The MEITE program’s third Pitch Day took place on July 26, 2019, and it featured 12 students pitching their ventures. This event was held on UNC’s campus in the Stone Center’s Hitchcock Multipurpose Room, and over 50 people attended! In addition, it was Dr. Cherner’s first Pitch Day as the Director of the MEITE program. Please use the links to below to view the event, access our alumni’s LinkedIn profiles, and download their pitch decks.
Kristy Stout – Health Care Education – Pitch Deck
Health Care Education Solutions is an educational consulting and design firm dedicated to relieving patient and family distress. We discover needs and design solutions for medical facilities to better educate their staff, patients, and patient families about available amenities and resources. We develop custom, educational tools including virtual tours, multimedia presentations, videos, interactive e-lessons, and analytical models.
Features of Health Care Education Solutions include:
- Processes to discover the needs of each patient.
- Outreach to connect patients and families with the best resources.
- Educational tools and resources in the native language of the patient.
- Desktop and mobile friendly platforms.
Jason Straus – Comparte – Pitch Deck
Comparte is a web-based platform designed for middle school Dual Language Immersion Spanish classes. Comparte pairs middle schoolers from the United States with Spanish-speaking peers located in Latin America using digital tools. Comparte’s goal is to support bilingualism and empower youth to be global citizens who share, learn, and collaborate on projects together, such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal’s (SDG’s). Their interactions are scaffolded so that students learn how to communicate in a culturally appropriate way. While following Comparte’s all-Spanish curriculum and prompts, students will learn about each other’s daily lives, cultures, and tradition. Once students develop a relationship with their Spanish-speaking peers, the focus shifts towards discussion of the SDG’s and how these goals are impacting their local communities. Unlike other web-based platforms that virtually connect classrooms, Comparte is all in Spanish so that students in the United States have the opportunity to virtually immerse themselves and get authentic cultural experiences without traveling anywhere.
Shange Song – SS Global – Pitch Deck
SS GLOBE is an onsite and online language learning company dedicated to supporting and teaching Chinese international high school students. Those students are required to pass TOEFL/SAT tests and apply to American universities for a bachelor’s degree. SS GLOBE provides professional and practical language learning experiences that include:
- First-class Chinese teachers who have strong expertise and American education backgrounds.
- Courses that are customized based on students’ pretest evaluation and assessment by professional course consultants.
- An integrated, interactive communication platform that features video, audio, sharing, and recording.
- A learning community that answers learners’ questions, follows up progress and gives feedback.
- Workshops that offer role-playing and scenarios on how to solve common situations when visiting English-speaking countries.
- Cheaper prices that are affordable to low-income and middle-class families.
The uniqueness of SS GLOBE is that it offers professional teachers, customized courses, full teacher-student interactions, a supportive learning community, Americanized workshops, and cheap prices. SS GLOBE aims to help students learn TOEFL/SAT more efficiently, get higher test scores, apply to better universities, and improve overall English ability. SS GLOBE is dedicated to helping learners navigate and survive better in English-speaking countries. SS GLOBE’s mission is to support Chinese students’ for earning the test scores they need to be accepted in their ideal universities and have success once they arrive.
Jian Xiao – Ivengineer – Pitch Deck
Invengineer is a web-based learning platform designed to enhance engineers’ capacity in inventing and developing new products. We use true and first-hand innovation cases and problem-based learning method to help learners grasp the essence of product innovation in the real business world in a more effective and more efficient way. The mission of Invengineer is to empower engineers to invent smartly, and its features include:
- Project and Problem-based Learning experience. Learners are challenged by ill-defined customer needs, technical problems, and different limitations, just as the innovator faced in the real world. This learning environment helps learners to engage more, to learn more deeply, and achieve better learning effect.
- True innovation cases with the first-hand information and insight of the primary inventor of the innovations. Learners can learn genuine skills used in the real world.
- Scaffolding of necessary domain knowledge and contextual information in each problem scene. Learners are supported to cross the chasms of specific knowledge, which is not the emphasis of learning, and are placed in the area where the true learning goals rest.
- Illustration of innovator/expert thinking models. Questions and practices are provided according to each customer need/problem or challenge, and the corresponding principles/ skills are explained explicitly.
- Asynchronous video evaluation and communication tools. Learners can use tools like VoiceThread or Flipgrid to communicate and get feedback from their teachers or classmates in an effective and efficient way.
- Learning community, including discussion forum and study group. This feature stresses a key factor in innovation― collaborative innovating.
