Kimple

We seek to reduce the growing gap that exists between the skills currently developed at schools and the ones that are needed at labour. Content and active methodologies are key to transform curricula to innovate in classrooms.

Kimple provides schools with (1) new content, (2) active methodologies and (3) teacher guidance under a project-based approach to align students learning paths with challenges of their time.

To achieve impact, we offer contemporary, real, challenging and cross-functional content focused on three main areas: computational thinking, entrepreneurship and global citizenship.

We teach our content through multiple methodologies focused on developing teachers and students' capabalities and skills. 

Our platform is teacher orientated: we support teachers to learn new methodologies and improve their skills, at the same time they develop students's knowledge and talent.

Kimple is the vehicle for Latin America and the Caribbean schools to implement educational transformation with an affordable and scalable scheme.

The dimension of the market need for this project responds to the sum of the low and medium income class school markets in Latin America and the Caribbean, that is equivalent to, at least, the 90% of the total market (around 215.000 schools and 130.000.000 students in Spain & LATAM). 

Best methodologies and new content are usually kept to high-income private schools and regions, that can afford training teachers and getting (and producing themselves)  leading content. 

Underlying the skills gap are significant macro-level issues that impede learning. These factors include fundamental economic and social problems, such as poverty, conflict, poor health and gender discrimination. 

Currently, content is developed by traditional publishers, IT developers (following traditional rules) and sometimes governments. In all cases, they tend to solve current problems and produce paper books or online platforms based on traditional curriculum. Also digital content is cheaper and traditional publishers resist to transform. 

As a result, there is a growing international gap between skills needed to develop and  succeed in this XXIst Century and the oned taught at schools, affecting specially to developing Countries, such as LATAM case.

Kimple is is the answer to this paradox.

Kimple is the result of 5 years working in Latin America. Visiting schools and working closely with teachers. Half of the time with a traditional publisher and the other half with governments. In this time, while implementing diverse educational projects, we visited more than 1.000 public and chartered/ semi-granted schools across Latam, and shared directors and teachers concerns about education.  

Throughout this journey we have come to understand that schools mainly receive traditional curricular content and that to address the skills and new content challenge, teachers are forced to develop their own materials, with a clear lack of time, salary, training and tools to do so.

Our conclusion is that there is real need of new content that can help develop new skills both in teachers and students. 

During our development phase, Kimple has been co-created and tested with several directors and teachers and positively evaluated by the former Argentina government. 

Our platform is the answer for new curriculum demands where teachers don’t usually have the skills to do. Combining online training with lesson plans for teachers, Kimple is the tool that can lead change in XXIst Century schools.    

Kimple is  an innovative educational marketplace with classroom dynamics for teachers, created by experts and authors around the world, focused on emerging knowledge and the necessary skills for students to learn how to get along and how to change the world we live in. 

In order to achieve a significant change both in education and society, it is important to explore contemporary, real and cross functional matters in  classroom. We provide teachers and schools with a platform under a one-year access license where they will find lesson plans based on the following emerging topics:

• Computational thinking (21st century reasoning): Building students mindset to understand and apply computer concepts to solve problems in their environments.

• Global citizenship (reality around us): Teaching on current situations and problems: the environment, coexistence and respect, equality, sustainability, social and digital security, among others.

• Entrepreneurial spirit (attitude towards life): Developing entrepreneurial and social skills such as perseverance, motivation, communication and creativity.

We seek to reduce the growing gap that exists between the skills that are currently developed at schools and the ones that are needed at labour. All the resources at Kimple provide offline dynamics that foster learning by projects and developing skills and abilities such as Problem-solving, flexibility, critical Thinking, initiative, perseverance, creativity, resilience and others.

Content is hunted and curated worldwide by pedagogical experts and co-designed with International renowned authors. We reach out to specialists, foundations, social activists, creatives, teachers, and renowned authors in different areas of education to build our content proposal to fit for purpose. This content network makes Kimple agile and cost-efficient. It also adds a global approach since we select the best content proposals regardless of the authors' country.

Teachers can access content with a year-round campus license and they can select dynamics for their classes as well as build their own educational paths according to the needs of their students, by creating individual and collaborative folders that share with their students.

90 % of our dynamics are designed for an offline classroom implementation, since we promote experiential learning and we make it available to rural  and low-digital areas.

The platform has been designed together with product thinkers, teachers and educational leaders following the design thinking process and developed with the global programming language .net. and Vue, following international and cross industry UX best practices. The result is a very user-friendly platform that responds to schools and teachers idiosyncrasy. 

”The education system is obsolete and forces companies around the world to spend US $ 200 billions per year in training. ...and so we find ourselves asking the question: what should students learn for the 21st century?” 

