Courses & Events
The Impact of Digital Technologies on Education Businesses
Thursday, Oct 15, 2020
04:30 pm - 05:50 pm
Join us for a seminar examining how digital technologies are impacting education in Asia and around the world. A panel will provide insights into how their business are changing the core aspects of how education and learning are accomplished, how the trajectory of digital transformation in Asian education industries is proceeding, and whether COVID-19 is speeding up digitalization in education?
Details
All seminars will be held online via Zoom, 4:30 PM -5:50 PM, with informal networking following until about 6:30 PM (PST). REGISTER below for the entire series*.
Register in advance:
https://stanford.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIldu6srDsjG9yX-9Mhl6v2VCtCcBUhSLYo
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
*You may cancel your registration at any time and attend only the sessions you wish.
The series is available to Stanford students for credit; register for EASTASN 402A “Topics in International Technology Management,” also cross-listed as EE-402A and EALC-402A, 1 unit S/NC.
Speakers
Ms. Vu Van
Co-Founder and CEO, ELSA Corp.
Ms. Vu Van is a female entrepreneur and the Co-founder & CEO of Silicon Valley-based ELSA, the world’s best and smartest English pronunciation app. She worked with leading speech scientists, machine learning scientists, and linguists from around the world to create ELSA. Powered by the company’s proprietary AI and speech recognition technology, ELSA scores a learners’ speech to pinpoint individual syllable and phoneme level mistakes with real time feedback.
Prior to founding ELSA, Vu lived and worked in Vietnam, Singapore, Denmark where she experienced the challenges of an English language learner abroad. She served as an Engagement Manager at Booz & Co, one of the top four global management consulting firms. Vu earned an MBA and a Masters in Education from Stanford University and is originally from Vietnam.
ELSA (English Language Speech Assistant) is a startup founded in 2015 by Stanford alum Ms. Vu Van, and Dr. Xavier Anguera, a veteran in speech recognition and AI. ELSA’s app, which is called ELSA Speak, listens to the way language learners pronounce words, sentences or conversations to pinpoint exact errors and provide real-time, accurate feedback on their pronunciation mistakes with specific suggestions on how to improve. The company built its own proprietary speech technology using deep learning and A.I. to detect people’s pronunciation mistakes with 95%+ accuracy. Based in San Francisco, ELSA has raised $12 million in capital and is backed by leading VCs in Silicon Valley, Southeast Asia and Japan. ELSA Speak is available for iOS and Android and is used by more than 7 million users in over 100 countries. The company has offices in Portugal, Vietnam, India, Indonesia and Japan.
The inspiration for ELSA, the 2016 SXSWEdu winner, came when Vu realized that pronunciation and accent often pose as a hindrance for non-native employees in the business. Its vision is to become the best and most accessible pronunciation training tool for the more than 1.5 billion language learners around the world, enabling everybody to speak English confidently and fluently and unlock new opportunities in their lives.
Mr. Young-Jun Jang
CEO, Riiid!
Young Jun, Jang is co-founder and CEO of Riiid, a leading AI-driven EdTech start-up based in Korea. He co-founded the firm in 2014 to deliver creative disruption to the education market through cutting-edge AI technology. He also brings extensive experience and expertise in the areas of entrepreneurship, operations management, investor communication and fundraising in Silicon Valley.
At Riiid, Jang manages corporate direction and overall strategy, leading investor communications to share the firm’s vision and business strategy. Taking a leadership role in AI-based education, Riiid has developed a state-of-the-art deep learning AI technology solution, ‘SantA.Inside,’ that delivers an advanced and individually modified learning experience to democratize equalization of educational opportunity. In 2017, Riiid launched Santa, a mobile test prep application for the popular English proficiency exam, Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). Quickly embraced by more than one million students, Santa almost overnight reached No. 1 in sales among education apps in Japan and Korea. Santa has proven the efficacy and marketability of Riiid’s technology to the global market. Early this year, Riiid launched Riiid Labs, its global arm based in Silicon Valley, and aggressively expands its business to new educational domains and geographical markets including the U.S., South Africa, Middle East, and Europe, partnering with global leaders in education.
Jang also serves as a director of the Artificial Intelligence Industry Association in Korea.
Previously, Jang co-founded Tapas Media, a comic content mobile platform based in San Francisco where he served as CCO (Chief Content Officer).
Jang graduated from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
