Education: give teachers superpowers and students will soar

Date: July 2022

Daisy Hill (History, Collingwood College, 2006-9) 

We are always keen to follow the careers of our alumni community, particularly when they are sharing impactful EdTech solutions with students around the world.  

Durham alumna Daisy Hill is doing just that. Co-founder and COO of Zzish, a smart-data platform that uses fun and engaging quizzes to facilitate formative assessments, Daisy is making ripples in the EdTech space by pairing learning resources that students want to use with micro and macro level Mastery Data. The result? Real-time data that teachers can use to inform and implement differentiated and personalised learning to every student. 

Daisy can also boast being behind the wheel of the largest crowdfunding raises (£3million total) of any EdTech in the UK. 

After graduating from Collingwood College in 2009, Daisy spent a period of time in the commercial world of technology. In 2013, she  co-founded her first company in 2013, Useful Music, a startup that provides original sheet music downloads tailored for learners and their instruments. Stints at Reward Gateway and Eventbrite further cut Daisy’s teeth in the commercial tech world, igniting a spark and passion for scaling businesses and inspiring the team around her. 

However, it wasn’t until she gained experience working in schools herself that she identified the desperate need for students of all abilities and behaviours to be afforded the personalised teaching they need to reach their highest potential. The marriage of Daisy’s commercial experience and aptitude coupled with this new insight into the education sector set her on a new path… 

An average secondary school teacher can teach 250 different students each week. Through her own personal experience in the classroom, Daisy knew that keeping on top of each student's individual progress and matching them with the best learning resource for their learning style was no easy task. 

Daisy’s solution to this common obstacle teachers around the world face? Quizalize. 

Quizalize is a fun and engaging quiz platform that teachers can use both in the classroom and to set homework. As each student completes their quiz (which is tagged to the country, district and subject’s curricula), their real time data feeds into the smart-data engine.  

On a micro level, teachers can see in real time how each student is performing, what questions they are getting right and wrong, and what learning objectives need more attention. On a macro level, headteachers can see a full picture of how their students, classes and overall school are performing. This valuable insight has never been seen before. And now it can be used to provide immediate insights that help every student reach their full potential. 

Quizalize is offered on a Freemium commercial model, meaning that every teacher, everywhere, can access the powerful platform for free. When teachers upgrade to the premium version, they unlock additional features and functionalities, further enhancing the level of personalisation and differentiation they can bring to their classrooms. Additionally, the cost of the premium upgrade is market-adjusted and market-appropriate, offering an always affordable resource to teachers. For Daisy this is a very important policy to maintain, as the promotion of education-equity is at the heart of Zzish’s mission and commitment to teachers and students around the world. 

Quizalize has a B2B offering too,offering multiple B2B products and services, already adopted by many global companies. 

One of these B2B products is My Quizalize, a service that enables businesses and publishers to completely white label their content in a secure, sandboxed environment. Offering a new channel to digitise and monetise a company’s content, My Quizalize turns print resources into a web-based app, allowing companies and publishers to expand their reach - and their bottom lines. 

Education is at the heart of everything Zzish and Quizalize do. Teachers and students will always be Daisy’s greatest focus, and with thousands of teachers joining the platform every day, the impact of Quizalize on student learning and attainment is only increasing. 

From emerging markets like the Philippines to established markets such as the US, Quizalize is a trusted and treasured resource for teachers the world over.

Daisy’s overall vision for Zzish is to provide an EdTech solution that is socio-economic agnostic to all students around the world, fulfilling the company’s founding mission: to bring quality education to all students, through giving teachers superpowers.