- Charles Fadel - Founder and CEO of the Centre of Curriculum Redesign Harvard University-

We offer a unique solution focused on providing emerging content to develop skills at schools. We provide new content with an innovative approach accessible for all types of teachers.  

1. Focus on emerging trends: To achieve a significant change (impact) we suggest exploring actual, real and cross functional cases in classrooms, guiding teachers through the implementation of new projects and visions 

2. Global knowledge and new players into schools: We transfer knowledge among schools and countries. International specialists, foundations, social activists, teachers, referents and authors with leading projects, distribute their courses throughout our platform.

3. Scalable: Our digital platform allows multicultural, leading and diverse educational projects to reach schools across the globe with limited investment, under a revenue sharing scheme. 

4. Teacher centric B2B2C: teachers will also learn how to innovate in classroom. Modular and adaptative, a solution for all types of schools that are looking for catching up with the real world and to support their teachers with ongoing training and skills development.

5. Faster and innovative: Our marketplace model facilitates the entry of new content into schools in a faster manner as well as give us the detection of new trends and needs.

Kimple`s mission statement is to transform education, empowering teachers and schools to train future generations in critical skills and content for social and professional success.

We can summarize the following activities to reach that mission: 

1. Distribute lesson plans based on emerging topics, with the objective of bringing student’s school career closer to the challenges of their time. In our empathize phase, we discussed with teachers about their challenges and many addressed on how to face the generational and interest gap. It takes an author 12 hours to develop one hour/ hour and a half classroom dynamic crossing emerging and traditional contents to work on projects. Teachers, besides the specific tools, do not have the time to do so.

2. Encourage active methodologies, with the objective of developing skills in students and teachers, that allow them to transform the present and plan the future. Teachers are aware  of the need to adapt the teaching and learning methods to develop their students’ skills, but lack of tools, time and sometimes knowledge to do so. To implement new methodologies that can help them to to attract and maintain the attention of students and to teach long-term capabilities and attitudes that they haven't still learned...

3. Guide and train teachers, to develop their teaching skills. In our interviews, teachers showed anxiety to the fact of being left-apart of the transformational process taking place in schools. They shared with us their worries on how could they  guide and accompany their students adding value to their learning paths.

We are currently providing our platform and content to 5.000 students and 250 teachers in Argentina and 2.000 students and 40 teachers in Spain. The number of teachers that use the platform increases every month, as schools are adding new users to their platform according to their needs and advance.   

One year from now we expect to reach 30.000 students and 1.000 teachers in private markets in Spain, Argentina, Perú and Uruguay. 

 We are working with Governments to reach public schools. There is a global trend of curricula redesign to include emerging knowledge with a project-based approach, where we offer a unique solution for. Digital-based solutions will grow. In that case, numbers will grow exponentially. 

As for 5 years, we expect to reach 500.000 students at least in several countries in Latin America and Spain.

Since we are a marketplace, on the supply side, we expect to be the tool to reach schools for many authors and experts that otherwise could hardly get their content to teachers and learners. We point to be the supplier of hundreds of courses and learning paths from dozens of experts from around the world. 

Nowadays we distribute content from 8 different authors from 5 different countries. We expect to end 2020 with 20 suppliers and, in five years, we hope expect to be distributing content from hundreds of them.

Our goal for this year is to keep ongoing, focused on doing what we are doing: reaching schools, teachers and students and help them to achieve educational transformation. To keep supplying content solutions close to our students’ challenges: sustainability, diversity, sexual education and equality, philosophy, logic and problem solving, coding, creativity, oracy and social and financial literacy at this stage.

Our goal to 5 years is to be the solution for the educational transformation for schools and teachers in Latin America, without geographical, social or economic discrimination.

We want to change students’ lives by approaching them essential knowledge and new skills to be prepared for the future. And we believe teachers are key for success.

For this purpose, we want to become the bridge between experts and classrooms to serve teachers and students. We aim to be the supplier of innovative solutions, new content and methodologies to students around the world, democratizing the access to content among schools and improving quality and fit between classrooms and real world.   

We are a platform that supplies these new methodologies and content to help school transformation and answer what students ask for today. Kimple aims to be an affordable solution for public and low-income systems to deliver premium  and international content with new methodologies to their students.

Since Kimple is a B2B2C platform, we create the ideal ecosystem for teachers, directors and students at the same time, giving each party what they need.

We have a solid technical MVP and international distribution contracts with our content suppliers. On the demand side, we have the knowledge of the school needs and idiosyncrasy. Our product is ready to be implemented.

On the other side, we lack resources and international alliances to get the speed we need to reach our goals.

In this first year of commercial activity, our highest barrier is to gain velocity and visibility in our target markets for 2020: Argentina, Uruguay and Spain. Covid-19 has also irrupted altering schools’ calendars and capacity to attend any additional or innovative project right now. In addition to that, we expect western economies will have a huge negative impact. 

