Flexion Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Executive Director of TeachRock

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

TeachRock is a nonprofit open educational resource founded by musician Stevie Van Zandt. Its platform uses music as a gateway to learning across subjects including history, science, math, and social studies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Flexion Inc. to accomplish?

• Develop a focused proof of concept to explore how artificial intelligence could help teachers differentiate TeachRock lessons for diverse classroom needs. The solution needed to reduce the time teachers spend manually adapting materials, fit within existing teacher workflows, preserve teacher review and instructional control, respect licensing and primary-source constraints, and avoid collecting or storing student data.

SOLUTION

How did you find Flexion Inc.?

Other

Why did you select Flexion Inc. over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned
• Other

How many teammates from Flexion Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Flexion partnered with TeachRock and its educator community to design and build a proof of concept based on the idea of AI-powered differentiation. The team worked with real TeachRock lessons and gathered input from educators to understand how lessons are used, what portions could be adapted, and where licensing, primary-source integrity, and instructional constraints needed to be preserved. 

The prototype embedded generative AI into the TeachRock lesson experience and allowed teachers to create reusable student group profiles based on classroom needs such as reading level, language support, visual preferences, scaffolding, and accessibility settings. These profiles did not contain individual student data. 

Key deliverables included:

• A working web-based prototype combining functional software with simulated outputs to demonstrate the complete experience.
• Reusable teacher-defined student group profiles that could be applied across lessons.
• AI-generated draft lesson adaptations, including simplified text, vocabulary support, chunked content, comprehension supports, visual supports, and graphic organizers. 
• A side-by-side lesson view that preserved original TeachRock content while presenting differentiated supports.
• An embedded AI assistant that allowed teachers to request additional lesson-specific supports, such as movement breaks or scaffolded questions.
• Human-in-the-loop review controls that allowed teachers to edit, regenerate, approve, or remove AI-generated content before use.
• Clear identification and rationale for AI-generated content.
• Print, download, and export concepts designed to support classroom delivery and future integration with learning management systems such as Google Classroom and Canvas.
• A technical prototype using Node.js, TypeScript, and Express.js; Prisma ORM with PostgreSQL 16; OpenWebUI with Claude 4.5 Haiku; React 18, TypeScript, and Vite; Tailwind CSS; and Docker Compose for the local development environment. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

1. Flexion and TeachRock moved from an initial concept to a tangible, working prototype within a few weeks.
2. In teacher survey feedback, 100% of participating teachers valued reading-level supports, vocabulary supports, ESL and language supports, graphic organizers, and visual supports.
3. Teachers reported strong interest in having differentiation built directly into TeachRock rather than relying on external tools.
4. The proof of concept validated that AI-assisted differentiation could support real classroom workflows while protecting primary-source content, avoiding student-data collection, and maintaining teacher control.
5. The project established a practical foundation for future development, including improved exporting and editing, learning management system integration, more structured content, expanded AI-supported recommendations, and refined content guardrails. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Flexion and TeachRock collaborated directly with educators and moved from an ambitious idea to a tangible working prototype within a few weeks. The work was grounded in teacher interviews, survey feedback, real TeachRock lessons, and classroom workflows.

What was your primary form of communication with Flexion Inc.?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What stood out most was how deeply invested Flexion's team was in understanding our mission and our teachers, not just building to spec. They took the time to meet with teachers from our community so that they could deeply understand their needs and design according to them.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Flexion Inc. could have done differently?

Flexion was great to work with from start to finish.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Canopy Nepal

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Canopy Nepal is a nonprofit focused on improving literacy and education through culturally relevant storytelling and educator support.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Flexion Inc. to accomplish?

• We partnered with Flexion to help us design and validate a digital literacy platform that could expand access to culturally relevant stories while supporting the needs of teachers and learners. We wanted to take the vision for the platform and translate it into a practical digital product by better understanding user needs, defining the product experience, testing ideas through prototypes, and establishing a technical foundation that could support future growth.

