WISE Accelerator announces new cohort of EdTech initiatives

The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), an initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), has revealed the eight EdTech initiatives selected to join its 2019-2020 WISE Accelerator programme.

The programme will officially kick off during WISE 2019 Summit, for 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.

Stavros Yiannouka, CEO, WISE, said: “We have faith in this year’s founders potential in transforming education on a largescale 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 labour shortage in the medical sector by providing scalable and quality content for training workers in the medical field.”

The eight initiatives are: 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; Botter, a gamified and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered language teaching chatbot; 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.

Atif Mahmood, founder and CEO, Teacherly, said: “When you make the decision to start a startup, it is like a roller coaster – you have your ups and downs. But what has helped us remain focused is believing that our product is the best, knowing our customers, and a burning desire to make a difference and succeed.”

For this year’s cohort, WISE and the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) – also an initiative of QF – have partnered to leverage their respective networks and expertise in supporting Medics.Academy, one of the selected ventures which is at the intersection of EdTech and healthtech.

“We are delighted 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 optimise the delivery of health solutions around the world,” Sultana Afdhal, CEO of WISH, added.