Polyup is the world's first “casual modding” digital platform. Designed for math teachers, in particular, the visual, self-paced environment allows for players to freely experiment with numbers and functions through gamified computational challenges that must be correctly modified before the players can advance to higher levels.

The platform will soon scale to feature the ability to modify real-world objects using in-app augmented reality features. 

I wanted to find out more about this free and open computational thinking playground and how it enables users to modify expressions, functions, and algorithms to discover the beauty of math.

EdTech startup story with Shaya Zarkesh and Dr. Amir Zarkesh

Today's guests

CO-FOUNDER Shaya Zarkesh is currently a high school junior at the Harker School, a private school in San Jose. He has a passion for STEM and has won numerous awards for mathematics and science research. Shaya also participates in the USA Computing Olympiad at the platinum level. Outside of academia, Shaya regularly participates in Speech & Debate activities and specializes in Policy Debate. He is also an avid soccer player on a competitive team.

CEO AND CO-FOUNDER Dr. Amir Zarkesh is also the CEO and Co-founder of Bluechip Systems. Before that, he co-founded iCelero, which spun off into three companies: Shoppin, Crunch and Bluechip Systems. Prior to that, he co-founded 3Plus1 Technology (acquired by a Private Equity), co-founded Transcendent Design (acquired by Mentor Graphics), and was a principal at Quad Design (acquired by Synopsys). Amir is the co-founder and the President of iBRIDGES a non-profit organization empowering young entrepreneurs. Amir received his PhD in Theoretical Particle Physics and MSc in EE from UCLA.