Category: News

In this challenging moment for our world, we in Avallain remain committed to playing our part, bringing to bear our 20 years of experience in the Digital Education industry.

More than ever, companies, institutions, and individuals need continuity in the central pillars of daily life. Education is one of these pillars, and we believe that if deployed well, online learning tools could greatly reduce the impact of the current situation to at least this aspect of our lives.

Preparedness and proactivity

As a digital company with a 100% smart work/home office setup and 100 team members in 15 countries, we had a head start. However, we are still working hard to ensure that we support one another in terms of homeschooling and family support.

School closures in many countries have radically changed the usage landscape. We are seeing exponential increases in platform use as homeschooling and distance learning initiatives take hold. So working closely with our clients, we responded quickly to increase infrastructure monitoring and capacity, ensuring an uninterrupted high level of performance.

Ultimately, we are in uncharted waters, so if things get tight, we will rely on our formal Business Continuity Plan, which has been designed over the past years to allow us automatically to implement fallback options and communication plans in times of crisis. Any client can ask for a copy of this, or for further details about our preparedness.

Human-centered and technology-driven solutions

An essential component of our Digital Education strategy is to address the growing need for real-time interaction and features that enable teachers and learners to minimise the impact of the absence of face-to-face lessons.

Central to this has been an immediate need for live video integration within learning platforms, which allows realtime interaction and online classes without much preparation. We have reacted quickly to this need, and this month are rolling out the first integrations with virtual classroom / conferencing tools.

Our commitment to education

Avallain is keen to help you to support learners and teachers in the challenging weeks to come.

During this public health crisis, we are offering a limited number of free accounts to our leading Avallain Author authoring tool for creating interactive e-Learning content.

Anyone interested can apply directly to info@avallain.com or through the contact form on our website. Our team will help speed up the process of implementation and delivery to ensure the continuity of learning. For institutions, and education departments, we also offer limited free consulting to help implement a fast, accurate, seamless and appropriate solution for the current needs.

We have over 20 years of experience in technology-enhanced education for institutional learning, and now more than ever we understand the value of cooperation and delivering fluent combinations of our own and third party technology as needed.

Appropriate solutions for challenging times

For language schools needing to switch instantly to an online solution, we have a ready-made product suite to offer that will bring you online seamlessly in minimal time.

Our content production department can help create a critical starting mass, and through our long collaboration with the leading educational publishers, we can easily enable access to the best digital learning solutions in the market.

A word of hope and thanks

On behalf of all Avallain members, we thank all the professionals who are keeping up their essential work in these times, including those who keep education running. Driven by education and science, our collective effort, clarity of focus and creativity will see us through this crisis.

Our best wishes to all our clients, partners and friends in the education world.

Avallain (avallain.com), a Swiss-based company, that provides award-winning education technology and tools to create, manage and disseminate educational content, and EDIA (www.edia.nl), Dutch-based, EdTech company applying Artificial Intelligence to create smart content for educational use, have announced a technical and commercial partnership.

Avallain and EDIA will work together by integrating EDIA’s Smart Content capabilities into Avallain’s online authoring tool Avallain Author and learning platform architecture Avallain Unity. EDIA applies natural language processing (NLP), a form of Artificial Intelligence, to create metadata. Its technology analyses educational texts in order to determine readability levels on the CEFR framework, extract keywords and classify topics in a taxonomy. EDIA’s capabilities will further enhance Avallain’s powerful tools and offer educational publishers easy access to metadata automation. These services can be applied both in the process of content creation in Avallain Author, where authors and editors get better tools to add metadata, and in the learning content management in Avallain Unity, where automated tagging can be used to tag and analyze existing content portfolio.

“We are very pleased with our cooperation as we have complementary technology that will help educational publishers in their digital transformation”, says Walter Montenarie, Chief Commercial Officer at EDIA. “The two companies work very well together as we share the same values and are determined to make an impact on education.”

