Our Story
How a fix for one Data Structures & Algorithms course at the University of Florida became a platform used by thousands of students across three continents.
It started because we were the ones stuck
In 2021, we were teaching a Data Structures & Algorithms course at the University of Florida (UF) — a group of teaching assistants and instructors who were also computing education researchers. We knew from our own research what worked: students learn to program by programming, with feedback fast enough to act on.
The tools available to us did not make that easy. The capable ones took days to set up and a manual to operate, and every hour spent on configuration was an hour not spent teaching. The usable ones carried a price tag of $50–100 per student, per semester — a real cost, charged to the students who could least absorb it, for something that should be a basic part of learning to code.
So we built our own, for our own course. Edugator was iteratively designed by TAs, researchers, and instructors who cared about the students’ learning experience.
Our mission
To accelerate the adoption of learning-by-doing practices in computing education — by making the tools that improve student learning outcomes both affordable and usable.
Affordable and usable are not separate goals. A tool a department cannot fund does not get adopted, and neither does one an instructor needs a week to configure. We aim for both, on every release.
How we got here
2021
Built for one course at the University of Florida
Edugator started inside a Data Structures & Algorithms course at UF, built by the people teaching it — students, teaching assistants, and an instructor. The goal was not a product; it was getting our own students hands-on practice with real feedback.
2021 – 2024
From one classroom to many
What worked for one course started getting requested by others. As Edugator spread across courses and institutions, it became clear that the problems we hit at UF — setup friction, cost per student, and tooling that got in the way of teaching — were not ours alone.
2024
Redesigned from the ground up
We rebuilt Edugator from scratch for the scale it had grown into: multiple classes, multiple universities, and course staff who needed roster management, gradebooks, exams, analytics, and LMS integration to hold up under real semesters. That rebuild is the version of Edugator you use today.
2026
Spinning off into an independent organization
Edugator is spinning off from an academic project into an independent organization. The reason is sustainability: a project that thousands of students depend on every semester needs to outlive any one grant, lab, or graduating cohort — while staying affordable and holding the same bar for educational quality.
Where that has taken us
Between 2021 and 2026, across courses at multiple universities in the USA, Asia, and Australasia.
8,000+
students taught across courses between 2021 and 2026
1M+
student programs compiled, run, and evaluated
3
regions reached — the USA, Asia, and Australasia
Recognition along the way
Awards and grants received by Edugator.
Innovation Fund Award
UF Innovate
2025 Florida Government Productivity Award
Florida TaxWatch & the State of Florida
The same problem, at a larger scale
We are still building for the course we were teaching in 2021 — it is just that the course is now thousands of courses, and the students are not only ours. Affordable pricing and excellence in education are what we set out for, and they are what we intend to keep.