Concentric Sky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founder | Wayne Skipper |
| Headquarters | |
| Services | Software Design & Development |
Number of employees | (90 employees (2022)) |
| Parent | Instructure |
| Website | concentricsky |
Concentric Sky is a software development company located in Eugene, Oregon. The company was founded in 2005 by Wayne Skipper,[1] and grew to nearly 90 employees prior its sale to Instructure in April 2022.[2][3] In 2015, Cale Bruckner was promoted to President of the company.[4] Skipper continued to serve as CEO until the company's sale. Concentric Sky is the maker of Badgr and is a well-known contributor to the development of open technology standards focused on improving outcomes for learners and workers.
Concentric Sky grew steadily from its founding in 2005.[5][6] In 2008, the company announced a partnership with GoldMoney to create an iPhone app to allow the transfer of digital units of gold.[7]
In 2009, the company formed a partnership with Encyclopædia Britannica to launch a series of iOS apps for the K-12 education market.[8][9][10] That same year, the company released the official iOS app for NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day[11][12][13][14][15] and also developed the website for film maker Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story.[16]
In 2010, Concentric Sky Founder Wayne Skipper was asked by Google to submit expert testimony to the Federal Trade Commission regarding Google's acquisition of Admob.[17][18] That same year, the company partnered with the World Bank[19] to develop a series of data visualization apps and partnered with National Geographic to design and build a series of official study apps for the National Geographic Bee.[5] In 2010, the Internet Engineering Task Force voted to make the company a development partner.[20]
In 2011, the company partnered with the United Nations to develop a data visualization app to support the UN's annual reports.[21] That same year, the company was named "the only App Developer officially endorsed by Mashable."[22]
In 2012, the company designed and built an iPad version of the Encyclopædia Britannica.[23] The app received widespread recognition,[24][25][26][27][28] including an Appy Award.[29]
In 2013, products featuring Concentric Sky's work for partner Cengage Learning won 2 Codie awards.[30] That same year, the company's work resulted in a US patent for usability improvements to electronic medical records.[31]
In 2014, the company joined the Open Badges movement and launched the Oregon Badge Alliance with partners including Oregon State University.[32] Later that year, the company released an open source Android viewer app for Khan Academy content.[33]
In 2015, the company led the development of Open Badges 2.0 in partnership with MacArthur Foundation spin off, Collective Shift.[34][35] That same year, the company launched the Badgr project with partner edX.[36] The use of Badgr grew rapidly,[37] and by early 2018 the product had grown to serve nearly 10,000 organizations around the world.[2]
In 2016, the company announced a broad partnership with Collective Shift focused on advancements in education technology and workforce readiness. Under this partnership, the company developed LRNG[38] and took over development of GlassLab Games, which included the educational variants of several popular video games including Civilization and SimCity.[39] GlassLab Games was shut down at the end of 2018, and Concentric Sky worked to release many of the games open source.[40]
In 2017, the company became a founding member of the IEEE Industry Consortium for Learning Engineering,[41] and announced partnerships with the California Community Colleges System,[42] Georgia Department of Education,[43] and SURFnet.[44][45] The success of the company's Badgr product led to Founder Wayne Skipper being interviewed broadly in the education community,[46][47][48][49][50] as well as Badgr's inclusion in the European Commission Joint Research Centre's 2017 "Blockchain in Education" report.[51] That same year, the company offered digital badges to commemorate The Great American Eclipse,[52] and another product featuring the company's work for partner Cengage Learning won a Codie award.[53]
In 2018, the company expanded the digital badges ecosystem by releasing an open technology standard called Open Pathways,[54][55][56][57] and by creating a program to award digital badges to learning content aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards.[58] That same year, Mozilla announced the retirement of the Mozilla Backpack and the migration of its users to Badgr,[35][59] the company announced a new suite of open source tools for edX,[60] Badgr was selected as the native badging solution for the Canvas Learning Management System,[61] the company announced a 4-year partnership with the community college system of Washington state,[62] and products featuring the company's work for partner Cengage Learning won another 2 Codie awards.[63] Later that year, the company's EdRec initiative was named a winner of the US Dept of Education Reimagining Higher Education Ecosystem Challenge for its blockchain-based approach to digital transcripts,[64][65] and the company's work was featured in the book "The Interconnected Individual.”[66][67]
In 2019, SURFnet announced a plan for The Netherlands to adopt a national digital credential strategy based on the company's Badgr platform,[68] the company launched a series of tools in partnership with the California Community Colleges System designed to help prospective community college students and their families identify regional educational programs and employment opportunities,[69][70][71] and company founder Wayne Skipper was invited to speak at SXSW EDU on the topic of “Open Standards & the Quantification of Learning."[72] During 2019, the company's work was featured by Digital Promise,[73] EdSurge,[74] Educause,[75] IBM,[76] The Inter-American Development Bank,[77] and the Technology Association of Oregon.[78]
In 2020, Microsoft announced the integration of the company's Badgr product into Microsoft Teams,[79] the company co-founded the Open Skills Network with partners including Western Governors University and Walmart,[80][81] the company's Badgr product was demonstrated by Salesforce and Walmart to the United States Department of Commerce as part of a program serving over 2 million US workers,[82][83] the company launched a first-of-its-kind comprehensive learner record with the University of North Texas,[84][85] and the company announced partnerships with The International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET),[86] Credential Engine,[87] and Emsi.[88] In December 2020, Concentric Sky and partners including Instructure and Zoom wrote a public letter to the incoming US presidential administration urging an immediate focus on improving student learning outcomes in order to address ongoing issues impacting the US education system.[89]
In 2021, the company announced a proposal for version 3.0 of Open Badges,[90] bringing together the company's work across the World Wide Web Consortium and Decentralized Identity communities,[91][92] the company released the Open Skills Management Toolkit in partnership with Western Governors University,[93] and the company announced several new partnerships including Blackboard,[94] Postman,[95] and Open eLMS.[96] During 2021, the company's work was featured by the American Institutes for Research,[97] Futuro Health,[98] and numerous other organizations around the world.[99][100][101][102][103][104]
In early 2022, the company announced partnerships with the National Student Clearinghouse,[105] and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).[106] In April 2022, the company was acquired by Instructure.[3]