“Our clients have the highest standards when it comes to developing and delivering digital learning products. We are proud to be providing them for more than 15 years with the tools and experience they need to implement these standards and excited about the cooperation with EDIA. Because EDIA’s Smart Content capabilities will add lasting value to our solutions and in EDIA we have found a new partner on our journey to empower companies all around the globe to unlock human potential with technology-enhanced education.” says Ignatz Heinz, President and Co-Founder of Avallain.

About Avallain

Founded in 2002, Avallain quickly took on the role as a pioneer in Digital Education. Located in the idyllic canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland, this was the ideal starting point for what was to come. Ever since our first steps in Digital Education, Avallain has grown into an international premium supplier with staff all around the globe and proud to be working with some of the world’s most ambitious brands, serving millions of learners in various educational settings. Together, our sole aim is to achieve a positive impact on human potential with technology-enhanced education.

About EDIA

EDIA education technology was founded in 2004 and is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2006, EDIA launched its first AI product for education, which used machine learning and natural language processing to curate online text sources for vocabulary training. The product won several international awards and is still widely used today. In recent years EDIA transformed into a SaaS platform by applying Artificial Intelligence technology to analyse text.

When it comes to aviation training, language skills are typically not the first thing that comes to mind. However, being able to quickly and successfully communicate information is a vital skill for prospective pilots. Thus, Latitude Aviation English Services Ltd. focuses exclusively on providing quality aviation English language training and testing solutions to aviation companies worldwide. Latitude now uses Avallain Author to develop and maintain Foundation, their web-based aviation English course, as well as Avallain Unity to create their bespoke learning management systems.

Focus on language: Why English skills matter in aviation

Many companies providing courses in aviation English typically do this as something of an afterthought, offering generalised English-language courses, with topics such as aviation or business English as “add-ons”. Latitude takes an entirely different approach: They provide aviation English training and testing solutions exclusively, as precise and unambiguous communication plays an immensely important role in aviation. Various international companies, from Qatar Airways to the Emirates Flight Training Academy, already rely on Latitude learning solutions to increase the language skills of their licensed operations personnel, ultimately improving overall safety standards as well.

“We were thrilled to be working with Latitude, not just because we relish working with high-quality teaching specialists, but also because of the highly specialised approach Latitude takes,” says Ignatz Heinz, Avallain Managing Director and Co-Founder. Ursula Suter, Chairwoman of the Board and Avallain Co-Founder, agrees: “Despite our wide range of customers, this clear focus on aviation English makes Latitude an entirely new type of partner for Avallain, and we are happy to bring our powerful tools into this specialised part of the language learning industry as well.”

Advanced Avallain software solutions for a niche market

Naturally, the highly specialised field of bespoke aviation English learning and testing materials offers only a limited number of customers. Thus, Latitude was looking for a premium software solution which is powerful and cost-efficient to boot. It quickly became evident that Avallain could offer precisely what they needed:

• Avallain Author: Latitude uses the highly advanced authoring tool in the development of content for Foundation, their 100-hour web-based aviation English course explicitly designed to prepare students for English-medium professional aviation training.
• Avallain Unity: Avallain’s learning management software architecture is used as the basis of Latitude’s SaaS solution, an easy-to-handle, highly reliable learning platform architecture. Latitude uses this to publish, deliver, assign, evaluate and market educational content.

Since both of our flagship products are designed to be highly customisable and reliable, Latitude and Avallain were able to introduce them into the existing Latitude ecosystem in a matter of weeks. Thus, Latitude now benefits from highly advanced software solutions used by the world’s largest publishers.

The future of aviation English training

After the successful implementation of Avallain products in Latitude’s software during early 2019, Henry Emery, Managing Director at Latitude, already has his eyes set on future cooperation: “We’ve entered into a mutually beneficial partnership which gives us highly advanced flexible technology to further enhance our learning programmes while providing Avallain with a glimpse into the world of aviation English training. We’re already working on new ideas to further build upon this relationship and we’re certain our customers will love what we have in store for them.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long been the holy grail of the digital education industry. Few companies know this as well as L-Pub, which specialises in the use of AI in language-based applications. Thus, L-Pub and Avallain are now entering into a partnership, which will add the unique skills and technologies of the German language technology company to Avallain products, while introducing L-Pub’s customer base to Avallain technologies in turn.

