Startup Profile: CENTURY

 @mirilagrasta

CENTURY Tech is the startup behind the award-winning artificial intelligence teaching and learning platform for schools, colleges, universities and homeschooling CENTURY. The company, which has its headquarters in London, uses AI, neuroscience and learning science to offer students a type of education that adapts and caters dynamically to their individual needs, while empowering teachers to perform well through tools and assessment data.

The company has so far raised $9.5 million (£7.5 million) in seed funding and aims to offer teachers and learners access to intelligent tools that can help them succeed.

The platform has been developed by a team of experienced teachers, neuroscientists, educational psychologists and technology experts, who have come together, researched and combined AI, neuroscience and learning science to create a product that would support both teaching and learning with evidence-based pedagogic and scientific techniques.

CENTURY was founded in 2013 by barrister and entrepreneur Priya Lakhani OBE, who was struck by the underachievement rates in UK schools at the time. Lakhani, who’s also co-founder of The Institute for Ethical AI in Education, created CENTURY to help those students who do not receive the required level of literacy and numeracy.

The platform is an intelligent educational intervention tool that is able to understand the student’s individual strengths, weaknesses and learning behaviours, tailoring learning content, delivery and assessment accordingly. CENTURY also helps and supports teachers, by giving them resources and individualised data so that they can understand and challenge each of their students in the most effective way.

Supported by research and testing, the platform tries to make sure the student understands, learns and retains information. The team has also integrated the product with notes, tips and nudges, so that students can be encouraged to become confident in independent study.

All content is developed in-house by people who have taught and worked in education and the product is distributed globally, across a whole range of schools and educational levels. The startup has recently been named Economic Disruptor of the Year by the Spectator, as the UK firm with the strongest ability to scale-up globally, while having the potential to make a positive contribution to society and human wellbeing.