- Self-paced learning. This feature is designed to tackle the learning restrictions of engineers― lack of “chunk time”, unable to study in a regular schedule, and have different prior knowledge and different learning habits.
Ben Triulzi – Immersive Health Tech – Pitch Deck
Immersive Health Teach is a mobile virtual reality package designed for pediatric cancer patients that gives them the opportunity to transcend the limitations of their diagnosis through exploration, discovery, and authentic play. The mission of Immersive Health Teach is to use technology to improve the quality of life for children with cancer through meaningful educational and enjoyable experiences while hospitalized. Unlike traditional programs used in hospitals that lead to passive engagement with patients or simply archaic technology options being available for patients, Immersive Health Teach fills that void left by hospitals around the United States. Immersive Health is a package containing cutting edge virtual reality technology like Oculus Go and HTC Vive, a comprehensive application library, and scaffolded sessions designed to engage patients on a deeper cognitive level than simply playing games. Backed by research, rooted in the learning sciences, and designed by a licensed special educator. For hospitals and Health Systems that want to give children with cancer an opportunity to explore, discover, and learn at a low cost and with the opportunity to scale. Immersive Health Tech makes that a reality and gives every child with cancer a chance to be a child again, and it features:
- Comprehensive Application library
- Interest Inventory and QOL Pre/Post Assessments
- Manual Session plans created with research-based strategies and active pedagogy
- All in one package – hardware, software, and educational materials, and training manual
- Through the use of a laptop cart, the tech can be rigged to be mobile, making it easy to navigate through the hospital.
Rocky Moon – skillED – Pitch Deck
skillED is an app and web-based platform the provides college-going resources to underrepresented students. High school counselors can track their students’ progress through the application and admission process. Post-secondary admissions counselors can use data generated through the platform to increase enrollment in students traditionally underrepresented at their institution. EasyAccess promotes equity in higher ed through:
- Matching software that creates a Smart, Match, Reach school list unique to each students needs and academic profile
- Connection to the online application and communication with the admissions staff of those schools
- Digital admission essay editing
- Integrated educational tips so students can learn about the process as the navigate each step
- High school counselor back-end for tracking students’ progress through the process and communicating with post-secondary admissions staff
- College admissions staff data collection and communication with high school counselors
With many college-access programs out there, skillED distinguishes itself as being the first all-in-one college access app for students, an intuitive and effective tracking software for counselors, and a data-rich resource for post-secondary institutions to increase enrollment of underrepresented populations. EasyAccess hopes to close the educational opportunity gap and achieve equity in the college admission process.
Jia Yu – Fun Math – Pitch Deck
FunMath is an online math tutoring service that uses live, face-to-face tutoring sessions and a website to assist 4th-grade Chinese learners in developing the foundations of math, solving multiple kinds of problems, and mastering key math strategies.
FunMath is distinct because it creates a learner-centered environment and its teaching materials are customized based on the assessment of learners’ needs.
The tutoring service curriculum is divided into major modules aligned to the 4th-grade math content that uses frequently-tested 3rd-grade math materials to reinforce the learners’ previous knowledge. Each lesson contains a before-class assessment, instruction of the main content, explanation of example math problems, and relevant practice.
The FunMath website is a supportive learning tool that boosts learners’ deep knowledge of math. The Daily Math Supergem offers one problem every day to help learners engage in math practice. The FunMath Catalog provides useful links including free videos and upcoming course schedule. The Math Tank is a library of math problems that users can access for additional practice, and each problem includes a solution learners can use to check their work.
The developer who provides the tutoring and made the website is highly experienced, using scaffolding teaching approaches to promote learners to think in depth and to broaden their perspectives of thinking. The teacher is also very passionate, accessible, and communicate well with the learners and family members.
FunMath provides high-quality courses and powerful resources to help 4th-grade Chinese students learn math while enjoying the process of learning.
Zhijun Wen – BestWay Chinese – Pitch Deck
BestWay Chinese is an online language learning platform for English-speaking college students in the United States who want to learn Chinese. It incorporates the latest research findings in learning sciences and language teaching. By making use of augmented reality and virtual reality along with speech perception technologies, the platform produces a low-cost, high-quality website that features Chinese language courses, which enable students to learn Chinese in individualized, interactive, contextualized, immersive, gamified, and creativity-based digital environments. Each course contains a series of situated, real-life activities (such as traveling and shopping) in VR and AR environments. BestWay Chinese utilizes a digital instructor (named “Clina”) to lead students through the activities, which engage them in learning and using the language in different contexts. In this way, BestWay Chinese offers a whole new experience to learners of Chinese, helping them build their knowledge and skills in Chinese effectively and at the fastest possible speed.