What L-Pub brings to the table

Founded in 2015, L-Pub is a young and energetic startup with a clear goal: Instead of working on education technology solutions in general, L-Pub focuses specifically on developing highly advanced language technologies. These include automated natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, allowing computer programmes to understand or even produce natural language autonomously, e.g. for automated exercises or individualised learning tips.

“What makes us most excited to work with L-Pub is the fact that they do not follow a generalised approach to AI programming,” says Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Avallain: “They are specialised in providing language processing technologies to publishers as well as educational institutions and that focus has allowed them to achieve great expertise in this area.”

Practical benefits for content creation

This partnership between L-Pub and Avallain is sure to provide numerous advantages to both companies and their end users down the line. Some specific benefits are already tangible and are already scheduled for inclusion in Avallain Author:

• Automated analysis of learner performance and learning success
• Analysis and curation of learning content via automated NLP tools
• Automated support for editorial processes and content creation
• Support for individualised exercises and information retrieval

For Avallain’s customers, this will bring about a faster and more versatile content creation workflow and Avallain users will be able to design even more individualised learning experiences.

Automated processes create more individualised learning environments

Thanks to AI automation support of the content creation process, Avallain Author will be able to create much larger and more varied sets of learning activities. This provides language learners with more didactic choice, allowing them to skip materials they already excel at in favour of learning areas in which there may be a need for improvement.

This degree of individualisation will be further expanded via adaptive learning algorithms, which L-Pub is currently developing in collaboration with the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Leading the way to advanced learning technology

While Avallain will be able to use the unique expertise of L-Pub in its long-term strategy of AI integration, L-Pub will be able to offer their customers access to Avallain Author as an integrated authoring tool to simplify their workflow. Likewise, L-Pub customers will be able to increase their reach thanks to platforms and apps created with Avallain Unity. But in the end, the partnership may benefit learners the most.

David P. Steel, Founder & Managing Director at L-Pub puts it most succinctly:

Together, Avallain and L-Pub hope to offer the niche skills that L-Pub has honed to a wider audience. On the one hand, we will provide more publishers with access to cutting-edge language technology solutions, on the other hand, we will be able to reach more end users, making their learning experience better.

EtonX, Eton College’s prestigious online learning business, has partnered with Avallain, engaging in a proof-of-concept and research project. The goal of this project is to create high-quality online learning content as well as designing advanced online tutoring tools.Specifically, EtonX and Avallain have been researching new ways to teach important soft skills effectively in an online learning environment.

Soft skills are future skills

Knowledge and experience are not the only things that modern employers seek in their future employees. In the workplaces of today, so-called soft skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork are every bit as important as academic skills. EtonX recognises this and offers a number of ‘future skills’ courses to help students develop those abilities which will genuinely define their personal and professional futures.

EtonX and Avallain

EtonX chose to partner with Avallain for one reason in particular: Avallain is the most experienced provider of digital authoring technology worldwide. In over 15 years, the company has worked with some of the leading global publishers in the field. Perhaps most importantly, Avallain realises that the focus of development should always lie on the learner instead of purely technological considerations. Thus, Avallain is no stranger to teaching soft skills via a digital medium.

For EtonX, partnering with Avallain has further enhanced the company’s focus on soft skills research and developing ways to support soft skills teaching on an online-only platform. The research of this successful collaboration now feeds directly into the creation and deployment of custom content as well as application design within this growing educational area. EtonX is spearheading this particular area online for learners across the globe.

