upcucate

What does upucate do?

upucate is a platform for teachers and student teachers that not only simplifies the creation of digital teaching concepts, but also supports the holistic teaching process. This includes not only the automated correction of tasks, but also the analysis of individual student abilities in order to align the lessons accordingly. Artificial intelligence is used to suggest content that matches the competency goals of the curricula and the knowledge of the students. Teachers can also create their own content and share it with the community. We think of the process holistically, i.e., from the preparation of the lesson to the implementation and processing of the tasks to the analysis and subsequent use of the findings without media and system disruption.

How did upucate emerge?

Our time at school inspired us to build the platform. Individual support for individual students was and is simply not possible at present due to the slow pace of digitization and the limited time available to teachers. How is a teacher supposed to assign different tasks to each individual student after each lesson, correct them, and then think again about how to address weaknesses or strengths? We want to change that. With upucate, teachers have a digital assistant at hand that supports exactly this process so that they can in turn be the personal coach for students.

Who is behind upucate?

The team consists of the business informatics specialist Jonas Nöhl, the media informatics student Leonie Adams and the marketing expert Harald Kretzschmar. We have been supported already for a long time by Marco Drewes in software development and by many teachers, professors, schools and institutions, without whom we would not be where we are.

What is the connection to the University of Bamberg?

Jonas got his Master's degree in Business Information Systems and Leonie her Bachelor's degree in Applied Computer Science at the University of Bamberg. Both were active in the student council and have built up a good network at the university. In the context of their EXIST founder scholarship, they are also supported by Prof. Dr. Andreas Henrich (Chair of Media Informatics) as a mentor.

Why is the team attracted to entrepreneurship?

Harald has been self-employed for a few years and Jonas has always wanted to start his own business. What we enjoy the most is breaking new ground and making a real difference. Our big goal is to make schools ready for the digital future and to help shape the education system of tomorrow.

What advice can upucate give other start-up founders and potential entrepreneurs for the path ahead?

A healthy dose of fear and risk are simply part of it. You have to constantly (want to) jump over your shadow, be open to new things and just do it (which we still have problems with one or the other time... ;-)).