Driving EdTech Innovation Through Development Leadership and Strategic Consulting

The Client

Moxie, operating as Academic Insight Lab, represents a new generation of EdTech innovation—a startup founded by education researchers and technologists committed to transforming how students and educators interact with academic content. Led by Dr. Kimberly Pace Becker, Moxie is building intelligent systems that go beyond traditional learning management platforms to create personalized, AI-powered educational experiences.

The platform’s vision centers on making educational insights accessible and actionable. Rather than overwhelming students and instructors with raw data, Moxie uses AI to surface patterns, suggest interventions, and facilitate meaningful academic conversations.

The Challenge

Moxie’s core challenge was execution velocity while maintaining educational sector compliance. The team had designed an innovative AI-powered chatbot concept but transforming it into a production Django application required specialized development expertise they didn’t have in-house.

Beyond the immediate development needs, Moxie faced a critical compliance hurdle: educational institutions require vendors to demonstrate FERPA compliance before granting access to student data, which meant completing HECVAT certification. Without this documentation, Moxie couldn’t begin pilot discussions with target university customers. The team needed a technical partner who could serve as software engineer, compliance consultant, and strategic advisor simultaneously.

Our Solution

We joined Moxie as Senior Software Engineer and IT Strategy Consultant for a focused three-month engagement. The primary deliverable was a Django-based web application enhancing the AI interaction capabilities—handling real-time chatbot conversations, storing interaction histories, and presenting insights through an intuitive dashboard.

Parallel to development work, we spearheaded the FERPA compliance initiative by completing the HECVAT assessment—documenting security practices, implementing enhanced audit logging, role-based access controls, and secure API authentication. Beyond core work, we provided strategic technology consulting: evaluating marketing automation platforms, researching AI technologies for their chatbot roadmap, and advising on infrastructure decisions.

The Impact

Dr. Becker’s testimonial captured the engagement’s success: “He quickly got to work building what we asked for, and he did it well in a reasonable time frame at a reasonable price.” The Django application went from concept to production-ready system, and the HECVAT certification removed a major barrier to university partnerships.

The strategic consulting delivered long-term value by helping Moxie make informed decisions about their technology stack, avoiding costly mistakes and technical debt. The engagement demonstrated the power of focused, senior-level technical partnership for startups—enterprise-level expertise without the overhead of a full-time hire.