Avallain technologies for future skills development

Over the course of this research, EtonX used both of Avallain’s flagship products, Avallain Author and Avallain Unity, experimenting with different approaches to educational content and types. This process benefited immensely from Avallain’s vast experience of supplying high-quality education platforms across multiple territories, for both students and teachers. Some of Avallain Author’s features, in particular, are already well-suited for soft skill development:

• Advanced feedback features to allow easy communication between learners and tutors
• Audio, video and image integration to embed exercises in tangible, real-life scenarios
• Multiple features that can be used to fully individualise the learning environment

Rahim Hirji, COO of EtonX, says:

EtonX is looking forward to further collaboration with the team at Avallain as we look to build different types of courses in the fast-evolving educational area of ‘Future Skills’. The research phase with Avallain was an important piece of work to help launch a groundbreaking pilot of our Making an Impact Course in 2017. This pilot used a custom-built live virtual classroom and was hugely successful with interest from more than one hundred countries. With further collaboration, EtonX will launch more courses and courses with different formats building on Avallain’s many years deploying online education solutions around the world.

Bringing future skills into the digital classroom

For Avallain, working with EtonX has also been an exciting project. Commenting on the collaboration, Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Avallain, said “In the complex and quickly developing area of online tutoring, Avallain is delighted to support EtonX as it continues to grow around the world. Our products support education businesses that operate in primary, secondary and further education all around the world and so we were happy that our experience could help EtonX fine-tune its offering for learners in countries that value these important educational areas.”

Given the technological affinity of both EtonX and Avallain as well as our shared focus on learners, EtonX users all across the world stand to gain from this exciting new partnership for advanced global online tutoring.

Update (25.01.18): We are proud to announce that Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software won the Primary Content award at last night’s Bett Awards.

Mathematical concepts can sometimes be hard to teach, as they are often difficult to connect to student’s real-life experiences. This is why Oxford University Press developed Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software in conjunction with Avallain. The Numicon teaching approach includes physical apparatus for primary school level Maths that are designed to teach mathematical concepts by employing a multi-sensory approach and taking advantage of children’s natural ability to recognise shapes and patterns in physical objects.

Thanks to Oxford University Press’ partnership with Avallain, these teaching resources have since been successfully adapted into the Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software, enhancing a proven pedagogy with all the possibilities offered by advanced digital technology. The revolutionary software has now earned a place among the finalists of the 2018 Bett Awards for Primary Content, perhaps the most prestigious award in the modern education industry.

What is the Numicon concept and how does it improve Maths education?

Numicon is a proven approach to teaching mathematics using a multi-sensory approach and a significant degree of interactivity. In its original form, Numicon teaching resources include physical shapes representing numbers which can be freely put together and manipulated. Thus, the Numicon approach demonstrates mathematical concepts in a way that is easily understandable and relatable in the physical world. As this pedagogical approach has been shown to improve learners’ mathematical abilities, the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics decided to fully endorse Numicon as a teaching tool.

Recently, the same teaching approach has become part of Oxford Owl, Oxford University Press’s digital learning platform for primary school learners. The Bett-Award-winning platform powered by Avallain Unity software architecture now includes the Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software.

Adapting Numicon into a digital learning software

The Numicon software uses all of the advantages of Avallain Author to allow teachers and learners to project and interact with digital Numicon apparatus on whiteboards, both regular-sized and widescreen. This allows learners to interact directly with a great number of building elements by dragging and dropping them directly on the whiteboard. This object-focussed approach not only makes mathematical concepts easy to grasp, the physical interaction on the whiteboard and the use of spoken language to explain what they are doing also serves as a significant inspirational factor for students.

Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software allows teachers to create highly motivational and effective Maths exercises using a great variety of digital resources and building elements such as different shapes, rods, base-ten apparatus, counters and numerical cards as well as explanatory text. All of these elements can be fit into various digital workspaces, including baseboards, number rod tracks, number lines and place value frames. This allows large sums and complex mathematical concepts such as division and multiplication to be handled more easily and conveniently than with physical resources.

Thanks to Avallain Author, all of these teaching materials and the ability to interact with them in a classroom setting are accessible via a highly intuitive user interface. Since the software is designed with primary education in mind, there are also many features that help children to use Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software, such as the ability to minimise the interface panel at the bottom of the screen. This makes it easier for them to reach the Numicon apparatus projected on the whiteboard.

