It’s history class, and students take out their iPads and scan a photocard. Immediately, they see the First Emperor of Qin recreated right on their desks, and Jing Ke is presenting a map scroll to the Emperor. As Jing Ke slowly unrolls the map, he pulls out a dagger concealed in the map, and he jabs at the Emperor!
This is just one of more than 50 gamified and AR-enriched lesson modules that IOT Solution created to enliven the Chinese history and STEAM learning experience. The EdTech start-up, a graduate of the Cyberport Incubation Programme, is among a growing cohort of Cyberport EdTech start-ups that are actively developing new technologies, solutions, and content to enhance learning and teaching.
Demand for EdTech products is certainly keen. Since 2018, the start-up’s award-winning AR learning platform and learning modules have been adopted by more than 100 secondary schools across Hong Kong, covering almost one fourth of the city’s total. Its 7,000 sq. ft. STEAM VR Experience Centre at The Boxes in San Tin, which offers students a variety of learning experiences such as 360° historical site photography, VR horse-riding and archery, and AR aquarium design, has even served more than 200 primary and secondary schools and gained critical acclaim.
IOT Solution is relentless about quality, accuracy, and teaching effectiveness. To this end, its teaching materials closely adhere to Hong Kong Education Bureau’s curriculum, and are vetted by advisors of the Hong Kong History and Culture Educational Society and the professors of Tsinghua University. In addition, its learning platform comes with a teachers’ interface, which allows teachers to adjust the pacing of the classroom learning. Other features the platform provides include animation, 360 site visit, interactive maps, setting up quizzes, instant data collection on quiz results , to ensure students are exposed to receiving effective and interactive learning experiences.
The start-up is now exploring to extend the lessons to other subjects that emphasise on immersing in three-dimensional learning such as using VR to replicate field studies. The company has started to expand its platform to provide contents of General Studies for primary schools in near future. Other possibilities include creating a simulated science lab that enables students to try different experiments without the risks of an actual lab.
IOT Solution’s success at home has also primed it for the massive EdTech market on the Mainland, especially the Greater Bay Area, where parents are increasingly seeking quality learning materials and solutions for their children. Upon gaining extensive business contacts across GBA and major Chinese cities, they embarked on setting up new STEAM VR Experience Centres in Foshan (Guangdong) and Haikou. This is a market IOT Solution and Hong Kong’s EdTech start-ups are well-placed to tap and to springboard their offerings to greater dimensions.
