Play Math with Zoombers!

We believe education is the key for people to access a better life and opportunities and some of the skills of it are math, reasoning, and problem-solving capabilities. But people in LATAM, and other countries usually see math as their worst enemy, as something hard and unrelated to them, usually learned by mechanizing instead of reasoning.

We are here to change that perception, with our artificial intelligence recommendations engine that identifies each student needs, we are giving a personalized experience to elementary school math students through educational mini games that can help to reason and understand math, while they are having fun! Also, we are empowering teachers and families with easy to use tools and meaningful progress information to get a better learning and teaching experience.

Everything is on English and Spanish, and we are already working in Mexico, and are making pilot tests in Bolivia, Venezuela, and Colombia.

There is no question around the LATAM’s countries big educational gap compared with others on the OECD; all LATAM countries appear below the average and that gap has persisted over time (https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-Mexico.pdf and https://www.oecd.org/pisa/Combined_Executive_Summaries_PISA_2018.pdf). This problem is affecting a big amount of the population, since in each country there is a huge number of low performing students. This is affecting not only the life and opportunities of those people, but also the capacity to improve quality of life over the whole society.

We are focusing on resolving that educational gap over Math related topics, allowing students to understand and even begin enjoying them by using educational mini games as an alternative or complementary learning model that allows personalization. Math becoming fun changes the perspective and even many of the decisions made along people's lives; since currently, many students select a career or labor where Math is not involved due to fear. But mostly all kinds of jobs will involve some degree of Math, and the reasoning skills that are developed when they are understood, are usable in many aspects of life. Being able to understand Math opens a world of opportunities and frees students over their career decisions.

We are working for elementary school students and their teachers to help them improve the learning and teaching experience, by allowing them to have an alternative model that allows students to have fun, and at the same time, teachers to identify their student’s needs, as well as simplify their work.

We started working with schools a long time ago, hearing from the teachers their needs in order to create a first approach and later, improving the platform and games depending on their feedback. This dynamic has allowed us to attend their requirements of educational content that motivates their students, their necessity of getting learning evidence to report, as well as to identify specific student needs, and mostly, their need of easy to use and understandable tools that actually saves them time, instead of consuming it.

On the other hand we have made a deep analysis over educational content that elementary school students should domain; and many workshops with students applying the games, to help us to identify how they react, understand their current knowledge or learning problems, as well as how they get most engaged, and motivated.

We have three main tools that merge into the same product called Zoombers to give teachers and students a personalized and fun learning experience. The tools are, our mini games, the teachers and parents portal, and our artificial intelligence engine.

We currently have 256 mini games (and continuously adding more) that cover the complete elementary school Math curriculum. They are usable by downloading the app of Zoombers on mobile devices, or by using them in any computer through a web browser. These mini games offer attractive interaction including cooperation and competition as well as character personalization, magical items and powers. Games are focused on motivating students to learn while they are having fun, and create a playful experience for them.

The web portal for teachers and parents, allows them to control the contents the students will be using, monitor their progress in real time, identify the needs of each student and personalize their assignments, and also reward or help students by giving them power ups. Mostly, the focus of the web portal is to ease the jobs of teachers and save them time, as well as keep them informed along with the parents.

The artificial intelligence engine analyses each student's performance in order to identify their skills, and start making recommendations over which games they need to play to improve, or are ready to learn.

These tools are used over the classroom, or in each student’s home, and allow the integration and interaction of parents, teachers and students through an easy to use platform and gives a fun experience that actually helps students to learn Math.

We are facing a huge need to update the current learning models, as well as the teaching methods, starting to get into a much more personalized approach as well as a great need to adapt to a fast changing technological world that cannot be denied or avoided. Students currently have access to lots of information, and teachers need to become guides during their learning journey. Zoombers is born from this two great needs, by joining them over a new approach. By motivating students with educational Math games, we are able to personalize their learning as well as get them near technological tools that can actually help them learn.

