” Since the start of the pandemic, 1.5 billion children around the world have started using Zoom », Announces Xavier Lesage-Moretti, co-founder ofEinstein Studios. A figure which alone justifies the redirection given to his start-up. ” We actually rotated », Specifies the young CEO. Become Koala Virtual Classrooms – ” or just Koala », The young shoot now offers a more immersive alternative to the famous videoconferencing tool. ” Everyone agrees that Zoom is not the best way to learn for children. Especially when they are under 12 and passive in front of a screen. They are often on Youtube next door, or they drop out ”, explains the engineer.
What Koala offers is simple. It is a virtual classroom where the child moves like in a video game. Using the arrows on the keyboard, the pupil advances or retreats, discovers the space, stops in front of the whiteboard, writes or draws. It’s very intuitive. The teacher teaches in this same room, which he can personalize as desired. ” As in life ”, laughs Xavier Lesage-Moretti, himself a teacher’s grandson. ” Teachers always put small decorations, letters of the alphabet on the wall, posters etc. »Everything is done to create an atmosphere conducive to learning, and which promotes sharing. The child will also develop his creativity, express his personality. “ You can choose your avatar, put on a hat, a tie… And use the camera in addition. ”
Special needs
Immersion in the classroom as in a game is particularly useful for children with special learning needs. The ” special needs kids’ who are for example dyslexic, suffer from an attention deficit disorder, or an autism spectrum disorder. It is to them that Koala addresses itself in priority. ” This concerns 15% of the population. They are children who learn differently, who need more interaction, a multisensory environment. If we manage to teach by adapting the education system to these children, they will be able to reveal their potential. It would be a huge gain for society. This is the reason why virtual classes are currently limited to a maximum of 5 people. ” It would take us less than a week to develop a tool that would support a classroom of 30 students, but that’s not the goal », Says the CEO of Koala.
The pleasant feeling of space when in the virtual classroom has other advantages. ” Two people can talk to each other at the end of the room without being overheard by the others. We don’t all have to participate in the same conversation, we can make asides. The start-up tries to recreate reality, in a fun and accessible to all.
Fundraising
For their previous activity, Xavier Lesage-Moretti and his co-founder Benjamin Roux used virtual reality. ” But helmets cost $ 200 and we had an ethical questioning. We did not want to increase the inequalities between rich and poor households by creating tools only for wealthy children. ” With Koala, they then launched a free application available on several platforms (mac, windows, chromebook, and soon iPad). ” Today nobody pays. We have built a technology that has relatively low costs (peer-to-peer video). We will wait to gain momentum to monetize. “
After raising a pre-seed of $ 300,000 in 2019, Koala “ attack this month a boot round. With VCs and Business Angels. ” The goal? “100,000 weekly active users within 18 months. ” A good way to attract tutoring companies and offer them a premium package. “ We want to sell to those who can afford it, we want to prevent teachers from paying, as too often, out of pocket for school tools. “For this, the team will “First continue to improve the product. We recruit, in particular an iOS engineer because Apple aggressively distributes iPads in schools in the United States. And then we will work on the distribution of our products in public and private educational establishments. And potentially abroad. “
Gamification of education
In the end, two elements motivated Xavier Lesage-Moretti to undertake in the school field. The first ? ” I was lucky to have access to a good education in France, but I found the system very rigid. ” The second ? ” I really believe in the fact that the new generation, the z and alpha generations, will play video games even more. And if we combine the two reflections, we get Koala. ” A child who at 8 years old will stay focused for 3 min on Zoom, can last 3 hours on Animal Crossing. We must manage to bring the two worlds together, and to teach in a more immersive, funnier, more “gamified” way, ultimately less anxiety-provoking… It was unconscious but I wanted to shake up the current system. “