We can conclude that in 2020 we need to gain visibility and accommodate to new schools’ calendars and needs after COVID-19 crisis in order to meet our commercial goals. These barriers have direct impact in our fund rising process. 

In the next 5 years, we face technical and financial challenges as far as we expect to grow in private and public segments and needs will differ. In addition, combine growth in our current markets and open new ones will also be a challenge, but not a barrier.

Along this year we need to raise funds by different ways (private/ public/ awards), while we keep focused on our commercial activity in the countries we are currently working on, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain.  

We will also be working on international alliances and certifications that will help us to improve our content and metric solutions, while giving us knowledge, international validation and visibility.

We will need to:

1. Raise our visibility to speed up sales and, therefore, be able to grow our commercial and pedagogical teams. For this purpose, we will work on a huge communication campaign together with our clients under a member-gets-member model.

2. Create our own IT development team, so we’ll need to raise funds since it’s key for Kimple.

3. Develop our business in new countries in Latin America with local alliances, that will help us to have local knowledge and higher impact.

4. Improve our data and statistics through big data analysis with Universities to look for trends.

5. Increase our content to lower/ primary levels.  

 We are conducting different conversations and financial rounds with different investors. Since we are a niche B2B project, we need to target the right investor. 

Getting your support would be a great validation and a shield to support us with schools and investors, as well as in the future.  

We are currently implementing our solution in 10 schools in Buenos Aires, recently started in Feb 2020 with a kick-off teacher and coordinators training in active methodologies, and still working on our commercial activity with the aim to sum from 2 to 5 new schools in these weeks.

90% of our team is currently based in Buenos Aires, as well as our tech partner, Wolox.

We have participated in several educational congresses and events in Argentina during 2019 and 2020, creating alliances with some relevant institutions such as ESSARP and Polo Educativo Pilar. 

Besides, we are closely working with some local governments and third parties in Argentina to be part of a national educational solution to fight Covid-19 challenges for schools.

In Uruguay, we have participated in a public tender from Plan Ceibal for emerging knowledges and we are waiting for the closure and results, expecting to win  and collaborate with them in their educational programs.

In Perú, we are in fluent conversations with an important private school group, where Kimple can collaborate for their teacher training and classroom content strategy. These are long negotiations, but a clear validation of our solution in a new market and, if we succeed with them, will be a solid and successful enter in the country. 

We are a small and efficient team, composed by 2 full-time people, CEO and Content and pedagogical director, 3 part-time, Content hunter, Tech TM and commercial assistant, and several collaborators: Social media and communication agency, developers, designers, editors, correctors and translators, that are hired per project.

• Pina de Paz, CEO. Full time.

• Victoria Amerio, Content and pedagogical director. Full time 

• Belén Pozzi, Content Hunter. Part time.

• Melisa Rossi, Tech TM. Part time

• Miriam Subiotto, commercial assistant. Hired per project.

• Runrun. Outsourced social media and communication agency

• Developers, designers, editors, correctors and translators: freelancers per project.

Kimple is the result of adding up a leading pedagogical and management team with a lot of experience in developing and implementing educational proposals for schools and a technology company specialized in digital disruption.

We believe that this combination is key to success and this partnership has generated  synergies that combine high-quality educational knowledge and disruptive methologies from leading practices.

As for our team:

• Pina de Paz: More than 10 years of experience in the design and implementation of educational solutions, both in private and public sectors. She has led the digital strategy and sales team for an International publishing company and advised public administrations in Latin America in educational projects. A resilient leader.

• Victoria Amerio: Psychologist, teacher, teacher trainer and more than 20 years of experience in educational content development. Senior pedagogical advisory for a school publishing company for many years. A consistent and team-worker pedagogue.

• Belén Pozzi: A centennial, native sustainable, close to the challenges of our young people. She has experience in editing, translating and communication, with a global and sustainable vision passionate with generating impact in societies. A young potential achiever.

• Melisa Rossi: Experienced developer and Team Maganer, Ted-Ex Rio de la Plata speaker, passionate with Kimple and with the global impact of technology and teaching. A business oriented IT leader.

•  Advisors and mentors:

  • A. Fainguerst: MIT innovator under 35. CEO at Wolox.

  •  A. García: International publishing director.

We are currently partnering with:

• Wolox, as product developer. They are part of the board at Kimple.

• NGOs with educational proposals that are generating local impact. We have distribution alliances with:

  • FAD, Spanish NGO for young addiction prevention.

  •  World`s Largest Lesson: UN NGO for GSD education and visibility.

  • Discrimination: An English NGO with educational workshops against discrimination.

