Mansion House, October 24, 2018 – Pearson UK signs new partnership with Wizenoze to offer students access to an educational internet as their technology is showcased during the State Visit to UK of the King and Queen of The Netherlands.
- Wizenoze is a specialist AI company. The company was chosen by the Global Entrepreneurs Programme within the Department of International Trade, together with, the Netherlands British Chamber of Commerce, to showcase their innovative solution, The Web for Classrooms, to the King and Queen of the Netherlands and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
- The Web for Classrooms was built for education, and not for commerce, unlike other popular search engines. It was developed in response to research that found over 60% of people cannot understand the majority of what is written online. This figure is highly likely to be an underestimation.
- Wizenoze demonstrated how the use of AI enabled them to create a simple 5-scale ‘reading index’ that curates by reading level, almost 7 million pages of online content. Wizenoze now provides bespoke APIs for customers to take advantage of this new technology. With The Web for Classrooms acting as the go-to search engine on managed school platforms to enriching digital textbooks and to support the whitelisting of websites for internet safety companies.
- Wizenoze announced their latest partnership with Pearson UK, to pilot the enrichment of BTEC coursebooks, by embedding The Web for Classrooms, allowing students to gain greater comprehension, from a dynamic learning environment.
Today, Wizenoze proudly demonstrated their technology to members of the Dutch and UK Royal families. Wizenoze is passionate to close the readability gap on the web, having many links with the charities that both the Royal Houses support. Founded in Amsterdam with their global office in London, Wizenoze is the perfect example of a successful enterprise on both UK and Dutch soil.
“We see that the education sector is increasingly switching to the digitisation of teaching content, with students becoming more dependent on public online information. With The Web for Classrooms we offer access to an internet that has been developed for an educational environment. Students gain valuable learning because they are confronted with relevant information, which is readable and comprehensible.”
Dr Leila Walker, UK Director, Wizenoze
Wizenoze has been recognised as a venture with the potential to change the world we live in by offering students worldwide easy access to reliable and readable online content through The Web for Classrooms. An active supporter of the global literacy movement. Wizenoze was selected by the world’s leading education company, Pearson, to participate in the Project Literacy Lab, the world’s first international partnership focused on supporting rapid growth ventures that are positioned to close the global literacy gap by 2030. The Web for Classrooms has been recognised as an innovative use of AI that has the ability to quickly scale, worldwide.
Wizenoze has built an excellent relationship with Pearson through the Project Literacy Lab. Working with teams in both Primary and BTEC. Over the next few months, Wizenoze will develop with Pearson BTEC a dynamic version of their digital coursebooks, providing vocational students access to digital learning that maximises access to readable online content in order to increase their comprehension and ultimately helping them to achieve their career learning goals.
“We are delighted to announce our new partnership with Wizenoze. As technology expands and the internet becomes more accessible, the greater the need to help learners filter reliable content that is personalised to their reading level. At Pearson, we aim to widen the range of contexts available to learners so to better their learning outcomes. We believe access to Wizenoze’s solution, The Web for Classrooms, will support this mission. And if the pilot proves successful with our first colleges and BTEC courses then we will broaden access to The Web for Classrooms across all curriculum areas.”
Mrs Cindy Rampersaud, Sr VP, Pearson BTEC and Apprenticeships
Editor’s notes
Wizenoze is on a mission to help students all over the world at schools, in libraries and at home to find relevant content online. Wizenoze specialises in the readability and modern classification of written texts. The company was founded in 2013 by Diane Janknegt (ex-Director, Microsoft) and Prof. Dr Theo Huibers (Strategy Advisor & Professor, Twente University).
Founded in Amsterdam and with a global office in London, the company is passionate about its mission to close the readability gap on the web, especially for students and second language learners. Working with teachers and supporting schools lies at the heart of that mission. Today, the Web for Classrooms is being deployed in varied learning environments to provide easy access to relevant web-based information at the right reading level.
Importantly, our in-house software development team have become leaders in the field of developing machine learning software for readability classification. Our new, 1 to 5 classification system was developed after 4 years of academic research lead by our PhD specialists in natural language processing.
Wizenoze is proud that the Dutch Government gave them an Innovation Credit and also has been awarded a prestigious development grant by Google in recognition of our advanced technology. In addition, our UK expansion is actively supported by the UK Government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme at the Department for International Trade, which encourages successful European companies to open up UK offices. More broadly, our latest investments have also been focused on worldwide expansion and our technology is now being deployed in India, Tajikistan, Kenya, the USA and the UAE.
For interview requests or for further information, please contact Leila Walker at leila@wizenoze.com or Diane Janknegt at diane@wizenoze.com.
