Educause 2022 Part 2: Taking a Stroll Down Startup Alley

WEBVTT 1 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:13.119 Welcome to the Higher Edge, a podcast for the brightest minds and higher education 2 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:18.480 to hear from the change makers and rule breakers that are driving meaningful, impactful 3 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:25.000 change for colleges and universities across the country. From improving operations to supporting student 4 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:30.719 success. These are the stories that give you the Higher Edge. And now 5 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:37.960 direct from edge Acause Convention, your host Brendan Aldrich. Hey everyone, and 6 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:41.679 welcome to the Higher Edge. I'm Brendan Aldrich, and welcome to the second 7 00:00:41.719 --> 00:00:46.799 of two special episodes recorded from the floor of the annual Edge of Caause conference 8 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:51.000 in Denver, Colorado. As i shared last week, Edge of Cause is 9 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:56.880 a nonprofit association here in the United States dedicated to advancing higher education through the 10 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:02.359 use of information technology. It's a fantastic organization with tens of thousands of active 11 00:01:02.399 --> 00:01:08.439 members representing more than higher education institutions, educational organizations, and companies across the 12 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:15.480 country. I'm super excited this week because today's episode will focus on a featured 13 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:21.959 area of the exhibit whole floor called start Up Alley. It's where all of 14 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.879 the new small companies that are creating the next generation of higher education technologies have 15 00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:33.319 an opportunity to introduce themselves to the higher education community. So I took our 16 00:01:33.359 --> 00:01:37.280 mobile podcast RIG down to the floor and this week I'm thrilled to share a 17 00:01:37.319 --> 00:01:42.760 series of quick conversations with a number of these innovative, up and coming individuals, 18 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:46.519 including a look at just why they were inspired to do the work that 19 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:52.000 they're doing. Recorded live from the Florida Edgecause. In today's episode, we're 20 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:57.799 going to do rapid fire conversations with the leaders and representatives of just ten of 21 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:04.120 the Edgecause startup alley startups that are creating the future and higher education technology. 22 00:02:04.439 --> 00:02:09.319 Fasten your seat belts and let's dive in. First, let's meet Joe Burgess, 23 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:15.039 co founder of Ribbon Education. Ribbon Education is a student success platform to 24 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:22.000 help online institutions run scaled programs. So we do three things. We help 25 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.680 you identify the learners that need attention, We help you intervene in batch and 26 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:30.719 automated ways, and then we help you collaborate across all the different people that 27 00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:34.000 are working with that student to make sure you all roun in the same direction. 28 00:02:34.439 --> 00:02:37.400 Starting up a company is always kind of a challenge in itself. What 29 00:02:37.479 --> 00:02:40.479 was your motivation, what drove you to create Ribbon Education. Last company worked 30 00:02:40.520 --> 00:02:44.919 for is a coding boot camp. The first employee there and I for a 31 00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:50.919 long time ran all of education delivery and education product We are teaching scaled programs 32 00:02:50.919 --> 00:02:54.479 with fairly high student staff ratio, and I was frustrated with the quality of 33 00:02:54.560 --> 00:03:00.199 software to run those affordable programs at scale. It was frustrating. We ran 34 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:04.960 everything through a leaning tower of spreadsheets. We hired operations person to kind of 35 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:07.360 manage that leading tower of spreadsheets, and there was a better way. There 36 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:12.639 was a better way to make stabs lives easier, simpler, and ultimately our 37 00:03:12.639 --> 00:03:15.039 students more successful. If people would like to learn more about Ribbon Education or 38 00:03:15.560 --> 00:03:19.599 what types of schools or organizations you're working with, can you tell us a 39 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:22.159 little bit about that. Absolutely. So. We are an integration with the 40 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:25.919 Canvas l m s and Zoom, so get degrades data from Canvas, attendance 41 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:29.919 data from Zoom, and we also integrate with the a G suite set of 42 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:32.759 tools, so all the communications right now happening via Gmail and data information through 43 00:03:32.759 --> 00:03:37.120 Google Sheets, making it really easy to get started because you pretty much already 44 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:39.759 know how to use our software. If you are an institution that does distance 45 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:45.319 learning, especially kind of focus on adult distance learning. Then you should reach 46 00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:49.479 out to us. We're Ribbon E d U dot com. That's Ribbon r 47 00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:53.000 I B B O N E d u dot com. You can connect with 48 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:59.680 Joe and follow Ribbon Education on linked In. Next is the co founder and 49 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:05.479 CEO of a company called Read. Let's be David Jim. David, thanks 50 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:09.960 for being on the show. Tell me a little bit about Read your company. 51 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:13.400 Yeah, So, what Read does is we apply analytics and AI to 52 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:16.959 video conferencing and the output of that is one of virtual teaching assistant and the 53 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:21.639 second is really meeting optimization meaning wellness. So for every teacher that's out there 54 00:04:21.720 --> 00:04:26.639 where you're teaching a virtual classroom today, it's hard to actually see all your 55 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:30.399 students and see how they respond to the conversation, how they respond to the 56 00:04:30.439 --> 00:04:31.920 curriculum. And so what we do is we give you a second pair of 57 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:35.279 eyes to go in and say, hey, is engagement higher low across your 58 00:04:35.319 --> 00:04:39.439 students while you're teaching, Because if you think about it, a four teenage 59 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:43.839 monitor with the PowerPoint presentation, you see maybe three people on top with zoom 60 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:46.000 or WebEx or teams. And so what we want to do is really enable 61 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:49.560 teach us to catch that moment where they lose their audience, where they lose 62 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:53.360 their classroom, and try to pull them back in. And are there specific 63 00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:57.079 kinds of schools or education programs that you work with, community colleges, four 64 00:04:57.160 --> 00:05:00.879 year graduate schools. Yeah, so we work with higher edge ation and the 65 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:03.519 focus. It breaks out about eight percent of our users are actually students, 66 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:06.519 so they want to be able to optimize their schedules. They want to be 67 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:12.160 able to actually have people take notes during the meeting automatically. So what happens 68 00:05:12.199 --> 00:05:15.360 is when read joins the call, it joins as a participant. When it 69 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:17.600 joins as a participant, it pulls down the analytics during that call, and 70 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:21.480 things include transcription and how did people respond to certain parts of the meeting, 71 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:24.720 And so gives them the ability to go back and say, what are the 72 00:05:24.759 --> 00:05:27.439 areas that I should focus in on. And we do this all without like 73 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.279 storing the audio or video because we