We receive lots of queries about the company’s way of development. People are curious about how ROBBO managed to become that international robotics for children. Let us track back all the milestones that formed the up-to-date profile of the EdTech company presented in 35+ countries and educating 100k+ students around the globe.

2015

ROBBO kicked-off back in 2015 in Espoo, Finland, as a start-up project that aimed to develop open source technologies in robotics. The company was engaged in developing robots based on Arduino microcontrollers. ROBBO presented its products at local events and made its own workshops.

The two basic ROBBO educational units were invented then: the ROBBO Lab and the ROBBO Kit. Having gone under several modifications since then, these two products are still applied for the robotics education by ROBBO.

In autumn of 2015, ROBBO participated in EU Robotics week. It was the first event where ROBBO’s technologies received distinctively positive feedback from children and teachers. As the result of several master-classes and discussions, ROBBO realized it was important to prepare special pedagogical materials on how to apply ROBBO educational units in schools and other education institutions. Which incented ROBBO’s collaboration with Innokas on developing own methodological complex.

2016

In spring of 2016 ROBBO, in collaboration with Innokas (Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Helsinki), completed the Pedagogical Guide for teachers. The material gave basic understanding how to code ROBBO units with Scratch programming language. There were 174 students 9-16 y.o. and nine teachers who participated in creating the guide. It is available for download for free, so if you want to make first steps in Scratch coding, feel free to get it!

The Innokas Network is a collaboration of forward-looking schools, universities and companies focusing on children who are today learning their 21st century knowledge and skills.Within the network, they are finding ways to make creativity, innovation and technology part of everyday schoolwork.

The same year ROBBO participated in other remarkable events. 

At Robohub, ROBBO presented their technologies among other European leading projects. 

At EU Codeweek, ROBBO made free workshops for children and their parents, in order to cause their interest in robotics and innovative technologies.

2017

ROBBO was searching for new ways of making robotics more and more popular among children. Thus, in cooperation with Me Foundation, ROBBO supplied its equipment sets to 25 schools in Finland. Having 10 sets of equipment each, these schools managed to implement after school robotics classes for their students.

In February 2017 ROBBO, in cooperation with We Foundation and Innokas network, organized a programming- and robotics schooling weekend for teachers. After this event, ROBBO received an opportunity to integrate its educational technologies in public schools. Later on, based on this experience, ROBBO would create its product called ROBBO Class.

The first international expansion took place in April 2017, when ROBBO, in cooperation with The London School of Mathematics and Programming, organized a holiday robotics camp for children 6-12 y.o. in London. That was the first experience of implementing the ROBBO Class solution in a partnership institution. This made ROBBO Class a fully commercial product for the company.

In May 2017, the first Asian integration happened. A delegation of professors from Thailand, during their visit to Finland, attended the ROBBO’s workshop, where they were introduced to Scratch programming. That was the first interest of ROBBO from outside Europe, which is still going on successfully. Now ROBBO is presented in 35+ countries around the world. Nowadays ROBBO has strong connections with Thailand partners and regularly holds joint competitions

Also in May 2017 ROBBO participated in a national robotics tournament organized by Innokas Network. The tournament took place at the University of Oulu  where over 500 excited children and teenagers 7-16 years old participated.

In the beginning of November 2017 (1 – 2.11.) ROBBO attended Oppimisen fiesta in Helsinki. Oppimisen fiesta is a festival for everyone interested in new ideas of learning and education.

2018

In 2018 Maria Hakkarainen became CEO of ROBBO Finland. Virtually, after Maria’s taking over, ROBBO became a commercially successful company, rather than a start-up. Maria helped ROBBO enforce its positions on the international EdTech market, she kept on developing the products and solutions of ROBBO.

Besides purely commercial achievements, Maria is a very welcoming person. She participates in numerous webinars and interviews, where discloses lots of useful information about ROBBO. Also, she welcomes all partners (and potential partners too) to ROBBO headquarters in Espoo, in order to have a personal acquaintance and get a deeper understanding of ROBBO educational concepts.

In March 2018 ROBBO had an opportunity to present the company to The Finnish Association of Adult Education Centres. Rectors from all over Finland were watching ROBBO via broadcast and almost 20 rectors were present in Haaga Helia University of Applied 

Sciences. This brought ROBBO to self-determination as a purely educational product, so ROBBO started focusing on educational events in particular.

In April 2018 ROBBO contracted  the TEPCOMP plant in Turku, Finland, to manufacture the educational equipment. We increased our volumes then to have series production, which meant another big step in the company’s development.