A partnership that is driven by innovation

The highly advanced capabilities of Avallain Author have been instrumental in the success of Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software, as Simon Tanner-Tremaine, Director Digital & Home/School Services at Oxford University Press notes: “Our long-term partnership with Avallain has given us the tools to provide teachers and learners with highly effective and enjoyable interactive software. Being among the 2018 Bett Awards finalists is the most recent achievement in a long success story of award-winning Oxford University Press products created with Avallain Author and Avallain Unity.”

“Oxford University Press has firmly established itself as a publishing house driven by innovation and we are happy to be able to support them in this regard”, concurs Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Avallain. “We have had great success using our technology and expertise to enhance many of their great products. With the help of Avallain Unity, Oxford Owl has already won a Bett Award in 2016, and we are confident we can do it again with Avallain Author and Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software this year.”

Enhancing Maths education with advanced technology

The Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software provides primary education teachers with the resources they need to make mathematical concepts instinctively understandable for their students. By combining the multisensory teaching approach of Numicon with the advanced digital capabilities of Avallain Author, we have created a digital education tool which is proven to enhance primary mathematical education significantly.

After already winning a number of Bett Awards, Digita Awards and ELTons for products created in cooperation with many of our partners in the past, we are thrilled that Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software is among the finalists for the 2018 Bett Awards for Primary Content. We believe this is a testament to our high standards of quality and we hope to once again be able to conclusively demonstrate the positive impact of digital technology in Maths education with Numicon.

Image © Johannes Berrens, genuina.de. With kind permission.

Language is a vital part of human life. Not only do language skills allow people to get involved with their community, but they are also necessary for engaging with educational programmes and vocational training schemes. Thus, it should come as no surprise that a large part of the prison population in countries like Germany is comprised of young immigrants and unaccompanied child refugees. Their often poor language and social skills leave them with few prospects within German society.

Effectively teaching the German language to these people is the only way to prepare them for further education, with the final goal of successful rehabilitation. Simultaneously, it also enables prison staff to communicate with the inmates. For these reasons, German prisons are now using a specially adapted offline version of the e-learning platform ich-will-deutsch-lernen.de (‘I want to learn German’ or ‘IWDL’), based on Avallain technology.

The fundamentals of teaching languages inside the prison system

After the highly successful launch of IWDL, it did not take long for German correctional institutions to take note of the e-learning platform, which had been officially commended by then-President Gauck. They wanted the opportunity to use the software, which combines Avallain software architecture with high-quality learning materials created using Avallain Author, as an e-learning tool for German prisons.

However, IWDL had initially been conceived as an educational tool for immigrants and thus needed to be adapted to the realities of prison life first:

• It needed to be fully usable even without an internet connection.
• The platform’s collaborative learning materials needed to be modified.
• Its blended learning focus needed to be expanded with exercises for individual learning.

All of these changes are vital for using the highly successful learning platform within a prison environment, as places such as Ottweiler Prison had learned. More than 70 % of this prison’s inmates are first or second-generation immigrants, often with very limited German language skills. Many of them also have a history of substance abuse or mental health issues, preventing them from taking part in regular educational programmes. Thus, our software’s cooperative learning approach – which made it the first ever e-learning platform approved for use in German immigrant integration courses – could not be employed to its full extent within a prison environment.

The IWDL intranet version

We created a special offline variant of IWDL which was integrated into E-Learning im Strafvollzug (‘E-learning in the prison system’ or ‘ELIS’), the official e-learning platform of German prisons. This allows the software to be installed on individual computers or a prison’s intranet, giving inmates easy access.

“Thanks to the modular structure of the Avallain software architecture, switching to offline usability and integrating the software into ELIS was the easiest part of adapting IWDL”, Ursula Suter, co-founder and Managing Director of Avallain recalls. “Due to the limited internet connectivity of prison computers, the rollout of updates may take a bit longer, but the added security is well worth it”, she says.

We also used Avallain Author to adapt the existing learning materials for use within prisons. Due to time restraints, limited availability of staff or individual correctional measures, it is often not possible for inmates to attend regular German language classes. Thus, the software’s newly adapted learning materials can be used for blended learning as well as individual learning.

