The New Zealand education app Kami has been named in TIME Magazine's 100 most influential companies of 2022.
Kami – named after the Japanese word for 'paper' – was first developed as a tool to help reduce paper use in schools.
Kami was launched ten years back, but during the pandemic, it took off and now has more than 32 million users worldwide.
It's one of the leading interactive learning platforms in the world, founder Hengjie Wang says.
“[Kami] allows you to turn any learning resource of any kind into a more engaging and more collaborative sort of learning experience.
“We're in 180 countries, supporting a community of over 30 million teachers and students around the world.”
Kami allows teachers to take printed resources from the curriculum – such as the page of a book, a map or a graph, for example – and share these with students on their devices rather than having to print out and hand out numerous sheets of paper, Wang tells Kathryn Ryan.
“Kami allows you to do all that, but digitally. And it means that you can have kids collaborate on the same map, or read the curriculum and give an answer right next to each other, and the same place. And it just allows for a far more accessible, more interactive classrooms sort of experience.”
So far, they haven't had to spend a cent on marketing.
“We've never spent $1 on advertising to date. Even through Covid, it was all word of mouth.
“So it's been pretty incredible. We've got an amazing community of teachers that meet, that talk about us at conferences that train other teachers. And more recently we’ve been lucky enough to hire some of them as well.”
- Listen - Kami: Kiwi online learning company's Covid boom (March 2021)
The Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the adoption of technology in the classroom, Wang says.
When the pandemic first began causing chaos in schools around the world, Kami's makers made the bold decision to start giving it away for free.
“It was a bit scary seeing sales go down to zero almost overnight. The whole world changed under your feet.
“But I think a lot of teachers and school administrators came back to us a month later and said, you are an essential tool, we need you. I don't care where I find the money, I want to support you guys and buy the product.”
Now, as more and more children return to the classroom, Kami is taking root as an important teaching tool, he says.
In New Zealand, over 1n000 schools are already using it.
“We've actually made Kami completely free for all New Zealand schools forever, just as a way for us to ultimately give back to the schools that we all attended as kids.”
Being named among the 100 most influential businesses in the world puts Kami in some stellar company, Wang says.
“We're amongst some incredibly iconic companies like Apple, Google, Spotify, Netflix.
“And it really just proves to the world that you don't have to be in Silicon Valley to build a company with such massive impact on a global stage. And we can do it all in our pyjamas out of New Zealand.”
Photo: Supplied
