Botter is a platform for creating online courses, delivered inside popular messaging apps that learners use daily. This is done using chatbots, which can quiz students or explain concepts using different components like text, images, gifs, audio, or short videos. The first chatbot we created using Botter, to teach languages, was used by over 300,000 learners in two years, who exchanged over 20 million messages with the bot.
Botter has also enabled our clients to create a number of chatbots that teach critical career skills like languages, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, how to do well in job interviews and more. We believe that making these lessons available within familiar messaging apps that learners use daily can play a big role in reducing the effects of inequalities in digital resources and digital skills between people.
How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Our primary goal with Botter is to help educators reach more learners who do not have the resources to access the majority of online courses that rely heavily on video. We mainly work with institutions targeting learners in developing countries where data is expensive and most don’t have access to a computer.
Botter provides learners low-bandwidth access to engaging and interactive lessons inside familiar messaging apps they use daily. The conversational style in which the courses are delivered gives learners the impression that they are simply chatting with a friend, and the gamification aspects increase engagement by allowing learners to earn points, badges, and compete for a spot on a leaderboard.
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How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?
As a company, we began by developing a language teaching chatbot, which quickly grew in popularity. This demonstrated that messaging apps can be a great way to deliver lessons, and it led to other institutions asking us to assist them in developing their own teaching chatbots.
This is when we began developing the Botter platform, which would enable educators and institutions to easily create their own teaching chatbots. This allowed us to concentrate solely on the technical aspects, leaving content creation to the experts.
What can we hope to see from Botter in the future?
Our chatbots are currently available on Facebook Messenger and we’re finalizing Telegram and Instagram integration with more apps coming soon. We believe that personalized conversational learning is the future of online learning, and we’re excited to be working on technologies that have the potential to give everyone their own AI-powered personal tutor.
