Meet teech — the digital classroom
By: Pedro Gonçalo Ferreira
Tags: Darmstadt, Joel Monaco, Classroom, Edtech, Corona

While yesterday we got to know the new Corona rules — and the Hard Lockdown implementation — Today we want to cover the story of Emanuele and Joel Monace — founders of tech. What they present may be a solution and a support for many. Meett teech — the digital classroom.

The path still looks the same, even the background noise reminds us of the schoolyard of the past, as the brothers Emanuele and Joel Monaco from Darmstadt approach the building. For their vision of the hybrid teaching of the future, the two returned to the past. It takes them to the place where they have already spent nine years of their lives and had to struggle with tube TVs alongside broken overhead projectors: their school. In those days, the freshly prepared sandwich and later the classmates were of enormous importance. This time, however, they brought with them a building stone with which they want to support their school in the wake of the school closures around COVID-19 and set the starting point for the school system of the future.

While many schools have so far avoided the topic of digitization and had to resort to available conference tools to conduct lessons, the brothers developed the idea of a teaching tool for schools during the lockdown in the spring of this year. It digitally displays lessons and thereby enables hybrid teaching — a combination of on-site and online teaching — even in times of a pandemic. The development of a prototype took place within two weeks. It was constantly improved and advanced through well-kept contacts with teachers on site who regularly conducted tests.

In short, teech uses a browser-based software to digitally display the classroom, allowing schools to continue teaching even during a lockdown. And successfully so! By now, there are daily new inquiries from schools that would like to use the tool themselves — altogether there are already more than 120, many of them in the Rhein Main area.

teech has now managed to close a high six-figure financing round with Berlin investors Udo and Sabrina Schloemer.

The team, which by now consists of 12 members, wants to stay in Darmstadt long-term, however. It enjoys the midday walk over the Mathildenhöhe directly outside the office and sees its advantage in recruiting further programmers from the TU Darmstadt.

The vision of teech goes far beyond being a simple teaching or even another conference tool. With teech, the Monaco brothers are laying the foundation for new teaching formats and therefore for the school system of the future. The two are sure that schools will not be completely digitalized. However, they are confident that they are able to meet the needs of students to a certain extent by supporting digital tools and to reduce the loss of lesson time to a minimum even in times of crisis. If one takes a look at further developments that are planned for the future, one will find, among other things, cross-school cooperation, gamification approaches to motivate students, as well as mentoring programs, bringing together students and experts from different industries to address different career paths and open up new perspectives. As a result, the company is also planning a virtual and interactive career inspiration day with exciting guests.