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Elia - Smart Assistant for English Learning

Project description

Breaking barriers by personalising English language learning

In a world defined by global communication, language barriers persist as obstacles to professional and academic success. For instance, many struggle to grasp English, hindering their potential. Conventional language learning methods often fail to address individual needs and real-world context. With this in mind, the EU-funded ELIA project will pioneer a tailored, effective approach to language education. Specifically, it will develop a personal assistant (named Elia) that can seamlessly integrate English learning into daily life – from work emails to YouTube videos. Elia is anchored in cognitive linguistics, powered by machine learning, and endorsed by its growing user base. A first demo version was launched at German universities in 2022.

Objective

"We are a startup founded exclusively by women holding the top positions CEO and CTO. Our vision is to reduce inequalities by helping people own their English. That's why we created a personal assistant – Elia. Elia is a tool for busy professionals or swamped students struggling with their English. It connects English learning to their daily activities, e.g. writing an email at work; watching videos on YouTube; or reading an article for a biology class. Because learning that is personalised and in context has been found to be the most effective form of learning.

Elia started as a PhD project. Hence it's based on insights from cognitive linguistics and developed using machine learning and natural language processing techniques. We presented it at conferences in Berkeley and Cambridge. The first demo version of Elia was launched at German universities in January 2022. Currently it has over 1600 users. We are about to close partnerships with two private language school and two student organisations: ISIC France and Spain. Since January, we have been working on improving the product to reach product-market fit. We reduced the churn rate (install to uninstall) from 19% to 4% and increased the conversion rate (website to install) from 11% to 24%. Currently, 34% of users would be very disappointed if they could no longer use Elia. We are on our way to achieving product-market fit.

We need the support of this grant, both financial and mentoring, to help us 1) reach the product-market-fit, 2) help us extend our partnerships and user base, 3) buy us time to find a venture capital investor. According to the Female Startup-Up Funding Index, ""In Austria, 0% of startups who raised money in the first half of 2022 have all-female founding teams and women make up 7% of the 174 founders who received funding."" The numbers are no different elsewhere. Help us change these numbers. We are an all-female founding team. We could boost the ""0%"" number. But we need your help.





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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-CSA - HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIE-2022-SCALEUP-02

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Coordinator

INSTITUTE OF LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 75 000,00
Address
BERNOLAKOVA 783/51
02901 Namestovo
Slovakia

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Slovensko Stredné Slovensko Žilinský kraj
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
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