Background
Zhou was born in Beijing, China and immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia.
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William Zhou
Edit Profile周惟正
Education
He graduated from Point Grey Secondary before attending David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at University of Waterloo.
Career
In 2012, Zhou co-founded, a K-12 education software company. He has appeared as a frequent commentator on major networks, a speaker at Bloomberg Next Big Thing Conference, and was named in Forbes 30 Under 30. He is known in high school for his work on an online student discussion forum and his commitment to the student body.
At Waterloo, he co-founded (formerly known as Planboard).
In 2015, Zhou was named in Forbes’ Top 30 Under 30 in Education. Zhou first came to prominence as a young entrepreneur at the age of 16 with the founding of Design Vetica, a web consultancy with clients from University of British Columbia, Red Cross, and Amnesty International.
The organization was best known for Draftboard, an online tool for designer and clients to collaborate. In 2011, Zhou sold Draftboard for an undisclosed amount.
Zhou received the inspiration for as he observed the administrative workload from his own high school teachers.
He noticed that teachers are overwhelmed with tasks such as lesson planning, assessment, and evaluation. Zhou created Planboard to help teachers plan their lessons easier. Planboard received $25,000 from the University of Waterloo Velocity Venture Fund in 2012.
By mid-2013, Planboard had gained significant users.
Zhou participated in the Lightspeed Ventures’ Summer Fellowship. Planboard placed second in the Singapore Management University Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition.
Planboard also partnered with the Ontario Teachers’ Federation to provide ready made lesson plan resources. In 2014,, the parent company of Planboard, expanded into assessment tools.
Today, is used in over 20,000 schools and has over 100,000 teachers.