Social integration as the ultimate goal

However, the actual purpose of teaching the German language in prisons also includes a social component, as inmates are meant to acquire three sets of skills:

• Language skills
• Social skills
• Knowledge of German social norms

These skills are useful not only for re-integrating inmates into German society but also for managing their time in prison. For example, German language skills are vital for successfully communicating with prison staff on a daily basis.

As part of ELIS, the offline version of IWDL teaches these skills by applying a scenario-based approach to learning. The software includes over 11’000 interactive exercises and 30 learning scenarios that are designed to embed activities within situations of everyday life. This allows learners without German language skills to gain a better understanding of the exercises while simultaneously conveying the values of a culture that might still be completely alien to the inmates at this stage. As a digital learning platform, IWDL is perfectly suited to support this approach by drawing from a large library of images, audio files and videos. These allow inmates to experience and understand everyday scenarios interactively.

Education and rehabilitation

For all of these reasons, ich-will-deutsch-lernen is one of the most popular learning platforms used within the German prison system today.

“The fact that IWDL is being used within the German prison system is more than just another accolade”, says Ursula Suter. “We believe that people who have become offenders due to a lack of education can be re-integrated into society by providing them with such an education. Our German language learning software allows them to actually take advantage of educational programmes offered in German prisons – preventing them from completely losing touch with the rest of society.”

With up-to-date articles on current digital education concepts and technologies, Education Technology Insights is an important resource as well as a platform for discussion within the edtech community. For three years now, the US-based magazine has featured articles by some of the most renowned educators and innovators, providing groundbreaking insights into the role of education technology today.

We are proud to announce that this month’s issue of Education Technology Insights features Avallain on the list of Top 10 Digital Solution Providers 2017 – including a feature article about our company which is sure to draw attention.

Presenting 15 years of e-learning innovation

The article charts the course of our company, from the first training software which Avallain co-founder and Managing Director Ignatz Heinz created in 1984 as well as our pioneering Learning Content Management System, developed after the company’s founding in 2002, to our present-day status as one of the world’s leading digital education technology innovators. It also mentions Avallain Foundation’s charitable work in places such as Kenya.

Education Technology Insights’ article also introduces the magazine’s audience to our core products, Avallain Author and Avallain Unity. Doing so, it cites some of our greatest achievements, from Oxford University Press’ Kerboodle platform to our work on Pearson’s Poptropica English.

We are thrilled to be part of Education Technology Insights’ Top 10 Digital Solution Providers this year”, says Ignatz Heinz. “We strongly believe that this is proof of our dedication to the satisfaction of our customers.”

“We hope the article will allow a wider audience to understand just how much digital technology such as Avallain Author and Avallain Unity can improve the effectiveness of education”, says Ursula Suter, co-founder and Managing Director of Avallain. “We appreciate Education Technology Insights for including us in their top 10 list. This is a huge success for the company and living proof of the passionate daily work of our employees, who made this success possible in the first place.

What the future holds

Avallain has never been a company that rests on its laurels. Thus, being one of Education Technology Insights’ Top 10 Digital Solution Providers of 2017 encourages us to go even further. Having recently scaled up considerably, we are confident to be able to provide more technological innovation and even better service to our customers in the future.

From joining the Westermann Group in creating the highly successful Denken und Rechnen (‘Thinking and Numeracy’) differentiated learning platform to being an integral part in the development of the Bett Award-winning Oxford Owl platform for primary school students, Avallain has been at the very forefront of the digital education sector for many years now. In fact, we have experienced fantastic and consistent growth – to the great benefit of our existing clients, as well as the many new high-profile partners with whom we have teamed up.

To support this development, Avallain will be scaling up all areas of operation, from the Product and Operations departments to the Technology team; this will allow us to free up capacities for further innovation and development regarding our core products and architecture. To further expand the close relationship we have always had with our key clients, we will be introducing Avallain’s new Professional Services department.

What is the purpose of Professional Services?

