The world’s first video encyclopedia

with Yuval Katz

The first video of a subject is like the first paragraph of Wikipedia; I think it’s a good way to START studying. It’s not going to bring you all the answers… I remember Wikipedia in its early days. Everyone was saying, “Do not use it! It’s a terrible source for knowledge!” Today it’s much better than all the old-fashioned encyclopedias.

Two years ago, Yuval Katz was sitting with best friend Yuval Shani arguing about history; “Did Marie Antoinette actually say ‘Let them eat cake’?” 88% of American teenagers and 75% of adults go to online video for answers; Katz & Shani did the same. But after many dead-end searches on YouTube, they decided to build the world’s first video encyclopedia. Katz had been a creative director in advertising, Shani an award-winning film director and together they founded Check123 which now boasts over 15,000 carefully curated educational videos which explain a world of topics in 1, 2 or 3 minutes.

Listen to the full, 1/2hr podcast below or watch 10min highlights on YouTube. Extra stories and insights about Yuval’s entrepreneurial journey in the bonus conversation.

DNA

• A 3min introduction
• Science
• Suits middle school and above

Bedroom in Arles (Van Gogh)

• Facts and analysis of Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles
• 2 min video
• Visual arts

Earth - Origin of Life Theories

• Animation by Curiosity 180
• Science, biology
• Suits middle school and above

Disclosure statement

Yuval Katz is the co-founder of Check123, a start-up ed-tech company supported by EDvantage. Short films chosen were recommended at Yuval’s discretion. Host Richard Leigh received no payment for interviewing Yuval.

Other links from the show

Check123 website: http://www.check123.com

Contact Yuval directly (yuval@check123.com)

If you're wanting to get involved as a...

• Co-curator, ie. people who FIND good links
• Filmmaker / video producer
• Expert contributor

FAQ (or Richard’s 15sec Quick-answer Quiz with Yuval about Check123)

Richard: How many videos do you have on the site?

Yuval: 15,000+

R: Where do the videos come from?

Y: Most from YouTube, some from Vimeo, some originals you can’t find anywhere else

R: Do you look for content or does content look for you?

Y: Both. We started looking, then we started getting videos coming to us

R: How do you fund it?

Y: Started by having great friends & family that helped us a bit. Then we got funded by EDvantage, a Micro VC for educational technologies in Israel

R: On your “for educators” page you say you work with experts from all over the world. How do you do this and what’s the process?

Y: That’s two questions! All videos are curated by experts in different fields. We started by going to Tel Aviv University for American History, European History; oh and we still don’t have Australian History - any listeners want to join?!

All our experts have at least two Degrees. We’re juggling both the scale - the number of videos - and the curation. For experts wanting to join now, we interview them via skype, we ask people to send their resume because we want good curation. That’s our focus; to give the best results in 1, 2 or 3 minutes.

As for educators, we see more and more people following us, especially on Twitter. We see teachers posting videos of students using Check-1-2-3 in the classroom, so we started talking to them. We now have about 100 educators working with Check1-2-3 because we really want to build a better product for them.

R: Your answer was longer than 15seconds!

Y: Yes, but shorter than 3min 59sec!

Check :)

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This show is a proud member of the Education Podcast Network

Recorded using Zencastr

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