ProctorCam is banking on the rise of online learning

Sometimes the best ideas for a new company can come from the strangest places. Rob Toof, the Founder and CEO of Boston-based ProctorCam, found the pain point his company addresses through his mother.

“My mom was taking a class and had to go to this testing center that was two hours away,” says Toof. “I said, ‘There’s got to be a way to do this online.’

“ProctorCam is now a platform for adding security around any Internet-based test. Our solution can sit on top of those tests. Even though our foundation is in distance learning, we see foundations for in-class use as well.”

Toof did a little research after seeing his mom’s frustration, and discovered that Internet-based testing is growing 30 percent per year, so he set out to create ProctorCam, a company that delivers live, human-based test monitoring via webcam. The bootstrapped company began in 2007 with a test trial at Boston University using a third-party video platform.

“We ultimately said, we’ve got to build our own platform, because this third-party thing is starting to get expensive,” says Toof. “Now, we’re in the process of launching that platform. We really had a Porsche with our first platform, when what we really needed was a nice, pimped out Scion.”

The company currently employs 21 video proctors and nine developers, all of whom work virtually. (more…)