It is true, there are other technological tools that seek to teach students Math or other contents, but are usually boring dynamics that do not engage students, are not able to identify student needs or are hard to use by teachers. Zoombers on the other side, is joining all three characteristics (playful environment that has proven to motivate students, tools that are useful and easy for teachers, and the capacity to identify students' needs). This combination becomes an important innovation that has proven to give actual results in schools.

Current situation over the coronavirus worldwide is also showing the great need for remote tools and technological ways to continue learning. Zoombers is helping teachers and students with this approach.

We are taking action over giving students a fun experience through educational Math mini games that allow them to learn in a safe environment that allows them to try all the times they need in order to succeed as well as receive recommendations and content that will help them improve. This in a short term effect will change their perspective over Math as being hard, boring, or even having fear of them; to an experience where they can feel happy, comfortable and even enjoy learning them. Into a mid term effect, knowing that Math can be understood, and are needed in mostly any possible job, will free them over the selection of their career, not fearing that they will face them some time, and allowing them to actually pursue their dream jobs. Up to a long term effect that will allow people to have better life choices, allowing them to get a better life quality. Also, in this long term effect, people without fear for Math, means more people able to select STEM related careers; which are needed for technology and innovation advancement.

• (https://www.mathgoodies.com/articles/math_anxiety) 

• (https://www.niu.edu/mathmatters/careers-jobs/index.shtml) 

(As an additional testimonial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sGeGQwEUvE&t=2s)

We currently have around 10,500 students registered. From which 8,000 were registered by their parents on our mini games. And 2,500 students were registered through schools and are using regularly on their activities.

Next year we pretend (and are working hard over getting) to at least 10,000 school students, and pretend to have at least 20,000 students registered by their own parents.

Over five years we pretend to be operating on most LATAM countries, and other regions over the world (since we also have some advisors over Europe). In numbers, we pretend to have at least 50,000 school students, and 100,000 students registred by their own parents. (We believe we can get much more students, but our base level goals are those numbers)

We are driven by a desire to improve the learning experience of students and teachers, to help them get a better life quality and opportunities. We like to think globally and further than the company, we want to create a community that can share our goals; since we think that together, joining forces with people and knowledge from different places, we can have a world changing effect. But in more concrete objectives we can define the next ones:

Next year:

• Have at least 400 mini games to have different approaches for different student needs

• Get an improved version of our artificial intelligence engine to make even more precise recommendations

• Get the competition and collaboration games into tournament dynamics to get students even more engaged

• Positively impact at least 10,000 school students 

Five years:

• Have Math contents up to High school

• Include other topics 

• Get to at least 50,000 school students

• Be able to access low income and public schools (even on the ones with infrastructure problems)

• Have such a community that can share their learning and teaching experiences to help others. To do this we like to create bonds and alliances with other organizations, projects and leaders.

Next year:

• Financial problems, although we already are making sales, we do not have enough money to operate the whole year. School buying cycles affect us directly, since our product is normally bought at the beginning of the cycle.

• Parent’s version still needs maturity over the process to make parents buy the product. This can become an opportunity to make sales outside the school cycle, but we have to find the right formula to get parents buying.

• Coronavirus has limited our capacity to visit schools, get information about their decision makers and make live presentations. This is not completely a barrier, but certainly is a change over the approach we have to take to get into schools.

Five years

• Culturally, we are still facing many people that resist change and are opposed to using technology and other tools. This is changing faster every time, but will be a barrier over some places.

• Technically, there are still many regions on LATAM that have poor infrastructure and do not have access to the internet.

• Economically, the world wide crisis to come after the virus will affect the payment capacity of any people.

Next year:

• Financial problems - Create new payment models that allow teachers to buy the product even outside the normal school cycle. At the same time, search for other funding options. Finally, have a financial plan that identifies key needs to make the most efficient budget.

• Keep on improving this version and analysing the parents' response. Also getting more metrics over the app and during the experience of parents and students to identify and understand in a deeper way their usage and best moments to make the subscription invitation.

• Find new ways to approach schools, taking advantage of social media, and online resources.

Five years:

• We are seeking to create a technological culture, not by replacing physical tools and books, but as a tool that helps to complement learning and also as something that needs to be used in life. We make workshops to help teachers get more related with technology, and guide them on the process of using our platform to reduce their barriers. Also this last weeks are making even the teachers that most denied the use of technology reconsider their position; and we are there to help them do it in an easy and friendly way.

