Kenya’s mShule secures second position at GESA awards
The Global Edtech Startup Awards (GESA) finally concluded its much awaited finale yesterday with Kenya’s msShule securing the second position in the most promising Edtech startup category for 2017. The event took place at the Mindspace headquarters at London with 18 finalists and a jury panel consisting on 15 members. As mentioned in our last coverage, 3 african startups had been shortlisted in the final list.
The most promising EdTech start-up for 2017 declared at the event was Arcterus from Japan which won the award for its collaborative notebook for students called CLEAR.
Clear lets students take notes, put in stickers and make it sleek. It also gives users the opportunity to share their notes and make studying social by having feedback on the content. Users can explore options by following notes of their favourite authors.
(M-Shule CEO and founder Claire Mongeau)
Second place in the same category was secured by M-Shule from Kenya. It is a mobile learning system that uses AI and accessible learning to developing countries through SMS messaging. They share analytics, insights, and reports with the school, teacher, and parent through SMS and web.
Third place was secured by MentorMind from India which is a platform that brings real problems to students in partnership with leading companies, organizations, and mentors.
The 3 new tracks that were introduced in 2017 also saw extensive participation and the winner of Innovation track was Israel based Storybot, a motion-sensing ball designed to entertain kids integrated with motion sensors and voice recognition.
Artificial Intelligence track prize was awarded to Finland based Claned, which is a collaborative learning platform that teaches the learner a through personal learning process and Tactopus from India was the winner of Literacy track. They have built technology that communicates learning content to the blind through touch.
The Awards were judged by professionals from startup ecosystems around the world including Jimmy Wales, President of Wiki Media Inc and Gila Ben-Har, CEO at CET.