deleted after the call. The other that 74 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:33.879 we see is really from professors, So they're going in and saying, hey, 75 00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:36.800 I'm teaching a class. I would love to actually be able to see 76 00:05:38.040 --> 00:05:41.920 as I go through different agenda items where's the level of engagement? Where do 77 00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:44.800 I see the drop off? You know what I just noticed, like once 78 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:46.920 I speak for ten minutes or more, I see the class drops off. 79 00:05:47.079 --> 00:05:50.959 Now that actually helped me adjust my classroom kind of schedule. And how that's 80 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:54.959 how I talk about different topics, how long I speak with things? What 81 00:05:55.040 --> 00:05:58.879 was the inspiration behind read Why was this the idea that you decided needed to 82 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:00.959 be its own company? Yeah, so early during the pandemic, lots of 83 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:03.680 meetings are happening, and I was getting invited to a bunch of meetings, 84 00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:06.600 and I wasn't paying attention. And when you don't pay attention to go to 85 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:10.680 sites that you like, I want to ESPN and ESPN has very distinct colors 86 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.000 and the headline is pretty much the same for everybody else. And during a 87 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:15.079 call where there are thirty people, I was like, oh, this is 88 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:18.040 kind of boring on money ESPN and I looked at other people's screens and what 89 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:24.040 I actually noticed was one person at glasses on and it had ESPN reflected back. 90 00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:27.720 And I was like, Okay, this is actually a good experiment to 91 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:30.920 go in and say you can identify when people aren't paying attention and then when 92 00:06:30.920 --> 00:06:32.319 you are able to do that, don't police them, but actually give them 93 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:34.360 back their time. So be able to say, like, hey, if 94 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:36.959 you're spending thirty minutes on ESPN, you probably shouldn't have been on this call, 95 00:06:38.199 --> 00:06:40.560 so let me give you back thirty minutes a week. When when you 96 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:44.199 combine all those efforts together, it really does make for a more healthy meeting 97 00:06:44.199 --> 00:06:47.079 schedule. And do you have a favorite success story something you've heard from one 98 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:51.079 of your customers about their experiences using your product. Yeah. So the best 99 00:06:51.079 --> 00:06:54.639 one that we had was really early on when a venture capitalists was using our 100 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:57.800 solution and they were talking with They were using it on a number of their 101 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:00.920 calls and they still do today, and they found, like for the intro 102 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.000 call where you meet to start it for the first time, they looked at 103 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:05.160 the analytics and at first they're like, this is wrong, and then they 104 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:10.000 thought about it and the metric was talk time. They were spending about eighty 105 00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.959 five percent of the time talking and the other startup was only on the nature 106 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:15.879 call, and that immediately corrected his behavior. He actually took a step back 107 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:18.120 and said, Okay, I need to ask more questions, I need to 108 00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:20.959 listen more and that's where measurability comes in. Think of it like a fit 109 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:24.800 bit today, where you walk around, you look at it, you say, 110 00:07:24.839 --> 00:07:27.040 any two thousand more steps, so you're gonna walk a little bit more. 111 00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:30.040 There isn't that level of measurability around the classroom or meetings, and that's 112 00:07:30.040 --> 00:07:33.120 where we want to be able to go out and do is actually give people 113 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:36.000 access to those analytics. And that's why where we made it free for any 114 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:39.959 user that wants to utilize it today up to about an organization of ten. 115 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:42.839 And if people want to learn more about read where they where can they go? 116 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:44.800 Yeah, So if you want to learn more about read, go to 117 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:48.399 www. Dot read dot ai, so it's read and then dot ai. 118 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:55.079 And if you go to read AI's website you'll also find some intriguing metrics, 119 00:07:55.199 --> 00:08:00.480 including their findings. Thatt one percent of meetings start late. Those were probably 120 00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:05.959 my meetings and as many as two of attendees and virtual meetings aren't engaged. 121 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:11.839 Hopefully I'm not in those meetings. Really great stuff. Next up is Dan 122 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:16.279 Quig, CEO of a company called Public Insight. Dan, tell me a 123 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:20.079 little bit, so what does what does public Insight do? So Public Insight 124 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:26.519 is really all about market intelligence job market intelligence as people and institutions are trying 125 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:31.319 to react to the kind of the new reality in our post COVID world. 126 00:08:31.800 --> 00:08:35.200 We know that the job and labor market is just not the same as it 127 00:08:35.320 --> 00:08:37.360 was. You know, there's all sorts of different factors. You know, 128 00:08:37.399 --> 00:08:41.480 things like remote work, um, things like high turnover, high difficult to 129 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:46.159 fill jobs. UM. You know, longer term career paths that are changing 130 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:50.559 dynamically. That all requires market intelligence and that's a critical part of the puzzle. 131 00:08:50.960 --> 00:08:54.279 Fantastic And so I understand you don't work directly with institutions, but you 132 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:58.200 work with a lot of technology companies that work with institutions. Is that right, 133 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:01.240 Yeah, that's our primary I mean, we do have some institution direct 134 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:07.759 subscribers, but i'd say of our businesses through technology companies, you know, 135 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:11.480 as partners that whether it's licensing our data, whether it's using our applications, 136 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:16.679 that those are primary customers. What was the inspiration that told you that Public 137 00:09:16.759 --> 00:09:20.200 Insight was the company that you wanted to create. Yeah, By the way, 138 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:22.600 Public Insight is my eighth early stage company. I'm a little older, 139 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:26.600 but um, a CPA by background. So I'm a kind of a data 140 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:31.000 nerd to begin with, um so, and I've had a background in analytics 141 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:35.159 software. So kind of this opportunity to I like to say, make lemonade 142 00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:39.240 out of lemons. You know, so a lot of the market and public 143 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:43.000 data is is lemons, and you know it's hard to use, it's difficult 144 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.279 to get at, you know. So our job of turning lemonade out of 145 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:52.320 lemons is just an attractive proposition to me being kind of a being counter by 146 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:56.200 background. So that's how we got into this particular space. And do you 147 00:09:56.240 --> 00:10:01.080 have a favorite success story something you've heard back from your client about how your 148 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:03.879 your information was used that that you like to share? The the analogy I 149 00:10:03.879 --> 