{"id":8020,"date":"2018-09-18T08:50:46","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T12:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.elearninginside.com\/?p=8020"},"modified":"2018-09-18T14:19:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T18:19:41","slug":"despite-clearing-100-million-users-geogebra-remains-true-to-its-founders-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.elearninginside.com\/despite-clearing-100-million-users-geogebra-remains-true-to-its-founders-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Clearing 100 Million Users, GeoGebra Remains True to Its Founder’s Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

While it isn\u2019t as widely known in the U.S., GeoGebra currently has somewhere over 100 million users worldwide. Management can\u2019t be exactly sure. Besides an additional 10 million or so through various commercial partners, GeoGebra\u2019s apps all operate both on- and offline. In many cases, an app downloaded onto one device will be used by entire classrooms.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the first of a three-part interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

Founded by Markus Hohenwarter, GeoGebra’s suite of apps offer powerful math tools that generally combine geometry and algebra. The apps offer an interactive geometry environment in 2D and 3D and can be used for anything from advanced graphing and differential equations at higher levels all the way down to classifying quadrilaterals for elementary grades. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike all great ideas, it started as a Master\u2019s thesis,\u201d said Stephen Jull, GeoGebra COO and CFO. \u201cIt then went through iterations as a PhD project. At that point, Markus Hohenwarter started getting a lot of attention because it was an interesting mash up of ideas\u2014taking geometry and algebra and, hence, GeoGebra.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was back in the day in the early 2000s before there were new ways of thinking about calculators online and offline. It was quite revolutionary. So there was a lot of attention at the time, a lot of big companies were paying attention to what he was doing. He was getting some pressure to join some of the more established tech institutions around those efforts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Going Viral Without Monetizing<\/h1>\n

Hohenwarter did not take that course. As a free, open-source downloadable application with the ability to deliver greater computing power than an advanced traditional calculator, GeoGebra went viral in the early years of the\u00a0 <\/span>Web 2.0. With absolutely zero budget for marketing and advertising and no monetization scheme in sight, the software spread along teacher networks into classrooms throughout the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides software, it was soon grow into an online community, where users uploaded unique uses and lessons with the app.<\/p>\n

And despite the huge initial growth in users, \u201cMarkus [Hohenwarter] stayed true to his vision,\u201d Jull said, \u201cwhich was to level the playing field in mathematics worldwide through maintaining this open project that was intended to be available for all teachers and students so that anyone could, without barriers of finance or access, be able to use tools that were as powerful as any university professor would have access to.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

During this time, Hohenwarter completed his postdoc studies at Florida Atlantic University in 2009 and went on to chair the Department of Mathematics Education at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz in Austria, his home country.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jull met Hohenwarter and GeoGebra’s long time Lead Developer Mike Borcherds while studying at Cambridge through a mutual friend, Zsolt Lavicza. \u201cThen we started chatting about, well \u2018how do we make this project\u2019\u2014which then had a couple million users way back in the day\u2014\u2018into a sustainable project where we actually had a budget to build the project out, and even just support server time? \u201cUp until then, it was self-hosted,\u201d Jull said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In answer, they came up with a business model that is nowhere to be seen in the edtech startups of Silicon Valley\u2014then and now.<\/span><\/p>\n