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
09-19-WSprofile.indd 53 19/07/2019 15:23