Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Tahereh Pazouki (Magrid: a language-free and scientifically validated program to develop visual-spatial, cognitive, and mathabilities in 3-9 year old children, including those with special education needs)
Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2023-12-31
According to UNESCO, over 40% of children worldwide don’t even have access to education in a language they understand. On top of that, 10-20% of 3-9-year-old children worldwide have some form of development delay, language disorder, and physical and/or cognitive special education needs (hearing impairment, neuro-diverse, autism spectrum, ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, etc.,). Per the OECD, lack of good maths and numeracy skills has a lasting impact into adulthood and “good numeracy is the best protection against unemployment, low wages and poor health.”
Even typically developing children learning maths in their native language face significant challenges. Issues of maths anxiety, gaps in maths learning, access and encouragement for girls to pursue maths learning, and preparation for STEM jobs of tomorrow exist in even the most developed regions. Education and industry experts agree there is a significant gap between STEM prepared employees and needs in the labour force.
This means there are 800 million 3-9-year-old children that LetzMath (DBA “Magrid”) can help globally and 34 million in EU countries. Looking only at the smaller segmentation of neuro-divergent and migratory children, then the global population is 300 million 3-9-year-old children and 7 million children in EU countries.
More importantly, per the OECD “a modest goal of having all OECD countries boost their average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years – which is less than the most rapidly improving education system in the OECD…implies an aggregate gain of OECD GDP of USD 115 trillion over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010.” In other words, improving maths scores has a direct impact on the future GDP of EU countries. That is the problem Magrid is working on changing by disrupting how maths is taught at a foundational level.
Ages 0-10 is critical for brain development and maturation of cognitive skills to solve problems. The educational foundation set during these ages significantly impacts participation in adulthood. If you research learning you will find that language is the norm to teaching in classrooms everywhere. But what existing norms ignore is that math is a form of language itself – a universal language and spoken language itself is a barrier to learning for nearly 50% of the world’s population. After over 5 years of research and bringing together the knowledge of experts with over 25 years of experience in early childhood development, psychology, neuroscience, in practice and academia, we created Magrid. Magrid is a language-free and evidence-based pedagogical learning solution that improves cognitive, visual-spatial, and math development in 3-9-year-old children, including children with special education needs (SEN). Magrid disrupts the maths EdTech market and is unique by removing language as a barrier to learning. It significantly improves development, learning, and math performance, for typically developing native language fluent, non-native language speakers, and SEN children by as much as 70%. Magrid’s results have been validated in six scientific studies, in three countries, in over 30 classes, with over 1000 students across all learning profiles/
Even typically developing children learning maths in their native language face significant challenges. Issues of maths anxiety, gaps in maths learning, access and encouragement for girls to pursue maths learning, and preparation for STEM jobs of tomorrow exist in even the most developed regions. Education and industry experts agree there is a significant gap between STEM prepared employees and needs in the labour force.
This means there are 800 million 3-9-year-old children that LetzMath (DBA “Magrid”) can help globally and 34 million in EU countries. Looking only at the smaller segmentation of neuro-divergent and migratory children, then the global population is 300 million 3-9-year-old children and 7 million children in EU countries.
More importantly, per the OECD “a modest goal of having all OECD countries boost their average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years – which is less than the most rapidly improving education system in the OECD…implies an aggregate gain of OECD GDP of USD 115 trillion over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010.” In other words, improving maths scores has a direct impact on the future GDP of EU countries. That is the problem Magrid is working on changing by disrupting how maths is taught at a foundational level.
Ages 0-10 is critical for brain development and maturation of cognitive skills to solve problems. The educational foundation set during these ages significantly impacts participation in adulthood. If you research learning you will find that language is the norm to teaching in classrooms everywhere. But what existing norms ignore is that math is a form of language itself – a universal language and spoken language itself is a barrier to learning for nearly 50% of the world’s population. After over 5 years of research and bringing together the knowledge of experts with over 25 years of experience in early childhood development, psychology, neuroscience, in practice and academia, we created Magrid. Magrid is a language-free and evidence-based pedagogical learning solution that improves cognitive, visual-spatial, and math development in 3-9-year-old children, including children with special education needs (SEN). Magrid disrupts the maths EdTech market and is unique by removing language as a barrier to learning. It significantly improves development, learning, and math performance, for typically developing native language fluent, non-native language speakers, and SEN children by as much as 70%. Magrid’s results have been validated in six scientific studies, in three countries, in over 30 classes, with over 1000 students across all learning profiles/
The six scientific and independent validation studies adequately prove that Magrid, a language-neutral program to develop visual-spatial, cognitive, and maths abilities significantly improves maths learning and performance. We have already obtained technical feasibility, scientific validity, product validation, and market validation. The stage we are at is scalability.
