At Voqal, we believe an educated community is central to creating the more socially equitable world we strive for. Furthermore, we believe everyone should have equal opportunity in our country’s education system. With those beliefs in mind, we created the Education Opportunity Project. This project seeks to measurably reduce educational opportunity gaps by providing capital and strategic advice to entrepreneurs and organizations working to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged populations. This month, we highlight one of the companies the Education Opportunity Project invests in, TechRow.
TechRow started its mission in Harlem, New York with a focus on transforming the traditional classroom for the future. It activates the immersive learning movement. TechRow aims to improve the technology capacity of schools while opening opportunities for more innovative and engaging education outcomes. Its solution streams educational media in virtual reality. TechRow’s platform is built for the classroom and prioritizes safety, quality, cloud computing, data, device agnosticism, and simplicity. In addition, it now proudly serves award-winning content to households motivating all students to enjoy learning.
Video plays a critical role in learning and is the most widely used technology in schools. Video in the school setting, however, is not impactful unless it increases student engagement. This is especially true for the approximately 50% of students reporting a lack of engagement with school in a variety of pre-COVID surveys. COVID-19 and the country-wide shift to remote learning exacerbate this problem. Never before has student engagement and technology been so closely coupled. While students will eventually be back in school full-time, it is likely that this close coupling is here to stay. TechRow’s ability to address the engagement issue through interactive Virtual Reality technology positions it well to make a real impact on student participation in the classroom.
Organizations like TechRow and their innovative, technological approach to creating better education outcomes for all students are necessary to truly address opportunity gaps in education. We look forward to the more engaging and equitable education system that will no doubt emerge from its continued work.
Learn more about the Education Opportunity Project and the other great organizations it supports on our investing for education impact page.