SOLUTION

How did you find Flexion Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Flexion Inc. over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Flexion Inc. were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Flexion collaborated closely with our team to help turn our vision for a digital literacy platform into a validated product direction. The work centered on creating an experience that could expand access to culturally relevant stories while fitting the real needs and workflows of educators and learners. Flexion helped us define the product vision, validate user needs, prototype the experience, and establish a scalable technical foundation for the platform. The engagement was iterative rather than simply moving directly into software development. We were able to explore and test the product concept, gather feedback, refine the experience, and clarify priorities before making larger investments in the platform. Key deliverables included: Product vision and strategy development, User-needs validation, UX/UI concepts and prototypes, A working product direction for the literacy platform, Technical planning and development intended to support future scale, A clearer product roadmap for future phases,  AI-powered scoring and OCR.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The engagement helped us validate the overall product direction and move from a broad concept toward a more tangible and actionable digital product. Flexion produced working prototypes that gave us a way to visualize and evaluate the experience before making larger development investments. The process also helped us clarify the roadmap and establish a stronger foundation for subsequent phases of the work. The resulting product direction and prototypes also strengthened our ability to communicate the vision for the platform and support future funding opportunities. 

Number of educators/users involved in research or validation: 7
Number/type of prototypes developed: 2
Funding or partnership outcomes influenced by the work: 4 
Subsequent development milestones: Government Partnerships

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Flexion worked closely with our nonprofit leadership throughout the engagement. Their approach emphasized iterative discovery, rapid feedback, and milestone-based delivery. That was particularly helpful because the product itself was evolving. Instead of treating the original concept as fixed, the team used feedback and discovery to refine the product direction and make sure development decisions were connected to actual user needs. Everything was timely, and they were willing to listen to us and incorporate our feedback.

What was your primary form of communication with Flexion Inc.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They’re a wonderful and brilliant team! The team really understood the problem we were trying to solve, and the team was great at coming up with great solutions. I totally see Canopy working with Flexion on more projects in the future. 

Futher, what also impressed us was Flexion’s ability to move between product strategy, design, and technology. They did not approach the engagement as simply a software build. They helped us think through what the product should be, who it needed to serve, and how we could validate those decisions before investing further. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Flexion Inc. could have done differently?

No!

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Executive Director of American Trails

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Connecting and transforming communities through the power of trails.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Flexion Inc. to accomplish?

• American Trails hired Flexion to complete a tactical refresh of the Recreational Trails Database after the public-facing database had not been updated since 2021

SOLUTION

How did you find Flexion Inc.?

Referral

Why did you select Flexion Inc. over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Flexion Inc. were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Flexion worked with American Trails to complete a tactical refresh of the Recreational Trails Database. Because updated Recreational Trails Program data was not available, the team identified the Federal Highway Administration’s Transportation Alternatives datasets as a viable proxy for recent trail-related funding activity. Flexion developed reusable Python scripts to process the 2022 and 2023 Transportation Alternatives datasets. The scripts applied defined filtering criteria and business rules to isolate trail-related projects from broader transportation investments. They also transformed and normalized funding amounts, project descriptions, and location information; resolved inconsistent and incomplete geolocation formats; mapped the resulting fields to the existing Recreational Trails database schema; and prepared the records for integration into the national database. Flexion and American Trails combined domain-informed business rules, validation logic, built-in data-quality checks, and human review to support data accuracy. ChatGPT and Claude Code were used as AI-assisted development tools to accelerate the development and refinement of the automation routines.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Eliminated an estimated two weeks of manual data processing compared with prior database update efforts.
• Automated the state-level report generation process, saving approximately four hours of intensive manual work.
• Refreshed the Recreational Trails Database with the most recent available project records from the 2022 and 2023 federal Transportation Alternatives datasets.
• Created reusable Python automation to support more efficient future database updates.
• Improved visibility into recent trail investments and how federal funding supports trail projects nationwide.
• Provided American Trails with a repeatable process that can be rerun as new federal datasets become available. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Flexion managed the work through a focused three-week project and completed the planned database update, automation, and state-level reports within that timeframe. The team worked effectively in an asynchronous mode, while scheduling working sessions when needed to review progress, resolve questions, and make decisions. They responded quickly to feedback and adjusted the data processing and reporting outputs to meet American Trails’ needs.

What was your primary form of communication with Flexion Inc.?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Flexion is fast, extremely experienced, and very engaged on trail and outdoor recreation issues.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Flexion Inc. could have done differently?

None that I can think of.