Problem: The project was established in San Francisco, in the United States, by Rob Mancabelli, a teacher, and Hisham Anwar, a professional that works in the tech field. BrightBytes aims to help schools, school administrators and the government to improve learning through the detailed analysis of academic data. According to the founders of the platform, teachers are currently overwhelmed by the quantity of data available to them, struggle to decide how to deal with so many priorities and have difficulty in deciding which tools are really capable of guaranteeing the development of their students.

Solutions: The platform integrates complex, difficult to find statistical data from scholarly research and translates it into recommendations and actions that can quickly be undertaken by teachers and administrators.

The service includes modules such as technology and apprenticeship, early warning and leadership. Each one of them offers a more in depth evaluation of each specific area and proposes steps to resolve the problems that are encountered. The technology and apprenticeship module, for example, determines whether or not the technology the school intends to use will provide the best results in terms of learning 21st century skills. The early warning module is based on personalized evaluations in order to identify at risk students and suggest immediate intervention on the part of the teachers. The leadership module, on the other hand, reveals if there is an alignment between leaders and teams and indicates how necessary changes can be made in the most efficient manner. This teaching tool uses real life examples of teachers who were able to solve similar issues to facilitate the implementation of changes.

Outcomes: In two years of operation, 10,000 schools have already used the platform in order to make academic decisions. Teachers and school administrators, after implementing the changes that were recommended by the module, receive reports that illustrate the impacts of the initiatives that were adopted regarding the schooling of the children and teenagers over time. As a result, teachers and administrators also feel more confident regarding the work that was implemented.