Daniel Dinkins – Quest 2 College – Pitch Deck
Quest to College (Q2C) is a web-based simulation that helps users develop strategies to prepare for, get accepted to, afford and navigate through college. Through a series of 20 real-life missions, users build an avatar and navigate an imaginary journey from middle school to college graduation. Along the way, users encounter barriers that typically discourage students from believing that college is possible. The mission of Q2C is to equip prospective first-generation middle school students with the skills necessary to navigate their path to and through college, and its features include:
- A dashboard that highlights which areas in the college-going process in which users are both excelling and struggling.
- A virtual mentorship program with college students from a similar background and/or with similar interests as the user.
- Opportunities for users to customize their own adventure.
- Content that is age-appropriate for middle school users.
- A version available in Spanish.
- Academic skill development, including an artificial intelligence tool that helps users develop reading and writing skills.
- Automated feedback aligned with common core academic standards.
- An all-inclusive college-going process in which users navigate the entire journey from middle school all the way to college graduation.
- Active learning: users learn by doing, in a role-playing problem-solving manner.
- Sustained long-term engagement and effort: users explore multiple modules that can span over an entire academic school year.
Miranda Colwell – The Teacher Tank – Pitch Deck
Educators represent a collection of the most passionate, creative, and inspiring professionals that exist in today’s world, yet very few receive the respect or compensation they truly deserve. The Teacher Tank is an online marketplace that provides educators with an additional source of income for sharing their professional expertise.
Unlike other online marketplaces such as Fiverr or Upwork, the Teacher Tank is designed with the unique needs and pain points of today’s teachers in mind. In fact, the Teacher Tank is much more than an online marketplace. It’s a professional learning community where educators from all over can connect, inspire, and celebrate their diverse talents that would otherwise be hidden within the four walls of their classroom.
Features include:
- Provides a feasible source of income where educators have control over the hours, work, and amount of pay.
- Educators can provide professional development on something they are passionate about with educators who want to learn a new skill such as podcasting in the classroom.
- Opportunities to connect with fellow educators & showcase their greatest work through online portfolios & news feed (which can also connect to third-party sites such as Instagram and Teachers Pay Teachers where existing educators are already sharing).
- Support, resources, and tutorials for teachers who never have sold an online service before to help with tasks like pricing their services or building their community.
By providing opportunities for educators to earn additional income and a direct connection with experts in their profession, the Teacher Tank aims to provide educators with the resources and support they need to be successful in the classroom.
Samantha Cullum – InCompass – Pitch Deck
InCompass is a learning analytics platform that visualizes student engagement data for instructors by subpopulation. This platform takes the many data points available to course instructors from platforms such as Sakai, E-textbooks, and in-class clickers and packages it into easy-to-read visuals. InCompass will leverage data to:
- Determine the engagement patterns of class sub populations by the following categories: underrepresented minority, transfer, veteran, low socio-economic and gender status
- Plot the engagement of the sub populations over time to determine differing trend in the data
- Scaffold professors to use their engagement data to address inequity in how students engage with their course through intervention.
The mission of InCompass is to empower professors to use the data at their fingertips to reduce inequity in their own courses.
Kelsey Van Dyke – Andi – Pitch Deck
Andi is a mobile app that puts an expert in raising girls at the fingertips of millennial moms. It’s like your friend—who just happens to have her PhD—sending you bite-sized, research-backed advice on how to raise confident, successful girls. Andi helps moms learn the ins-and-outs of parenting girls, from the importance of risk taking to breaking down what rumination is and tips on how to retrain the brain to educating moms on potentially damaging behaviors they’re unknowingly modeling. The mobile app sends new content blasts each week focusing on a targeted theme, and contains a bank of short, easy-to-follow videos, podcasts, and tutorials each introducing a topic related to girls’ confidence, and Elle offers five main features:
- New content delivered weekly that is research-backed, but prepared to be simple and accessible with the millennial mom in mind
- A bank of concise, insightful videos, podcasts, and text tutorials so you can learn anytime, anywhere
- A personalized profile with the ability to save content, and space for notes and reflection
- Regular in-person events and workshops to go deep on specific topics and form community
- A place to connect with like-minded individuals and participate in a community through in-person meetups
Andi is on a mission to close the confidence gap through providing parents the knowledge and tools they need to raise confident girls.