){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
){kind=logo}
){kind=icon}
These startups were selected to represent Latin America at the global finals in London on January 20, 2022.
This article was first published on TecReview.
At the Latin American finals of the Global EdTech Startups Awards (GESAwards 2021), held during Tec de Monterrey’s International Conference on Educational Innovation (CIIE for its initials in Spanish), young entrepreneurs shared creative and innovative projects using technology to positively impact education and to close learning gaps.
More than 100 Latin American teams participated, revealing the interest in creating startups in the region, and the diversity of proposals to improve the educational ecosystem. Of the 10 finalists who made it to the ceremony, BRAVE UP! and Poliglota were selected to represent Latin America and compete with projects from five continents at the world finals, which will be held in London on January 20, 2022.
Innovation to improve education
“Personalities which break the mold and contribute to improving people’s lives are ideal for this contest, as it identifies them and provides them with visibility and recognition,” said Juan Pablo Murra, rector of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies at Tec de Monterrey, during the award ceremony.
“At the Institute for the Future of Education (IFE) we’re convinced that entrepreneurship is essential to generating innovative and disruptive solutions that we need in order to improve the lives of millions through education,” he added. Murra shared that it’s necessary to improve the scope, relevance, equity, and quality of education for the millions of people who live in Latin America, and that technology is a great ally in doing this.
The winning projects
The Global EdTech Startups Awards recognize the best startup projects proposing technological solutions to improve education. They have partners around the world, and the community includes more than 6,000 companies in more than 120 countries.
Amazon Web Services and IFE have formalized and launched a collaboration to promote educational innovation. At these awards, Amazon provided a promotional credit voucher for 1,000 dollars so that the winners could experiment with cloud technology. Here are the award-winning projects.
BRAVE UP!
This is a platform that promotes the safe and responsible use of technology through digital mentoring to give guidance on developing healthy relationships between students, and between students and teachers.
Álvaro Carrasco, the company’s founder, said that they realized the tool was much more powerful than previously thought, and that it could be useful in addressing and preventing cyberbullying, as well as other issues such as gender stereotyping. More than 50% of adolescents in Mexico have been victims of bullying in some form. The platform has a presence in Mexico, the United States, and Chile, and 10,630 students and 867 teachers have used it.
Poliglota
The pandemic forced this company to reinvent itself. After four years of being a face-to-face language school, they created an English learning platform on which social interaction between people is key.
This platform allows language practice by people of the same level in small groups, led by expert coaches who provide communication skills, as well as flexible schedules. They currently have 300 active teachers and more than 12,000 students have used the service. It provides content, vocabulary, and teaching materials. At the end of each session, students receive feedback on their progress.
){kind=icon}
){kind=icon}
This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
)