Month: October 2016

Traditional book fairs — and the education that drives them — are changing, and Avallain is proud to be part of the process. Almost a dozen companies with solutions powered by Avallain will attend the 68th Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) this year.

A 17th century tradition, updated.

As the digital world grows, so does the number of educational technology conferences: Edtech and e-learning fairs are sprouting up all around the world in places from Hong Kong to Brazil.¹ But the folks at these new tech fairs aren’t the only ones showcasing the latest in digital learning resources. Many traditional book fairs are getting in on the technological action, too.

The London Book Fair, for example, sponsors Tech Tuesdays throughout the year, and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair offers an eZone for its participants. The Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the largest and oldest book fairs, and with a story more than 500 years old, now promises to grant access to “the full spectrum of digital trends and technological developments in the publishing industry.”² With technologically focused “Hot Spots” in a centuries-old book fair, it’s clear that the traditional book fair has evolved.

By combining our strengths, we are experts together.

At Avallain, we aim to help our customers evolve in much the same way that the book fairs have evolved — by utilizing experience and existing didactic materials as a foundation from which to expand into the digital world. Some of our customers, such as Oxford University Press (OUP) and Cambridge University Press (CUP), have hundreds of years of experience and published didactic material to build upon. We combine those strengths with our strengths in education technology and digital publishing to help them excel digitally and offer unified cross media content to their users.

Our collaboration with Westermann, for instance, resulted in Denken und Rechnen(“Thinking and Numeracy”), a primary maths learning environment that supports differentiated learning by allowing teachers to respond to the needs of individuals. This resource was created based on Westermann’s existing textbooks and also includes enhanced, interactive versions of the books. It was delivered by Avallain Author and developed on the Avallain Unity platform, integrating the best in both print and digital to support teachers and students alike.

Avallain Author and Avallain Unity add a dynamic digital dimension.

Westermann will be exhibiting at the Frankfurt Book Fair, as will many of our other customers, including OUP, Difusión, Macmillan Education, CUP, Pearson Education, Cornelsen Verlag, Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband (VHS) and Jouve, all of whom benefit from enhancing their portfolios with either or both Avallain Author and Avallain Unity.

OUP uses Avallain Author and Avallain Unity to power Kerboodle, the largest teaching and learning service supported by Unity, and Oxford Owl, a 2016 Bett Award winning website for primary schools. Difusión adds a digital dimension to their print repertoire by offering Avallain-powered Spanish teaching resources to their users. And Macmillan Education has combined more than 5,000 of their high quality resources³ with Avallain technology in order to bring Macmillan English Campus to English learners around the world. We are delighted to be part of our customers’ wonderful products, and to have our technology be showcased through some of them at the fair.

We wish our clients and partners great success at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and we look forward to meeting some of you there. We are excited at the prospect of having discussions about edtech and the latest digital publishing trends in the halls of one of the world’s oldest book fairs.

¹ Edsurge. (2011-2016) Edtech Conferences You Need to Know. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-06-03-edtech-conferences-you-need-to-know Accessed 9 Oct. 2016.

² Frankfurter Buchmesse. The Frankfurt Book Fair goes digital! http://www.buchmesse.de/en/Focus_on/more_topics/digitisation Accessed 9 Oct. 2016.

³ Macmillan English Campus. (2016) Platform Features. http://www.macmillanenglishcampus.com/benefits/platform-features Accessed 10 Oct. 2016

Quality basic education: an essential human right that nearly 61 million primary school aged children are left without each year.¹ With current technological advances and such widespread internet access available around the world, why are so many learners being left behind?

At Avallain AG we asked ourselves that same question and after years of committing our time, resources and expertise to finding solutions, we are officially launching our contribution: Avallain Foundation.

Seeing people beyond profit margins

Avallain AG is a Swiss-based digital education company that has been solving digital education and publishing challenges worldwide since 2002. While serving millions of learners across five continents, we have regularly encountered places where quality education is unavailable and profitability too low to attract investment.

We recognised this deficiency early on and were determined to contribute to a solution. With the goal of unlocking education in mind, Avallain AG opened a daughter company in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009. Through this endeavour, we collaborated with target users and relevant local authorities over the course of seven years to develop locally-relevant educational products that can be accessed free of charge.

For example, iAFYA, a mobile app created in partnership with Google and Bupa, educates the public with easy-to-understand health tips regarding topics that range from healthy living to the early identification of symptoms of life-threatening diseases. iKilimo, also a mobile app, supports African smallholder farmers in their everyday tasks with tips on both land farming and livestock keeping. a-ACADEMY is an on and offline learning platform that takes primary school students and their teachers through a learning journey full of rich interactive activities aimed towards helping children succeed in their education. These products have been used by people who might not otherwise have had access to digital education. iAFYA alone has distributed more than 1.6 million health education tips across over 10 countries in Africa.

Ensuring the continuity of successful projects through Avallain Foundation

In the process of implementing different projects, we realised the successful ones had two important outcomes. First, they produced and delivered high-quality educational content via cutting-edge technology to people in great need of it, and second, they created job opportunities while also engaging teachers, governments and local authorities.These positive outcomes further fuelled Avallain AG’s determination and we decided to launch an independent organisation, Avallain Foundation, aimed at managing sustained and further educational outreach. Avallain AG donated the previously developed products to the Foundation to support it in its beginning stages, and together with our employees, founders and private donors, we contributed significant funds to enable the Foundation to continue to develop high-quality local content and support its distribution. To secure the Foundation’s continued stability and success, Avallain AG is committed to covering the administration costs, making sure that each donated dollar goes directly to those who need it most. Avallain Foundation is a fully established 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation based in the United States with offices in New York and Nairobi, Kenya.

Unlocking education from the United States to Africa

Avallain Foundation works to improve learning and increase digital literacy hoping to bridge the digital divide and eradicate poverty. As Miriam Ruiz, Executive Director of the Foundation points out, “The existing new technologies should enable access to universal education, but that is not quite the reality today. Many stakeholders provide infrastructure and vast generic content collections, but there is a lack of locally-relevant content that is compatible with existing school systems and multiple environments. That gap must be filled with high-quality digital content.”To help fill that gap, the Foundation’s focus is on implementing projects in four main areas — child education, emergency education, literacy and education in the United States for those who have no easy access to the system such as ethnic minorities or immigrants. We want to reach and include those left behind and, as founder Ursula Suter says, “contribute with our best, to unlock education for those who need it most.”

If you want to learn more about Avallain Foundation and our projects, or if you’d like to get involved, please visit avallainfoundation.org.

¹ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Education: Number of out-of-school children of primary school age. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, http://data.uis.unesco.org/. Accessed 26 Sept. 2016.