UAE's TeachMeNow one of three winners of edtech prize

PHOTO

Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Three edtech start-ups, the UAE’s TeachMeNow, the UK’s Chatterbox and Nigeria’s dot Learn, have won the inaugural ‘Next Billion’ Edtech Prize instituted by The Varkey Foundation to recognise the most innovative technology destined to have a radical impact on education in low-income and emerging world countries.

All three winners will be awarded US$25,000 as well as the unique opportunity to pilot their technology in partner schools in Western Cape, South Africa.

Over 40 startups were selected to pitch for the ‘Next Billion’ Edtech Prize. The winners were chosen from six finalists that included Learning Machine (New York), Localized Inc (USA and MENA) and The Biz Nation (Colombia). They pitched to an expert panel of judges, made up of venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, experts in edtech and learning sciences, and senior education policy makers as well as a live voting audience of Global Education & Skills Forum (GESF) delegates made up of leading education figures from public, private and social sectors.

Sunny Varkey, Founder of the Varkey Foundation and the Next Billion Prize, said: “Over one billion young people – a number growing every day - are being denied what should be the birthright of every single child in the 21st century, no matter where they live: a good education that allows them to make the most of their God-given talents.

“We have launched the ‘Next Billion Prize’ to highlight technology’s potential to tackle the problems that have proven too difficult for successive generations of politicians to solve. Our fervent hope is that the prize inspires practical and persistent entrepreneurs the world over to come forward with fresh tech ideas. These ideas must be hardy enough to improve education in regions where young people are denied access to a good quality teacher and a great learning environment.”

Chatterbox is an online language school powered by refugees. The web platform harnesses the wasted talent of unemployed professionals who are refugees, offering them work as on-line and in-person language tutors. Chatterbox counts several UK universities and major non-profits and corporations among its clients. “Refugees with degrees and valuable skills still face shockingly high levels of underemployment. An idea like Chatterbox has never been more urgently needed,” said Chatterbox Chief Executive Mursal Hedayat.

dot Learn makes online video e-learning accessible on slow, expensive internet connections for users in low-income countries. Its technology reduces the file-size of learning videos, requiring 1/100th of the bandwidth to watch. At current data prices in Kenya and Nigeria, this means a student or learner can access five hours of online learning for about the cost of sending a single text message ($0.014). Dot Learn CEO Sam Bhattacharyya said: “The issue isn’t so much the lack of internet but the cost of internet. We are going to make online learning work for the next billion by making it as affordable and accessible as text messaging.”

TeachMeNow is a Dubai-based global marketplace that connects teachers, experts, and mentors to students. The technology combines scheduling, payments and live virtual sessions that can connect on any device. It empowers tens of thousands of teachers to create their own online businesses, with some earning over US$100,000 last year. The first class happened between a professor in Venezuela teaching a Saudi-Arabia-based student Spanish.

TeachMeNow Managing Director Thea Myhrvold said: “As a female entrepreneur, I felt it was important to create positive stories for and from the Middle East. That’s why I came back to the UAE to start TeachMeNow. Now, we empower tens of thousands of teachers, teacher entrepreneurs, schools, institutions to reach students all over the world.”

The three winners were selected by a panel of judges including Jay Varkey, CEO, GEMS Education - Europe; Jennifer Carolan, Co-founder and General Partner of Reach Capital; and Mike Butcher, Editor At Large of TechCrunch.

The Next Billion Edtech Prize identifies, spotlights and celebrates the world’s leading edtech start-ups that have shown ingenuity and innovation in that they can improve learning in parts of the world where there is limited access to good quality teaching.

According to UNESCO, 264 million children do not have access to schooling, while at least 600 million more are “in school but not learning”. These are children who are not achieving even basic skills in maths and reading, which the World Bank calls a “learning crisis”.

The ‘Next Billion’ prize is the focal point of Tomorrow, a new edtech summit taking place for the first time at the GESF. All the ed-tech startups pitching in the ‘Next Billion’ Prize will also have a “money can’t buy” opportunity to participate in:

Ministerial Mentoring – an opportunity for the startups to have sessions with current and former Ministers to hear what they’re looking for from edtech as well as an opportunity for those in positions of power to directly learn how new technologies can make a difference to the classroom.

Invest In Edtech – an opportunity for the startups to meet VCs and investors from Silicon Valley and beyond.

Business Mentoring with Paperclip – session run by Deepak Madnani, founder of Hong Kong’s leading startup incubator. Sessions will focus on business model review; clarifying the value proposition; and customer development within the education sector.

Foundation Consultation – an opportunity to meet some of the world’s leading foundations to discuss how they measure impact and their criteria for awarding funds;

Mentoring in Learning Sciences – an opportunity for the start-ups to be mentored by world leading academics from Institute of Education (IoE), MIT and Carnegie Mellon,

UCL Presentation of new edtech research – new research from UCL’s Institute of Education, the world’s leading centre for education research and teaching, on where and how edtech is set to make the biggest global impact.

-Ends-

About

The GESF 2018 partners are the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Dubai Cares, CBI, Education International, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Inter-American Development Bank, Junior Achievement, The Knowledge and Human Development Authority, Ministry of Education of the Argentine Republic, Teach for All, Times Educational Supplement, UCL Institute of Education, UNESCO and African Development Bank.

You can keep up-to-date with the latest news on speakers and sessions at GESF 2018 at: https://www.educationandskillsforum.org/ehome/gesf2018

The Varkey Foundation believes every child deserves a vibrant, stimulating learning environment that awakens and supports their full potential. The foundation believes nothing is more important to achieving this than the passion and quality of teachers. They support global teaching capacity and seed excellence and innovation in the next generation of educators. They also founded the Global Teacher Prize to shine a spotlight on the incredible work teachers do all over the world. For further details: https://www.varkeyfoundation.org

For further information about the Global Education and Skills Forum visit: https://educationandskillsforum.org and for further information on the Global Teacher Prize visit: http://www.globalteacherprize.org