October 26, 2012 – Mississauga, ON – SMARTeacher Inc. will be appearing on The Dragons’ Den episode to be aired as part of the Student Special on Oct 31, 2012 at 8pm. The company was founded by two University of Waterloo Mechatronics Engineering students (Rohan Mahimker and Alex Peters) as their Final Year Design Project in 2011. SMARTeacher has made the world’s first educational game that can respond to how a child is feeling (through a wireless wrist-watch that functions like a lie-detector). The game picks up on a child’s emotional state (frustrated, engaged, or bored) and automatically adapts the difficulty of questions and certain game elements (battle damage, items, etc.).

 “We only got 48 hours notice that we were going to be pitching in front of the Dragons, and pulled together a thrilling presentation.” -Rohan Mahimker, Co-Founder.

Since the Dragons’ Den filming, the company has launched its educational math game, Prodigy, and acquired a few thousand users. It has grown from a team of 4 to 12 people in 5 months. In the longer term, the game’s artificial intelligence will be able to maximize a student’s potential by creating a unique profile for each child, ‘learning’ how the child learns. A focus study conducted at elite private schools in Canada over a 4-week period showed students answering up to 1000 math questions per week, an average grade improvement of 15%, and 23% more students indicating they “like” or “love” math.

 “Think of it as Kumon meets World of Warcraft – we package the benefits of hiring a tutor with the environment and experience of an addictive video game.” -Alex Peters, Co-Founder.

About SMARTeacher

SMARTeacher is creating the next generation of educational games: games that customize their behaviour based on emotions. Our goal is to revolutionize the education industry by making personalized learning available for each and every child. Designed for children ages 5-11, our first game teaches math to students by catering content to their level using in-game adaptive algorithms and a wrist-band bio-sensor. If a child is frustrated, we make the game easier, offering hints and help content if required. If they’re bored, the game becomes more challenging, pushing a child to learn higher-level skills. Regardless of the scenario, SMARTeacher is constantly personalizing content to suit each individual user. Additional information can be found at www.smarteacher.ca.

About Dragon’s Den

Dragons’ Den is a Canadian television reality show, based on the internationally franchised Dragons’ Den format, in which aspiring entrepreneurs pitch business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hopes of securing business financing.