This past weekend, four entrepreneurs participating in The Idea Village’s Education Entrepreneur Challenge cohort traveled to NYC to participate in the prestigious Startup Weekend NYC EDU.
The dynamic 54-hour event helps to launch startups and transform education through technology. Over 130 participants comprised of educators, software programmers, designers, and business developers were each given the opportunity to pitch their idea and then build a viable business plan and create a prototype.
Of the four Education Entrepreneur Challenge entrepreneurs sent by The Idea Village, two won 1st and 2nd place. Ventures that were merely ideas a month ago have now won a prestigious pitch competition before an elite crowd. The first place winner, Classroom Blueprint, will be heading to South By Southwest EDU in Austin next month.
The 2012 Education Entrepreneur Challenge is a collaborative program between The Idea Village, Teach for America – New Orleans, 4.0 Schools and The Coleman Foundation. The Challenge aims to encourage Teach for America alumni to develop and start ventures that provide scalable solutions to closing the education achievement gap.
The Startup Weekend winner, Classroom Blueprint is a comprehensive application where Pinterest meets Amazon.com to help teachers design better classrooms. Second place winner, Dash is a parent relationship management tool that acts as a Salesforce type tool for teacher contacts for her 2nd place win. Kinobi took third place, with a Microsoft Kinect concept by Chapman Snowden.