Shtreber is number one in Primary School


05.04.2021

Five years ago, a young entrepreneur, innovator and, above all, "nerd" Stefanija Lukić started developing an educational learning platform for school-age children. Stefanija and two co-founders, Artjom Suvorov and Nemanja Nerandžić, founded the startup Just Smart. With the financial support of European Union in 2017, she managed to improve the Shtreber platform and offer children completely free and safe learning tool, from fifth to eighth grade.

This platform contains everyday school lessons, but the material is not presented through school definitions, but through gamification (knowledge quizzes), pictures, videos and interactive applications. The goal is to create digital interactive lessons based on a game model involved in the learning process.

Also, Shtreber is a motivational platform that rewards children for each correct answer and gives them the opportunity to see their progress (ranked by levels and knowledge through collecting points). Platform system gives real rewards for excellent students who are the most persistent, learn the most, spend the most time reading lessons, and trying to collect as many points as possible.

“There is a lot of content that children search for, but it is not adapted to them. Often, that content  do not correspond to the school curriculum and contain harmful information. Unlike others, we provide children's safety and free lessons. When, for example, they type the word "sulfur", Wikipedia will come out first, and then the site Shtreber. With us, they will get the entire lesson in inorganic chemistry for the seventh grade of primary school, and that is the way in which we build trust and provide security for children and parents", points out Stefanija.

The first version of the platform was simple, with lessons sorted by class and subject. Over time, with the help of psychologists and pedagogues, Shtreber developed and became interactive (question and answer form). Also, with professional help, a system of "learning by mistake" was introduced, which is extremely important for children's self-confidence and personality building.

Today, thanks to an innovative project developed by the startup, through the Mini Grants Program of the Innovation Fund, Shtreber looks different. In addition to the elements of the game, Shtreber has elements of a social network of a strictly educational content. The platform allows supervision of the posted content by the teacher and children are protected from harmful and inappropriate information.

No similar platform deals with school materials and what children need on a daily basis, adapted through play. In addition, digital education has been improved because with the help of modern technology, the quality of learning materials in regular schooling has been improved, and children and teachers can connect with each other.

"By creating and developing a digital notebook with a large number of children and teachers, we can go a step further. We can offer them to independently create content that they need. They will also be able to fill in, share with their peers, create questions and pictures, which leads to peer education that is obtained exclusively by connecting children", states Stefanija.

The Shtreber platform is definitely the beginning of real "distance learning", an encyclopedia of different explanations of the same concepts, quality education anywhere at any time for every child.

Direct Grant Agreement - Development of new products and services by SMEs through the commercialization of research, signed between the Innovation Fund and the Ministry of Finance (Sector for Contracting and Financing Programs from European Union Funds), provides funds for continued implementation of the Early Development Program and the Co-financing Innovation Program. The total value of the Direct Grant Agreement is 4.5 million euros, of which 2.5 million euros are financed from the European Union Pre-Accession Funds for 2014, while 2 million euros are provided from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, from the Ministry of education, science and technological development. You can find out more about the project at: www.inovacionifond.rs