From the very beginning, one of the most enduring core values of Avallain has been our client-centric approach; in fact, this has been one of the most important factors of our success over the years. Thus, we decided that due to the scale-up, we would also dedicate an entire department to fully supporting our key clients – They want to expand their leading positions on the market, and the new department is determined to support them in this highly competitive environment with the combined experience of both the dedicated Professional Services teams and their respective directors, Dr Nancy Roberts and Markus Hartmann.

Heading the international Professional Services team

After 20 years working in the areas of trade, children’s, educational and academic publishing, Dr Nancy Roberts joins the Avallain Professional Services team as Director of Professional Services International. Her professional consulting experience, her passion for the opportunities that technology can offer to the publishing market and the fact that she is currently studying for an MBA degree on the side make her an exceptionally versatile director – and in a department whose main goal is to understand our client’s point of view, that is exactly what we need. As she puts it, “I am really excited to be joining Avallain to help to shape and deliver the future direction of the organisation, and I am looking forward to working with publishing friends old and new.”

Nancy will be working closely with our international clients, using her knowledge of the publishing market to help them understand how Avallain technology can support them at every step of the way.

“My goal is to ensure that the new Professional Services team delivers the same high standards that customers have come to associate with Avallain, and that we can offer the best possible support to our publishing partners internationally”, says Nancy.

Focussing on Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Markus Hartmann, our new Director of Professional Services DACH also has 20 years worth of experience in the publishing sector, combined with extensive experience in the areas of key account and project management – and he has a keen eye for trends in both the publishing and IT sectors as well. Thus Markus knows both the requirements of professional publishing as well as how digital technology can address these requirements.

He has a clear goal in mind: “Commitment to publishers’ success in the age of digital education is in Avallain’s DNA from the beginning. The new Professional Services team for Germany, Austria and Switzerland is the next level of that principle and will offer integrated consulting and customer service for Avallain’s clients in central Europe.

Thus, Markus will ensure that our regional team for Germany, Austria and Switzerland takes a strongly service-oriented approach to their interactions with our clients and partners. Markus and his team will listen closely to our clients’ wishes and ideas, ensuring that they can use Avallain Technology to its fullest.

Scaling up without losing touch

Adding dedicated Professional Services teams to Avallain’s business structure ensures that our clients and partners can benefit from Avallain’s growth and the full combined experience of our team without losing the direct access they have always enjoyed.

Avallain’s products are already regarded as the best in the industry. With the addition of Nancy and Markus, both highly experienced publishing professionals, Avallain will have one of the strongest teams in the industry regarding both technological development and engineering as well as key account management”, Richard Nathan, Non-Executive Director and Member of the Board of Avallain AG promises – “I believe that this major investment by the company in its team alongside its development roadmap will help transform its customers’ competitive positions and the industry.

An old saying claims a healthy mind needs a healthy body. But, in turn, a healthy mind and a healthy body both need a healthy environment to develop in. Thus, protecting our environment has been a central part of Avallain’s DNA ever since the company was founded in 2002. We offer our customers carbon-neutral e-learning solutions which not only train minds but also minimise the CO2 emissions of entire learning courses as well.

In addition to providing sustainable education for people in need via the charitable Avallain Foundation, established in 2016, we will also commit ourselves more actively to projects focused entirely on environmental protection in the future. For example, we are currently helping specialists of the People for Cause foundation with their ReTree Initiative, planting a new forest area in the barren steppes of Spain.

Avallain supports the Spanish forests

The project in Spain ties into an almost 10-year-old Avallain tradition. In 2008, we helped the NGO Trees for the Future to plant 25’000 trees in Keroka, Kenya, celebrating the 250’000th learner that was educated using e-learning systems developed with our technology (today, they number in the millions).

In celebration of our 15-year anniversary, we want to set another example. Reforestation projects are vital in this part of southern Europe. While the ancient Greek geographer Strabon once wrote that a squirrel could “hop through the trees from the Pyrenees to Gibraltar without touching the ground”, deforestation has turned much of the country into steppes largely dominated by soil degradation. The Iberian Peninsula of today is suffering from frequent droughts and forest fires. In many areas, the ground is no longer protected against erosion by strong roots, and the once-fertile soil is gradually turning to dust or karst. For us humans, this means a steady decrease in agricultural usability – for Strabon’s squirrel and the Spanish wildlife, it might mean extinction.

