Ed tech teams compete for modest prizes from Gates Foundation, Facebook

A look at winners picked by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Facebook at their HackEd 2.0 challenge. The two organizations hosted 24 teams of developers, educators and others for a day-long event and hackathon at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters focused on all things ed tech.

Winners included:

• Edumacation — Created by a team from Facebook, the app uses the social network’s open graph to help students create pathways to college and beyond by finding people with common characteristics or relevant experiences. For example, a high school student could use it to find graduates of her high school who are now enrolled at Harvard or a college student could use it to find a Facebook employee who went to her alma mater.
• Outspoken — Created by a team that includes one teacher, it helps students build Common Core reading and listening skills by exchanging video and written content with peers on Facebook.