• Prepare our contents to run on low capacity computers and be able to be used completely offline

• Although investment over education technology will increase after everything that has happened, we still need to give people an affordable and attractive plan so they will be able to pay it.

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There is a huge opportunity on LATAM and Caribbean, since there are many relations over the problems and approaches we have found in Mexico. That being said, our plan, and actions that we are already taking to get there are: 

Analysis and relation over educational content expected on different countries of LATAM and our current contents to complete anything missing and prepare country based versions. (Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador and some of the countries we have been researching)

Pilot test already running on Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela, to better understand their needs and what do we need to adjust in order for them to adopt it.

Analysis over the market on those LATAM countries, including possible competitors, relation over normal income and our tool costs, school cycle, and school needs.

Digital marketing campaigns that are including such countries.

Basically, when we are able to understand each country through some of their schools, we will be able to start promoting more seriously.

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• 9 people on full time basis, from which 6 are founders and 3 employees 

• 1 person as a contractor on a half time basis focused over communication

• 2 mentors one for business and one over technical side and AI

As a team we cover the different areas like design, marketing, games and server side development, AI, curriculum content, sales and management. Along with us we have 3 pre seed investors and 2 mentors on Czech Republic with background on AI, and business development. But we also have met different people along the way that are becoming allies, or even advisors on different topics and places (for example an advisor on school sales in Mexico, but another from the Educational App Store in the UK). 

We have been working over the project for some time, so we have been learning, testing, and improving all the things we have done according to the people's feedback. After all that work we have been able to create a product that actually is helping people, and although there are many things we want to keep improving, we have seen that we are at the right time to start positioning it and scaling it.

Joining the knowledge from different places, and keeping up the hard work focused over the improvement and feedback of our users, we are at the right time and place to solve it.

We have worked with, and assisted some events with other organizations since two years ago. They are:

Epic Queen, that promotes STEM skills on girls (https://epicqueen.com/) 

Liks, that promotes learning through creation of things (https://www.liks.com.mx/)

But we have also working over collaborations with other organizations focused over teaching language, understanding and controlling emotions and administration tools for schools. (But this relations are not yet consolidated)

Two already working.:

One focused on schools with an annual licence for each student that is 14 USD or 28 USD depending on the functionality. Normally we have direct contact with the schools, giving them workshops and pilot tests.

The other is for parents, a monthly subscription that depends on the number of users (1 - 3 USD, 2 - 3.5 USD, 4 - 4.5 USD). We reach parent’s through a digital marketing campaign, and they are able to download the app and have a 14 days trial period.

On development:

We are also currently working on a solution that allows teachers to enter a self service scheme that will allow them to have the full experience without us having a direct contact.

And also over a micro payments scheme for parents that do not wish to take a full subscription.

Our goal is to have revenue through the selling of our product Zoombers into schools and directly to parents. We currently have already made some sales over the schools and are starting to get very small income from the parents side. These two revenue streams are still growing and have not been able to cover the whole expenses yet. Objective is to get to break even point during 2020, through school sales when the next academic year starts in Mexico (August). This means to get around 10,000 school students to get that break even point, and after that, we will be able to receive revenue.

Still, we do need a small bridge round, to cover this year expenses until August.

The cultural barriers and thoughts about the use of technology will be much easier solved when getting recognition from TPrize Challenge, since the project will get an external validation from a recognized institution. On the other hand, if it is possible to create relations between the participants, there could be many other potential allies that could help the project grow. Being specific about how TPrize will also be helpful, the main ones are the acceleration of the business and the connections with experts and mentorships that will come along, since we will need guidance and help during the process of scaling up through Latam.

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• Universities (like the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey or Universidad de los Andes), that can help us get deeper research over the AI modules, as well as papers around the effects of the use of Zoombers

• Organizations or companies owners or distributors of other educational tools, so we can offer our products as a bundle and help each other get into the markets

• Marketing experts that help us target better each region and market