Vidcode

Not every kid can go to an inspiring, well-funded computer science undergrad or graduate program. Vidcode gives all K-12 students access to a programming education environment much like you find today in places like MIT media lab or NYU ITP - for a fraction of the cost. We’ve created an IDE environment that allows teens to learn JavaScript through graphic programming on the browser quickly and easily. 

Why does it matter to have an IDE environment where photos and videos are easily incorporated into a project? The research behind media computation covers this. Having your own media as your coding canvas is helpful for diverse newcomers to continue in the field and, in turn, become proficient programmers. 

A critical second step is leveraging a classroom in a box business model to deliver curriculum and training to schools in a lightweight, low cost yet high support manner.

The problem we are addressing is filling the 1M infilled CS jobs in 2025 with a broad, diverse and evenly represented talent pool. 

VidCode specifically aims to increase the pipeline of diverse teens coding from middle until the end of high school - a critical period of engagement for building your stem identity and roots. 

Each year, roughly 10 million students across the US go from middle to high school. Today roughly 10% of these students will go onto take a meaningful computer science course in HS.

Vidcode is closing that gap - by offering a highly in-depth creative built with diversity in mind computer science course for MS and HS  that’s easy for non-CS teachers to leverage. 

Contributing factors to this problem are:

1) lack of coding platforms that relate to the every day modern teen

2) coding curriculums that lack a business model where schools can invest in their coding programs a low cost. we believe it’s important for coding to be funded, for resources to be low cost and that teachers have a choice of what they use to ensure success for students - especially those who need the inspiration they may not be getting at home. 

We are serving any one who is interested in coding, but has yet to find their passion for computer science.

We want to offer media computation learning opportunities to 30 million students in upper elementary, middle and high school in the next 5 years.

We have a research grant from IES SBIR that allows us to test our curriculum via intensive pilot studies with diverse teachers and students across the US. 

Additionally, we offer paid internships to high school students in NYC to contribute to our courses. Also, on a monthly basis we user test with teachers and students.

Vidcode is an online platform that is used in schools and districts to teach computer science through media computation. Through Vidcode, teachers have access to 120+ hours of curriculum which they use as a dedicated computer science curriculum or as individual coding activities to support their existing curriculum. Students use code to produce creative projects by following Vidcode’s online tutorials, and submit projects to teachers. Vidcode has been developed to be as engaging a learning tool to girls as it is to boys, through qualitative conversations with girls in grades 4 through 12. Based on their feedback, Vidcode’s projects allow students to use their creativity and tie coding to their existing interests. Vidcode is built on a “freemium” model, where a limited amount of curriculum is available free of charge, and schools can pay to upgrade their accounts for full access to curriculum and teacher implementation tools. 

Our solution is innovative because it delivers a K-12 Media Computation experience to all. 

From a tech perspective, what's unique about Vidcode is we've built a IDE environment, centered around a video engine. We've made it easy for teens to upload multimedia and code it right away. 

This technology exists for students/teachers who can leverage amazing open source libraries like Processing, but most K-12 teachers either aren't aware of that community or lack the background knowledge to want to pursue it on their own.

Our business model allows for marketing directly to schools where administrators can pay us to support teachers in implementing computer science education.

Demand for an increasing pool of talent to fill jobs in the computer science field is clear, and Vidcode is working to meet it. Within the broader discipline of Computer Science, Vidcode focuses on computer programming. Our user-friendly graphical interface is as equally well suited for children as young as 10 years old learning to code for the first time as it is for seniors in high school with advanced CS skills. 

Current barriers for schools in achieving proximal and distal outcomes: Barriers exist for many students when it comes to learning computer science. These barriers include lack of access in school and lack of exposure in regards to the ways in which computer science is relevant to their interests and lives. 

Students do not see the connections between computer science and their future academic and professional careers. In the Vidcode curriculum, students are introduced to coding by creating a customized video filter, similar to what they use to customize their photos on their phones. This is the foundation for more complex programming, such as interactive apps and data visualizations. The perceived relevance of the material may lead students to devote more time to studying CS, which in turn may lead to improved test scores and more students studying and choosing careers related to CS (Bruckman & Yardi, 2007). 

• 1. the current number of people you’re serving

• 9 million

• 2. the number you’ll be serving in one year

• 15 million

• 3. the number you’ll be serving in five years

• 30 million

In the next 5 years I want every school, parent and library to have Vidcode available for their students. I want our linear K-12 pathway to be coupled with hundreds of one-off, DIY, projects that students can make inspired by projects created by other students their age. 

I want Vidcode to be the 'Kid Pix' of coding. 

