Equipple is an app which has been designed in mind to improve parent-teacher meetings by brothers and co-founders Ryan and Stuart Henry.
The start-up was announced as one of the finalists in the Future Business Category for Catalyst INVENT 2024, the leading competition for aspiring innovators and entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland.
Organised by science and technology hub Catalyst with headline partner Bank of Ireland, the inspirational INVENT showcase is the main event of the year for early-stage startups and aspiring entrepreneurs to showcase their innovations to a panel of expert judges.
INVENT’s overall prize totals £55,000, with each category winner taking home £5,000 and the overall winner walking away with an additional £20,000, totalling a £25,000 top prize.
Stuart, himself a teacher, talks to Sync NI about Equipple including what inspired the idea and its positive impact on teachers and parents alike.
Tell us about your business, including how you come up with the concept and the journey of getting started.
“Equipple is an app that improves parent-teacher meetings. These meetings can be difficult for parents to schedule and they are often left without clear next steps for their children to take. They are also extremely arduous for teachers to prepare for and contributing to unparalleled levels of burnout and teacher retention issues. It’s projected that the global shortfall of teachers in the next five years will reach 44 million which is a daunting prospect. Equipple takes the pain out of these meetings by automating the scheduling and syncing the most important data directly for teachers.
READ MORE: Science and technology hub Catalyst announces finalists of INVENT 2024
“As a teacher myself I have experienced the frustrations of parent-teacher meetings for many years. Then, after some long conversations with my brother where I asked him, ‘surely there has to be a better way than this?’ we decided to do something about it. My brother Ryan’s experience is in strategic marketing roles for large B2B organisations and so we felt that we had the complimentary skillsets to create an innovative and disruptive product that teachers and parents would want to use.”
Have you always been interested in technology?
“I have always been interested in solving real problems and making things more efficient and I have always sought out new ways to harness the power of technology to do this. I am constantly looking for new and innovative ways to use technology to improve outcomes in education.”
Who was your biggest inspiration growing up and do you have a mentor figure in business currently?
“Growing up I was a really keen cyclist so my role models were Irish cyclists like Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche. They won some of the biggest races in the world but came from such humble backgrounds. I learned a lot about hard work and perseverance from cycling and I see a real cross over between cycling and teaching. Both areas require high levels of teamwork, passion and striving for the best results day after day.
“We do have a mentor who is from Dublin and is actually aptly named Paul Roche (although he’s no relation to Stephen Roche sadly!) Paul has been instrumental in helping us gain a more in-depth understanding of the Ed-Tech space and how to gain traction with a solution like ours.”
How does it feel to have been announced as one of just 12 finalists for the entrepreneurial startup awards INVENT 2024?
“It was a really validating feeling to have been announced as a finalist. Equipple itself is less than a year old and we’ve been so encouraged by the traction that we’ve received in such a short space of time. Catalyst have been so helpful to us and the INVENT awards promises to be a great night.”
What would it mean for your business to win on 3rd October?
“It would mean a lot to both Ryan and I. Win, lose or draw we count our experience with INVENT 2024 as invaluable so, in that regard it’s already been a win for us. However, the recognition of coming out on top of a prestigious competition like this would provide us with real impetus as we move forward.”
Going forward, what can you tell us about your plans or goals for your business - both short and long term.
“We hope that, moving forward our Parent-Teacher Meetings app will be making a real difference for teachers and parents worldwide, meeting both the needs of over-worked teachers and, at the same time, driving standards of teaching and learning.”
The INVENT awards ceremony will be hosted at the ICC Waterfront in Belfast on Thursday 3 October 2024. To book tickets go to www.invent24.co/awards
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