Meet the former dental nurse behind learning platform DigiDentistry

A former dental nurse in Greater Manchester has created a new digital tool for dentistry students.

28-year-old entrepreneur Chloe Barrett is the brains behind DigiDentistry, a platform that uses augmented reality (AR) technology and animation to assist learning.

She is based at The Landing, the co-working space at MediaCityUK, where she teamed up with a developer who shared her vision and created a prototype of DigiDentistry.

Chloe has also taken advantage of The Landing’s incubator course and workshops, funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

She became a dental nurse in 2008 and several years later, when she interviewed for an assessor and teacher role at a dental academy, she discovered the academy was failing and decided to take it over.

Then aged 24, Chloe managed to rebuild the academy and save it from ruin, opening five additional bases and establishing new apprenticeship and post-graduate courses.

Chloe said: “Once I got the academy up and running, I started thinking about starting my own business and I could see there was a real gap in the market for better, more visual, training resources.

“There really wasn’t anything out there that students could use to continue their learning from home after they left the classroom and I wanted to create something that would support more practical learning.”

She continued: “I took my vision to a number of developers and eventually found one in Manchester who understood what I was trying to achieve and we began to develop a prototype.

“There was a lot of uncertainty along the way but, eventually, DigiDentistry began to take shape so I left the Academy to pursue the business full time and I’m really excited about the future.”

On the back of three challenging interviews, Chloe will jet out to Silicon Valley in July for a two-week accelerator programme that helps women launching tech startups.

Her mission now is to find investors who will help her develop DigiDentistry further and, ultimately, conquer markets in the UK and the US.

The Landing’s commercial director, Paul Billington, commented: “Chloe is incredibly talented and determined and I have no doubt at all that DigiDentistry will go on to be a fantastic success.

“At The Landing, we are really proud to support rapid startups in the tech sector and to help them develop and test their products as well as introduce them to other tech businesses who can help them on their journey.”

DigiDentistry will launch later this month.