This article was originally published by Diego López Marina in Peru Reports, a sister publication.
In 2018, when Maria del Mar Velez founded the Peruvian startup Crack The Code, she had one thing clear: her mission was to transform education in Latin America by training children in programming languages. In the next five years, she believes it will be as important to success in business as knowing English.
“There will come a time, five years from now, where programming education will be visible and necessary. Parents need to understand that these will be essential skills that will open doors for their children and that not all computer time is bad,” Velez said in an interview with Peru reports.
“English is necessary and I think this is the ‘English of the future,'” said the CEO of the startup based in Lima, Peru. “A child can change the family income, then a city, a country, a region.”
Crack The Code specializes in online programming courses for kids and teens. So far this year the company counts 55 associates, 1300 active students in more than 21 countries and was selected by HolonIQ as one of the 100 most promising Edtech companies in the region.
In 2018, Velez invested all her savings to create Crack The Code and started the business with only 20 students. But she had a clear objective: “to undertake something that has a social impact and not just economic results”.
“We give low-income kids access to scholarships, but also profitable and growing across the region. We have made alliances with foundations and NGOs to reach public schools,” she said.
According to Velez, Crack The Code aims to combat technological illiteracy, empower its students to be tech creators and have the tools to take advantage of opportunities in the future, where engineers will be increasingly needed.
Peru still faces major challenges in advancing its education system and technology sector. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Education, 60% of educational institutions do not have adequate technological equipment, 79% of schools do not have access to the Internet and 55% of teachers do not have the skills to use digital technologies in the classroom.
Despite the technology gap, Peru currently has about 20 edtech companies that, in 2020, received more than $20 million in funding from domestic and foreign investors, according to an analysis by Hero Startup.
“At Crack The Code we seek to complement traditional education, but in a way that kids have fun learning and becoming experts,” Velez said.
“Learning to program gives you a logical structure to solve problems in different and creative ways,” she added.
How Crack The Code works with kids
Crack The Code has an educational and pedagogical innovation team that develops strategies and adapts platforms to teach classes, according to the CEO.
“Continuous innovation is very important. It should be taught through technology platforms to enhance the educational experience. On the other hand, we have the content, which must constantly evolve, reflecting what our students are looking for and want,” she said.
Crack The Code has courses to create video games, courses for kid programmers, video editing, and other classes on design and creativity, including their popular “learn to code with Minecraft” course.
“Maybe in a year we will release a crypto or blockchain course for kids. Who knows? But we don’t want to defeat them either, because you have to start from the basics and gradually evolve,” she said.
The company’s teachers are all engineering students in their final years of university who “love their careers and at the same time need an income while they study”.
“They want to share their passion and spread the love of technology to kids,” she assured.
Velez explained that after hiring teachers, they train them, pay them for that training, and ultimately pay them by the hour to teach.
“It’s a win-win,” she assured.
Peru’s view of EdTech
According to Velez, with the pandemic there was a “boom of EdTech startups in Peru” because “there is a great need to correct educational problems.”
“We love to see more and more startups generating impact in Peru.”
And the company is seeing some traction. In December last year, Crack The Code raised $2.7 million in funding from Kaszek Ventures.
“It is an achievement to have received the seal of approval from Kaszek, which is the number one fund in the region. This means that we show the country and the world that we have something valuable and that we are on the way to improving it,” she said.
Velez said that Crack The Code “continues to grow strongly in Peru,” but they are also “expanding to other Latin American countries, including Mexico, Colombia and Central America.”
“We do webinars with schools, partnerships with tech companies, give benefits to employees of large companies and help with marketing,” she said. Peru reports.
For this year, Velez commented that they aim to “triple last year’s income and have 6,000 more active students by December.”
“We want to continue to create awareness of why this is important and has the power to change lives and families,” she concluded.
Sabrina Seltzer, Head of Transfer and Entrepreneurship at Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of the largest engineering universities in Latin America, said in 2022 that Peru is shaping up to be a country with a high-potential new technology ecosystem, with companies of other notables including Silabuz. Luteach, Code en mi Cole, uDocz, Ipluton, Wempo Academy, Musa and Queestudiar.
“In all startups we are always looking for engineers and there will come a time when universities will require programming knowledge from students. Technology is here to stay and therefore, from now on, we help to find a positive way to work with it and with our children,” Velez added.
