The EDUaccelerator 2021 is over. The organisations learned to measure the impact of their activities and continue in fruitful cooperations.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, 2021 was again a burdensome test for all actors in the field of education. It was no different among the organisations that were working towards bringing innovations to Slovak schools. Nevertheless, the EDUaccelerator helped great projects that had done much work. A three-month time investment of approximately 100 hours has brought results to the following organisations:

People in Need

The organisation entered the accelerator with the project entitled Subject-oriented Approach in Global Education. Their team focused on the systematisation of processes inside of the organisation. They achieved the most significant improvement, mainly in the field of communication, building the brand of their project. Their consultant Martin Šanta (National Bank of Slovakia) helped them a lot in this.

“We stepped out of our day-to-day operations and looked at what we do from above. Until then, we hadn’t thought about our brand and identity. We began to see the importance of the brand in building awareness of our project.”

Informatics 2.0

The organisation has largely succeeded in fulfilling the plan the team set out at the beginning. They have personally trained over 800 teachers in almost every district in Slovakia. They were professionally mentored for three months by Michal Rehúš (Centre for Educational Analysis), who had previously mentored also other organisations within Generation 3.0. Now, the organisation is considering creating a control group to measure their impact. They see their cooperation with the National Institute for Certified Educational Measurements as their greatest success.

“We got on well with our mentor both professionally and also on the personal level. Few people have as much insight into education as he does. Even after the completion of the EDUaccelerator programme, we continue to cooperate.”

Comenius Institute

In the accelerator, the organisation successfully mapped the entire portfolio of its activities. The participants adjusted the annual programme for teachers. They also improved their coaching training, taking the first step towards financial sustainability. Together with mentor Michal Csong (RonixLab), they generated several interesting ideas, which they will use mainly in hybrid e-learning.

“We had various ideas for activities, but the accelerator moved us to their direct implementation. We also see benefits in terms of impact measurement. Without the EDUaccelerator programme, we probably wouldn’t have done so.”

 KUBO media

At the beginning of the accelerator programme, the company launched the first version of its KUBO EDU application, which they then gradually improved due to testing it at six schools all across Slovakia. They now also have well-established cooperation with the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic. They are also pleased with the high interest of schools as well as other educational institutions in their approach. Lukáš Okál (Microsoft) advised the team strategically and professionally. The company has also made great progress in measuring its impact.

“We now understand how educational projects work and how non-profit organisations work, especially their funding. We now also have many useful contacts gained through the accelerator.”

 Zmudri (tr. Smart Up!)

During the accelerator programme, the organisation launched a new version of its portal zmudri.sk, for which it managed to obtain almost 8000 teacher registrations. Experienced mentor Martina Králová (Teron Solutions) helped the organisation with setting up its internal processes. Thanks to consultations with a researcher, they also gained a large amount of data both from quantitative and qualitative research. They will soon start evaluating them to measure the impact of their activities.

“We got as much as possible from participating in the accelerator programme. Our mentor looked at our work in depth. Thanks to the researcher, we have gained a more sober view of impact measurement, and we can now better manage our expectations.”

Participants of the EDUaccelerator with representatives of the Pontis Foundation. Source – Marek Mucha

Besides the mentors, the following experts also provided their expertise, advice and experience:

Our sincere gratitude goes to:

– researchers who helped organisations measure the impact:
Anna Dráľová (Slovak Governance Institute)
Romana Kánovská (National Institute for Certified Educational Measurements)
Soňa Koreňová (Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for the Roma Community)
Jana Fúsková (Slovak Academy Of Science, Faculty of Education – Trnava University)
Xénia Daniela Poslon (Slovak Academy Of Science, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences – Comenius University)

– senior experts from different fields:
Alexej Dobrolubov (Adviser to the Minister for Education)
Radovan Choleva (political marketer)
Filip Struhárik (Denník N)
Martin Šanta (National Bank of Slovakia)
Peter Pallo (Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports of the Slovak Republic)

– internal and external lecturers at educational workshops:
Norbert Maur (Pontis Foundation)
Fero Pauliny (Pontis Foundation)
Zuzana Schaleková (Pontis Foundation)
Juraj Kováč (Get Movin!)