A multimedia coding tool you find for free in the library when you are in 3rd grade, then in middle school you have the opportunity for a full semester media computation class (before high school so you can develop your passion with code before all the AP/HS pressure), and that then in high school you can continue to develop your portfolio building human-computer interaction, interactive art installations and interactive web experiences with Vidcode so you can apply to a job or college with ease, plus highly individual projects that represent who you are.

Funding, all around - near and far. Here's the Vidcode take on it:

A funding barrier for both Vidcode and schools to thrive is (strangely) large, free, highly funded tools by large corporations like google, facebook and microsoft. When schools have no funding, these corporations swoop in to fix the problem - which is great; but, also, these corporations have a different bottom line. Trust is created with schools when they know a company has their back.

Being an all female founding, executive and engineering team - in our hearts we want to succeed so others who have a non-traditional background in technology will follow in our path. 

Luckily we've already won more than half of the funding battles - Vidcode is a cash flow positive, social impact corporation. We've done it all - bootstrapped, successful kickstarter, angel investors, seed round and being awarded the IES SBIR Phase II grant.

What's next? We've been learning about selling directly to schools with great initial success. For our growth plan, Vidcode needs:

1) To branch out of JavaScript and pull in other curriculums and resources to increase our value to schools over time and to compete in the market.

2) An experienced designer and marketer on our team. We've never had either! 

3) Funding to expand our 1.5 sales people to 3 full time, well paid, employees 

With the above three components - we can reach our goal to achieve $1M ARR which will open up more funding opportunities for us - a critical step in expanding to over 30 million learners.

In the US, Vidcode is implemented in over 500 paying schools and 3,000 free schools.

Vidcode is partnered with a learning center Z-Kai based in Japan and also in Boston, MA.

In Canada, Vidcode is implemented in libraries in the Toronto area.

In New Zealand, Vidcode is the computer science course for students at the secondary Poly institutes. 

In Australia, Vidcode is purchased by secondary schools for their media and technology coursework.

France, Germany, and Netherlands. 

Vidcode plans to expand in the above countries via our parent sales model (which we are piloting this year).

Check out our Parent's Choice 2020 Award https://www.parentschoice.org/product/vidcode/. Emily Crawford, an engineering parent, evaluated our product. She loved it; a similar reaction to what we're getting from our A/B parent tests at Vidcode - especially with parent's with a design or engineering background. Therefore, in european countries we are not already in, we will be targeting the parents first. Market trends have shown us that parents are huge drivers in computer science EDU in schools. Therefore, we plan to also sell into the schools as a secondary approach for France, Germany and Netherlands. Vidcode has an API to be easily translated by volunteers.

5 full time

5 contractors

Our founding team has over a decade of experience in education, art and computer science. Add to that how much we have learned in the last 5 years in terms of selling computer science software to schools, scaling a small team and launching our product:

-Vidcode is 100% women for executive and engineering roles
-Vidcode awarded the 2020 Parent's Choice Award for Best Website
-Vidcode voted #1 standards-aligned curriculum in the world (against top coding for-profits including CodeMao, the biggest coding platform in Chinese schools) 
-Vidcode leveraged across hundreds of libraries nationwide (PDF brochure/case study attached below)

Impact stats:
-1,000+ new coding teachers trained 

-10 million learners impacted
-Population served over 65% girls/women
-40% free and reduced lunch

BrainPOP - 4 years

They white label and license our creative coding curriculum for upper elementary

GSUSA - 2 years

We co-developed the 6th through 12th grade social impact coding badges with GSUSA which launched fall 2019

Young Women's Leadership Network - 2 years

In Texas, we are partnered with YWLN to deliver computer science courses to 8 all girl public schools

SAAS

$300/year for one educator, unlimited students 

$2,900 a year for one site license for a school, library, small district or small region

With the educator or site license - teachers receive coaching, support and coding courses for unlimited students year round.

Currently we have a sustainable revenue model that sustains our small team but we want to grow! We received the IES SBIR Phase II grant in July 2019. Seed round in 2017 of 1.25 million. We might raise a series A in spring 2021 (this grant would help us get there!).

We've always struggled with employee workflows at Vidcode. Being a small team, we can't offer the typical structure an employee might encounter at a larger company. We have much to learn about this in terms of creating internal workflows that work for all.

Additionally, we suffer from not always being able to give our customers on calls or our web users a great experience every time. As we scale, I think our inclusive coaching calls and personal service experience for teachers/schools will set us apart if we can get it right at a small scale now.

Adobe

Unity

ServiceNow

Music licenses (vevo, youtube)