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An Interview with Mohamed Issa from Rosetta Stone at GESS Dubai 2017

Among the various companies that thronged the Dubai World Trade Centre where the GESS Dubai 2017 was being held, we met Mohamed Issa, Regional Alliance & Channel Manager at Rosetta Stone.

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Among the various companies that thronged the Dubai World Trade Centre where the GESS Dubai 2017 was being held, we met Mohamed Issa, Regional Alliance & Channel Manager at Rosetta Stone. He discussed about Rosetta Stone, their solution and how technology is benefitting education besides the difference between free apps and a complete learning solution for schools.

ScooNews:

Please tell us something about Rosetta Stone.

Issa:

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Rosetta Stone started twenty years ago, as a software company (just for the languages).

We started with the English language and then we added more languages, now we have over twenty-five languages. We have customers all over the world and millions of users but specifically for this event today which is much more about K-12 and higher education we have 22,000 institutions that are using our system. 

ScooNews:

Other than what your company is doing, where else do you find the role of technology in education?

Issa:

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Technology is everywhere now when we're talking about education and it's not only by taking the school books and transferring it into digital as a media file; it's much more about engaging the students and really having it design as a tool that they're currently using when they're playing. That’s where we saw that since the mobile and tablet segment is a booming industry and students are using it in their day to day life, so why don’t we also use the device as a learning tool and that's why we incorporated all our technology into mobile so anyone can really prepare for English.

We're talking about English.  So, using the mobile for learning is not only by listening or reading it's also for communicating using an advanced speech recognition technology. The use of technology is increasing in education and we see that in the future virtual reality in learning will help.  

ScooNews:

You just spoke of Virtual Reality and Augmented reality which the world is talking about, but there are no refined examples in terms of using it in education. So, do you think there are areas in technology that are yet left out in education? 

Issa:

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Of course and we're developing each and every year and not only education but the whole aspect of our lives but to answer your question , yes virtual reality will be an important technology to engage the students from anywhere , even if they're not located in the same country we can see that also with the solution that we design. So our solution is not one hundred percent digital but we can have communication that can be done with the native speakers via Skype or via a Web call so we can have that kind of human interaction. at the end of the day even when we're talking about the educational side and students they need a little bit someone to drive a little bit push and we need that to be done by a human either they would be viewing their administration and know exactly how they are using the system to feed them or by engaging with them directly by also having a part that can be communicated by them.

ScooNews:

How do you see Rosetta Stone, 10 year down the line?

Issa:

We will be having much more flexibility in the content.  Because there are some countries that are doing it and we would be seeing much more about Project based learning and not the standard curriculum that we traditionally have. Sometime we also need to learn different languages but until now education has been providing dead content; it's not really project based and that's why we see some universities providing the flexibility to students. Our solution not only specifically from one language but giving him our solution and telling him you can learn by your own Arabic or you can read by your own French or Spanish It depends what your goals are in the future and that's what we see coming and even if they would be learning English they would be learning English for IT or they would be learning English for Medical. Students are flexible for it so now we're seeing much more in the future project based curriculum.

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ScooNews:

Which gap do you think events like GESS fulfil?

Issa:

This is the first time I am attending GESS, Dubai so it's not easy for me to say. For the last 11 years, we have been attending GITEX, which is more about technology. While GITEX is where all the technology and development buzz is. However, this event (GESS Dubai 2017), is more about the customer i.e. higher education and K-12.

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ScooNews:

Have you seen any traction at your stand here, I mean some conversions?

Issa:

Yes, because it's not about acquisitions but working with the partners so here we are working on accepting partners.

ScooNews:

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Just one more thing, Issa.  I am sure you are aware of Duolingo and Hello English Apps, these are free apps which teach English to about fifty-sixty million plus users so what’s your take on this competitive landscape? Here you're looking for partnering with schools but at the same time you see these free apps in the market so how does that sound to you in terms of competition.?

Issa:

I agree with you one hundred percent.  But at the same time there is no comparison as we're not competing with the free apps that have much lesser content. Also, these competitors don't have a built in LMS. This enables the school administrator to know how each user is using the system and how much time is he using it for along with the marks scored.  So, the LMS is very important, the certification part is very important, the content part is very important so free apps don't have the scope or sequence exactly mapped to the current curriculum.

As you know when we're talking about the English language we can map it to the current curriculum because it's grammar lessons but dealing with it's much more as an absolute is very hard for these apps to be sharing that curriculum and that content that we have; we have been twenty years in the market we started as just a box (a yellow box) and now we have moved completely to the cloud

Yes, there are new apps but their solution is completely different (from what Rosetta Stone has to offer).

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ScooNews: Thank You!

Issa: Thank You!

To know more about Rosetta Stone, please visit http://www.rosettastone.co.uk/ and know more on how this solution can add value to your school.

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