Concept born out of Facebook hackathon set to go national.
Lee Sherwood and Martin Saunders of Zammer
A concept which won the £5,000 prize at Facebook’s prestigious ‘increasing the impact of technology in education’ hackathon is being developed at the Innovation Birmingham Campus and undergoing testing with local schools. The founders behind the competitive revision quiz game – called Zammer – are currently in talks with investors to fund further development and an international roll-out.
Zammer is a revision aid that is designed to be played with classmates and friends to leverage social connections and competition, in order to engage learners. It is being developed as cloud-based web application and smartphone app. The content is being created by teachers to be specific to a syllabus, exam or textbook. School platform licenses will allow learners to be grouped, classwork and homework to be set, and progress to be tracked.
Holyhead Business and Enterprise Academy in Handsworth and King Edward VI ,Aston are amongst five schools to participate in the first phase of testing and development, which will enable students and teachers to influence the development of Zammer. Predicted grades will be monitored and track throughout the trial to ascertain effectiveness.
Martin Saunders, CEO of Zammer Ltd said: “It’s early days and the first testing phase in schools is just commencing, but we believe we’ve hit on a product that could disrupt the market and take advantage of the explosive growth in mobile ed-tech.
“We have plans to develop Zammer revision modules for pre-school children, through to Key Stage 12 and Further Education courses, but even with the core target market of GCSE students, the potential market is vast. At the point of public launch next spring we hope to run as a free product for schools, with a minimal cost per Zammer module for individuals. It will be pitched as an affordable revision tool that could make all the difference to student grades.”
Zammer Ltd is based at Innovation Birmingham’s Entrepreneurs for the Future (e4f) business incubation centre. The centre provides bespoke mentoring and business planning to achieve investor readiness, as well as free telephone usage, 2Gbit/s broadband and office space for six months. Part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, e4f is unique to Birmingham and is specifically designed to harness and support the city’s burgeoning tech community.
To be enrolled into Innovation Birmingham’s Entrepreneurs for the Future centre, entrepreneurs must apply online. For more information on how to apply, please visit www.e4f.co.uk