00:10:07.960 like to use. Did you see the movie Jurassic Park? Sure of course 150 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:11.720 everybody has right. So what a lot of people tell us is if you 151 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:13.679 remember that when they're in the lab and they're talking about, you know, 152 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:18.120 making the dinosaur and they said, well, how did you you know? 153 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.799 What did you have to make that dinosaur complete? And he said, well, 154 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.480 we had to ing the frog DNA to make it work well without market 155 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:28.200 data. You know, market data is the frog DNA that makes the dinosaur 156 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.559 complete. So you know a lot of what people tell us in using our 157 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:35.720 data is it? It really fills in a lot of knowledge gaps that they 158 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:39.320 did not have. Um uh say, as an example, we have like 159 00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:43.519 recruiting technologies that say, you know a lot of the data that we have 160 00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:46.440 fills in those gaps very nicely and effectively. And for people that want to 161 00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:50.480 learn more about public insight, is there somewhere they can go? Sure? 162 00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:54.639 You know, best bet is to start as our website uh www dot public 163 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:58.120 insight dot io or kind of one of the ones that have adopted io is 164 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:03.200 kind of a new data domain from so public insight dot io. Honestly, 165 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:09.639 I love the idea of going beyond traditional academic information and leveraging public data when 166 00:11:09.639 --> 00:11:13.080 it comes to seeing a more complete picture of what students need at all of 167 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:18.919 those key momentum points in their journey. Our next startup is actually quite a 168 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.600 sizeable company, but their work in education is still a smaller but growing part 169 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:28.879 of their portfolio. Let's meet John McLeod, account manager at press Books. 170 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:33.320 So John, tell me a little bit about press books and what you do. 171 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:39.159 So, uh, yeah, press books has been around for about ten 172 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:43.720 years. It was originally a I would say a labor of love from our 173 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:48.399 founder and CEO. He was looking for a way to improve the publishing process 174 00:11:48.440 --> 00:11:56.399 and include digital and make software tool that could easily produce digital web books that 175 00:11:56.039 --> 00:12:01.240 with easily be converted to a different file format. And so that what press 176 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:05.200 Books does is at our heart we're an open source software that enables users to 177 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:11.120 do just that. And um we we currently have close to two hundred different 178 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:18.720 institutions or consortiums that use press Books to handle their publishing needs. It became 179 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:24.519 a very big tool probably three to five years ago with the open education community 180 00:12:24.080 --> 00:12:28.159 and they were able to use press Books to support their growth of open educational 181 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:33.759 material. And do you have a like a favorite customer success story? I 182 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:39.480 know that opened global awards just We're announced last week and the winner of the 183 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:43.879 Best O e R was a product that was produced on the Campus Ontario Network. 184 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:48.879 Uh so a press Books client and one of our biggest users. So 185 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:54.480 they won that. But it was really gratifying to see there was eight finalists 186 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:58.000 for that award and five of the finalists used a press Books network to publish 187 00:12:58.039 --> 00:13:01.960 their their resource. Wow, that's fantastic. Yeah, I was really excited 188 00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:05.960 to see that. And so if people want to learn more about press books, 189 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:09.039 where might they go to learn that? Press books dot com. If 190 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:13.480 individual authors want to use press books, we have a network that's available for 191 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:18.639 individual authors. It's free to sign up and you can start with a free 192 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:22.399 trial, and if the free trial runs out and you like it, you 193 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:28.600 can subscribe. Press Books is a great platform that's used to create open textbooks 194 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:33.519 and also used by self publishers to get their content out into the world. 195 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:35.720 Hey, for everyone listening, hang tight. We're going to take a quick 196 00:13:35.720 --> 00:13:39.519 break to hear from our sponsor and we'll be back in just one minute. 197 00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:48.039 All colleges and universities face challenges in advancing the mission of higher education. Some 198 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:54.159 problems impeding your progress are known, but others are invisible, hidden, impossible 199 00:13:54.240 --> 00:14:01.120 to address. Invoke learning changes. Everything built on revolutionary tech analogy that's light 200 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:05.799 years beyond anything you've seen yet. Our leading edge data platforms and deep analytic 201 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:13.799 solutions give institutions of higher education some real life superpowers to support the entire student 202 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:18.919 journey. Ask questions you never imagine could be answered. Get unprecedented insights that 203 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:24.679 lead to mission impacting action. What's holding you back today from taking your mission 204 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:31.519 further Tomorrow find out and discover just how far you can go. Contact Invoke 205 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:39.639 Learning at www dot invoke learning dot com. Invoke Learning. This is education 206 00:14:41.159 --> 00:14:46.840 empowered. Thanks so much for listening to our sponsor. Let's get back to 207 00:14:46.879 --> 00:14:52.759 the show. Let's jump from publishing to remote device management with Jason Shavy at 208 00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:58.000 level io. So I'm here with Jason from level dot io. Jason, 209 00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:01.679 so tell me first of all your role at the company, and then tell 210 00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:05.000 me a little bit about what level does. I'm the cheap operations officer at 211 00:15:05.080 --> 00:15:09.519 Level and Level is a as a SAS platform that allows I T professionals to 212 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:13.159 manage devices. One of our tenants as a company is and one of our 213 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:18.519 goals is to build to manage a thousand devices as easily as it is to 214 00:15:18.559 --> 00:15:22.799 manage a single device. And so we spend a lot of time and effort 215 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:26.080 into making that happen, and do focus on a particular part of higher education 216 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:31.279 community colleges, for year schools, graduate schools. Really our focus is I 217 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:35.720 T professionals and so they exist in all of those uh those areas, and 218 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:39.720 so anybody who is managing a device level would be a good fit for and 219 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:43.440 then do you have a favorite success story. One of the things that that 220 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:48.120 Level helps do is really the life cycle of a device. So when you 221 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:52.039 set up a device, you have to provision it, you have to keep 222 00:15:52.039 --> 00:15:56.279 it up to date patches and security updates, you