21st Century Digital Teaching (21C) has developed avatar teachers to create new generation mathematics content in a bid to assist schools and boost engagement with pupils.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Alan Judd, Chair of 21st Century Digital Teaching and Martin Herschowski, Chief Operating Officer
00:06 at 21st Century Digital Teaching as well. Pleasure to have you both with us on Euronews.
00:12 Now, first of all, you're both behind a new AI company aiming to transform the education system.
00:19 So firstly, can you just tell us about how it started and how it exactly works?
00:25 Well, it started in 19... in 2021 and it started with... I was approached by a headmaster and a very
00:34 forward-looking man, Sir Greg Martin, who asked me to... how could I build a technology platform
00:42 that is going to cure the fundamental shortage of maths teachers? That's how it started. And
00:48 then it moved on to the next generation of personalised learning and then Martin joined me
00:55 and he has single-handed changed the whole... the way digital teaching has really arisen out in the
01:03 UK, I think. And Martin, how exactly have you developed the technology behind this? Can you
01:08 just explain exactly what it does? Well, I think it is, first of all, it's designed by teachers
01:14 for teachers, but the technology behind this is obviously utilising artificial intelligence to
01:21 make sure that the platform can mimic one-to-one tutoring. That's our aim, just to help teachers
01:28 get the better insights about their pupils' performance and then as well make sure that
01:33 each pupil can get the best possible resources to superb their skills. And how does the AI work?
01:41 What is the AI element? Like, how does it... I know it's a very vague term that everyone seems
01:46 to be really abusing these days without really truly understanding it, but I think where AI
01:52 comes to play in the 21st century is we're utilising AI to create the content. So that's
01:58 the initial element where we use AI and we actually had to build our own chat or our own translator
02:06 to be able to translate the lessons that we're getting from our teachers and convert them into
02:12 short and snappy format that is now easily digestible by teenagers. So that's the first
02:17 part where we utilise AI. Then another part where we utilise AI is to be able to track performance
02:24 of every individual student and provide them with the correct and appropriate guidelines
02:29 on what to do next. Okay, so teachers sort of on video, on camera, as well as then the data
02:34 analytics is the... Yes, although we don't really use teachers. We use teachers because we digitise
02:41 them, we translate them into avatars and then they're being available on the screen as digital
02:48 teachers. Okay, so you've used, you've developed avatars to teach the lessons and that's the...
02:52 Yes, that's correct. And that's there too because there's a shortage of teachers,
02:57 real teachers, there's a shortage because the school population is expanding very fast
03:04 and the experience of math teachers is declining because people are retiring,
03:08 they're ill, they're moving, they're going to different places. So to have one-to-one teaching,
03:16 that is really behind 21st century. And as well what's important is obviously that attention
03:21 span of teenagers is really shortening. So we wanted to have our lessons to be as short as
03:27 possible. So instead of 20, 40 minutes long, we have concentrated them into four to five minutes
03:33 format just to make sure that this is something that resonates with teenagers. And that was quite
03:38 a challenge to really compress those lessons into a short format that teenagers can understand and
03:47 they will not get bored. And how long has it taken you? I'm just very interested with these AI
03:53 companies and obviously AI is now very present in industry, everyone is coming up with AI solutions,
04:01 but this has not come out of nowhere. How long did it take to build these avatars and develop
04:06 this technology? Initially when we started or where the company actually started, we haven't
04:12 even been planning to use avatars because that was something that was not entirely possible at the
04:17 time. The concept came up about two years ago that this will be something that we can accommodate
04:23 that will simplify the workflow, that will make this far more engaging and interesting to students.
04:31 And then probably about a year and a half it took us to really train the machine to make sure that
04:38 our content generator is really able to provide the right content. Because the main challenge
04:45 with avatars was not just to create avatars that will look technically correct, but avatars that
04:51 will be able to tell engaging stories. And voice, tone, editorial tone. And I can imagine that being
04:58 incredibly challenging. It has. It has, it has, it has. But obviously as that opportunity
05:05 arise that we can use avatars, we pursue that idea because obviously there is enough research
05:11 on the market that suggests when there is a good link between the teacher and the student,
05:17 then with the same content you can achieve far better results. So that's why our students will
05:23 have an opportunity to choose their favourite teacher. So you're working with teachers,
05:28 are the teachers the avatars or how are you, are you working with teachers to create the
05:34 technology platform? Yes, we work with the teachers to create the curriculum. And the
05:40 entire curriculum was crafted by our head of maths, James Rossiter. He's an amazing mathematician with
05:47 very good credentials in transforming schools that are not performing really well into schools that
05:54 are doing rather good. So we basically using his methodology to deliver something that we know
06:01 works. So I think that's as well one of the differentiation between other platforms and us.
