The Age of Learning Foundation works in partnership with governments and NGOs—including UNICEF and UNESCO as a member of their Global Education Coalition—to provide highly scalable, sustainable digital learning programs proven to measurably advance academic skills, at no cost to the children and families being served. The Foundation also provides teacher training, family engagement, and community outreach support.

Zamchiya brings to his new role more than two decades of experience leading organizations and teams in global development and education. Most recently, he was Managing Director of the Luminos Fund, an international NGO helping out-of-school children in low-income countries catch up academically and enter formal schooling. Zamchiya co-led strategy and partnerships with governments, donors, and grant makers, scaling the organization’s reach and impact severalfold over four years. Prior to that, Zamchiya served as Senior VP of Partnerships at Ashoka and as CEO of the Albany Charter School Network. In 2000, Zamchiya founded The BOOST Fellowship in Zimbabwe, which has helped thousands of students successfully transition from the classroom to the workplace as leaders and innovators.

Zamchiya began his career in strategy and business development roles at the International Finance Corporation, AES Corporation, and Barclays. He is an Echoing Green Fellow, a Pahara Fellow, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and has authored several children’s books. He earned his undergraduate degree with honors from the University of Bristol, and an MPhil in Development Studies from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

“Hundreds of millions of children throughout the world are educationally underserved. Our goal with the Foundation is to mitigate this crisis by making Age of Learning’s proven learning solutions available to this enormous population of children in need,” said Doug Dohring, Founder and Executive Chairman of Age of Learning and Chairman of the Age of Learning Foundation. “Mubuso’s leadership and experience in creating global education partnerships, along with his passion for our mission and the potential to help hundreds of millions of families, gives me every confidence in his ability to rapidly accelerate our growth going forward.”

“Age of Learning has pioneered a highly effective approach to educating young learners at scale by harnessing learning science, putting children and the joy of learning at the center of product development, and maintaining a deep commitment to educational efficacy,” said Mubuso Zamchiya, Managing Director of the Age of Learning Foundation. “At a time when digital learning is more central to addressing the global education challenge than ever before, I could not be more excited to join the Age of Learning Foundation. I look forward to working with partners around the world to bring quality digital learning to children everywhere.”

To date, the Age of Learning Foundation has provided educational ABCmouse programming reaching millions of children through broadcast networks in Kenya, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In addition, through a partnership with the Ministry of Public Education in Costa Rica, the Foundation has made available the ABCmouse Aprende Inglés program for English language learnings to families throughout the country. Under Zamchiya’s leadership, programs will expand to serve more countries and families, with an initial focus in Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

About the Age of Learning Foundation

The Age of Learning Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to fundamentally improving the education of underserved children on a global scale. The Foundation works with governments and NGOs—including UNICEF and UNESCO as a member of their Global Education Coalition—to provide highly scalable, sustainable digital learning programs that have been proven to measurably advance academic skills, at no cost to the children and families being served. The Foundation also provides teacher training, family engagement, and community outreach support. Working collaboratively with partners such as UNICEF, UNESCO, Save the Children, United Way, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, General Motors Foundation, ministries of education, and other organizations, the Foundation has enabled children on five continents to benefit from Age of Learning’s research-proven learning resources.

About Age of Learning, Inc.

Age of Learning^®, is a leading education technology innovator, creating engaging and effective learning resources to help children build a strong foundation for academic success. Based in Los Angeles, the company is Bringing Learning to Life^® by blending educational expertise, innovative technology, and insightful creativity. Age of Learning’s flagship product in the U.S., ABCmouse.com^® Early Learning Academy, is a comprehensive curriculum for preschool through second grade, available on all major digital platforms and used by tens of millions of children to date. In 2016 the company launched ABCmouse English to teach English to children internationally, and in 2019 Adventure Academy^®, the first AAA educational massively multiplayer online game (MMO), serving elementary- and middle-school-aged children with thousands of learning activities in a fun and safe virtual world. 2020 saw the release of My Math Academy^® for schools, an adaptive, personalized program that helps students master foundational math concepts; My Reading Academy is scheduled for release in 2022. Connect with Age of Learning at www.AgeofLearning.com or on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

The post The Age of Learning Foundation Appoints Veteran Global Education Leader Mubuso Zamchiya as Managing Director first appeared on Age of Learning.

