The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation, has announced the eight edtech initiatives selected to join its 2019-20 WISE Accelerator program, according to a press release published by Albawaba.
The WISE Accelerator supports the development of innovative education technology initiatives with high potential to make a positive impact in the education world. 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.
The eight edtech initiatives selected for the WISE accelerator program are:
- Kamkalima: a Lebanon-based K-12 school platform that supports the teaching and learning of Arabic language.
- Teacherly: a UK-based startup that aims to create teams of teachers with collaborative lesson planning and peer-to-peer coaching.
- Botter: a gamified and artificial intelligence-powered language teaching chatbot.
- Medics Academy: a MedEd technology startup that provides next-generation medical education to address the needs of global health systems.
- Wiloki: an adaptive platform that leverages AI to support parents in teaching their children.
- OXED: an online and offline adaptive educational platform for children
- AskMyClass: an affordable social-emotional learning assistant for teachers.
- Livox: an alternative communication software for non-verbal people to communicate and learn.
Speaking about this year’s cohort and selected initiatives’ potential, Stavros Yiannouka, CEO of WISE, reportedly said:
“We have faith in this year’s founders potential in transforming 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.”
Aldo de Pape, Founder and CEO of TeachPitch, a member of the program’s 2015-16 cohort and member of the selection committe, also commented saying:
“I learned a great deal from being on the selection committee this year. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to participate in the selection process of the 2019-2020 WISE Accelerator Committee. I take my hat off to all the team that applied. It is my sincere hope that all of them thrive in improving the global state of education. Please do not give up – the world needs people like you.”
For this year’s cohort, WISE and the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) – also an initiative of Qatar Foundation – have partnered to leverage their respective networks and expertise in supporting Medics.Academy.
Excited to be working in partnership with WISE, Sultana Afdhal, CEO of WISH, said,
“We are delighted to be working in partnership with WISE, this year, to support Medics.Academy – a brand new, tech-based healthcare innovation that aims to help medical professionals by offering them education online. Within the diverse Qatar Foundation ecosystem, this collaboration presents us with a great opportunity to contribute to current knowledge at the intersection of health and medical education to support and optimize the delivery of health solutions around the world.”
WISE accelerator program will officially kick off during WISE 2019 summit, which is going to take place from November 19-21 in Doha, the capital city of Qatar. During the summit, representatives of the selected initiatives will take part in workshops, attend master classes, and participate in pitching sessions.
WISE summit 2019 will see over 2,000 educators, decision makers, and influential experts from the public and private sectors from over 100 countries gathering for engaging plenaries, dialogues, debates, and tailored networking sessions to reimagine and build the future of education. A host of set programs will take place from discovering how to turn whole cities into learning campuses, to debate how students could fund their higher education, to uncovering global edtech trends and their implications on innovation. The summit will address current trends and urgent challenges.
