“Farmville meets Mint.com.”
—Fremont, CA-based Jerry Huang is CEO of Childroad, a provider of multimedia textbooks in different languages for kids across the globe. His co-founder Michael Qin of Hangzhou, China, will join him at Kauffman Labs.
—There’s an app for everything now, even education, with what Sandy Khaund of Walnut Creek, CA, is working on. His company Irynsoft is developing mobile apps to help delivervideodeliver video content for distance learning and online courses to mobile phones. His New York-based partner Sanjib Kalita will be joining him at the Kauffman program, which Khaund (who has experience in tech from a gig at Microsoft) hopes will better expose them to those in the education field.
—San Francisco-based Matt Pasternack is taking GoalPost, a platform enabling K-12 students to set goals and track their progress, into the Education Ventures Program. He says he was impressed by the “access to nearly two dozen advisers with deep entrepreneurial and sector-specific experience” that Kauffman finalists had during a boot camp week in November. He’s looking to continue those relationships once the program officially starts.
—Elizabeth Schmidt of San Francisco is developing a non-profit Internet platform called Wishbone.org for connecting at-risk students with extracurricular programs. “I’m really excited for the strategic planning piece” of the Education Ventures Program, she says.
—Alexandre Scialom of San Francisco is working on what he calls a Yelp.com for lifelong learning opportunities, i.e. “anything for personal or professional development” for adults. His background is on the technology side of business, so he’s looking to the Kauffman program to connect him with those in the education world, he says.
—East Palo Alto, CA-based Daniel Jhin Yoo is in the idea phase of developing an analytics platform for gauging the success of online learning strategies at schools. “Being at Kauffman will help me build a plan,” he says.