have to install software, 223 00:15:56.799 --> 00:15:58.360 and then you have to manage and maintain it, and so we're able to 224 00:15:58.360 --> 00:16:03.240 help across all aspects of that. One of the things that we found that 225 00:16:03.639 --> 00:16:07.879 is um has really helped our our customers with our platform is the real time 226 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.799 nature of what we do. For instance, we had the last zero day 227 00:16:11.879 --> 00:16:18.000 of vulnerability from Microsoft on their exchange servers. I T professionals kind of getting 228 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:18.799 in a panic, and so they said, all right, I need to 229 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:23.960 patch all my my servers. And so with Level we're very quickly able to 230 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:29.200 create a filter, push out the update and the patch, and see that 231 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:33.799 it was actually applied successfully in real time, and so a matter of twenty 232 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:37.960 minutes we were able to have entire organizations patched and up to date, whereas 233 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:42.960 other platforms can take hours days. Even what was the inspiration behind level dot 234 00:16:42.960 --> 00:16:47.720 io and and why was this the company that you felt was this was the 235 00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:51.840 time to do it? I come from the MSP space and I T services 236 00:16:51.919 --> 00:16:56.879 and I've used um varying tools throughout my career UM for the last years or 237 00:16:56.879 --> 00:17:02.960 so, and there's always something lacking, uh and and a tool and so. 238 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:06.559 And as these tools have aged, they're starting to show their their age 239 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:10.200 a little bit. And so we decided, you know, there's there's newer 240 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:15.559 technology, newer security standards, and we had some pretty pretty interesting ideas that 241 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:18.640 we could use to help make I T A departments more efficient at what they're 242 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:22.000 doing. And if people want to learn more about level, where should they 243 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:26.359 go? They can go to our website at level dot io and uh so, 244 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:30.119 you know, we have got a lot of information there or they're they're 245 00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:34.839 welcome to email us at at sales at level dot io. One of the 246 00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:41.359 hot topics over the last few years has been how to really better engage students. 247 00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:47.000 The team at Wildflower Education believe that institutions have an opportunity to do this 248 00:17:47.079 --> 00:17:52.400 by combining the classroom experience with what's going on outside the classroom. Let's learn 249 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:56.880 more. Okay, I'm with Alicia Sepulvida, who is the vice president of 250 00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:02.480 Partnerships and Research at Wildflow. Our education Hi, Alicia, Hello, thanks 251 00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:06.440 for having me. So tell me a little bit about who is Wildflower Education 252 00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:10.880 and what do you do? Sure, So we are working to increase student 253 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:14.559 engagement in the classroom and also outside of the classroom. So really we're trying 254 00:18:14.599 --> 00:18:18.039 to connect the academic and the student life experience, and it's really rooted in 255 00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:23.480 the student experience. So the way it works is that students are provided a 256 00:18:23.519 --> 00:18:27.960 code from their faculty member or from the student club or organization. Students get 257 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:32.200 connected to all of the people who are affiliated with that club, group or 258 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:37.960 class and so think about it as LinkedIn for one classroom and students are able 259 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:41.079 to connect one on one with students based on their interest. Um, we 260 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:45.839 have profiles that our students absolutely love using. And then we also create study 261 00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:48.880 groups, so students can create their own study groups, or faculty can create 262 00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:52.599 study groups for students to join, or they can use it for a team 263 00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:57.640 projects or team collaborations. So we're really trying to increase collaboration in the classroom 264 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:03.640 connection and really students discover new opportunities that are aligned with their interests. And 265 00:19:03.640 --> 00:19:06.680 there are there specific parts of the education market that you tend to work in 266 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:10.720 we're starting more so in the classroom and the faculty. UM. We have 267 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:15.000 uh eight different universities who are piloting this in different classrooms across the country. 268 00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:19.680 And then we also have three different partners that are partnering within clubs and organizations 269 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:23.160 UM as well. And so really what we're doing is focused on the user 270 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:27.920 experience and that user feedback to make sure that we're really designing something that students 271 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:33.680 love and then also as useful for faculty and administrators to really better support students. 272 00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:37.720 And so what was the inspiration behind Wildflower Education? Why was now the 273 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:41.519 time to sort of build this company and put it together. Sure, Wildflower 274 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:47.519 Education really is trying to solve the problem of student engagement. Since the COVID 275 00:19:47.599 --> 00:19:51.240 nineteen pandemic, it's been really difficult for students to connect and engage. And 276 00:19:51.559 --> 00:19:55.480 I actually recently transition to Wildflower Education. So I worked in hier Ed for 277 00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:59.920 twelve years as an academic life coach for students. I've coached over a thousands 278 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.440 students over the past twelve years, and we've done some research in that area 279 00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:07.599 and just this is something that I wish students had my entire career. I 280 00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:11.039 went to Florida State, went there for six years. It was first in 281 00:20:11.119 --> 00:20:15.440 in my family to go to college. I graduated, started working for the 282 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:18.799 college and found out there were so many amazing opportunities and resources, but I 283 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:23.480 had no idea existed. I had this theory that really there's this hidden college 284 00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:29.240 theory where students only see about ten percent of what is available to them, 285 00:20:29.279 --> 00:20:33.160 and we just don't do a great job in higher ad of really helping students 286 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:37.880 connect to their interest and also explore new opportunities and resources. We do have 287 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:40.720 some programs that are doing amazing things, so I don't want to say that, 288 00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:42.720 but really we work with students um in that middle ground, So not 289 00:20:44.200 --> 00:20:48.920 the students who are really struggling academically, and not our leaders who are amazing, 290 00:20:48.039 --> 00:20:52.039 right, they're the go getters. Those are the five or ten percent 291 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:56.799 of students. But we have nine of our students who aren't getting those resources, 292 00:20:56.920 --> 00:20:59.759 they're not connecting, and they're not being able to develop as much as 293 00:20:59.799 --> 00:21:02.599 we that they can. And I just think we're leading potential on the table. 