When I was a principal, I wanted technology that made life easier for my team and helped us understand our learners better. That was where LINC-ED began: with the needs of a real school, and with teachers, children and families at the centre.
As more schools joined us, our ambitions grew. We saw the chance to bring more of school life together, cut down on admin and build a richer picture of each learner.
Delivering on those ambitions meant building new foundations.
Our original platform was built for a smaller community of schools. Looking ahead, we asked ourselves two questions. How would we support many more schools? And how could we keep improving the platform while protecting the information schools trust us with?
Aimie and I made the decision to invest in rebuilding the technology behind our product.
That work became Hero. Schools saw a new name and a new look, but the biggest change was underneath.
It was a substantial commitment for a young company. We brought what we had learned from our schools into the design, with privacy, security and the capacity to grow central to our thinking.
When you log in to Hero, you see the tools you use every day. What you don't see is how the system is built, yet that decides how well it can grow, how easily it can be looked after and how quickly it can respond to what schools need.
Hero now runs on Amazon Web Services, one of the world's largest and most trusted cloud providers. Every school uses the same secure platform, but each school's information is kept separate and only the right people can see it. That lets us support a growing community of schools, look after the platform consistently and keep adding new features.
For schools, what matters is simple: your information is there when you need it, it's well protected, and the system keeps getting better.
Whether you're taking attendance, checking on a learner or sharing reports with families, your system needs to be there when you need it.
Hero was available 99.99% of the time in the last year, and 100% of the time in the last 90 days. We're proud of that, because we know what it means when a system goes down in the middle of a school day.
That comes from constant attention to the platform and from investing in the people who build, maintain and support it. Keeping Hero dependable is work that never stops.
As Hero has grown, we’ve brought specialist expertise into our team to strengthen how we develop, protect and maintain the platform.
That includes our Chief Technology Officer, Doug Hetherington, who leads our technology team; specialists in privacy and security, including Jack Goodfellow, our Head of Trust, Privacy & Operational Compliance; and site reliability engineers whose job is keeping Hero running smoothly throughout the school day. Their expertise also shapes how we approach new features, including the responsible use of AI.
Alongside the educators in our team, these specialists bring different perspectives to the same questions: will this help schools, will it work well, and are we taking proper care of the information involved?
Most of our team’s work happens quietly behind the scenes, and it's a big part of why schools can depend on Hero.
Looking after school information is part of what we do every day. As educators and parents ourselves, we have built that care into how Hero operates.
Here is what that looks like day to day:
Promises are easy to make, so we also invite outside scrutiny. Hero holds the Safer Technologies for Schools (ST4S) badge, which helps schools assess the privacy and security of digital products.
We are also in the final audit for ISO 27001, the international standard for managing information security. Before that audit, an independent firm reviewed our practices and confirmed our readiness for certification.
You don't need to be an expert in either framework. What matters is that our approach is checked by people outside Hero, and that we can show you the evidence.
We rebuilt Hero to support schools for the long term, and we've kept investing in its foundations and its people as our community has grown.
For me, the value of modern technology is in what it delivers: dependable access, thoughtful protection of information and the ability to keep improving and innovating.
As a founder and former principal, I want schools to feel confident in Hero today, and in the people and investment behind it for the years ahead.
Whether you’re reviewing your current systems or considering something new, these questions will help you understand the technology behind your school day.
These are conversations we welcome at Hero. You deserve clear answers about the systems and people you trust.
We've shared the thinking behind Hero – now we'd love to show you what it can do for your school. Book a demo to learn more.