Founder's Friday: iCreate to Educate

Who are the faces behind a company? How did the company get started? These are common question you may have about startups you see and hear about. If you don't get a chance to personally meet the founders, you're unlikely to ever know their story. That's what Founder Fridays is all about.

This week we have Melissa Pickering from iCreate to Educate, a company innovating the K-12 Classroom.

1) What is your current Startup? (Name & URL)

 iCreate to Educate ; www.icreatetoeducate.com

2) What's the elevator pitch?

iCreate helps teachers put students' ideas into motion.  A spin-out of Tufts University, iCreate's goal is to bridge the R&D houses for educational technologies with the public K-12 classroom, ultimately increasing access to innovation in education.

iCreate's pilot educational technology is SAM Animation, a stop-motion animation software developed by Tufts to give students an engaging medium for showing what they know and understand in science and math.  Currently we offer professional development and curricula for teachers to integrate SAM Animation into the subject areas where their students could benefit from a hands-on, visual tool to increase understanding.  We aim to broaden our educational tool portfolio beyond SAM in the future, incorporating other research-based technologies to engage all learners.
 

3) When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur after a few months of my first job out of college, which was in the corporate-sector.  I realized that I couldn't follow the traditional linear mechanical engineering professional path as I was more passionate about too many other things...such as education, working regularly with people, and setting out on 'uncharted' paths, all of which come in the social entrepreneurship "package."

4) How did you meet your co-founders?

I met my co-founders -- Brian Gravel and Bill Church -- during my tenure as Assistant Director at the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach.  Brian is a doctoral student in science education, who led the National Science Foundation grant from which SAM Animation was born, and Bill is a physics teacher at Littleton High School in New Hampshire.  Bill is our maverick teacher, always pushing the envelope of the tools he uses in his classroom, and was integral to the development of SAM Animation.  They both bring the theoretical and practical education perspectives to the iCreate team.

5) What was the best advice you ever got?

The best advice I ever got was from my dad:  "If you keep looking over your shoulder at the mistakes you made, you'll just continue to trip as you walk forward."

6) What Startup(s) are you most excited about today? Why?

I'm most psyched about the other education start-ups that were also accepted into the Kauffman Foundation Education Ventures Program -- it is a really exciting time to be in education right now, with an increased attention from all industry sectors, and having the support from Kauffman really sets these start-ups on a fast-track for success.  It's exciting to see MassChallenge take off as well, as their success is valuable to the Boston start-up community as a whole, and I love the increased energy and support network for start-ups in New England that's developed as a result of their launch.

My favorite part about being an entrepreneur is needing to think about the whole puzzle, and not just one or two pieces.  As a practicing engineer my favorite aspect of the job was when I had to be in the field, leading an installation...thinking about and being prepared for all of the things that could possibly go wrong was exhilarating -- and most rewarding at the end.  Similarly, the think-on-your-feet problem solving aspect to being an entrepreneur is an absolute blast.

8) If you could recommend one book for entrepreneur's to read, what would it be and why?

One book I would recommend for entrepreneurs to read is "Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard" by Chip & Dan Heath.  As an entrepreneur all that you are doing is leading change, so understanding what emotional and logical aspects drive people to change is so valuable.