After seeing her niece — along with the rest of the nation — play the augmented reality game Pokemon Go, a University of South Florida professor wanted to bring the same elements into children's classrooms.
"I've been a researcher for a long time, and I wanted to take some of my research out of academics into the real world," Sara Smith, an assistant professor of foreign language in USF's College of Education, said. "So, that's why I founded the company — to take the technology and innovation and get them out there."
Smith, along with startup veteran Murewa Olubela, launched MARVL in April 2020 to help dual-language students learn English through augmented reality elements, all without leaving their classroom.
"Normally they would have paraprofessionals pull them out once or twice a week, but what happens the rest of the week where they’re not in a paraprofessional class?" Olubela said. "The kids will be disinterested because of the language barrier, which causes a lack of motivation and piles into what kind of career they want for themselves."
The MARVL software connects students with cartoon character "tutor" Ivan, who provides definitions in Spanish alongside the English lesson taught to the child's classmates. Smith and Olubela specifically wanted to emphasize math and science instruction in their software, and include STEM-focused vocabulary words such as "predict" in Ivan's jargon.
While augmented reality may seem daunting to some, the co-founders believe it can help alleviate a teacher's workload and keep the students engaged for a win-win scenario.
"Everyone we talked to were saying the exact thing — that there is no technology-based solution that exactly focuses on helping ELL students succeed in school," Olubela said. "What we’re doing, it's an anomaly to learning in the K-12 space."
The company expects to be in beta mode for the next year, but has launched pilot programs across schools including the Dreamers Academy in Sarasota and the entire Manatee County School District.
It's also been involved in multiple programs, including with IBM, Amazon Web Services, Impact Ventures, the USF Connect incubator and Tampa Bay Wave's TechWomen Rising accelerator program. It has a total of nine employees including contractors and part-time staff and has raised its $83,000 in funds entirely through winning grants.
Smith and Olubela hope to work with more schools in its beta phase, and soon will expand its language offerings to include Haitian Creole and Korean.
"Maybe a few years ago, schools wouldn't have been as excited, or teachers wouldn’t have been as confident to adopt and integrate a new technology," Smith said. "But one of the things that have come from this rapid acceleration of technology adoption in school during Covid-19 is, we're becoming aware of how to use tech to benefit learners. So people are ready for new innovations, even for stuff that sounds kind of wild."
