Innovating a next-gen education platform for NWEA

NWEA needed help envisioning an educational platform incorporating Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), a new teaching modality in response to the devastating impacts on youth from the pandemic. We created SOMO, an interactive third-person world that lets students explore SEL educational activities, learning assessments, personal resources, and community groups to foster continued engagement. The platform includes support tools for teachers that provide real-time data insights to help understand student needs, as well as close pain points preventing teachers from integrating new curricula in limited teaching time. This fun and innovative platform not only alleviated critical bandwidth issues for overworked instructors, but ushered in new learning methodologies to help students worldwide overcome effects of the pandemic.