According to a news release this month announcing the application window for the department's annual Institute of Education Sciences Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the deadline for ed-tech proposals for 2025 is Jan. 8. The funding is coordinated by the U.S. Small Business Administration in partnership with the Department of Education, one of 11 federal agencies that provide various SBIR funds. Only companies with fewer than 500 employees are eligible to apply for this funding.
The education arm of the SBIR program was founded in 2002 and is administered by the Institute of Education Sciences, the research branch of the Department of Education. It makes $10 million available annually to support the development of new ed-tech products for students and educators, according to the SBIR website.
“These projects take advantage of AI functionalities to generate new or adjust existing content to meet the needs of individual learners, offer real-time feedback to scaffold learning, and produce real-time prompts and insights that educators can use to track student progress and adjust instruction accordingly,” the news release said.
According to the news release, nearly half of last year's awards went to projects focusing on artificial intelligence. One prototype used ChatGPT to help quiz students about reading assignments with questions that are “culturally responsive,” or relevant to the lives of students from diverse backgrounds. Another proposed to use a data-driven dashboard to identify students in need of mental health support based on their responses to a weekly survey. A third 2024 awardee completed the development of an ed-tech tool called the Kibeam Wand Reading System, a handheld wand that uses a camera and audio output to allow children to explore words in up to 100 popular hard-copy books, with no need for a screen. The wand uses AI to perform a running assessment of the student’s literacy skills, and tailors its games and questions accordingly, per the project description.
Along with AI, a second trend among the ed-tech tools that received SBIR funding this year was interactive learning. Examples included a physical and digital circuitry kit for computer science students and multiple games designed to support learning in topics from social studies to math.
