Quizling, an edtech startup based out of Canberra, has been chosen to take part in the South by Southwest Education (SxSWedu) Launch competition, making it the only Australian startup selected to pitch at this year’s event in Texas, USA.
The education festival forms a part of the wider SxSWedu event and showcases innovations in education, music, television and culture, with a fast-paced, live startup competition. Additionally, it offers participants workshops, summits, mentorship sessions, and opportunities to engage and interact with industry experts. The sixth annual launch competition will take place during the week of March 6-9, 2017.
The competition looks at early-stage startup companies that are in the education market, having been incorporated with a management team and a public facing website. And, most importantly, be passionate about helping students achieve a successful education.
Established by former school teachers Dion Oxley and Damien Trask, the Quizling app enables playing, sharing, creating, and learning by creating quizzes for children, teachers, and parents, and for educational institutes such as museums.
Quizling is passionate about bringing the community into classrooms, and encouraging curiosity and creativity in students and in all subjects. The Quizling platform provides students with engaging content, game play, and social learning through a fun quiz platform.
Enabling students to engage with what they were seeing, the startup has secured partnerships with a number of Australian organizations including The National Library, The Royal Australian Mint, Inspiring Australia and the National Gallery of Australia. The institutions, thus have access to quiz data which they will use to form their marketing strategy.
With funding from Sydney Angels, Canberra Angels, and the Sydney Angels Sidecar Fun, the app was officially launched last year, growing significantly to earn a place in the SxSWedu flagship competition.
The startup has also been pushing the app in schools, working beside volunteer schools in North South Wales, Victoria, and Australian Central Territory to use the app in classrooms and have children and teachers form a “wishlist” of their needs— data which has helped developed the app’s quiz features.
Oxley and Trask hope the pitch at SxSWedu will help take the startup even further.
“We’ve only just launched our app internationally, so we’ve started have conversations with a lot of big international organizations. It’s exciting because all of them are a part of a big network, so you can branch out and connect with a range of organizations,” Oxley said.
The competition will provide a unique opportunity for the startup to tap into the US market, a prospect which the co-founder said she’s looking forward to; many a hot new tech company has been launched at SxSWedu.
