Contact: Idapted Ltd Jonathan Palley VP Services/Technologies jpalley [at] idapted [dot] com

Contact: British Council Andrew Newton Senior Project Manager andrew.newton [at] britishcouncil [dot] org.hk

Summary:

• 3,000 students in China served.
• Novel system for live one-on-one tuition tested
• New opportunities open for instructors and learners of English

BEIJING, P.R.C, April 30th, 2009 - The British Council, in partnership with Idapted Ltd, successfully completed a two month pilot of VELS (VoIP English Learning Services). Over a period of two months, 3,000 students in China’s financial industry gained access to a unique one-on-one learning experience powered by Idapted’s live learning platform and the British Council’s recognized brand of instructors and curriculum.

“This is a fantastic way to learn English”, remarked one student to the customer support hotline, “I particularly like the on-demand flexibility to learn when I want, how the audio is tied to self-learning materials, and how one-to-one tutor feedback is tied to the audio. I hope more services like this are offered in the future”.

“The pilot has clearly proved a real success”, declared Dr Bhaskar Chakravarti, the British Council’s former Director of English and an early proponent of the vision. “Working together, the British Council and Idapted Ltd are introducing a new era of innovative live learning technologies to a global audience.”

Idapted, the private sector partner, provided the technology and expertise in delivering an on-demand live learning service. “With modern web technologies such as VoIP, the opportunities of ELT are available to a much greater number of students and instructors,” said Jonathan Palley, Idapted Co-Founder. “We are excited to be working with a forward thinking organization like the British Council in bringing the next generation of live language learning to both students and instructors”.

The project grew out of a mandate for English Language Training outlined by PM Gordon Brown: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page14289

About The British Council:
The British Council works in over 100 countries and territories worldwide to build intercultural understanding between the UK and other countries through English language, the arts, education and training, science and technology, and sport. For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org

About Idapted Ltd:
Idapted builds the next generation of scalable live language learning technologies and services. Each month, thousands of teachers and students from around the world learn and teach English and Mandarin through Idapted’s global system.

Idapted is backed by Gobi Partners and Ambient Sound Investments as well as experienced Angel Investors. The Company’s Board of Advisors includes well known mentors Bill Trenchard, President of LiveOps; Russ Siegelman formerly of VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and Xu Xiao Ping, co-founder for New Oriental School (EDU). More information is available at http://www.idapted.com