The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), has revealed the eight edtech initiatives selected to join its 2019-20 WISE Accelerator program.
Botter, an Ethiopian startup, is one of the initiatives chosen for the new cohort.
Powered by artificial intelligence, Botter facilitates language learning. It allows educators to connect a chatbot to their Facebook page and create gamified lessons and exercises for students.
Through the platform, language teachers can craft lessons in local languages and reach users in Africa and across the world. The first bot created on Botter platform reached 250,000 users.
The program will officially kick off during the WISE 2019, Summit, which is taking place from November 20-21, in Doha.
During the Summit, representatives of the selected initiatives will take part in workshops, attend master classes, and participate in pitching sessions.
The other initiatives include: Kamkalima, a K-12 school platform that supports the teaching and learning of Arabic language; Teacherly, which aims to create teams of teachers with collaborative lesson planning and peer-to-peer coaching; Medics.Academy, which aims to address the needs of global health systems through scalable education; Wiloki, an adaptive platform that leverages artificial intelligence to support parents in teaching their children; OXED, which launched Wumbox, an online and offline adaptive educational platform for children; AskMyClass: an affordable social-emotional learning assistant for teachers; and Livox, an alternative communication software for non-verbal people to communicate and learn.
Stavros Yiannouka, CEO of WISE, said: “We have faith in this year’s founders’ potential to transform education on a large scale and at a global level.
This year’s cohort is tackling tough challenges in education that range from helping teachers reduce planning time through peer-to-peer support to tackling the global labor shortage in the medical sector by providing scalable and quality content for training workers in the medical field.”
The WISE Accelerator supports the development of innovative education technology initiatives with high potential to make a positive impact.
The selected initiatives receive support from mentors and WISE partners to scale up their startups, improve their international visibility, and identify potential partners, donors, and investors through networking opportunities organized by WISE.