294 00:21:02.839 --> 00:21:06.039 And that's really where Wildflower Education comes in. And do you have a 295 00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:10.440 favorite success story something you've heard from one of your partner institutions that shows the 296 00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:14.480 impact that Wildflowers had for them or for as some of their students. Oh 297 00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:17.839 my gosh. We just had the student who reached out to Wildflower Education because 298 00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:22.519 we had something about loneliness on our website, and so he reached out to 299 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:25.440 us and he said, um, you know, I'm actually doing a student 300 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:29.400 project on student loneliness. Um, I'm actually experience, you know, lonely. 301 00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:33.000 And also I'm doing this project because I'm a first year student having a 302 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:36.359 really hard time connecting with other people. And so we actually did some customer 303 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:38.720 discovery with him of saying, you know, well, we helped him with 304 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:41.319 this class project, but then we also just asked him like what are you 305 00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:45.759 experiencing? And you know, he went to the student Involvement fare on campus. 306 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:49.480 Right, there's amazing student clubs and organizations and we really love to highlight 307 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:53.839 that at our colleges. But the student went, he signed up for all 308 00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:59.279 of these opportunities and never heard back. And so this student put himself out 309 00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:02.480 there, right, he is getting outside of his comfort zone. He's doing 310 00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:04.480 all of the things that we encourage our students to do, and nothing is 311 00:22:04.519 --> 00:22:08.319 happening. And he's amazing. He's great to talk to, he's easy to 312 00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:11.960 talk to, UM, but he's still really struggling to find meaningful connections. 313 00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:17.319 And we know that that particular student is more likely to lead university, he's 314 00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:21.640 more likely to know potentially drop out transfer UM, and so we really have 315 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:23.559 to do a better job here. Absolutely well. And if people want to 316 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:27.160 learn more about Wildflower Education, where can they go? UM? I would 317 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:32.359 love for you to go to our website at Wildflower dot education and you can 318 00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:37.079 join our mailing list and also connect with us on LinkedIn. Honestly, I 319 00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:41.839 love how the stories of even individual students like we just heard can influence the 320 00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:48.799 focus and direction of startup companies working within higher education. Keeping within the theme 321 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:53.880 of student engagement, our next company, Interact one to three, has created 322 00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:00.839 a solution that was developed by educators using clear Course as sign which will learn 323 00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:07.519 about in a minute and helps instructors balance curriculum requirements and student engagement in ways 324 00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:11.599 that support optimal learning. Let's get to know the team and Interact one to 325 00:23:11.799 --> 00:23:17.039 three. So I'm with Kristen Betts, who is the principle and founder of 326 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:21.880 Interact one to three. Kristin high wonderful to be here, So Kristen tell 327 00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:25.400 me a little bit. What does Interact one to three do? Interact one 328 00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:30.519 two three is a learning science based application that allows instructional designers and faculty members 329 00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:37.720 to easily map any course across any LMS in terms of what we call clear 330 00:23:37.799 --> 00:23:45.400 course design, alignment with the credit, our licensure, engagement accreditation, and 331 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:48.960 regular in substitive interaction. And is there a part of the education market that 332 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:55.240 you focus on. We work with all higher education institutions. Our clients include 333 00:23:55.279 --> 00:24:00.599 two year, four year, public, private, We also have international clients, 334 00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:07.599 so it's an easy application. Is mentioned to help instructural designers and faculty 335 00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:14.079 members actually see what's in their course in terms of content, student workload, 336 00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:18.640 in cognitive load, no content goes in there. It is certainly not an 337 00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:22.319 LMS, but allows them to look at their courses to find out do they 338 00:24:22.359 --> 00:24:30.359 have too much content which could impact student engagement retention, particularly cognitive overload, 339 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:37.359 or do they have too little content which could affect alignment with federal regulations entitle 340 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:41.759 for funding. What was the inspiration behind Interact one to three? Why was 341 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:45.960 now the time to do? The company? July one, two thousand twenty 342 00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:51.720 one there were a number of federal regulations that were put into place, particularly 343 00:24:51.759 --> 00:24:56.359 looking at regular and substitive interaction. So we decided to create an application where 344 00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:02.079 as I mentioned in a structural designer of faculty, then or could easily map 345 00:25:02.119 --> 00:25:08.880 out and align their courses with their accreditor licensure as well as regular and substitive 346 00:25:08.920 --> 00:25:12.799 interaction. Great, and I wonder if you have a favorite success story, 347 00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:18.400 maybe something you've heard from your institutions about a particular student that sort of demonstrates 348 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:22.559 the partnership you've had with your your client. Some of our faculty members have 349 00:25:22.960 --> 00:25:32.119 reached out and shared that their students are actually sharing on evaluations how much more 350 00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:38.480 they're engaged, enabled to actually modify what they're doing in a classroom through the 351 00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:42.440 feedback. So through the application you can look at the different types of feedback 352 00:25:42.480 --> 00:25:48.519 that you can apply. So often we might run into functional fixedness where we're 353 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:52.680 simply providing text feedback. So through the application you're able to look and identify 354 00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:57.359 can you provide voice feedback, video feedback, can you provide different types of 355 00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:03.559 multimedia feedback? So students and evaluations are saying that their experience in the classrooms 356 00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:10.880 are that much more robust because of the multimodality feedback that they're receiving from faculty. 357 00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:14.559 And again it's because when you're mapping out of course and you're able to 358 00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:19.400 look at universal design for learning or culturally responsive teaching options, it makes the 359 00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:26.960 experience for the students that much more robust to support deeper learning. And where 360 00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:29.720 can people go if they want to learn more about Interact one to three, 361 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:33.359 Well, they can go to the Interact one two three website at www. 362 00:26:33.400 --> 00:26:37.640 Interact one to three dot com. We encourage you look at the resources. 363 00:26:37.880 --> 00:26:42.200 There are extensive resources that are available to learn about the brain, to learn 364 00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:48.920 about neuro plasticity. We also have a monograph series that provides wonderful publications that 365 00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:52.119 are open access that you can share with your peers. As well. From 366 00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:56.480 energizing the classroom with Interact one to three, we're now going to jump into 367 00:26:56.599 --> 00:27:03.359 some cutting edge AI technology j that's been designed to support agile continuous learning. 