LiteracyTech

From teachers to Top Gun winners

Michelle DeBlois and Kathryn Lariviere are educators, but oftentimes, they feel more like data managers. In addition to their teaching duties, their days are spent logging reading reports, organizing their classroom library and tracking students progress. Over time, the countless administrative tasks began to wear them out and distract them from their true passion: teaching.

In a world where there’s an app for nearly anything, they couldn’t find one to help solve their issue. So they did what any good entrepreneur does: they built one themselves. After teaming up with an old friend from high school who is an accomplished developer, they approached MTI for funding for their new company, Literacy Tech. With MTI’s support, they built and launched ReMo, an app that helps teachers manage the data associated with literacy education and inspire independent reading.

ReMo launched late this summer, just in time to help educators who were facing additional challenges created by teaching remotely during the COVID pandemic. In addition to winning fans in education circles, their innovation is grabbing the attention of Maine’s entrepreneurial community — as it won the $25,000 prize at the Top Gun pitch event in September.