Edtech start-up Cathoven AI promises to make language learning easier by remixing online content to suit different learning levels and needs.
These customised teaching materials, created in seconds at the click of a button, aim to deliver a more engaging and motivating learning experience for students, while easing the burden of lesson prep for teachers.
The platform also helps teachers grade students’ work, while providing suggestions on how weak areas can be improved. It is based on internationally recognised language-learning frameworks, such as the IELTS English proficiency test.
Since launching in 2022, Cathoven has attracted tens of thousands of users. These are usually teachers creating language-learning content for publishers or tutors working at private schools and universities who don’t have to use set texts.
The start-up also licenses its tech to other educational software companies to help calibrate difficulty levels within their products as well.
In contrast to most other language-learning tools, the start-up’s tools have been developed from scratch, leveraging expertise in both AI and linguistics, Co-Founder and CEO Erdi Tac explains.
“This is our advantage. Our competitors generally become our clients. This fundamental research-based approach enables us to address the bigger problems.”
He was inspired to launch Cathoven, while he was working for an online language learning company in China alongside his co-founders, Mingxi Liang and Guanjiao Long. The company had hired more than 70 teachers to grade learning materials from various sources but getting these teachers to agree on even simple things, like vocabulary levels, proved to be almost impossible.
Mr Tac, who had trained as an engineer, saw an opportunity to co-create a technical solution to this very human problem. The company he had worked for in China eventually became one of Cathoven’s first clients.
Since its inception, the young edtech venture has grown significantly, securing seed funding and grants from the Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation.
Cathoven’s progress was further recognised when it was named one of the 2024 winners of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s entrepreneurship development programme, Start-up Express.
The Start-up Express team has helped facilitate media coverage as well as invaluable meetings and networking opportunities. “They have always delivered,” Mr Tac says. “It’s real support.”
Looking ahead he is also keen to get new investors on board to go beyond English into other languages, while also expanding Cathoven’s abilities to cover every aspect of language learning.
To succeed, Cathoven needs to be adaptable enough to work with different scoring systems.
One of the biggest universities in Turkey, Mr Tac’s country of origin, is taking part in a pilot study, where Cathoven is marking exams alongside two human teachers to prove its capabilities.
If the pilot goes well, he plans to pitch his exam-marking proposal in the US, the world’s biggest English-learning market.
The team is also working on an integrated toolset that can assess student work and provide feedback on an ongoing basis, creating a more personalised service that can speed up learning. There are also plans for new tools to be added to help evaluate speaking ability, in addition to writing.
Over time, Mr Tac envisions Cathoven as an online companion for language learners that can modify whatever content learners are consuming.
“The hardcore models and technologies that we are building will eventually lead to this real way of language learning,” he predicts.
“People learn a language with real content by chatting, by playing video games, by watching movies, by listening to music. We believe in that.”
