In 2020, the need for remote education solutions has skyrocketed because of COVID-19. From elementary schools to professional training, the transition to online learning has been rocky for many. In response to this, and to support the needs of the startups in its program, the WISE Accelerator has turned to eWebinar, an automated webinar solution, as a partner.
eWebinar combines pre-recorded video with live chat and preprogrammed real-time interactions to create a consistent and engaging experience for attendees. Its purpose is to automate the kinds of presentations a business must give over and over in order to grow and sustain itself, like demos, training sessions, and introductory sales pitches. Through eWebinar, any video can be turned into an interactive webinar, which can then be set on a recurring schedule and made available to attendees as often as needed.
The WISE Accelerator, operated by the Qatar Foundation, is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs from around the world build and scale innovative educational technology solutions that will positively impact training and the future of work. Each year, a new group of startups in the edtech space is admitted into WISE’s twelve-month accelerator program where they are given access to coaching, mentorship, and a vast network of potential partners, donors, and investors in the education field. WISE’s Summit is held every two years and attracts industry leaders and innovators from around the world.
Given this background and context, WISE Accelerator’s decision to partner with eWebinar is especially noteworthy. As a leader in educational technology, they have chosen eWebinar as a partner solution to help their global cohort of startups scale their education and training.
The power of its platform was what drew Touhami Abi to eWebinar in the first place. As Education Technology Manager at WISE, Abi immediately recognized how eWebinar would benefit the startups in their program.
"Edtech startups are always short on resources”, explains Abi. “When faced with the challenges of reaching and onboarding educators or scaling the training of new teachers, they struggle to keep up with what limited manpower they have. Add in the challenges of a global pandemic and the burden can be overwhelming. eWebinar offers a solution to alleviate all those problems."
The benefits of eWebinar are obvious to the startups in the WISE Accelerator. Since everything is built around a video and presentations only need to be recorded once, whoever would have had to give those presentations can focus on other things. Sessions can be made available as frequently as necessary on a recurring schedule at times that are convenient for attendees, no matter the timezone. eWebinar’s preset interactions, like polls, questions, and special offers, keep people engaged and watching much longer than they would otherwise if they were just watching a video. And live chat still lets startups interact with their customers directly and gather critical feedback but in a scalable way.
eWebinar CEO, Melissa Kwan, experienced the problem firsthand of trying to scale a startup with limited resources when she was growing her first company, a SaaS product for real estate professionals.
"Before my first company was acquired, I lived with the pain of needing to do the same presentation over and over again to maintain our subscription revenue. We lived with this problem for 5 years and never had a great solution. That's why I decided to build eWebinar," Kwan said. “To solve the problem once and for all.”
The partnership between eWebinar and WISE Accelerator would have been a good fit regardless of circumstance. But in 2020, the urgent need startups and other companies now feel to strategically scale their resources has made their decision to collaborate even more relevant and ideal.