  • Eco-House. NGO for sustainability.

•  Authors and small businesses. We have distribution alliances with:

  • YPD: American educational company specialized in talent young development.

  • Inspiring FC: Political advisors and young mentors for communication and debate

  • Wolox: co-design and co-creation of our Computational Thinking fist phase content.

  • Mentes Inquietas: Small Spanish business specialized in philosophy workshops for teens, to develop their critical thinking skills.

  • Silvia Hurrell: renewed specialist and author for sex and affective education.

  • Educo: Small Argentinian business specialized in emotional education.

• School groups: Our implementation contact with school groups are three-year agreements that include, beside the platform and content implementation, investigation and collaboration.

Besides, we have the following partnerships in process:

• B-Corp. Besides getting the B copr seal, we are in conversations with them to co-create an SGD certificate for schools.

• Public administrations in Argentina and Uruguay.

We are a B2B2C educational content platform for schools with an annual license. 

Our main user are teachers and our clients are the following:

• Private schools.

• Private school groups: confessional and a-confessional.

• Public schools (Public Administrations and Districts).

• Foundations and schools in vulnerable areas. We promote educational equality through our scholarship program for disadvantaged communities.

 Kimple’s content is delivered digitally and includes all the information needed for teachers to implement the proposed dynamics for classrooms. It is delivered with specific teacher training based on the content as well as the methodologies suggested.

This model helps schools to implement active methodologies and develop their student’s skills while developing their teachers’ career. An innovative, inclusive and scalable project that helps schools and teachers to face the educational transformation.

This makes us unique in the market, given our focus in teachers development and support and our pedagogical proposals, innovative, practical and applicable.

Once implemented, we give metrics and KPIs to schools and teachers to measure teaching trends as well as students improvement focused on: skill development, methodologies applied, resources rating, among others.

Since we are a marketplace, on the supply side we look for innovative suppliers worldwide, select genuine content and distribute best educational proposals under a revenue sharing model.

Since we are social entrepreneurs, we expect to grow or scholarships to at least 25% of our future customers.

We are also a win-win StartUp project looking for a fair revenue sharing model:

Kimple is halfway to be a sustainable project. That said, we need extra funds in the short-term to help us grow faster and create the impact we are looking for. We are combining several actions to pursue this impact:

• Continue with our commercial activity in schools in Spain, Argentina, Uruguay and Perú. 

• Keep closely working with governments and third parties in Spain, Argentina and Uruguay to participate in public tenders. We have applied to a public tender in Plan Ceibal in Uruguay and we are waiting for the result. Winning this tender would be an interesting reference for the region.

• Focus on school groups with specific and clear needs, that can help us generate revenues and local/ international reputation.

• Participate in international awards, such as TPrize, a great support in our prestige as well as financial aid. 

• Fundraising with investors. Preferably, look for investors that can help Kimple with funds as well as notoriety. 

Kimple’s spirit is to gather as many agents as possible working for educational transformation in an efficient, scalable and accessible manner. We truly believe in building valuable alliances and partnerships with a common grown to generate wider and long-term impact in our communities. We do need to join forces, ideas, proposals and generate long-term synergies to succeed in the reinforcement of learning systems and empowerment of teachers globally.

This is the main reason why we apply to the TPrize Challenge, to learn from others, grow with others, and help each-other in this educational challenge.

Our solution is perfectly aligned with the TPrize Challenge of closing the existing gap in skills needed for labor and to promote lifelong learning opportunities in the Latin American and Caribbean region, and we expect to:

• Gain international validation and visibility, that will help us to earn trust and access to more schools and teachers worldwide, partners and Governments.

• Connect to investors. Given the complexity of the educational system, niche B2B startups like us, need to get access to a very specific investment network.

• Connect with others, learn from them and collaborate to generate synergies.

• Learn from your experts.

• Get access to new alliances to underpin Kimple in the region, boosting our growth.

• Having the possibility of partnership with you, in terms of research and, hopefully, develop a seal/ certification for schools.

• Earn the grant, that will be an important help during this critical year for the project.

• To grow and succeed!

As mentioned before, Kimple`s spirit is to join forces and vissions. 

Taking this into account, we expect to partner with different organizations. 

• We would like to reinforce and protocolize our research area, for what we expect to parter with Universities and researchers. Tec de Monterrey would be an excellent fit for this purpose. 
• As for our content, we are willing to get international certifications for teachers and schools. These certifications can apply to different areas: 
  • SDG teaching and projects, for what we are seeking to parter B-Corp.
  • Any other in the future that we understand can add value to the project: social entrepreneurship; social technology, etc.
• Local references to enter new markets. 
• UNESCO for SDG reinforcement.
• Any key partners Kimple may need in the future to succeed.