About Us
14 years in the classroom.
21,000 students taught.
One platform we kept wishing existed.
We built Kita because we knew what computing teachers needed today. We designed it the way we did because we could see where the subject is heading tomorrow.
Where Kita came from
In 2014, we founded BlueShift Education which grew into London's largest coding school for children and teens, reaching over 21,000 young people across 30+ school partnerships and 23 countries. We taught computing using every tool available, and every year, the same problems kept coming back: disconnected platforms, hours lost to trying to give feedback, students falling behind because no tool gave our teachers the real-time visibility they needed.
Then the landscape shifted again. AI tools began generating code at unprecedented scale and speed. The role of the computing teacher and the computing student started to change.
Understanding how software works, how to audit AI output, how to think computationally rather than just syntactically, became more important than ever.
Kita is the platform we kept wishing existed. Built not just for how computing is taught today, but for where it's heading.
Credentials and traction
Founder of London's largest coding school for children and teens
Pilots in 15+ schools. Early trials suggest 80% of marking time saved.
12 years in the classroom and 21,000+ students taught
4 UK government contracts (£325K value). One of a handful of companies to receive Department for Education funding.
Meet the team
Heather Lyons
Founder, CEO
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Founder of BlueShift Education: London's largest coding school for children and teens.
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12 years in UX and product, including Vodafone.
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Innovate UK Women in Innovation award.
Nathan Varughese
CTO
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10+ years in machine learning and software engineering.
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Former CTO of an algorithmic trading company.
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Previously at JP Morgan and DRW.
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MSc Mathematics, Imperial College London.
Sebastian Vasquez-Lopez
Head of AI Engineering
Designs Kita's standards-aligned AI workflows: safe, pedagogically sound, and built to scale across real classrooms.
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PhD Neuroscience, Oxford.
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Former Research Fellow, Oxford.
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PGCert EdTech, UCL.
Fiona MacNeill
Head of Product
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15+ years in UX, learning experience design, and learning technologies.
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Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
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Previously at Carleton College (MN, USA), University of Brighton, ERM, and Solvd Together.