368 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:10.839 This is the team at Guillon. They are leaning into modular courses and credentials 369 00:27:10.839 --> 00:27:15.599 that are in high demand by lifelong learners with the use of a patented AI 370 00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:21.119 that assists in, among other things, building a holistic learning experience for students. 371 00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:26.519 I'm here with Valerie Higgins, who is a product manager for Guion. 372 00:27:26.359 --> 00:27:30.400 Valeriates and welcome on the show. Thank you for having me. So, 373 00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:33.839 first of all, tell us a little bit about Guion. What is it 374 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:38.079 that Guion does. So we're an AI company that works with higher education institutions 375 00:27:38.079 --> 00:27:42.799 in a couple of different areas. We can do automated grading of assessments, 376 00:27:42.920 --> 00:27:48.039 open text essays, we have a course authoring platform, and then we also 377 00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:52.480 have a personalized skills pathway for students. And is there a particular part of 378 00:27:52.519 --> 00:27:56.640 the higher education market you're working with or do you work with schools that are 379 00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:00.279 a two year four year graduate schools? So we work with a variety of 380 00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:07.519 higher education institutions. We work in kind of the continuous learning space kind of 381 00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:10.839 asked to do with the assessments and the course authoring that I mentioned, as 382 00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:14.960 well as market based skilling. So those can apply to a variety of different 383 00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:19.200 areas within that vertical. And how long has gian been an operation? So 384 00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:22.640 our company has been around for about four years, but the tech predates us, 385 00:28:22.680 --> 00:28:26.720 So the tech was established around nine years ago. So tell me if 386 00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:30.599 you know because we're always fascinated with with new company, especially in the startup 387 00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:34.279 world. You know what was the inspiration? Why was now the time for 388 00:28:34.440 --> 00:28:38.599 Guion to to sort of come together as a company to serve higher end So, 389 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:41.759 you know, years and years we've we've had these search engines that have 390 00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.599 performed, you know, the one function you put in your query, you 391 00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:49.119 get the results back. But what was lacking, what we saw lacking in 392 00:28:49.160 --> 00:28:56.400 the market was this space for auto discovery and auto curation of information. So 393 00:28:56.519 --> 00:29:00.319 taking what you get from those search results and then building something meaningful out of 394 00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:04.759 that, like a structure based specifically on what you're looking for. Um. 395 00:29:06.039 --> 00:29:07.640 So we figured, you know, with the right technology, we could fill 396 00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:11.240 that space. And we feel like we're the people for the job. And 397 00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:17.240 do you have a favorite success story? Absolutely? Um So our clients prefer 398 00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:22.039 to remain anonymous. But right now what we're doing is we're working with a 399 00:29:22.119 --> 00:29:26.519 digital innovation program, so we're helping them in a variety of facets, so 400 00:29:27.079 --> 00:29:33.519 they're learning designers right now are using our core throp course authoring platform to build 401 00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:37.599 out pre existing or brand new courses and kind of populate that with the auto 402 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:44.240 curated information that I mentioned and then they're using the assessment platform that's built right 403 00:29:44.279 --> 00:29:48.079 in, so it's kind of a whole suite there as well as the skilling 404 00:29:48.160 --> 00:29:52.319 to get their students towards their future desired career paths, so that you're using, 405 00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:56.079 you know, the whole spectrum of our project. It just went into 406 00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:59.759 production, so we're very proud of that. Fantastic and if anybody wants to 407 00:29:59.799 --> 00:30:03.200 learn more about gan where should they go? Absolutely, you can go to 408 00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:08.960 jan Ai dot com backslash higher at that's g y a n It's the Sanskrit 409 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.400 word for knowledge. If you're a fan of higher education podcasts, you may 410 00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:18.759 have heard our next guest when he appeared this last May on the Starter Stories 411 00:30:18.799 --> 00:30:22.880 podcast with Zach Boozy Cruz, which is part of the enroll of Fine Network. 412 00:30:22.559 --> 00:30:25.839 For our next to last segment, I was thrilled to have a few 413 00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:30.680 minutes to catch up with Cooper Jones, co founder and CEO at ra RA. 414 00:30:32.359 --> 00:30:34.359 Well, Cooper, thank you so much for coming on the Higher Edge. 415 00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:37.279 Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Brendan. 416 00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:40.279 So, Cooper, tell me a little bit about you and your role 417 00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:42.640 with ra Ra. Yeah, Well, my role is fairly straightforward. It's 418 00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:47.079 to bring on people that are smarter than I am UH and support them as 419 00:30:47.079 --> 00:30:51.640 a CEO. But we started Raw Raw mainly to simplify student life. We 420 00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:56.079 saw when we started four years ago that there's this massive missed after to opportunity 421 00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.119 when it comes to mobile applications and the student experience and Higher ED. And 422 00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:03.039 when we started INEN, we didn't realize how disruptive it was to build a 423 00:31:03.039 --> 00:31:08.119 product that was student first. And so fast forward to two all of the 424 00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:11.519 institutions that we serve and those that we don't are really focused on being more 425 00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:15.440 student centric and really providing an amplified student experience. And so we're thankful to 426 00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:18.279 be in a position to help. And so tell me what was starting a 427 00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:22.759 new company is always a challenge, and when you're in that start up phase, 428 00:31:22.839 --> 00:31:26.400 what was the inspiration behind ra Ron? Was there a particular moment where 429 00:31:26.400 --> 00:31:27.839 you said, yeah, this is this is what needs to happen now. 430 00:31:27.960 --> 00:31:32.720 You know, I used to be in strategy consulting and UH got staffed on 431 00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:37.359 a quick engagement with a university system and realized they're just the opportunity to make 432 00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:40.799 change and innovation happen in the Higher ED space, and so I started thinking 433 00:31:40.839 --> 00:31:44.079 about that in my own experience where I went to school and I was a 434 00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:48.079 kid that grew up in Chicago and ended up going to Oklahoma State only because 435 00:31:48.119 --> 00:31:52.079 my big sister was there, and so I didn't know anyone or really anything 436 00:31:52.119 --> 00:31:55.480 about os U. But my sister was a senior when I was the first 437 00:31:55.559 --> 00:31:57.119 year, and so the first day that I arrived, she set me up 438 00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:00.039 for success. She said, this is where this is, this is how 439 00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:02.279 this works, this is who you should talk to, this is what you 440 00:32:02.359 --> 00:32:07.400 be interested in. And the reality is that's a privilege a majority of students 441 00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.880 in America, our first generation, and so wanted to build a way to 442 00:32:10.039 --> 00:32:14.519 scale what my sister did for me, but for everyone, and