Just out of university, Garros Li, HBA ’11, had landed his dream job as a management consultant for one of the top firms in the world. Still, his father Randy’s question lingered on his mind: is this what you really want to do? The senior Li is an entrepreneur in East Asia and always thought his son possessed the same entrepreneurial spirit.
While working at Monitor Deloitte, Li met University of Waterloo graduate Vikram Somasundaram and the two hit it off with their love for big data and a shared passion for education.
“I realized if big companies can use data to make these multi-million dollar decisions, can that level of rigour be applied to students, teachers and educators and would they even value it?” said Li. It was a germ of an idea that has grown over three years to become Edusight, an online education platform that helps educators, students, parents and administrators manage and assess how students are learning.
Taking education into the 21st century
Educated in Vancouver and China, Li experienced the lack of personalization in education. Cookie cutter learning models assumed everyone was the same and learned at the same pace. The reality is very different. Edusight’s mission is to understand how students learn and to advance the discussion on education beyond the “What grade did I get?” question.
With Edusight’s Grade Book tool, teachers can document learning via grades, photos, videos and audio notes to help provide more context to what students are learning in the classroom. Educators can view the pace and patterns of learning and address shortcomings early.
This real-time element can make classroom data act as a leading indicator rather than the traditional and more common lagging indicators. “You see the standardized test scores for Grade 3s and go ‘oh shoot! We should have done a better job in these areas but it’s too late, they’ve already taken the test,” says Li.
Back row: Qiming Weng, Ian Van Den Heuvel, Garros Li, Bradley Colthurst, Vikram Somasundaram
Front row: Adam Matyja, Ashley Barby, Azalea Phangsoa, Jeffrey Goldsmith, Mark Oberemk
Currently, Edusight works with thousands of teachers, representing 35 Ontario school districts. The company started working with independent schools with 600-900 students and now has formed partnerships with larger school boards. With the exciting challenge of working with boards boasting thousands of students, Edusight is eager to focus their efforts and provide an experience that will be a testament to other school boards in the province.
Li is quick to note that Edusight is all about the experience. He doesn’t view the platform as a product but a service that includes assistance from dedicated analysts who manage Edusight’s growing data and user base. He recognizes that education is a tough market and is comfortable playing the long game. While other edtech companies have expanded to higher education and corporate programs, Li is keen to concentrate on the K to 12 market and grow natural expansions, such as Edusight Magic.
Launching this August with two Ontario school boards, Edusight Magic is designed to serve the needs of school administrators, which Li says is a neglected point of view. With all the data and experience they’ve gathered working with educators, Li is confident that they’ve put together a service that will be Edusight’s differentiator in the market as it serves every level of the education system.
The eight-member team is also looking to add more talent as they expand their operations while continuing to attract top talent for their co-op and internship programs.
To the Valley and back
Even as Li took the traditional route of most Ivey HBAs, he found himself attracted to the life of an entrepreneur as it allowed him to work on something he cared about and to surround himself with like-minded people.
As Li and Somasundaram were wrestling with the idea of Edusight in 2013, they discovered that while they had the passion and the hustle, they lacked the coding expertise to make it a reality. By using AngelList, a website described by Li as the dating website for entrepreneurs, they met Western Medical Science student Qiming Weng. Coding since Grade 8, Weng had a passion for technology and had developed numerous apps for the App Store.
As they started building their platform, they were surprised that teachers didn’t even have access to the right data. They proceeded to create tools to capture the required data and created a minimum viable product.
Having visited two of the fastest growing education companies, Remind and Class Dojo, Li applied to be part of the Y Combinator / Imagine K12 accelerator program. They were invited to partake in an interview session that Li described as the most exhausting 10 minutes of his life as they were bombarded with questions on the concept and the team. Soon after, Edusight was accepted to the six-month program in Silicon Valley.
Since returning to Canada, Li, Somasundaram and Weng have continued to build on Edusight’s promise.
“If we wanted a quick win, a market that grows really quickly with a lot of consumers – I wouldn’t have picked education,” says Li. As he prepares himself for the long days and long nights to come, he can’t think of another industry he would rather be in than one that is shaping the future of education.