SFTL2Ep6 - World’s first video encyclopedia, Check123 - Yuval Katz
Channel: Short Films Teachers Love
Date: 03/06/2017

Two years ago, Yuval Katz was sitting with best friend Yuval Shani arguing about history; “Did Marie Antoinette actually say ‘Let them eat cake’?” 88% of American teenagers and 75% of adults go to online video for answers; Katz & Shani did the same. But after many dead-end searches on YouTube, they decided to build the world’s first video encyclopedia. Katz had been a creative director in advertising, Shani an award-winning film director and together they founded Check123 (http://www.check123.com) which now boasts over 15,000 expertly curated educational videos which explain a world of topics in 1, 2 or 3 minutes.

FULL AUDIO podcast:
Soundcloud- https://soundcloud.com/shortfilmsteacherslove/s2-ep6, Part2 - the entrepreneurial story https://soundcloud.com/shortfilmsteacherslove/s2ep6_bonus

Links to short films loved:
4:29 Chris Heath: DNA | https://www.check123.com/videos/10168-dna
6:28 Amor Sciendi: Bedroom in Arles (Van Gogh) | https://www.check123.com/videos/6180-bedroom-in-arles-van-gogh
8:55 Curiosity180: Earth - Origin of Life Theories | https://www.check123.com/videos/10903-earth-origin-of-life-theories 

Disclosure statement:
Yuval Katz is the co-founder of Check123, a start-up ed-tech company supported by EDvantage. Short films chosen were recommended at Yuval’s discretion. Host Richard Leigh received no payment for interviewing Yuval.

Other links from the show:

Check123 website:
http://www.check123.com

If your’e wanting to get involved:
https://www.check123.com/video_submissions/new — for people who FIND good links (‘co-curators’)
https://www.check123.com/become-a-creator — for FILMMAKERS (this is really the pitch to filmmakers!), and
https://www.check123.com/become-a-creator — for EXPERTS to get involved

FAQ (or Richard’s 15sec Quick-answer Quiz with Yuval about Check123)

Richard: How many videos do you have on the site?
Yuval: 15,000+

R: Where do the videos come from?
Y: Most from YouTube, some from Vimeo, some originals you can’t find anywhere else

R: Do you look for content or does content look for you?
Y: Both. We started looking, then we started getting videos coming to us

R: How do you fund it?
Y: Started by having great friends & family that helped us a bit. Then we got funded by EDvantage, a Micro VC for educational technologies in Israel

R: On your “for educators” page you say you work with experts from all over the world. How do you do this and what’s the process?
Y: That’s 2 questions. All videos are curated by experts in different fields. We started by going to Tel Aviv University for American History, European History; oh and we still don’t have Australian History - any listeners want to join?!
All our experts have at least two Degrees. We’re juggling both the scale - the number of videos - and the curation. For experts wanting to join now, we interview them via skype, we ask people to send their resume because we want good curation. That’s our focus; to give the best results in 1, 2 or 3 minutes.
As for educators, we see more and more people following us, especially on Twitter. We see teachers posting videos of students using Check-1-2-3 in the classroom, so we started talking to them. We now have about 100 educators working with Check1-2-3 because we really want to build a better product for them.

R: Your answer was longer than 15seconds!
Y: Yes, but shorter than 3min 59sec!

Check :)

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This show is a proud member of the Education Podcast Network
http://www.edupodcastnetwork.com

Recorded using Zencastr
https://zencastr.com

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