George Cowell, International Director at Rising Academies

Alumnus involved in prestigious prize win for ‘the Spotify playlist for learning’

Alumnus George Cowell (BA Hons Geography, 2008) is International Director at Rising Academies which has recently won a $90,000 prize in Schmidt Futures Tools Competition with their project proposal of an AI powered chatbot tutor called Rising On Air Interactive, or “Rori” for short. The chatbot is designed to support students from around the world who have had learning harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

George was working in the companies’ office in Monrovia, Liberia when the country declared its first coronavirus case; the 87 schools he was running on behalf of the Government of Liberia closed their doors two days later. However Rising Academies had one thing going for them when the pandemic hit – it wasn’t their first global health pandemic.

Rising Academies was founded in Sierra Leone just before the Ebola crisis, so when COVID hit they knew what they had to do. In 150 days, they built a multi-award-winning solution for distance learning by radio from scratch and scaled it to 25 countries, through 35 partners, in 12 languages, and reached 12 million children. They called it Rising On Air.

As part of the recent Futures Forum on Learning Tool Competition they submitted a project proposal, in partnership with FilamentAI, which is next step in the evolution of Rising On Air: Rising On Air Interactive, or Rori for short.

Rori is a chatbot tutor, powered by AI and delivered via SMS, USSD and WhatsApp. It sits atop their unique library of structured curriculum content, including 500 hours of audio content covering language arts and math for five different age groups across K-12. Unlike conventional chatbots, Rori will be able to pull text and audio clips from this library, personalised to the learning needs of each individual student. Think of it like a Spotify playlist for learning.

They are building Rori for the 617 million school-age children around the world who reach Grade 9 without having attained basic mastery of literacy and numeracy, especially in low income countries in Africa and Asia. Even before the COVID pandemic, schools in these countries were struggling to provide students with the quality of education they deserve. Prolonged school closures due to COVID have exacerbated that problem by 25% or more.

Rori won a prize of $90,000 as part of the competition and we recently caught up with George to find out how he felt about the win. He said: “We’re delighted to win the prize. Every child deserves access to a great school and to receive opportunities to get personalised support. What we are trying to build with Rori hasn’t been done before, so it feels like a huge challenge but also a big opportunity. The Schmidt prize gets the ball rolling.”

In terms of next steps with the project, George says: “Rori will initially be tested with the families and children we work with in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana, before being scaled through our Rising On Air community across the world. We are aiming to reach 100,000 students by 2022, and 10 million children by 2023. From there, let’s see.”

If any students or alumni are interested in working in this industry, George started his career in education with TeachFirst and says: “I think it’s a great entry route for people who are passionate about education. It gives you a platform to start a more traditional route in education if that’s what you are after, but also the opportunity to be part of a global community of practitioners all around the world if you are also open to something a bit different too”. 

“I’d also recommend exploring the Global Schools Forum if you want to learn more about how private education providers are working to improve education outcomes for children around the world.”

Asked about his time as a student at Exeter, “ I enjoyed my time and I’d say it set me on the right path in my career. I left Exeter with a desire to do work that had a social mission at its heart. That’s a choice I've not regretted since.”

Date: 26 March 2021