New Zealand-based educational tech startup, Kais Education, remains firmly on the global tech map as its AI-driven learning robot, Kaibot, and its web-based platform, Kaibot in Kainundrum, reach the final stages of the Assistive Learning category in the EdTech Awards 2024.
Launched in 2010, the EdTech Awards celebrate the foremost innovators, leaders and pioneers in the field of educational technology.
This marks another noteworthy achievement for Kais Education, which has gained renown globally for its educational programmes. Indeed, these have been incorporated into curricula by educational institutes globally. "This is a huge achievement for Kais Education," stated co-founder Ronel Schodt, adding that such recognition "helps to raise our profile to educators and investors, especially for our accessible education tools. Each award or nomination helps to cement Kais Education as a contender in the global EdTech marketplace."
Originally conceived by entrepreneur Bruce Jackson, Kaibot was designed to form a straightforward, enjoyable manner of teaching children of all ages the art of coding. A key challenge revolved around making the learning process independent of computers or tablets. Subsequently, Kaibot, a small AI-assisted robot, was born - complete with its own set of coding flashcards to impart coding principles interactively, accompanied by the web portal Kainundrum for visualisation of pupil's coding on computers or tablets.
Last year, Kais Education rose to the challenge of addressing the unique needs of blind and partially-sighted students, by developing Braille and text-to-speech packages for Kaibot. Consequently, the learning robot and the more advanced Kai's Clan collaborative AR VR robot system appealed notably to educational professionals, who used the advanced learning programmes developed to instruct children of all ages and their teachers.
"The magic of Kaibot is in its simplicity," points out Schodt. "Children can master the basics of coding without being first challenged with learning how to use a computer, and then can apply their new skills to increasingly difficult challenges with confidence. And teachers tell us that they themselves not only learned how to code from Kaibot, but have learned how to teach coding to their students as well."
Providing easily accessible tools has highlighted Kais Education to Special Needs teachers internationally. There are Braille coding cards available, as well as Kainundrum in text-to-speech Spanish for the US market. For New Zealand, there are screen-free coding cards in English, Te Reo, and Spanish, along with Te Reo in text using Kainundrum. "We're also rolling out KaiBot in Swift Playgrounds which is specially developed for the Apple eco-system - a really exciting development," Schodt says.
Following success in the United States, Kais Education has expanded, setting up a Delaware-based US branch with its own sales team. Currently, Kaibot is being utilised for teacher training in six US universities and has been introduced into 28 elementary schools, including five special needs classes, in Utah's Canyon District School.
Further expansion for Kais Education takes the shape of the recruitment of Bob Drummond, a leading Kiwi EdTech entrepreneur and Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Kami, to its board. Drummond bring substantial expertise gleaned from scaling tech startups and increasing market share.
"I'm very excited to be supporting Kais Education," Drummond enthused, having seen the impact of the company at US education trade shows. "I believe they have the fundamentals of a truly groundbreaking EdTech firm and I'm happy to lend my experience toward their success."
With computer science and digital technologies becoming integral to curricula across the globe, Schodt asserts, "the potential for KaiBot, and Kainundrum, is enormous. We're excited to be one of the first businesses in the world to combine robotics, AI and both physical and online tools to create a genuinely enjoyable learning experience for students of all abilities." Currently, over 50,000 students are using KaiBots and, Schodt predicts that, "that number is set to explode."
