Interface3
Interface3 is an award-winning education games company based in Edinburgh, focused on using new technologies to enable group-based learning, an educational technique already widely used in primary schools.
TalentScotland spoke to Kate Ho, founder and CEO of Interface3.
Tell me about the history of Interface3
The company started towards the end of 2009. We started out designing and developing for interactive tables (eg Microsoft Surface). But then we realised the huge implications our skillset had in designing collaborative games on more mainstream platforms like the iPad. We started doing more work around iPads and android tablets and have had some amazing reviews and feedback from teachers playing our games. We still develop for tabletops, but the core of our work has moved onto mobile platforms now.
What do your products do?
Our products are all educational games that you could play at a party!
They're all games that require collaboration and cooperation to win, and so teaches valuable skills in working with others at the 3-11 age range. We do this by combining our love of games design with innovative technologies (eg. augmented reality, multitouch surfaces, kinect) to create learning toys and games that are not only fun to play but help students to learn as well.
Are there any interesting developments in the pipeline?
We’ve started doing more and more work around augmented reality, which has huge potential, as well as working on a number of our own mobile games.
Do you recruit from outside Scotland?
Well, I’m British Chinese – I was born in Hong Kong, but moved to the UK when I was young. Two of the other three members of the team are non-Scottish so, yes, we recruit from outside Scotland!
We’re here because Scotland is a great place to be. You get access to a lot of talent, both home grown and among people who have been attracted by the universities or the industry here. And of course there’s a great quality of life and it's an easy journey to other big cities in the UK and Europe.
I hope the work we do as a company would also be a draw. It's a job where you're applying the best technology in the world to shape the way children learn - what could be more important and rewarding than that?