Wired UK – September 2019

EDTECH STARTUPS:

LIFELONG LEARNING

Studying needn’t stop after graduation – there are

more opportunities than ever to give yourself an

intelligence upgrade. WIRED profiles four online educators

Set up in 2016 as a “Netflix

of sign language courses”

by Fabíola da Rocha

Borba, this Brazilian

platform offers online

lessons to help hearing-

impaired people prepare

for job interviews and

professional life, as many

have trouble reading

fluently. Signa’s courses

are currently aimed at

Portuguese speakers in

Brazil – but has plans to

expand in English to the US.

Launched in 2010 in

London by Ben Whately,

Ed Cooke and Greg Detre,

Memrise gameifies

language learning – and

the courses are free. The

platform uses AI to adapt

to users’ needs as they

progress, and works on

iOS, Android and online. It

offers more than 150

language courses across

25 languages, and

has more than 40 million

registered users.

Founded in Prague by

developers Anna Danilec

and Radoslaw Fabisiak in

2018, this e-learning

platform offers

programming courses

around blockchain,

cryptocurrency, machine

learning and web

development. The

introductory blockchain

module is offered for free,

and many beginner

courses do not require

programming experience.

Don’t have time to read a

book a day? German

startup Blinkist,

co-founded in 2012 by

CEO Holger Seim, is a

platform with more than

2,500 non-fiction books

summarised in 15-minute

audio and text digests

known as “blinks”.

Blinkist has more than

ten million users

worldwide, and has raised

almost $35 million (£27

million) in funding. KM

1.

MEMRISE

3.

SIGNA

2.

DUOMLY

4.

BLINKIST

053 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Quarles has introduced three major

changes. First, he has striven to make Strava

more locally relevant. Strava Metro, for

example, is a scheme for sharing commuter

data from pedestrians and cyclists with

city planners and departments of trans-

portation, to help them plan safer infra-

structure. (Transport for London has

benefited from its cycle-lane-use figures, for

example.) Strava has also increased its local

representation in markets including France,

Germany, Brazil and Japan, “to create a local

experience with key community members,

like race organisers”, says Quarles.

Second, Strava is going beyond its two core

activities of cycling and running to record all

kinds of exercise, even gym workouts, thanks

to partnerships with fitness chains such as

Digme and PureGym in the UK.

The third, and possibly most important

change, is deeply rooted in Quarles’

background with Facebook and Instagram:

the social media elements. “We really made

Strava about the photos and social feed and

the routes that people discover,” he says. “I

think that’s had a huge role in increasing not

just people coming to the app when they

upload, but also when they want to download

• when they look at what their friends are
  doing, to find great places and be inspired.”
  Quarles emphasises his drive to cultivate
  Strava’s athletic community. “I think that
  people have a more intense connection with
  their Strava usage on the community than
  they do with the brand that’s on their T-shirt
  or trainers,” he says. Strava users are always
  encouraging each other, providing “that
  extra boost to come back and keep doing it.”
  For further growth, Quarles says Strava
  has to become “automagical, a kind of techie
  word that I use, where it’s effortless to do the
  things that are part of your fitness regime, and
  you’re connected to the people that matter”.
  The Strava chief executive admits that
  this vision won’t be easy to implement.
  “We’re a startup, we have a certain amount
  of funding, we have a certain number of
  employees, and we’re not an unlimited
  resource. And that is the hard part: making
  good decisions and executing them well, to
  build that future.” Will Bedingfield

Left: Strava CEO James Quarles in the

company’s San Francisco HQ

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