then naturally 443 00:32:14.519 --> 00:32:15.880 went on the path of mobile apps, and uh, here we are today 444 00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:21.119 four years later. That's fantastic. And do you have a favorite success story, 445 00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:24.119 maybe something you've heard from an institution or about a student who who really 446 00:32:24.119 --> 00:32:28.039 because of the app, had had different experience. Yeah, I mean, 447 00:32:28.119 --> 00:32:30.799 Golia, I feel like there's a win and as an entrepreneur, loss every 448 00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:34.039 day and so it's always a range of emotions. But probably the best compliment 449 00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:37.880 that we've received is from one of our early partners telling us we've helped their 450 00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:42.559 institution go from feeling good about all of their experiences and their initiatives and their 451 00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:45.880 programs and their offerings to know that they're doing good. And so that was 452 00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:49.440 a really good, feel good moment. And then most recently what we're probably 453 00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:52.559 almost proud of is going live at University of Michigan. That was a really 454 00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:54.359 big win for us, and thankfully we're seeing the students that really really enjoying 455 00:32:54.359 --> 00:33:00.279 the product and which we're proud of. But more recently, our I Guess 456 00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:01.920 point of contact at Kansas States, the line I came to us and said 457 00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:06.519 that they had a few first generation students that have really been relying upon raw 458 00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:08.920 Raw to find that sense of belonging, to find that fit. And they 459 00:33:08.920 --> 00:33:14.119 actually didn't know about raw Raw until about the second weekend, and it changed 460 00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:17.160 the entire trajectory of their university experience that because they didn't even have anyone in 461 00:33:17.160 --> 00:33:22.119 their lives that that knew anything about the college experience to help guide them exactly. 462 00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:24.119 What a fantastic story. Well, Cooper, thank you so much for 463 00:33:24.119 --> 00:33:27.920 coming on the story and telling us a little bit about you and about raw 464 00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:29.759 Rock. Yeah, thank you. It's not just me. We have a 465 00:33:29.759 --> 00:33:32.240 whole team of really, really good people. And well I didn't ask Cooper 466 00:33:32.279 --> 00:33:37.000 where folks could learn more about raw Raw. I'll make up for that lapse 467 00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:42.880 now and share with you that you can go to www dot raw raw life 468 00:33:43.079 --> 00:33:51.039 dot com. That's ra ra R a h r a h life dot com. 469 00:33:51.079 --> 00:33:55.160 Really some great work to help give students that connected experience with their university. 470 00:33:55.759 --> 00:34:00.480 Well, our last startup Alley Company is honestly one of my favorites, 471 00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:02.720 and it has a lot to do with the personality and charisma of their co 472 00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:09.800 founders. And that's right co founders and co CEOs Motion Shaheeny and Karen Marette. 473 00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:15.280 You know, we don't see co CEOs that often in the startup world 474 00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:19.719 because it can be really difficult to have two captains at the helm. Making 475 00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:23.199 sure that they have distinct roles and responsibilities can be challenging to be sure, 476 00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:28.679 but Motion and Karin make this look easy. They have a lot of experience 477 00:34:28.760 --> 00:34:34.800 and passion that they're bringing to the table with their startup company. Critic I'm 478 00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:39.000 here with Motion Shaheny and Karin Marette. Both of you are co founders and 479 00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:44.280 co CEO with Critic. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So, 480 00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:46.519 first of all, tell me a little bit about what critic is. Clintic 481 00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:52.639 is ecalorrated Pierre assessment platform that democraties his grading, remove grading by us, 482 00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:59.440 and increases his students critical thinking and soft skills. And I would like to 483 00:34:59.480 --> 00:35:04.480 add on top of it, we prepare students for the workforce. We build 484 00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:09.679 an inclusive learning ecosystem. We improve attention rate, We boosted an engagement and 485 00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:15.639 the student of engagement is uh. Two things. We have a system to 486 00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:20.320 identify the students who are far behind, and then we were so to identify 487 00:35:20.480 --> 00:35:23.360 the students who with who are more advanced. And we create a system that 488 00:35:23.639 --> 00:35:29.400 all students can learn at different pace in the same classroom, because the nd 489 00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:34.039 goal is to make sure that all to students get a job post graduation. 490 00:35:34.760 --> 00:35:37.039 Fantastic, And I see that you also integrate with all the major LMS platforms 491 00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:42.239 including Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard and Desire to Learn. Yes, and so 492 00:35:42.519 --> 00:35:45.320 one of the things I've been fascinated by because it's not as common, but 493 00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:49.079 to have co founders and co ceo. So tell me a little bit about 494 00:35:49.079 --> 00:35:54.199 that. For sure, you would say it's looking great. I think one 495 00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:58.360 of the things that is important is that it's helping us to show to our 496 00:35:58.400 --> 00:36:02.079 employees, first of all, that there is diversity across across the business, 497 00:36:02.199 --> 00:36:08.000 including from the leadership, because we uh first company try to encourage diversity inclusion, 498 00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:10.719 but you know, you get you see females coming to a certain level 499 00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:15.360 of seniority, but you don't see them at the CEO level, so you 500 00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:16.760 know, and and we wanted to show it to our employees that there is 501 00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:21.800 no there is nothing that stops them as far as gender goes when they when 502 00:36:21.800 --> 00:36:25.119 they want to. And in addition of gender, I think there's also other 503 00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:30.480 element to it, which is like the leadership style and the background information. 504 00:36:30.599 --> 00:36:35.320 So most of its coming from the educational background. He built top haart before 505 00:36:35.400 --> 00:36:40.079 state ten years in your industry and then he basically digital textbooks with multiple choice 506 00:36:40.119 --> 00:36:46.920 questions and then um interactive activity in the textbooks on nine and when we met 507 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:52.480 and decided to build Critic together, I came up with another perspective, which 508 00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:57.239 is how I step away from multiple choice question I was telling most than that 509 00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:05.360 we should build a system where students need to reflect and participants on their their 510 00:37:05.440 --> 00:37:08.119 learning in the system that they are on power. So it was very important 511 00:37:08.159 --> 00:37:15.119 that CRIC kind of like reverse reverse the power relationship between professors and students. 512 00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.320 Tell me a little bit, what was the inspiration for critic and and what 513 00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:22.199 was it where you said, now is the time that this is important that 514 00:37:22.239 --> 00:37:29.480 this company is born. Astre Mention worked for ten years that I've had and 515 00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:37.360 closely with the instructors. I noticed that the equasystem is changing. Information technology 516 00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:42.760 is becoming more and more available facts, information, memorization of those facts becoming 517 00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:47.719 basically membership of those fact pointless in a sense that you can search everything online. 