Scoping the extraordinary events that ROBBO held on its way, should we mention the one ROBBO made together with Mothers in Business. That was a workshop for parents where they had a chance to touch robotics and coding, in order to be capable of supporting children in their education. The workshop for Mothers in Business was a great success and the first step on the ROBBO’s journey to advise parents to be part of the ROBBO world. The demand for these kinds of workshops seems endless. We can happily say that the parents were really  interested in learning and understanding the skills that were familiar to their children.

ROBBO searches for new ways of promotion and makes nice videos of children who pretend to be secret agents using ROBBO equipment as their tools. Watch the video and take the adventure with ROBBO!

Other events ROBBO organized in April-May 2018 were a workshop in Lappeenranta University of Technology, SciFest in Joensuu and a day in school of Saunalahti.

2019

In 2019 ROBBO made exceptional events in collaboration with Eureka, one of the most popular scientific centers of Finland. The events included a football tournament among robots and a virtual trip to planet Mars showing how robots can work and collect artifacts there.

ROBBO penetrates Japan. On May 14, ROBBO was awarded the Fukuoka Award at the Fukuoka Startup Day. The certificate is awarded by Fukuoka City, a Japanese-governmental organization that aids start-ups by hosting competitions and summits connecting emerging companies with investors. The Japanese side appreciated the effective educational and business model from ROBBO and were willing to have this business arrive in Japan.

In May 2019 ROBBO joined Worlddidac as a silver member. Worlddidac is the only global trade association dedicated to the development of education worldwide. Joining as a member meant that ROBBO entered a global network of manufacturers, distributors, and governmental institutions.

2020

ROBBO developed its own classroom to hold after school robotics classes there. The business model appeared so successful that ROBBO decided to expand this model worldwide using franchise format. The first franchisee was a partner from Romania who purchased the franchise as soon as the covid lockdown occurred.

The COVID circumstances motivated ROBBO to go online, i.e. adjust the educational program to online format. So the special online curriculum edition was issued then, which helped ROBBO partners (in Romania, Georgia and SAR) stay afloat in the period of restrictions. The online education is still available for all volunteers: https://club.robbo.world/online.

2021

Another award witnessing ROBBO progressive educational approach. ROBBO became a winner of EdTech Breakthrough Awards 2021 as the Next-Gen School Solution of the Year. EdTech Breakthrough is part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the industry leaders in today’s most competitive categories of technology. Tech Breakthrough has worked with hundreds of industry leading companies, including Amazon, Intel, Cisco, Spotify, Sprint, HP, Qualcomm, Lenovo, Comcast, Philips, Dell and many more, providing a public platform for recognition for standout technologies and companies. Therefore, it is a special honor for ROBBO to receive this award.

2022

ROBBO comes to China. Having won a grant from the Regional Government of Nanjing, ROBBO launched an office and a ROBBO Club in the city of Nanjing. 

The office is located in the very technological heart of Nanjing and has encountered four local employees so far.

Moving on with the Scratch Olympiad, ROBBO covered 35 countries (+3 in 2022) and received 2 479 applications for participation in 2022. As always, we were highly impressed with childrens’ performance and after that we aimed to exceed 40 countries and get 5000 applications in 2023. 

Having arrived in Austria, Bulgaria, Tanzania, UAE, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Morocco, Dubai, Turkey and The Philippines, ROBBO became present in 35 countries around the world.

ROBBO was recognized as one of the ‘Top 10 EdTech Solution Companies in Europe 2022’ by the ‘Education Technology Insights’ magazine. We were proud to receive another award that confirmed ROBBO’s high-quality educational concept ensuring consistent in-depth knowledge to the students and flawless educational activities to our partners.

2023

ROBBO is a story of a start-up that grew from a regular local workshop into an international franchise that offers not only hardware/software, but the whole complex of educational solutions. These include ROBBO educational equipment and curriculum that are in a high demand among students, their parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs.

ROBBO has obtained a mission to nurture children for a high-paying and high-demand creative job related with robots. 

Now ROBBO keeps on growing and welcomes you to become a part of the group:

OPEN YOUR ROBOTICS CLUB WITH ROBBO

Purchase ROBBO franchise and educational equipment to launch your own ROBBO Club business. We give 360o business development support including Business Administration, Marketing, Curriculum, Staff and Room selection. 

TEACH ROBOTICS IN YOUR SCHOOL/COLLEGE

To implement robotics classes in your educational institution, simply purchase a ROBBO equipment set and curriculum subscription. 

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