Magma Maths Interview - GESS Dubai 2026

1. Please introduce yourself and your company. What do you offer schools and educators?

I’m Daniel Hagsted, VP Revenue & Partnerships, EMEA of Magma Maths. We started in Sweden in 2015 as a small team of teachers and engineers, and today we work with schools in the US, UK, Sweden and Germany. Magma Math is a K–12 math platform. It gives teachers ready-to-use, standards-aligned lessons and lets them see how every student is thinking in real time. They see more than the final answer: they see the work behind it. Students write and draw their solutions by hand on a device. Teachers can watch that work live, replay it afterward, and use it to lead class discussions. Schools also get onboarding, professional learning and a dedicated success manager.

2. What is the biggest challenge you’re helping educators solve?

A math teacher with 28 students can’t see how each one is reasoning, so misconceptions often stay hidden until the test, when it’s too late to act. At the same time, school leaders lack reliable insight into how math is actually being taught and learned across classrooms.

Magma Math closes that gap. Students solve problems by hand on their device, writing and drawing just as they would on paper. The teacher sees every solution appear live. A heatmap shows at a glance who has got it, who is stuck and which problems are causing trouble for the whole class. With Student Work Replay, teachers can watch how a student arrived at an answer, not just whether it was right. They can then bring real student work to the board to start a discussion.

That classroom data adds up to insight at every level. Teachers get AI-powered analysis that spots patterns in student thinking and suggests next steps. School and system leaders can follow progress by class, school and standard, and see where to target support. Formative assessment is something every teacher knows works. With Magma, it becomes something they can do every day instead of once a term.

3. How do your products or solutions improve teaching and learning?

There are three ways. First, teachers see each student’s reasoning as it happens. Heatmaps show who is stuck, who is ready for more of a challenge and which problems are tripping up the class. Second, Student Work Replay lets teachers choose real student solutions to discuss with the class, so discussion becomes a daily habit rather than an occasional event. Third, auto-grading, ready-made lessons and different difficulty levels (mild, medium, spicy) save teachers time and help them differentiate. Our AI tools, developed with support from the Gates Foundation, help teachers spot patterns in student thinking and turn them into next steps. Teachers stay in charge, and the AI does the heavy lifting.

4. What makes your approach different? Can you share a practical example or success story?

Most math platforms are built for students to practise on their own, with the teacher on the sidelines. We built Magma around the teacher and the classroom. It’s based on research-backed practices such as the 5 Practices for Productive Math Discourse and Building Thinking Classrooms, and we’ve partnered with Building Thinking Classrooms. An efficacy study in Sweden found that Magma Math significantly improved student performance on the national exams. We hold ESSA Level II evidence. 

5. What are you showcasing at GESS? Any new products, demonstrations or workshops?

We’ll run live demos where visitors can try Magma as a student and as a teacher, and watch student thinking appear in real time. We’ll also show our latest AI-powered teacher insights, which help teachers understand student reasoning and plan their next steps.

6. Why is the Middle East an important market for your company?

The region is investing heavily in education quality, STEM and the responsible use of AI in schools, and those are the areas we work in. Many schools here teach in several languages and follow international curricula, and our platform supports more than 140 languages. Above all, we see the same ambition we see elsewhere: moving from rote learning to real understanding. 

7. Why have you chosen to partner with GESS, and who are you hoping to connect with?

GESS brings together the people who shape teaching in the region: school leaders, heads of math, curriculum leaders, ministry and education authority representatives, and teachers. We want to meet schools and school groups that care about deep understanding in math, and partners who want to bring that into classrooms at scale.

8. Why should visitors stop by your stand at GESS, and where can they find you?

In a few minutes, you’ll see what it looks like when a teacher can see every student’s thinking at once, and how that changes the conversation in a math classroom. You’ll find us at stand B30 at GESS Dubai, 10–12 November 2026, Dubai World Trade Centre.