KICKSTART:ED #01 with Andrew Miller of SkyLight

As promised in the last newsletter (subscribe here, it’s free!), team EDUKWEST is working on some new, exciting shows. One of them launches today: KICKSTART:ED.

The premise is pretty simple. Here at EDUKWEST we always aim to cover startups in education from early on in their journey and accompany them over the years. This show takes it even a step further as we are going to cover startups that don’t even exist yet.

Kickstarter is a website where people with projects or product ideas meet potential “investors”. The concept is called crowdfunding. If people like the idea they pay in advance for the product or just give a donation starting at $1 USD. Depending on the amount people are giving, they usually receive different perks as a thank you.

SkyLight, the first project we cover at KICKSTART:ED already received more than $18,000 USD, that’s $3,000 more than Andy & Tess pledged for. The device connects any phone with an integrated camera to optical devices such as telescopes or microscopes.

This way you can turn those analog devices into digital ones with a multitude of different use cases. For example add it to binoculars and take pictures of birds and other animals. Connect it to a telescope and take pictures from the night sky. You get the picture (sorry).

The thing where it gets really exciting is in the health care space. Through a Skype enabled smart phone a doctor at some remote place could take a picture of a smear, call a colleague on the other side of the globe and have a real time conversation or analysis about it.

Personally I see a lot of potential for app developers as well, building an app that automatically identifies a constellation when pointed at it etc.

The price of the device will be $60 USD and Andy & Tess are also going to set up a 5:1 program in which they will give away one SkyLight for every 5 devices purchased.

If you want to support Andy & Tess, there are still 10 days to go to get your device first or to donate and receive a nice perk.