Higher Learning Technologies

Midwest Startup Is Changing the Way We Learn

Thursday, October 30, 2014

In late 2012, our CEO Alec Whitters had spent six years building towards the most important exam of his life, his dental licensure exam. When that all important day began looming on the near horizon, he was shocked to find that he could not use his new smartphone and tablet as a study tool. Desperately he reached out to publishing companies to try to convince them that they needed a mobile study solution, but they dismissed it as a dumb idea. At that moment he decided if no one else would do it then he would have to. Whitters mobilized two of his best childhood friends to help him on this mission. Adam Keune, a business major, and Ben O’Connor, a doctoral student, began helping Whitters develop our first app, Dental Boards Mastery, which was released in late 2012. The app started selling worldwide almost immediately. By May of 2013, we released our second app, a study tool for the nursing licensure exam (NCLEX RN Mastery), which exploded to become the top the grossing educational app on iOS and Android and in the top 125 grossing apps overall. Their company, Higher Learning Technologies (HLT), has been rapidly gaining momentum ever since. They raised over a million dollars in seed investment, have had five apps in top 50 grossing for education on android and ios, and have helped about 450,000 students in 175 countries. We have come a long ways but feel we are just getting started as we scale our mobile learning platform to help students around the world. We give students the ability to learn anywhere and anytime at a price they can afford. You no longer need to attend an expensive class, carry heavy books or unorganized flash cards, all you need is a phone or tablet. We currently have 400,000 users on our apps in over 175 countries, and have the #1 top grossing education app on iOS and Android. We have been featured in Inc. Magazine, Forbes as well as others.