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Tennis great Agassi debuts ed-tech venture at CES

 

 

LAS VEGAS – Andre Agassi is serving up a tech-powered education tool that he hopes will give young children a reading advantage early in life.

Square Panda leverages a user’s existing tablet and combines proprietary hardware (a tray with eight squares where children place letters) and software (which keeps track of a student’s progress and gradually increases difficulty) to teach pre-kindergarten age kids how to spell. 

The tennis legend and longtime education activist announced his investment in Square Panda on Monday alongside the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s CEO Andy Butler at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, which runs through Jan. 9. 

The $99 product, which has been nearly three years in development, is on sale at squarepanda.com and will ship in April. It comes with four apps, and while it is initially iOS only, an Android version will follow later in the year.

“I must get pitched 100 ideas a year, and I say no to 99% of them because I don’t see scalability,” Agassi tells USA TODAY. “But this was a no-brainer for me. Nine of 10 dropouts have horrible reading skills. If we can help kids at this critical phase of their learning, it can have a huge impact.”

Agassi detailed his own lack of a formal education in his best-selling book Open. “I had a lack of schooling, but I was lucky enough to be really good at a sport, but what about those kids who aren’t?” he says. “What’s left for many is gangs and prison.”

Agassi, who remains one of the most successful Americans to ever pick up a racquet, grew up in Las Vegas, where he now lives with his wife, tennis ace Steffi Graf, and their two children. In 1994, he founded the Agassi Foundation for Education, which includes a K-12 charter school here.

Although this is his first foray into EdTech – Agassi is a leading investor in Square Panda and sits on the company’s board – he says that he has seen first-hand how classroom smart-boards and low-coast virtual reality gear such as Google Cardboard have made it easier for teachers to get their students excited about education.

“I’m tired of waiting for government to solve these (education system) problems, or for philanthropic efforts to be scaled,” he says. "It would be nice if kids had a union, where they could shout about how they feel. But they don't, so for now I'm here to shout for them."

Square Panda CEO Butler says his company has been testing the product in day centers here as well as at various Head Start chapters, with an emphasis on making sure that it can withstand the physical abuse kids often mete out to tech gear. But he hopes that the sort of customized learning that technology can enable will ultimately revolutionize the way children learn. 

“The key for today’s kids really is to have learning that combines the physical and the virtual worlds, resulting in a multi-sensory environment,” says Butler, who was teamed up with Square Panda's founder when he began advising them through his company D2M, Design to Matter. 

“What’s really important to remember is that our existing education model where every kid marches through (grades) at the same pace won’t last,” he says. “Up until recently, being taught at your own pace has been cost prohibitive. But technology can now make this dream affordable.”

Follow USA TODAY tech reporter at CES all week @marcodellacava.

 

 

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