In this Entrepreneur Spotlight we are focusing on another one of the startups selected for the 2016 AccelerateBaltimore program – ClassTracks. ClassTracks is a blended learning platform for foreign language classrooms that helps teachers and students spend less time on drills and more time on communicating and speaking the language. The company was founded in 2014 and is currently based in Baltimore, working out of the ETC (Emerging Technology Centers).
We interviewed Lida Zlatic, CEO and one of the three co-founders of ClassTracks, on how she got the idea for this startup and what types of challenges and successes she and the team are experiencing.
1. Where did the idea for ClassTracks come from?
I’ve always been interested in tech, and as a middle school Spanish teacher in Baltimore City I was really interested in using my knowledge and interest to help my students. The math teacher in my building was using blended learning (blending online and in-person learning to create a more personalized experience for each student) and having a lot of success, so I was curious to try it in my classroom. As I learned more about blended learning, I realized that the foreign language classroom was a perfect use case: students could use technology to more efficiently learn the vocabulary and grammar, and teachers could spend class time engaging students in practice that builds communication skills with the building blocks they learned online. The problem was that there was no platform that would do what I just described efficiently for a foreign language classroom. I quit teaching and, by chance, went to a startup weekend education where I pitched my idea and met my two co-founders: Jamel and Thierry. Jamel was a foreign language teacher that had encountered the same problem and had come up with the same idea. Thierry was a brilliant engineer who wanted to apply his skills to solve a big problem in education using technology.