CO-FOUNDER & DESIGN LEAD
Building the EdTech startup inekle.com; one of the world’s first fully digital 1:1 tutoring platform
Our ambition
inekle’s mission is to democratize the access to private and personalized lessons for K-12 students, normally reserved for the select affluent few. We did this by empowering top university students who tutor offline already, by building a tech-enabled platform, and by cultivating a thriving community of learners.
Startup
Role
Co-founder & Design Lead
Location
Turkey, Global
Challenge
Enabling access to affordable private tutoring for K-12 students, taught by university students
Problem we identified
In Turkey, in order to get into any university, students take a one-time a year higher education placement exam at the end of their senior year in high school. The competition is extreme, especially for the top universities. Combined with education and income inequality across the country, millions of students are at a disadvantage compared to a minority privileged group, who have access to good or private education.
What if we could provide K-12 students from all over the country access to affordable private education and mentoring?
Opportunity we discovered
Top students, who have been through the experience of studying for the higher education placement exam, start tutoring during their university years. The tutoring contributes to their financial well-being, keeps their knowledge fresh, and gives them a sense of purpose. But the tutors need to find students, commute to their homes, keep track of cash payments, and do all this and more on their own.
What if we could help university students tutor completely online; with access to tools, and a great community of fellow tutors and learners?
What is inekle?
inekle is Turkey's first and now leading online 1:1 tutoring platform and community, which connects university students with K-12 students in a technology-enabled, student-centric and innovative digital experience. It aims to provide a delightful and trustworthy learning environment for tutors, students, and parents. It empowers tutors with education scholarships and teaching experience, and students with access to high-quality and personalized private education.
My role
As Co-Founder and Design Lead, I was responsible for all things design related to the product, user experience, user research, brand, digital marketing and communications. I managed a product team of 3 developers and external collaborators and contributed heavily to the startup’s strategic direction.
inekle’s innovative features
As a pioneering EdTech startup and social-impact enterprise, we designed and built inekle.com with many innovative solutions using cutting-edge technology; such as:
Instant connection to online tutors to start a live lesson
An audio and video-enabled, browser-based online classroom with an interactive whiteboard; using web RTC in its infant years
Transparent, joyful, and data-driven tutor profiles
A novel tutor-student matching algorithm
Minute-based lesson packages
Tutor and student controlled lesson pausing and instant money-back
Lesson recording to rewatch previous sessions and resolve disputes
Parent login and student progress tracking dashboards
A Question Pool module where students upload questions via the mobile app and tutors pick them up to answer
Tutor tablet programs for qualified tutors to write on the digital whiteboard with ease
Teacher search and listing page, which shows Online, Offline, and In-class teachers
An audio and video-enabled, browser-based online classroom with an interactive whiteboard; used by teachers with the help of drawing tablets
Parent login and student progress tracking dashboard
Minute-based lesson packages
A Question Pool module where students upload questions via the mobile app and tutors pick them up to answer
Teacher search and listings page, which shows online, offline, and teaching tutors
Transparent, joyful, and data-driven tutor profiles
The Impact
Thanks to inekle.com; thousands of college students have been tutoring from wherever they are in the world, reaching a nationwide pool of students, making their college allowances and using their experience at inekle as a reference for their first jobs.
On the other hand; K-12 students from all over Turkey have access to
affordable, high-quality private tutoring, can get their test questions
answered within minutes, and connect meaningfully with college students
whom they look up to.inekle.com is still live today with the original designs! Since its launch more than 5 million minutes of private tutoring have taken place on it, amounting to more than 150,000 live classes on many subjects, ranging from math to English; and close to 300,000 test questions have been answered by the community of tutors.
inekle.com today
inekle is now a product of the BEV Foundation; a non-profit organization, dedicated to providing educational products and programs for the 'Digital Native Generation'. Over the last decade, thousands of college students have earned scholarships by tutoring online.
