Principal

William Zhou, CEO

Website

chalk.com

Status

Resident

What we do

Chalk.com enables better teaching and compliance for K12 teachers by aiding K-12 teachers daily with a SaaS based workflow solution for lesson planning, grading, assessment, and attendance. The business world runs on Microsoft Office, the design industry runs Adobe Creative Suite, what is that suite of product for teachers? There is none and Chalk.com will fill that gap.

With a mission to serve teachers, Planboard, the first application in the Chalk.com suite, has been created for teachers to directly benefit them. In fact, most of the development of the product has been driven by teacher feedback. With Planboard, teachers can easily plan and view their entire academic year while aligning to their school's schedule. Whether it's viewing a week at a glance, or a detailed plan for the particular day, teachers are able to stay organized in order to deliver the best lessons possible. Planboard also improves student success by ensuring the delivery of curriculum. Planboard helps teachers to integrate and track standards and curriculum expectations. This is only the first step as the entire suite of Chalk.com will simply teacher's daily workflow starting with lesson planning.

Notable Projects

By the end of 2014, Chalk.com was being used in over 20,000 schools by over 100,000 teachers. Founder and CEO William Zhou was named as one of Inc's 50 Emerging Entrepreneurs to Watch, and was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 for 2015.

Chalk.com recently raised $500,000 in investment, led by MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund with participation from BDC Capital, Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, and John Baker, CEO of D2L Corp., formerly Desire2Learn.

Why do we choose to be at iHub?

The iHub created an environment where educators and edtech startups can collide to innovate and develop the next generation of technology in the classroom. The iHub provided Chalk.com with insights and advice into some of the issues teachers face. This has proven to be critical during our development cycle.

Principals

Susan Kwiecien, OCT Managing Director
Andrew McNamara, CIO

Website

cubeforteachers.com

Status

Resident

What we do

Cube for Teachers is a unique social bookmarking community for K-12 Ontario teachers to share, search, store their favourite teaching resources from the web.

Unlike Pinterest, Delicious, Facebook and Twitter, The Cube’s portal is centralized, meaning, a link shared is searchable by all and is not dependent on one’s connectedness to others. No longer do you have to be in their circles, belong to their group or follow them to be in the know. When inside Cube for Teachers, you are automatically connected.

The Cube’s unique feature is that it is curriculum-based. This allows teachers to search for what they need and get quick results. The Cube’s is also solely teacher-driven content, providing teachers with a voice and a choice.

Currently, the teacher's voice can be expressed within our "Group" feature where teachers can collaborate and support each other. This feature is unlike other news feeds in that each group is equipped with a parallel Cube to share specific resources relating to each group.

The search engine has been designed for adaptability and scalability. As new trends arise in education and curricula change they can be easily added to The Cube.

The Cube has been designed to assist k-12 teachers in meeting the ever-changing needs of students in their classes. The Cube provides a quick real-time solution to teachers when their students’ need diversification in lessons.

Our portal meets the needs of many professionals within the K-12 school system, including: teachers, administrators, coordinators, subject councils, educational assistants, early childhood educators, etc. Our market also reaches beyond the K-12 community and encompasses Faculties of Education Professors and teacher candidates.

Notable Projects

In 2014, Cube for Teachers had a significant increase in membership and collaboration, with thousands of Ontario teachers sharing and collaborating inside Cube for Teachers with over 25,000 resources shared.

As Cube for Teachers continues to grow in Ontario, they are preparing to expand to the American market, working towards connecting teachers globally in collaboration to continue to support teachers in developing their best practices.

Why do we choose to be at iHub?

Over the past few years we have participated in the Connect Conference and developed a relationship with the some of the key organizers who are also key members of the founding team for iHub. Knowing that our visions align we knew that becoming residents of iHub would be a great opportunity.

Cube for teachers has benefited from IHub in several ways. The iHub team consists of system leaders and researchers who provide valuable knowledge about the education system as well as insight into upcoming trends. They also provide ongoing support and have created numerous networking opportunities. While their goal is to provide opportunities and resources for the teachers and students they represent, they work closely with Ed Tech start ups who share similar vision. This mutually beneficial relationship ultimately creates better learning for all students.

Principals

Sarah Drew, Founder & CEO
James Mattiazzo, Lead Facilitator and Program Manager

Website

every1games.ca

Status

Resident

What we do

Every1Games innovates the way businesses, schools and the larger community engage with the autistic community by offering workshops and programs that are practical, meaningful, authentic, and connected.