06:08 We have a content that I believe is fully proven. And by the fact that we're using avatars,
06:13 we can easily translate that content into different languages, or we can easily adjust
06:17 the curriculum as well to cater not just for English GCSE, but we can cater as well for other
06:24 European markets. So at the moment, is it you said English GCSE. So is this application at the moment
06:29 just in schools in England? Can it just be used for? So yes, so the current curriculum supports
06:36 English GCSE as well as international GCSE curriculum. So international GCSE is currently
06:43 being rolled out in over 150 countries across obviously, Europe and the world, all the
06:49 international British schools can use the platform. But our primary focus, obviously, at this stage
06:55 is UK because we want to prove the concept, we want to see how everything works and then roll out
07:00 this to other territories. But because as well, we use AI, we use avatars, it is very easy for us to
07:08 adjust the curriculum to, for example, match requirements in Germany, Belgium, Spain. So
07:15 pretty much the sky's the limit at this stage. And what about competition at the moment with other
07:22 AI teaching apps? Is there? I think one of the factors that has been in the back of my mind as I'm
07:30 more an investor in the finance here is to make sure that this product is affordable,
07:37 because AI can be enormously expensive, and then the state schools or schools can't afford the
07:43 product. So that's why we've kind of built our technology in three different domains in the world
07:51 to keep the costs under control, and to make sure that we can deliver a product and system to a UK
07:58 state school that is affordable, but where the output is better than the competition.
08:04 And I'm very interested to know, because you're a UK European startup based startup,
08:11 there have been so many UK and European companies leaving the continent in favour of US exchanges,
08:19 because of the deeper pool of capital, many CEOs that I've spoken to, have said this is the reason.
08:25 What is the challenge, would you say as a startup in Europe, with raising capital compared to the
08:33 US market? Is the US market even something you're interested in? Of course. And we intend to go into
08:38 the US market probably 2025. It'll take about six to nine months to prepare the curriculum,
08:46 based upon the platform we have, which is versatile, and can actually accommodate
08:52 other languages and other systems. I find the UK venture capital market very difficult.
08:59 I don't personally think they're venture capitalists. I think they just bridge fund things.
09:05 We're going into the American, because the Americans are so much more positive
09:09 about how they look at things. The English tend to look at how much are we going to lose,
09:13 and the Americans think how much are we going to make. And their psychology is deeply inground
09:20 in the UK. That's very interesting you say that. So do you think that might be one of the reasons
09:25 why so many other companies are turning to the US? Yes, of course. Because there's more opportunity?
09:31 I think it's deep into the psychology of the British, and maybe the European,
09:36 is not to take a risk. It's really hard to do anything pre-revenue at this stage.
09:41 But if you look at the major companies that have been successful, the investments have always come
09:47 in pre-revenue. Take Uber or someone like that. It's always been pre-revenue. And what other
09:54 challenges have you had getting things up and running as a UK European startup?
09:59 Finance. That comes right back to it. We have the skill sets, we have the people,
10:05 we know the marketplace, and I think I see lots of institutions, and it's the same question every
10:14 time. How many licenses have you sold? Now I appreciate that people want proof of concept,
10:19 but there's also a value proposition. We have finished the technology at a price that everybody
10:26 can afford. The teachers, the VCs, everybody. But there's still, you just have to push them a little
10:32 bit. Sometimes you get success, and most of our funding has come from high net worth investors
10:38 who have got, they're open-minded, they make decisions, and I think they're a great bunch
10:44 of people, the UK private investment market. That's very interesting. So the company has been,
10:52 the money raised has been all private investment. Absolutely. And so for venture capital,
10:57 for startups watching this, and considering or trying to raise money themselves for their own
11:04 company and turning to European VCs, venture capitalists, so you say that's a huge challenge
11:10 at the moment then? I think it's a huge challenge for all startups, unless you're kind of selling
11:16 bread and butter to a bakery. Yes. Now any big dot-com can really happen in Europe because of
11:24 this hesitation from VCs that they're just afraid to take a risk. Very interesting insights there
11:29 from both of you, and thank you for sharing the story of 21C, and we'll certainly be keeping up
11:34 to date on your progress as you go through the journey. So thank you very much for joining us.
11:41 Thank you so much.
11:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]