Europeana #edTech Challenge: winners announced

The online competition closed at the end of February with nearly 80 applications from across the world. We evaluated each of them against the competition criteria and shortlisted six projects. From there, an international panel of experts conducted personal interviews with the candidates to discuss their product concept and business model in greater detail, as well as cost estimates and delivery timeframe.

Faced with a range of strong ideas with enthusiastic teams behind them, we decided to extend the prize fund to 34,000 EUR and support the further development of the two projects below:

‘Wonders of the World’
Creator: Art Stories, Italy
Award: 14,000 EUR

‘Wonders of the World’ (provisional title) is an educational app that teaches primary school kids about world cultural heritage. An animated character, a child with a backpack, will lead kids on a discovery tour of 13 sites around the world. Each site will present architectural and historical content from Europeana (maps, photographs, paintings) and will challenge kids in a playful way.

The app will use animation and gamification extensively to create engaging learning journeys and spark children’s curiosity and desire to travel and learn.

‘Wonders of the World’ will be available for iOS and Android. A small free version will be developed and promoted on www.bartolomeo.education, currently used by many Italian primary schools. The first release of the app will support English, French and Italian, with more languages to be added in the future.

‘Bird Memory Song’
Creators: Léna Mazilu and Yoann Gueny - one person start-ups in France
Award: 20,000 EUR

‘Bird Memory Song’ is a hybrid education project for primary school children on birds and their songs. The project aims to teach younger generations about the diversity of wildlife and strengthen their relation to nature while improving the children’s visual observations skills and sound memory.

‘Bird Memory Song’ will come in two complementary formats: a poster and a digital application, bringing the physical and digital worlds together. Large, playful and colourful, the poster will present about 20 European birds illustrated in a realistic way. The project team will work closely with an orthologist on the bird selection as well as the design of educational content.

The application will bring a fun and educational component. In ‘Listening’ mode, the children will scan the bird on the poster and immediately see it come alive, hear its song (sourced from Europeana’s bird sound recordings collection) and find out more about this bird. In the ‘Memory’ mode, the children will listen to a song then find the matching bird on the poster. A points system, clues and tutorials as well as the introduction of various levels of game complexity will encourage children to train and start over to become an expert. The app and poster will be released in English and French. The app will be free and available for iOS and Android whereas the poster (and in the future, sound recording) sales will be managed via an e-shop.