LEARNx English

LEARNx is a hybrid (online-offline), skills-based platform that connects underserved young adults with English language coaches in emerging economies.

Each year 300,000 students drop out of the education system, thus these disadvantaged youth are unable to gain employability and do not have access to opportunities for a better standard of living. 

Those that remain in the system are low performing on important indicators of English language proficiency (i.e., Thailand ranks 56 out of 72, on an English Proficiency Index). With an over emphasis on rote learning and test-taking, the Thai education system does not equip learners with communication or critical thinking skills to compete in the 21st century. The situation is even worse for disadvantaged youth. 

We've done extensive research on how English is taught in schools (government and private) throughout Thailand - it simply does not work. There's a lack of teachers with the proficiency, skill or confidence to teach English. The affluent students can take tests, but are still unable to communicate. 

The LEARNx platform connects learners with language coaches from emerging economies, allowing disadvantaged Thai young adults an opportunity to develop their English communications skills and confidence needed to access opportunities (i.e., scholarships, global competitions, and employability). 

We've already gained traction with working adults, we are confident with can help disadvantaged young adults. 

Beyond fostering English communication skills and confidence, LEARNx envisions English as a tool that advances personal and professional development for underserved youth, including high school dropouts, vocational students and college students. With our social mission to address educational and economic inequality, LEARNx will empowering underserved youth with 21st century skills such as communication and critical thinking. Through our innovative hybrid (online and offline) platform and speaking-focused curriculum, our solution boosts employability and enables underserved youths to become skilled workforce and active global citizens.

We aim to deploy our solution through trusted partners with extensive secondary, vocational school and university networks.

CEFR-based speaking assessment administered during pre-assessment and after the 18th and 36th lessons - Improved English Speaking Skills

Number of job interviews completed; prospective employer feedback; - Communication and Critical Thinking skills in the job context

Number of jobs secured;

Number of scholarships secured; Number of pitches given in global competitions; - Employability

The LEARNx hybrid platform provides engaging and interactive learning environments - online and offline. By equipping our language coaches with a 1-to-1 virtual classroom, training materials, and a speaking-focused curriculum, they can ensure that learners actually communicate with confidence. Our digital platform connects learners with language coaches in emerging markets - bringing low cost, effective language learning to underserved communities. We're exploring voice-recognition technology to create a practice and assessment platform for learners to practice speaking on their own. We also offer real-time cafes and workshops to compliment the virtual environment with employability-enhancing activities (i.e., mock interviews, presentation-skills training). 

We have carefully mapped out every step of the learners' journey. We use the human-centered design as a core process to inform research, product development, rapid prototyping, and testing. 

Our extensive field research and previous pilot efforts has given us insight into how best to leverage technology to facilitate skill acquisition in English language communication. We've conducted research in disadvantaged middle-schoolers in Bangkok's slums as well as with disadvantaged vocational students; experiences which heavily informed our current product direction.

We've tested our platform on beginners (CEFR pre-A1) to upper intermediate adults and are confident we can serve disadvantaged young adults.

To deploy our solution, we will partner with Learn Education, allowing us access to an extensive school network ( > 120+), 50% of which are disadvantaged and underserved. We will also partner with OnDemand, a trusted partner with physical locations and hardware infrastructure throughout Thailand.  

We connect learners with coaches in emerging economies, allowing us to deliver high quality experiences at lower costs. We will combine revenue generation with philanthropic donation to subsidize underserved schools.

Finally, we aim to partner with the major mobile carriers in Thailand to increase the internet accessibility to even remote parts of Thailand. 

We currently have an investor Learn Corporation who has the mission to support the education technology ecosystem in Thailand. 

As we continue to research, pilot, grow and scale our product, we will partner with companies and schools that will be our main revenue source. We  are currently working to secure more partnerships, which will become our main revenue generating arm to support our team's social mission to provide service to underserved disadvantaged youth who have dropped out, in vocational schools, and Universities to increase skills and employability. 

With our team's social mission, more funding will be needed to for product development, iteration, in order to best tailor the curriculum and technical feasibility to meet the demands. In this arm, we plan to acquire more philanthropic funding sources in order to us to test, innovate, and scale our product.  

Our platform and technology are the main limitations.  Currently, we are using an outsourcing platform video call as a main prototype tester.  We need support in technology development to help us further innovate and develop tools to best serve our users with the most cutting-edge applications and technology.  Large amounts of data need to be collected to best understand user-behavior.   In addition, we'd like to gain knowledge and support in order to best leverage technology at scale not just locally but also other parts of South East Asia. 

https://www.learnx.asia

https://www.facebook.com/learnxenglish/

We need access to technical know-how to further develop our platform, allowing us to not only scale our solution wider, but deeper. We want to ensure that we can deliver high quality English communications coaching to disadvantaged youth throughout Thailand - and neighboring countries. For this we are interested in exploring:

1. Speech recognition technology to enable us to provide speaking-focused assessments at scale.

2. Infrastructure support - many of our disadvantaged youth come from remote areas with limited access to hardware and bandwidth; we would like to develop technological solutions to overcome these barriers.

Learn Education, a social enterprise with a network of 120+ schools serving disadvantaged youth. For scalability, we partner with On-Demand, a tutoring school with 45 locations providing us with the hardware computer to serve disadvantaged youth. For regional reach, we partner with the School of Global Studies, Thammasat University.

Topica Edtech Group, Globish Academia