Futurewhiz, known for Squla and WRTS, is at the forefront of educational innovation. By utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning, they create groundbreaking platforms that support children in their learning process. But in this fast-paced development, the human touch remains crucial, according to Jeroen Munk, Head of Plato+ and WRTS tutoring at Futurewhiz. "I think that in an increasingly digital world, people are still looking for connection and the human component."
At Futurewhiz, you are responsible for two new platforms. What are your responsibilities?
One of the platforms I am responsible for is related to targeted learning for children from grade six to eight, and the other platform is about providing affordable group tutoring for secondary education. We believe that we can make tutoring more scalable and therefore more affordable. Instead of the twenty to forty-five euros that people currently have to pay for tutoring, we believe this can be done for eighteen euros by providing more targeted help. This makes it accessible to a larger group of children, instead of just a privileged few whose parents can afford it.
What role does Futurewhiz play in the education domain?
If you look at the overarching organization Futurewhiz, our mission is to enable every child to grow through personalized education. If you then look at the products that fall under it, we offer the most specialized learning experience possible for children aged three to eighteen. We are a consumer-oriented company, with Squla focusing on the ages of three to twelve and our new platform on children aged nine to twelve. WRTS is intended for high school students. We believe in the trinity of child, parent, and teacher, but it is also important that we are endorsed by teachers.
Do teachers also have that feeling?
Based on the number of teacher accounts and conversations, yes. Eighty percent of primary schools use Squla and WRTS is the most used platform among language teachers.
Is there collaboration between Futurewhiz and education?
We work with education in the same way that publishers usually do. We have authors and they are often teachers or former teachers who create content for the platform. The big difference is that we focus on the child for ninety percent of the functionalities on our platforms and for ten percent on the parents and teachers. We always keep the child in mind, they have to like it and learn from it.
With the creation of your new Plato+ platform, you have entered into a collaboration with Edenspiekermann. Why?
The knowledge and experience we have internally is very valuable. I thought it was important that if you are going to set up a new platform for a group in which you are still active, you really need to have a fresh view on things. That is why we asked Edenspiekermann, so that they could look at it from a different perspective and do so without being hindered by knowledge and experience. This way, they could look very purely at what is happening in the market and what we could do in it. With the aim of breaking away from our current platforms.
Have you worked together before?
Yes, I have also worked with them when I was working on WRTS. When we bought WRTS in 2019, it was, bluntly put, a platform for cramming words. We wanted to develop it further so that it became more than just that. According to our vision, it had to become a platform that would be used to prepare for tests. We saw that children had no help for that or had to go to expensive tutoring, and to create that concept, I also worked with Edenspiekermann at the time. It is a very professional team and you can fully trust that they will take the right steps.
Is there still room for a new platform?
Yes, if you look at what has changed in society and compare it to ten years ago when we started with Squla. Children have much less time and they are filled to the brim with all sorts of things. They have to do sports, learn to play an instrument, play games, and meet friends. You also see that parents are increasingly short of time and, in addition, you see that due to the growing teacher shortage, teachers also have less time. Teachers do their best, but the problem is that, due to lack of time, they cannot always help students in a targeted way. This leaves you with a problem. Very targeted explanations and exercises need to be given in the area where a student is experiencing problems. What you see at the moment is that the current platforms fall short in this area because they are too broad. In Squla, for example, you can learn mathematics, but you can also do many other things, and the same applies to another product, Junior Einstein. It offers a lot for children, but it also provides a lot of distraction. We believe that we need to help children very efficiently and effectively in the area where they get stuck. We show them and help them understand how to approach it. This gives them self-confidence and they can move on.
Has the impact of Corona been important in developing this product?
What you mainly saw during Corona is that Squla grew enormously, both at home and at school. But you also saw that platforms that normally focus on schools suddenly ended up in living rooms and that parents were also confronted with this. They could suddenly see what their children were doing at school and parents also found out that education has changed and that they could not always support their child well. In addition, you can question how much a child believes from their parents. For this platform, we see that you can indicate as a parent and child where you are struggling and based on that, a playlist is compiled that will really help you with that problem. That is really the big difference with the current platforms that offer exercises, but as soon as you are not good at something, you just get more exercises until you understand it. With Plato+, we are really looking for the cause of why something is not working and then we will help you with that.
A platform aimed at the individual?
Exactly.
How do you ensure that you can set it up so individually?
It is a combination of the platform and content. We are going to compile content in a different way, which still has to prove itself to a certain extent, but we work closely with the data science team within Futurewhiz. Machine learning, for example, will become part of the project, because you will have to be able to locate where the problem is. That is partly the platform, but also the way you set up the questions. You can set up the questions in such a way that you can trace where the child's learning problem is.
To what extent does artificial intelligence play a role in the development of your products?