518 00:37:47.920 --> 00:37:52.960 Another hand, there is no technology that can assess a students thinking of 519 00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:58.880 skills, critical thinking of skills uh and a problem solving skills uh and and 520 00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:01.480 and self learning skill things like that, because it's hard to assess them. 521 00:38:01.480 --> 00:38:05.719 There's no technology because I'm not as objective, and the only way you could 522 00:38:05.760 --> 00:38:09.519 do that was through some level of crowdsourcing. So that's what I found a 523 00:38:09.559 --> 00:38:14.719 solution. Queren of course had had an impact on this decision as because she 524 00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:19.239 was coming from a students perspective UM and then she wanted received more personalized feedback 525 00:38:19.239 --> 00:38:22.800 because she needed That's how she learned, and she needed a lot of feedback 526 00:38:22.840 --> 00:38:25.880 in her online courses. She was not very satisfied with the professor's just giving 527 00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:30.119 her very quick short feedback, Oh great job, Maybe change this part of 528 00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:34.400 your essay that she has spent like two days to prepare. So she was 529 00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:37.880 feeling that she's not getting the r O I for the tuition. Tuition feel 530 00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:39.800 that she was paid exactly. So when I might when I did my second 531 00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:43.840 bashl agree in another language. The first one was in French, the second 532 00:38:43.840 --> 00:38:45.559 one was in English. So when I did the second one, I was 533 00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:51.079 like, I had a higher expectation for myself. I got B plus for 534 00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:53.199 my first Bashel degree, but the second bash Agree is sa, Okay, 535 00:38:53.239 --> 00:38:55.960 I'm going to have an air press and I'm going to achieve that no matter 536 00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:00.440 what. So I was fighting for it, and I said anytime I had 537 00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:06.280 an exam, I was asking feedback to the professor, said, please tell 538 00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:08.519 me, how can I be a master expert in a p A format? 539 00:39:08.840 --> 00:39:13.760 How can I be a master? I expected whatever Rasalmon was and I never 540 00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:17.800 ever received feedback like very litton, and I decided to kind of like um, 541 00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:22.599 UM fight for it. So I submitted a claim for that professor to 542 00:39:22.800 --> 00:39:28.079 improve their teaching system. Uh. And then and then what I did in 543 00:39:28.119 --> 00:39:30.880 parallel is I asked my classmate, okay, let's walk together. I created 544 00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:35.679 a Google dog online and I said, let's put all our notes together, 545 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:40.119 learned from peers, and I had a schedule with with them to meet over 546 00:39:40.159 --> 00:39:45.119 a zoom called UM on the weekly basis. At the beginning, it worked 547 00:39:45.159 --> 00:39:51.440 well, but at at some point they had some resistance and they were afraid 548 00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:54.480 to that their professor caught them doing that, and they are afraid of cheating. 549 00:39:54.719 --> 00:40:00.599 So I felt that we need to put in place an online pil platform 550 00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:05.519 that professor adopt and not something that students tried to do on the side because 551 00:40:05.559 --> 00:40:09.760 it will limit their growth. That's fantastic. And since you've been working with 552 00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:14.519 schools, do you have a good success story? Yeah, I would. 553 00:40:14.599 --> 00:40:19.920 I would have a certain a good example from the professor at Virginia Tech University. 554 00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:23.960 Professor's her name is Valerie. She's teaching analotic chemistry. She really uses 555 00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:31.199 critic because she wanted to motivate her female students to succeed in the you know, 556 00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:37.519 fairly technical and and mass oriented course where there's there's a little bit of 557 00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:42.679 lack of diversity in those courses. What she found with critic was that when 558 00:40:42.719 --> 00:40:45.440 she was showing me, she was like, look see that how my student 559 00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:47.079 when I went to her, I went to a virginetic on article to campus 560 00:40:47.119 --> 00:40:49.920 to just checking with her. How we called. She says, come here, 561 00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:52.840 I'm gonna show you something, and she opened her laptop and she said, 562 00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:55.320 look do you see these the students feedback that she said to their peers. 563 00:40:55.400 --> 00:40:59.639 And I read that feedback and the feedback had like, oh, I 564 00:40:59.800 --> 00:41:04.679 may the exact same problem and then explomisition mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark. 565 00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:08.639 And she said that this is the opening for my students because they these 566 00:41:08.639 --> 00:41:12.760 are females that day, when they see that their peers are making that mistake, 567 00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:15.000 that that's sort of a perception that my having themselves, oh I'm the 568 00:41:15.079 --> 00:41:19.199 only one who makes this mistake goal with of a and I've seen them give 569 00:41:19.239 --> 00:41:22.559 them confidence that they can create. Imagine a certain sense of embarrassment where the 570 00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:24.480 student doesn't want to ask the question because they feel like they might be the 571 00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:30.199 only one who has or that problem. Exactly exactly fantastic well, if people 572 00:41:30.239 --> 00:41:32.000 would like to learn more about Critic, where's the best place for them to 573 00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:37.280 do that? They can go to our homepage at www dot critic dot io 574 00:41:37.719 --> 00:41:42.440 or go to our LinkedIn page. I think there was a full of information 575 00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:47.440 and that's it. Our second and final episode from the Flora Edge Cause. 576 00:41:47.960 --> 00:41:52.199 The start up Alley really is one of my favorite parts of the annual Edge 577 00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:57.800 Cause conference, as the passion and commitment of these companies is as inspiring to 578 00:41:57.880 --> 00:42:00.760 me as I hope it was for you to hear their stories. I want 579 00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:04.800 to give a great big thank you to all of my guests for this episode. 580 00:42:04.920 --> 00:42:07.880 Joe Burgess, founder and CEO of Ribbon Education, David Shim, co 581 00:42:08.039 --> 00:42:14.480 founder and CEO of read Ai, Dan Quig, CEO for Public Insight, 582 00:42:15.199 --> 00:42:20.639 John McLeod, account manager at press Books, Jason Shavy, Chief operating officer 583 00:42:20.719 --> 00:42:25.199 for Level Alicia SAPULVTA, Vice Presidents of Partnerships and Research for Wildflower Education. 584 00:42:25.840 --> 00:42:31.079 Dr Kristen Bett's principal and founder of Interact one to three, Valerie Higgins, 585 00:42:31.159 --> 00:42:37.360 product manager for guian Ai, Cooper Jones, co founder and CEO for Raw 586 00:42:37.480 --> 00:42:43.480 Raw, and finally both Mo and Shaheeny and Karin Murette co CEOs at Critic 587 00:42:44.039 --> 00:42:51.079 and that's critic k R I T I K critic And thank you everyone for 588 00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:54.159 sharing this edgecase experience over the last two episodes with us here at the Higher 589 00:42:54.280 --> 00:43:00.159 Edge. Until next time, I'm Brendan Aldridge and we'll talk soon. Thanks 590 00:43:00.199 --> 00:43:04.840 for listening to The Higher Edge. For more, subscribe to us on your 591 00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:07.840 favorite podcast platform, leave us a review if you loved the show, and 592 00:43:07.960 --> 00:43:13.559 be sure to connect with Brendan on LinkedIn. Know someone who's making big changes 593 00:43:13.679 --> 00:43:17.519 at their higher at institution that belongs on this podcast, Drop us a line 594 00:43:17.840 --> 00:43:23.000 at podcasts at the Higher Edge dot com. The Higher Edge is sponsored by 595 00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:30.280 Invoke Learning in partnership with Westport Studios. Using opinions expressed by individuals during the 596 00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:36.280 podcast are their own. See how invoke Learning is empowering higher education at invoke 597 00:43:36.480 --> 00:43:59.760 learning dot com.