As a start-up company we were incredibly pleased and grateful to be granted match funding from Innovate UK to build out our vision for the primary school focussed Life Ninja Engagement Platform. The project drew to a close at the end of May and we are delighted to have achieved our goal of completing our platform that fosters collaboration between student, teacher and parents around the life and learning of the student.

The platform can be described as a powerful dashboard that utilises the latest technologies to power the core Life Ninja Communication and Home Learning Apps as well as enabling third party applications and content creators to plugin to the engagement and gamification features the platform facilitates.

We have a mission to impact 1 Million students and their parents by 2025 as part of our vision to democratise access to the best quality edtech and learning resources. Our innovative financial model enables schools to benefit from our free feature rich communication and home learning hubs and even generates revenue to pay for their additional edtech and learning resources needs.

Now that the Innovate UK project is complete our eyes are on the next six months where we have a few key areas of focus:

1) We eagerly await the results of our bid to implement the platform including the gamified Maths and English apps from Zap Learning which are part of the Life Ninja Network across the entire Teeside Region. 1 out of 4 students in the region are achieving below expected results for key stages 1 and 2 which is translating into higher unemployment and underachievement among GSCE leavers. We aim to help change this.

2) With the support of UK  Department For International Trade in North East we are currently collaborating with a few stakeholders including The Unconnected.Org and The Wafaa Smart School in Lebanon to set up a pilot school in focussed on Syrian refugee children. The pilot is focussed on how the Syrian Curriculum can be delivered in a cost effective, measurable and engaging way using the Life Ninja Platform. The aim is to roll out a successful model across the region to meet the pressing needs of Syrian Refugees across Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, the Mena region and Europe.

3) In Q4 we will launch a crowd equity fund raising round to enable us to take the business to the next level, this will be our first funding raise and we anticipate our exciting business focus and model to capture the imagination and interest of the crowd equity community.

In conclusion we are looking forwards to the imminent Tees Business Awards where we are one of three finalists in the running for Small Business of the Year. We are truly appreciative of the support and recognition we have received from the Middlesbrough community and local government this past year and can’t wait to see our vision to impact young peoples lives gather momentum in the months to come.