Jia Lin, former CEO of leading free online dictionary Kingsoft PowerWord, founded Cambridge WoWo, an early childhood English education service with focus on kids between three to six years old (report in Chinese). The firm has received angel investment from Wang Donghui, founder of Ameba Capital and former CFO of Kingsoft.
Cambridge WoWo integrates the contents provided by traditional educators into smart interactive courseware and offers it to both kindergartens (2B) and parents (2C). The highlight of this courseware is that it can recognize the pronunciation of kids to realize human-computer interaction.
Cambridge WoWo set-top boxes sold to kindergartens can be connected to televisions to achieve interactive teaching. The parents need authorization of kindergartens if they want to download app of Cambridge WoWo. They can watch the same contents as their children via the app and help them to review the courses at home.
The company currently covers more than 2,500 kindergartens and over 400,000 households. The business mode is to share revenue with content providers.
This technology is developed by a project co-launched by Cambridge University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, aiming to apply voice recognition technology and human-computer interaction technology into foreign language teaching by simulating a native language interaction atmosphere, according to introduction on the company’s official website. The company has gained the technology authorization of this project.