Startup Weekend EDU SD = 54-hour hackathon where educators, students, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs come together to share ideas, form teams and launch startups that focus on education.

Have you ever had an idea for improving education? Here’s your opportunity to transform your education ideas into action in 54 hours. Find the right people with the complementary skills & passion to build an education product in one weekend. Design for learning, conduct user tests, receive coaching from experienced education designers & industry professionals and win prizes that will help take your idea to the next level!

Friday night: 60-second pitches that result in the formation of small teams around the best, most viable education concepts.  Educators validate ideas, then all attendees vote.  We hope you’ll pitch, but definitely not required!

Saturday and Sunday: Work days! Teams focus on user research, customer development, validating their ideas and building prototypes with the help of experienced coaches from the education and entrepreneurial world.  You’re welcome to stay and work as long as the venue will allow!

Sunday evening: Teams demo their education products and receive valuable feedback from a panel of expert judges.  Winning teams take home a grab bag of great tools to help launch their company!

Examples of startups founded at Startup Weekend EDU:

+ MathChat is a mobile collaboration tool for students to get instant math homework help from friends. 

+ Fantasy GeoPolitics is a fantasy football-like game for social studies and literacy standards.

+ Kidfit Academy- A nonprofit running interactive physical & health education curriculum that empowers students to take control of their health & wellness with fun technology

Perks of attending:

+ Delicious & healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner for the whole weekend

+ A free .co domain name

+ $2,000 of credit on Google App Engine

+ $100 of AWS credit for hosting

+ 50 free moo.com business cards

+ Event t-shirt

+ Awesome coaching by education startup industry leaders

+ Fun swag from Google, .Co and more!

+ A network of 120 new developer, designer & entrepreneur friends that are also excited about improving education

The Winning Team will receive:

+ Guaranteed interview with EdTech Startup Accelerator, Imagine K-12

+ $2,000 of DonorsChoose.org credits to donate to classroom projects

+ More prizes to come!

All of the pitches on Friday and companies demoed on Sunday will be educator approved and designed to solve problems in the education space, broadly defined (not restricted to K-12 or other “formal” education).

We hope you join us!

View full rules

$2,000 in prizes

Buy your ticket on Eventbrite here.

• Business Model and Validation
  Can this idea make money? Is there positive customer growth or revenue? Is there a customer acquisition / rollout strategy? Has a revenue model been defined and is it realistic?
• Impact on Education
  How well does this idea address a real, significant problems in education and learning? How is it based off of sound literature, research, and feedback? What evidence is there that the product or service will have the impact that it claims?
• Technical Execution
  Is there a functional product (e.g.in the case of an app, did they build one)? Were architecture diagrams and API signatures included? Which services did they integrate with? How much of the product is running on a real server with non-sample data?
• Design and Experience
  Does it have a professional look and feel? Does it deliver a compelling and captivating user experience? Is it memorable? What key insights were gathered over the weekend to go in this creative direction?