With this new Avallain initiative, we are working to counteract this process. Of course, we also realise that small individual forested areas are not a viable long-term solution to the problem. Thus, we are planning to extend our efforts to other countries very soon as well.

Our success in this task is also the success of our customers, whose trust in our work allows us to engage in such projects in the first place.

Avallain works sustainably every step of the way

Our customers appreciate our innovative spirit, our reliability and our experience – as manifested both in our products Avallain Author and Avallain Unity, as well as in the e-learning systems created with them. Such systems are fully sustainable, protecting the environment at all stages, from the initial design process to maintenance and most importantly, the active use by learners.

Digital education is more environmentally friendly by its very nature

It may sound counter-intuitive, but e-learning constitutes a more environmentally sustainable alternative to analogue learning models such as brick and mortar learning groups. Though the digital infrastructure needed for e-learning tools does require energy – as well as digital devices which need to be produced and will be turned to waste eventually – neither the energy usage nor the CO2 emissions generated by e-learning approaches are even close to those of analogue learning methods.

According to a 2008 Open University study which focused on 13 fixed-location university courses and 7 online courses, e-learning courses require 87 % less energy than analogue courses, while emitting 85 % less CO2. The tangible benefits of e-learning are known throughout the industry:

• It eliminates carbon emissions created by each learner’s commute.
• It does not require heated and powered course premises or individual workstations.
• It minimises the use of printer cartridges and paper.
• It eliminates the need for non-recyclable utensils such as marker pens.

Thus, our customers can minimise the environmental impact of each learner enrolled in a course. Eliminating the CO2 emissions from commuting alone is enough to make many e-learning courses almost entirely carbon-neutral.

Sustainability in Avallain’s operating procedures

Of course, these principles work not only to minimise the CO2 emissions of individual learners – but they can also be applied to the working environment. As a staunch advocate of Remote Company structures, Avallain has been following this strategy for years, offering a large degree of home office flexibility to our workforce. Thus, we can avoid long daily commutes, minimising our CO2 footprint in the process. A Carbon Trust analysis suggests that, given average commuting distances, this saves approximately 260 kg of CO2 equivalent per worker each year.

Green business experts note that these carbon savings already apply to commuters travelling more than 7 km by car, 11 km by bus or 25 km by train. To an international company like us, this only serves to support our approach. Being a Remote Company allows us to offer our customers software solutions developed by a tight network of international specialists – without incurring the costs in CO2 which this might otherwise entail.

Limiting CO2 emissions with sophisticated technology

Not just our operating procedures are chosen on the basis of environmental questions – our technologies are, as well. Server systems, in particular, can have an enormous impact on the environment.

We recognised the potential of Cloud-based server structures early on, consequently taking on the responsibility to push for sustainable server use strategies with professional Cloud server providers. Today, providers such as Amazon Web Services are continually improving their technological solutions to operate their Cloud-servers as energy-efficient and as close to carbon-neutral as possible, devising strategies such as:

• Using renewable energy as a power source
• Employing energy-efficient cooling systems
• Optimising energy usage according to workload

Put together, such strategies allow Cloud systems to significantly reduce the number of servers used when compared to on-site servers. This also minimises the energy usage of Cloud systems by as much as 84 % compared to on-site servers. Thanks to our good business connections to Amazon, we are able to use CO2-neutral Cloud systems for 80 % of all Avallain services thus far – without increasing the price for our customers, as we compensate the additional costs.

The education of the future is carbon-neutral

What does all of this mean to the users of learning software based on Avallain Author and Avallain Unity? It means that they can not only improve their individual learning success thanks to innovative, technologically mature and reliable software – they can also do so while supporting a sustainable and future-proof approach to treating the environment.

Because this is what ultimately connects Avallain solutions with our Spanish forest: They both provide the roots on which future generations may tread.