We keep a close eye on all developments in this area and how they can be incorporated into our products. I think that questions and exercises can be personalized even more than we could ever do, and that is really something we will use in the future.
What were some of the challenges you had to tackle during the development of Plato+?
The biggest thing and also the reason to involve Edenspiekermann was to break away from what we know. When you have been working for a long time, you sometimes don't see certain things anymore or you have certain assumptions and prejudices about whether something works or not. For creating a concept for a new platform, it is important to get rid of these things. We approach this as a startup and look at the market with a new and fresh perspective. Of course, that market is further developed compared to ten years ago.
How would you like to define the success of this product?
We want to see if we can create a difference in knowledge and skills when someone signs up and after they have done a few study sessions. Ultimately, we want to help children move forward as efficiently as possible in the subjects they have problems with, which are usually a few subjects. That means creating success experiences and increasing confidence and hopefully we can also support the parent by showing them that their child is really being helped. So, a success experience for the child in the form of ‘I understood it’ and a success experience for the parent so that they can see that their child has been helped and that they no longer have to experience stress.
Isn't it difficult to generate trust behind a computer screen?
You can take many steps in gamification, but also when it comes to the content you offer. Then you can build in success experiences through how you do it. So if you start very small and build up successes, you can gradually make it more difficult. And if it doesn't work for a moment, you can immediately respond to it and indicate what the problem is and offer a more targeted learning experience, which helps a child move forward. You need setbacks to experience success. As long as you are helped, understood, and supported when it doesn't work for a moment, you will continue.
It is now aimed at the upper years of primary school. Are you going to broaden or expand that target group?
It is really too early to say anything about that. I see it now as a startup within Futurewhiz. We have come up with a completely new concept, looking at the market anew, and I think it is good to focus on this first. So first make sure that we help the children and thereby solve the parents' concerns. If that works, then we can expand. We always have international ambitions, so it may also be that we will roll it out internationally.
Is the start-up mentality the way you develop products at Futurewhiz?
Actually, it is. We always work from big ideas that we start small. In the development of this product, we started with interviews with parents and children. In addition, we conduct surveys and then we add our experience and come up with a concept proposal. Then we make a website with the proposal and our story, lead traffic to it, and see if it resonates with the target audience. Based on that, we further refine the concept, which we then show parents and children as well. Then we put a good MVP live as soon as possible to let parents and children use it, because then you get really valuable information back. I believe in conducting interviews and surveys, but I still believe the most in analyzing behavior.
How long does it take for you to go from an idea to an MVP?
With this project, we have been working on it for about three or four months. From concept to MVP, and that is quite a pressure cooker. Of course, we have a lot of platform knowledge and experience and can reuse many things, and we also make sharp choices in that regard. We are now focusing on group seven with a focus on mathematics and reading comprehension. So start small and build from there.
How do you see the future of online educational support?
In recent years, a few interesting things have happened. Where in the beginning, digital support was more of a must, because schools had to go digital and publishers had to go digital. It was however not properly examined whether this was the best way to solve a problem. That has really changed now, the added value of digital possibilities is now being utilized. In addition, during the corona pandemic, schools have really entered the household. Parents were suddenly confronted with the digital platforms that the children use at school and could see what it looked like, but also what their children were doing exactly. This has created more understanding among parents and brought more than the ten-minute conversations that are held every six months at school. In terms of AI and machine learning, I see many possibilities for further personalizing learning, while taking into account the human component. For example, from WTRS, we have a Q&A where children help each other in an online community. I think that in an increasingly large digital world, people are looking for connection and the human component.
So your product has slowly matured?
I certainly think so. In the past, you did more with your parents and teachers, and now it has become more solitary. However, the need remains to also socialize and be part of a community. For example, it gives a very nice feeling as a child that you are not the only one who is online with school. I think that the community feeling will also become more of a trend.
What other trends are there now?
We have already talked about it earlier, but I see AI & machine learning and building a community as the two most important trends.
And in the long term?
I think that in an online learning platform with the help of, for example, ChatGPT, even more of a conversation will take place, where you are coached and helped by the AI functionality in the computer, while remaining connected online with peers.
A digital personalized educational assistant that helps you through education?
Yes, but one that looks at what is needed. A child must meet a certain curriculum, so it must fit the child, but also ensure that certain goals are achieved and involve the child in that.
What are the obstacles that still need to be overcome for Plato+?
We are really still at the beginning and a big challenge is the time a child has. They already have little time and the question is how much time they want to spend on Plato+. You also see parents struggling with this, because they see children who are easily distracted and who do not want certain things. So that is really the challenge for us. How can we help a child effectively and efficiently, that they also appreciate it, keep it fun, without you as a parent constantly asking if they have practiced yet. That interplay will be a big challenge.