Age of Learning, founded in 2007, develops digital educational programs with proven efficacy in increasing children’s learning gains. To date, these programs have helped educate more than 50 million children around the world and have been used in hundreds of thousands of classrooms.

“Every child deserves a strong foundation for academic success, and we are committed to delivering on this promise for kids everywhere,” said Paul Candland, CEO of Age of Learning. “We combine best practices in education, cutting-edge technology and the creativity of a major digital studio to build products that are proven by extensive research to really deliver results for children. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with TPG and their global team as we continue to unlock access to opportunity for all kids around the world.” 

“Age of Learning has established itself as a leader in education technology over the last decade,” said David Trujillo, Partner at TPG and Co-Managing Partner of TPG Tech Adjacencies. “Their talented team has innovated to create digital education programs that both engage and provide effective learning solutions for children around the world. Age of Learning was built on the vision of helping children everywhere develop a love of learning, and we are excited to partner with them to accelerate that mission.”

The capital raise will enable Age of Learning to reach more children, families, caregivers, and teachers through its digital educational offerings:

• ABCmouse Early Learning Academy is the #1 digital education program for children ages 2-8 in the U.S. and will expand to include more personalized experiences for kids.
• My Math Academy is a breakthrough personalized learning program that adapts and pinpoints each child’s skill level and continuously provides just-right challenges to help learners master the foundations of math. My Math Academy recently launched in schools with strong early success.
• Adventure Academy is a first-of-its-kind massively multiplayer online education game (MMO) for elementary and middle school students—a constantly-expanding world of learning content and social and multiplayer features.
• ABCmouse English helps children around the world learn English in the way they naturally acquire their native language. It is now expanding with new reading and writing content, placement assessments, and more.

“Since our founding more than a decade ago, Age of Learning has led with a mission to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of learning, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds or circumstances,” said Doug Dohring, Age of Learning’s Founder & Executive Chairman. “This funding enables us to increase our investments in bold and innovative programs and reach even more kids and families, which is vital now more than ever.”

In January 2020, the company established the Age of Learning Charitable Foundation, a standalone 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that partners with Ministries of Education, NGOs, and companies in lower income countries to make Age of Learning’s educational programs available at no cost to families and schools. To date, Age of Learning’s product donations have helped educate more than 10 million children, with a total value of more than $200 million.

TPG is making the investment out of its TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD) fund, an investment vehicle focused on flexible capital solutions for the technology industry. Goldman Sachs & Co LLC served as Age of Learning’s exclusive placement agent and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP as the company’s legal advisor for this transaction. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP served as legal advisor to TPG.

About Age of Learning, Inc.

Age of Learning^®, is a leading education technology innovator, creating engaging and effective learning resources to help children build a strong foundation for academic success. Based in Los Angeles, the company is Bringing Learning to Life by blending educational expertise, innovative technology, and insightful creativity. Age of Learning’s flagship product in the U.S., ABCmouse.com^® Early Learning Academy, is a comprehensive curriculum for preschool through second grade, available on all major digital platforms. In 2019 the company launched Adventure Academy, the first AAA educational massively multiplayer online game (MMO), serving elementary- and middle-school-aged children with thousands of learning activities in a fun and safe virtual world. My Math Academy^® for schools is an adaptive, personalized program that helps students master foundational math concepts. Connect with Age of Learning at www.AgeofLearning.com or on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

The post Age of Learning Raises $300 Million in Financing Led by TPG first appeared on Age of Learning.

