Say hello to Ympyra – the mobile learning company

The use of mobile devices to provide essential services in poverty-stricken areas is a topic very close to GoMo News’ heart. In many areas where very little infrastructure exists, there are mobile networks which can be used to provide finance, education and other services. Today we see the launch of a new company, Ympyra, with an offering ready to spread education through mobile devices.

FROM YMPYRA:

Literacy and numeracy are basic human rights; they are at the root of building democracy, reducing poverty, and improving quality of life and human rights. Still today one in five adults, more than 800 million in total, still lacks minimum literate and numerical skills while 120 million children do not have access to schools. Of illiterate and innumerate adults, two-thirds are women. Eradicating illiteracy and innumeracy calls for not only more effective methods, but also for political will and for doing things differently at all levels – locally, nationally and internationally. We all know that reaching the people who benefit the most from learning to read, write and count, is not an easy task. We also now we can’t build classrooms for every child in the world, it is too expensive and too slow.

What if?

What if there were a solution to reaching every child, woman and man who wants and needs to learn these basic skills?

There is.

The answer to bridging the global digital divide is mobile communications.

The answer to teaching these basic skills is a mobile learning platform developed in Finland – Ympyra. The Ympyra mobile learning platform transforms any mobile device into an interactive textbook accessible in nearly every corner of the world. Today 70 % of the world’s people use mobile phones and 66 % of the devices are used in developing countries. 65 % of all mobile devices shipped in 2009 can access the mobile Internet, and today’s smartphones will be standard devices of tomorrow.

How?

The Ympyra mobile learning platform is based on identity based learning. Ympyra identifies each learner and how far she or he is in her or his learning process and continues the next lesson from there. Easy as ABC. The patented invention beneath the Ympyra learning platform was made in 2003 to deliver the world’s first mobile magazines and has since delivered hundreds of mobile media services.

In mobile learning, the mobile device is not where the actual teaching or learning takes place. It is the method for channeling the learning content to the learner in an efficient way.

Ympyra’s network of licensee partners around the globe, usually local learning service institutions, provides the learning services to mobile devices. Ympyra trains the partners and is in charge of the learning platform’s functionality.

The learning content of Ympyra is based on Finland’s elementary education curriculum, recognized as the best in the world by OECD’s PISA educational benchmarks. PISA provides us with internationally comparable measures of student achievement and assesses students’ real-life knowledge, skills, and preparedness for future adult participation in the society. PISA is one of the largest assessments in the world.

What now?

Today Ympyra provides three different life skills mobile services:
• ABC for learning to read and write
• 123 for learning of numbers and basic calculations
• 9+12 for providing women key health information during pregnancy and the
first year of a baby’s life

All the mobile learning services are localized for active markets. The content is continuously developed together with leading universities, developers and researchers. Among our university partners are Aalto (FIN), Cambridge (UK), and Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico). In the public sector our selected partners are the Foreign Affairs and Communications Ministries of Finland, Future Learning Finland, and the World Bank Group. In the private sector our selected partners are GSMA, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm, and Smaato. Ympyra has recently signed agreements to deliver its life skills services in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda.

Major research projects under way

Ympyra is the leader in the international Harppi research project together with Aalto University, Tecnológico de Monterrey, and local universities. The research, both quantitative and qualitative, conducted in Mexico, Finland, South Africa, Uganda, and Nepal will focus on three subjects:
1. Use of mobile learning in teacher training.
2. Use of mobile learning in 15-year old students’ training process.
3. Use of mobile learning in a supportive role to existing methods in teaching basic literacy and numeracy to preschool & first grade students.

Ympyra will use the PISA framework in the teacher and 15-year old students field tests. PISA provides a context that enables a valid comparison of results from the test groups.

In Mexico, Ympyra has signed a contract with Tecnólogico de Monterrey. The adult education institution has campuses and academic centers throughout Mexico and South America. Through its virtual campus, Tec de Monterrey also has a presence around the world. Ympyra is currently conducting, together with Tec de Monterrey the largest mobile teacher-training program anywhere in the world, Formando Formadores. A vital tool in these programs is the PISA2012 framework that guarantees that the results are comparable and measurable.

Ympyra has been selected a Network Stars finalist in the European Enterprise Network Awards 2010 and as the Finnish representative in the World Summit Mobile Awards 2010.

What Next?

Ympyra continues to improve the quality of the Ympyra learning platform and to seek new partners and licensees. Also vital for Ympyra’s continuous development and success is the help and support of both governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as influential private individuals in opening the all-important doors of organizations interested in eradicating illiteracy and innumeracy in our world.

Our goal at Ympyra is to be the world’s leading mobile learning company and to have the basic literacy, numeracy and pregnancy-related information services available to everyone at no or low cost everywhere in the world by June 14th, 2012.

Our platform also enables countless new learning and publishing applications, many of which are already under development. We have the technology, we have a working network of partners, and we have the will to succeed.