To build a successful and sustainable business that has a positive social impact in EU countries, we need to invest in sales, marketing, and product development so that we can scale. Specifically, for the project, we focused on finishing our Smart Dashboard:
a) Deploy existing team of contractors to implement final plan
A plan had already been developed for a Smart Dashboard. The Smart Dashboard shows teachers progress of students, which learning activities have been completed, how well the student performed, and how much time have they spent on the activities. This was successfully completed during the project period.
b) QA and test
A series of quality assurance and testing was performed to ensure the Smart Dashboard functioned as intended. This was successfully completed during the project period.
c) Beta launch
We did a soft launch of the Smart Dashboard with 10 teachers and users. This was successfully completed during the project period.
d) Solicit feedback
Teacher and user feedback was solicited over 3 rounds of meetings and we successfully implemented changes to help improve functionalities and meet user needs during the project period.
e) Full launch
We deployed the new Smart Dashboard and it was well received.
To build a successful and sustainable business that has a positive social impact in EU countries, we need to invest in sales, marketing, and product development so that we can scale. Specifically, for the project, we focused on finishing our Smart Dashboard:
a) Deploy existing team of contractors to implement final plan
A plan had already been developed for a Smart Dashboard. The Smart Dashboard shows teachers progress of students, which learning activities have been completed, how well the student performed, and how much time have they spent on the activities. This was successfully completed during the project period.
b) QA and test
A series of quality assurance and testing was performed to ensure the Smart Dashboard functioned as intended. This was successfully completed during the project period.
c) Beta launch
We did a soft launch of the Smart Dashboard with 10 teachers and users. This was successfully completed during the project period.
d) Solicit feedback
Teacher and user feedback was solicited over 3 rounds of meetings and we successfully implemented changes to help improve functionalities and meet user needs during the project period.
e) Full launch
We deployed the new Smart Dashboard and it was well received.
During the project period we also worked on sales and marketing - specifically sales in Portugal and marketing in the United States of America. Specifically our action items were:
Sales in Portugal
1a) Contact the 10 largest school municipalities in Portugal,
1b) schedule demo meetings, get information on problems and needs, budget, and budget cycle,
1c) present demo and solution,
1d) Price and close deal.
2a) Contact the 30 largest companies in Portugal,
2b) schedule meeting to talk about Magrid and the work with schools in Portugal,
2c) Request funds,
2d) Follow-up and close sponsorship.
Results: We faced significant challenges during the period. We contacted over 20 school municipalities but were not able to schedule any meetings. During the period we encountered significant delays in sales and marketing efforts due to nationwide teacher strikes, governmental budget cuts, hesitation to engage in any new programs by government agents due to upcoming elections and a potential change in the administration. We were able to schedule meetings with 10 schools but faced funding challenges as the schools wanted Magrid but did not have the funds to pay for the program. We contacted large companies to fund the teachers projects and had limited success totalling EUR 14,000 in total.
USA Marketing Campaign:
a) Select company,
b) Collaborate on marketing campaign,
c) Create budget,
d) Soft launch in niche market,
e) Measure success,
f) Refine,
g) Launch at larger scale
We contracted two companies for a marketing campaign in the USA. A marketing company focused on B2C sales lead to EUR 1,700 in sales while a B2G company has not led to any sales or meetings.
Sales in Portugal
1a) Contact the 10 largest school municipalities in Portugal,
1b) schedule demo meetings, get information on problems and needs, budget, and budget cycle,
1c) present demo and solution,
1d) Price and close deal.
2a) Contact the 30 largest companies in Portugal,
2b) schedule meeting to talk about Magrid and the work with schools in Portugal,
2c) Request funds,
2d) Follow-up and close sponsorship.
Results: We faced significant challenges during the period. We contacted over 20 school municipalities but were not able to schedule any meetings. During the period we encountered significant delays in sales and marketing efforts due to nationwide teacher strikes, governmental budget cuts, hesitation to engage in any new programs by government agents due to upcoming elections and a potential change in the administration. We were able to schedule meetings with 10 schools but faced funding challenges as the schools wanted Magrid but did not have the funds to pay for the program. We contacted large companies to fund the teachers projects and had limited success totalling EUR 14,000 in total.
USA Marketing Campaign:
a) Select company,
b) Collaborate on marketing campaign,
c) Create budget,
d) Soft launch in niche market,
e) Measure success,
f) Refine,
g) Launch at larger scale
We contracted two companies for a marketing campaign in the USA. A marketing company focused on B2C sales lead to EUR 1,700 in sales while a B2G company has not led to any sales or meetings.