Why we challenged traditional publishers

LiveBook was focused on empowering students through enabling their access to free quality learning resources so that they can personalise their approach.  

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Why personalised learning? Because data shows that personalised learning leads to better results. 

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Why free? Because traditional k12 education is inefficient, especially in developing countries where pupil-to-teacher ratios are far past the optimal ratio of 1 to 18 (1/45 in Afghanistan and Pakistan and as high as 1/50 in central provinces in Iran). In these contexts students leave the classroom with gaps-of-knowledge for which they need supplements. And in most of these countries supplements are very expensive. For instance in Iran only the top 10% earners can afford to personalise their children's education with supplements such as books and personal tutors, and the same kids end up occupying 98% of the top university spots which in turn guarantee them better job opportunities compared to their less well-off peers and hence the vicious cycle of inequality. It also should be kept in mind that when we talk about supplements industry in these countries we are mainly talking about supplementary books which are not interactive, not personalizble, and printed in high numbers and thus highly damaging to the environment (only in Iran 30 million supplement books are printed annually, which the buyers on average only consume 10% of its content for only one year). So we set out to make a free alternative to the predatory supplements industry. 

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In LiveBook’s first phase we tackled this problem head on. We wanted to make a free, environmentally-friendly alternative to all these books that were forced upon students every year. So we designed a peer-to-peer Augmented Reality (AR) platform based on standard school textbooks. Instead of buying expensive supplements students could simply point their cameras at any page and see what files were added by other students and teachers and add files of their own, in effect turning each page of their textbooks into a Wikipedia of related material.

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We participated in the WSIS hackathon and won the UNESCO prize for the most creative application idea. We also won the first prize at INOTEX Tehran in 2022. Moreover, the students responded to this idea in a big way as well. Teachers started making videos of our app and introducing it in their channels. We gained  300,000 users in the first year and reached one million users in our second year through word of mouth. We were  recognised as viable alternatives to supplements because:

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 a) where they were expensive we were free

 b) where they were single-source and became obsolete after one year, our platform was peer-to-peer and dynamically updated with the content that delivered the most value to our students

 c) where they were one-glove-fits-all we delivered micro-learning content on exactly what the student required and they had the choice to choose what best suited their particular need at that moment; video tutorials or animations, exam samples, question and answers section and etc. 

d) And to top it all instead of wasting paper we were completely paperless in an industry that was heavily subsidised and traditional. 

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We validated learner demand for democratized, personalized K12 supplements. Now we aim to refine our offerings even further as we work to deliver sophisticated personalization affordably at global scale.

The initial stage proved the viability of our model to equalize access. With continued innovation, we hope to set a new standard for platforms that empower all students to reach their potential.

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