Every1Games provides fee for service skills development workshops to individuals and groups specializing in the enhancement of technical skills, social skills and professional skills. Our most popular workshop teaches video game design to a neurodivergent community of autistic youth ages 12 -25 years. Participants gain valuable life skills through independent and team based game development activities, social learning and networking guidance.

Our clients work with us to gain the skills necessary to succeed in life after high school. All Every1Games programs have a unique progressive activity method developed to provide clients with relevant and interesting workshops based on the grade 11/12 English and Computer Science Curriculum to help transition into post-secondary education.

Every1Games also provides professional development workshops to businesses and schools to help instructors create low-anxiety accessible learning environments.

Workshops vary in length, frequency, group size and fees to participate.

Additional Services: Every1Games works with content developers providing user experience testing. Past clients include e-learning apps like Empower Tablets’ Math For Kids (a math game for autistic children) and creative developers like Phantom Compass.

Why do we choose to be at iHub?

Through our residency at iHub, we manage our workshops in the Niagara region, and have been able to expand our network to reach more members of Niagara’s education and tech community. We are working with the DSBN Academy to acquire space to run new and existing after school programs that aim to help our clients develop social, technical and professional skills to prepare for life after high school. We are also partnering on research projects and co-create transition programs, accessibility tools and other resources to bring more opportunities to our clients.

Principals

Popy Dimoulas-Graham, CEO
Sarah Bach, Director of Operations
Luke Gladding, Chief Technology Officer

Website

hourrepublic.com

Status

Resident

What we do

Hour Republic impacts community engagement through simple and efficient software solutions for students, educators and volunteers, supporting the tracking and management of volunteer activities, co-operative education, and SHSM (specialized major).

We work in collaboration with charities and 24 volunteer centres across Ontario, to allow students to be presented with volunteer opportunities in their communities based on their interests.

We have developed an efficient, easy to use and cost-effective solution where students can track their activities online and via a mobile solution, with integrated email signature verification. Students will never worry about losing their form again! All relevant data about student progress and community involvement is provided to schools and school boards, ensuring accuracy and security.

Our competitive advantage is our mobile friendly and web solution to tracking and management. We connect students to opportunities in their local community, including volunteer, co-op and Specialist High Skills Majors (SHSM). We have included the flexibility to add new dashboards, along with the integration of school information systems (Desire2Learn, myBlueprint.) We are endorsed by the Ontario Volunteer Centre Network (OVCN) endorsement and have a Pan Am Games partnership via OVCN and business model.

Notable Projects

In just over 1.5 years, Hour Republic has grown to work with over 30 school districts across Ontario. We offer multiple products including volunteer, co-op, and SHSM hour and activity tracking and we are launching our volunteer management software in early 2015 for charities and non-profits.

Why do we choose to be at iHub?

We have chosen to be an iHub resident because it brings many organizations in the community together to support entrepreneurs and our innovations. Also, we work closely in the community with DSBN and INCommunities. They have welcomed us to the community and supported our innovations and we are immeasurably thankful for their support.

Principal

Krystine Donato

Website

kadonato.blogspot.ca

Status

Resident

Principals

Alex Peters, Co-CEO
Rohan Mahimker, Co-CEO

Website

prodigygame.com

Status

Resident

What we do

Prodigy is a free, self-paced math game for grades 1 - 8 that s fully aligned with the Ontario math curriculum. The game has over 600,000 students across North America, and over 30,000 teachers trust Prodigy to help their students learn math.

Notable Projects

In 2014, Prodigy was completely overhauled from being in Java to being built entirely in HTML5, which allows it to run on almost any device (iPads, Chromebooks, laptops, etc) without any setup. With this overhaul came the growth of the Prodigy team, from seven to fifteen full time employees, and the game user base grew from 130,000 to 1.25 million users.

Why do we choose to be at iHub?

We chose to be a resident at iHub because DSBN's technology team, including Dino Miele and the rest of the IT4L team, were extremely helpful in supporting Prodigy as it developed. They have an incredible focus on finding tools that support the classroom, and they're willing to provide the support that young companies need to create true value for educators through product iterations.

Principal

Ian Tao, CEO

Website

sesamehq.com

Status

Resident

What we do

Sesame helps teachers and students easily capture evidence and assessment in an on-going portfolio, as well as connect them to lesson plans and curriculum in one place.

The idea for Sesame came from our own teachers that made tremendous impact by knowing us beyond a spreadsheet. It is free for teachers to get started, with monthly subscription for extended storage and licence for schools/districts.

Why do we choose to be at iHub?

Sesame chose to be a resident at the iHub for the relationship that we can build with Brock Faculty of Education as well as first-hand exposure to DSBN classrooms. The teachers at the academy have provided authentic feedback that has been invaluable in defining our direction.