Made by Many Wins 2015 IxDA Award for Skype In The Classroom
Made by Many, a digital product innovation company with offices in London and New York, was named the winner of the prestigious 2015 IxDA Interaction Award for their work on 'Skype in the Classroom', a service developed for client Skype/Microsoft that has enriched the lives of millions of young students around the globe.
The award was announced in San Francisco by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) at the conclusion of its Interaction 15 conference held on February 12th 2015.
'Skype in the Classroom', which won the IxDA Connecting category, is a free service for teachers worldwide that allows them to collaborate with each other, bring guest speakers to their classrooms, take children on virtual field trips and unlock learning experiences that would otherwise not be possible due to distance and budget barriers.
Launched in 2011, it is already being used by more than 100,000 teachers in 240 countries and territories around the globe.
Skype in the Classroom also ended up serving as an effective sales conversion tool as participants in the academic program were twice as likely to use Skype's paid services.
"Made by Many took us on a magical journey, inspired by the way teachers were hacking Skype to connect their classrooms," notes Gary Bramall, global senior brand director at Microsoft, Skype's parent company.
"Together we grew it into an everyday learning tool that's become a million times more successful than we could possibly have imagined, and became the ultimate manifestation of Skype's soul."
In addition to winning for Skype in the Classroom, Made by Many was also a finalist in two other IxDA award categories.
Its Hackaball iPhone connected ball was selected by judges as one of five finalists in the Engaging category. School in the Cloud, a program Made by Many developed with Skype and TED prize winner Sugata Mitra that was launched at the 2014 TED conference was a finalist in IxDA Empowering category.
The award was announced in San Francisco by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) at the conclusion of its Interaction 15 conference held on February 12th 2015.
'Skype in the Classroom', which won the IxDA Connecting category, is a free service for teachers worldwide that allows them to collaborate with each other, bring guest speakers to their classrooms, take children on virtual field trips and unlock learning experiences that would otherwise not be possible due to distance and budget barriers.
Launched in 2011, it is already being used by more than 100,000 teachers in 240 countries and territories around the globe.
Skype in the Classroom also ended up serving as an effective sales conversion tool as participants in the academic program were twice as likely to use Skype's paid services.
"Made by Many took us on a magical journey, inspired by the way teachers were hacking Skype to connect their classrooms," notes Gary Bramall, global senior brand director at Microsoft, Skype's parent company.
"Together we grew it into an everyday learning tool that's become a million times more successful than we could possibly have imagined, and became the ultimate manifestation of Skype's soul."
In addition to winning for Skype in the Classroom, Made by Many was also a finalist in two other IxDA award categories.
Its Hackaball iPhone connected ball was selected by judges as one of five finalists in the Engaging category. School in the Cloud, a program Made by Many developed with Skype and TED prize winner Sugata Mitra that was launched at the 2014 TED conference was a finalist in IxDA Empowering category.
