ad-based.
Bolster Academy
Bolster Academy is a tool designed for assessing mathematics learning. It is a licensed modular platform covering all facets of mathematics learning, with maths problems designed by mathematicians. The exercises are randomized and the bank of questions is vast. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when delivering assessments is complex, Bolster Academy provides the technology to assess maths learning without plagiarism, due to the randomization of exercises - no student will receive the same question. Assessments can be summative or formative, and regular assessments can be used for homework, as an opportunity for students to practice their learning. From the perspective of teachers, the tool makes it easy to create formative quizzes or full scale summative assessments, using 25 different exercise types and a graphical interface to approximate written mathematics exams as closely as possible. Bolster Academy has a self-grading feature which saves significant time for overworked teachers.
