How it started
Prototypes and development
The game concept used in Kahoot! originated in a series of prototypes called "Lecture Quiz" that were developed by Alf Inge Wang at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2006. Lecture Quiz 1.0 was developed in 2006. The server was implemented in Java and MySQL, integrated with an Apache Web server. The teacher client was implemented as a Java application, in combination with OpenGL for graphics, while the student clients were implemented on Java 2 Micro Edition. This made it possible to run the client on both mobile phones and laptops.
Lecture Quiz 2.0, developed in 2011, was the first prototype where both teacher and student clients had web-interfaces. The last version of Lecture Quiz was version 3.0 in 2012, with improved user-interface implemented using HTML 5 and CSS3, avatars, and multiple game/team modes.
Company history
Kahoot! was founded in December 21, 2012 by Morten Versvik, one of Wang's students. Johan Brand, Jamie Brooker and Asmund Furuseth later joined the company as cofounders to develop its user interface and design. A beta version of the platform was launched in September 2013.
In March 2017, Kahoot! reached one billion cumulative participating players. In September 2017, Kahoot! launched a mobile application for homework.
From Wikipedia’s article on Kahoot!, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2