We are proud to announce the creation of the Age of Learning Foundation, a charitable organization committed to helping children furthest from opportunity build a strong academic foundation by providing access to research-proven educational programs at no cost. Doug Dohring, Executive Chairman of Age of Learning, and Chairman of the Age of Learning Foundation, made the announcement at the Education World Forum in London this week, in an address to Ministers of Education of more than half of the countries of the world, representing nearly one billion children. The Foundation pledged to support up to five partner nations in 2020. The Foundation will provide free access to Age of Learning’s research-proven mathematics and English language learning programs, including our flagship product ABCmouse. ABCmouse has helped educate more than 20 million children to date, and 20 research studies—including multiple randomized controlled trials—have shown that it significantly improves early literacy and math skills. Additionally, the Foundation will offer Age of Learning’s world-class digital library with thousands of high-value books in English, with the opportunity to include local, culturally appropriate titles in partner nations’ native languages. Age of Learning has also developed a patented personalized, adaptive digital learning system that powers its programs with AI-driven technology. Working collaboratively with partners, the Age of Learning Foundation will provide these programs to all children across a country or province, enabling an individualized learning experience for each child. The Age of Learning Foundation will also deliver training and support expertise to facilitate implementation. It asks partners only to ensure the availability of basic technology infrastructure, commit to successful broad-scale implementation, and maintain minimum student usage levels. Interested nations and organizations can apply to be a partner at AofLfoundation.org. “According to UNESCO, more than 600 million children are not achieving minimum proficiency in reading and math, and a majority of those children are actually in school,” said Doug Dohring, Chairman of the Age of Learning Foundation. “The Age of Learning Foundation will help address this global crisis by providing highly engaging, highly effective digital education on a broad scale.” Age of Learning has long been committed to helping educate children whose families cannot afford high quality early learning resources, including through the company’s Bring Learning to All initiative. Within months of launching ABCmouse.com Early Learning Academy for families in late 2010, Age of Learning began making ABCmouse available at no cost through classrooms, and later in public libraries, public housing authorities, and other community institutions. To date, these initiatives have helped educate more than 7 million children, with in kind contributions of software and services from Age of Learning exceeding $150 million in value. The Foundation will expand on this work, helping many more children build critical academic skills, and engaging their families and communities to better support them.

“The Age of Learning Foundation marks the next chapter in our ongoing commitment to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success,” said Paul Candland, CEO of Age of Learning. “Our team at Age of Learning has an immense passion for helping children in all communities flourish. Doug will help bring that passion to serve families worldwide as Chairman of this new Foundation.” The Age of Learning Foundation will manage existing Bring Learning to All deployments as well as develop new partnerships with countries around the world. To date, partnerships with UNESCO, Save the Children, United Way, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, General Motors Foundation, and other organizations have enabled children on 5 continents to benefit from high-quality early learning. For additional information, visit www.AofLfoundation.org.

The post Announcing the Age of Learning Foundation, Led by Chairman Doug Dohring, Providing Effective Digital Education Programs Globally to Help Children Furthest from Opportunity Build a Strong Foundation for Academic Success first appeared on Age of Learning.

Dr. Mackey’s research into second language learning appears in all of the top scholarly journals in her field, as well as in edited collections with Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and other leading publishers. In addition to authoring more than 100 journal articles, chapters, and reports, Dr. Mackey has published 16 books—three of which focus on children’s language learning. One of her best-known works, co-authored with Professor Kendall King, is The Bilingual Edge: Why, When and How to Teach Your Child a Second Language (HarperCollins), which has been translated into multiple foreign languages and will soon appear in Chinese.

“Age of Learning’s focus on using empirical findings in education research to drive children’s language learning outcomes at scale is very exciting,” said Professor Mackey. “I am very pleased with this opportunity to join Age of Learning’s Curriculum Board and support the company’s work in developing effective educational programs for children around the world.”

Professor Mackey has taught linguistics around the world, consulted for major language learning companies, and reviewed international baccalaureate and language programs. With her colleague, Susan M. Gass, she is a past winner of the Modern Language Association‘s Kenneth W. Mildenburger prize, awarded for outstanding scholarly books in the fields of language, culture, literacy, and literature that address the teaching of languages other than English. Professor Mackey carried out her graduate work at the University of Sydney and Cambridge University, where she earned her Ph.D. and M. Phil., respectively.

“Age of Learning’s Curriculum Board is central to our curriculum and product development process, ensuring the latest research and understanding of educational best practices guide our work to create the most effective learning experiences for children,” said Age of Learning founder and Executive Chairman Doug Dohring. “We are very pleased to welcome Professor Mackey and her leading expertise in language learning to our team as we continue to enhance and expand our ABCmouse English language learning programs.”

Professor Mackey joins several other leading experts in early childhood education, child development, and language learning who guide the development of Age of Learning’s educational programs.

The post We Welcome Renowned Language Learning Expert Alison Mackey to Our Curriculum Board first appeared on Age of Learning.