• A school in Abu Dhabi today becomes first to embrace the A.I. powered Alef model

  • Alef is the world’s first such system for mainstream academic learning

  • Alef aims to have operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the near future

Alef, a privately held education technology company, today launched its technology-enabled education solution at a school in Abu Dhabi. This morning, more than 240 students began an education journey that has been 36 months in the making – the culmination of ambitious efforts of a world-class team of education and technology professionals who have collaborated to enable outstanding educational design, powered by state-of-the-art technology. For the first time in human history, a group of school students are using a technology-enabled education solution which is a complete end-to-end mainstream form of formal classroom-based academic learning.

“Alef’s launch today is the start of a journey to bring about an overhaul of the status quo to usher in a new paradigm in education. Given the rate at which technology and industry continue to evolve, it is unclear what future workplaces will look like, let alone understand the skills required of their workforces,” said Dr. Saleh Al Hashemi, Alef’s CEO. “And as every sector of society undergoes some form of 21st century revolution, the education sector cannot, and should not, get left behind. The education sector feeds every part of industry and culture, and in a world where the image of the future changes so rapidly, education must be at the heart of our global technological journey.”

Alef is essentially an innovative and immersive multi-lingual learning-science framework with in-house hypermedia content powered by cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence. Its design adopts natural language processing, advanced data science, and technology-enhanced content to deliver a system that engages students and encourages self-learning, with the aim of equipping them with the skills necessary to successfully navigate the world of the future.

Alef is a Transformational Technology-Enabled Education Solution

Alef fundamentally evolves the role of the teacher in the 21st century classroom, shifting the education process from the familiar teacher-centered model to a learner-centered data-driven model. With Alef, the teacher takes on the role of an expert facilitator, aided by an innovative and immersive ecosystem powered by groundbreaking technology and artificial intelligence.

Alef’s technology carefully synchronizes with a school’s curriculum enabling students to learn at their own pace and have access anywhere, anytime; and develop secure in the knowledge that they are supported by a community of teachers, who can make individualized decisions to ensure that each student meets their short and long-term goals.

Through the use of cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence, Alef’s educational design uses concepts like thematic interdisciplinary learning – where children learn to make connections between different fields and subjects; experiential learning – which encourages learning through experience and experiment; customized remediation strategies – which respond to the individual abilities and knowledge level of each student; and metacognition – where a student is encouraged to understand their own thought process. This design is then powered by natural language processing, advanced data science and technology enhanced content to deliver a system that engages students and encourages self-learning.

Alef Recognizes the Importance of Appropriate Human Interaction

Alef is pioneering selected strategies in the interactions between every student and teacher to foster genuine empathy and create an inclusive learning environment. The company’s model recognizes the importance of change management at any school using the technology as being one of the most critical factors for its sustained success. Additionally, Alef’s innovative mechanisms that adopt artificial intelligence to customize the user interface, bridges communication between a parent, a student and a teacher.

Alef’s Team is Exceptional

The team includes more than 300 leading technology and education experts, who collectively hold 20 PhDs and 25 Masters Degrees between them. These experts have joined forces to reimagine the future of learning. They have been brought together from leading research universities including: Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University, Indian Institute of Science, Cornell University, Rice University, Harvard University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Wisconsin - Madison, University of Florida – Gainesville, and Tufts University.

The Abu Dhabi team of almost 300 employees works in close collaboration with development and research centers from around the world including in the United States, India, and the Netherlands.

Alef is Currently Formalizing Significant Regional Expansion Plans

Alef is in discussions with various private school operators and public school districts. Alef aims to have operations in other GCC countries, Egypt and India in the near future.

-Ends-

About Alef
Alef is a privately-held education technology company, with a team of more than 300 leading technology and education experts who have joined forces to reimagine K-12 education and address the shortcoming of current models, to prepare students for the world and workplace of tomorrow.

Driven by a notion that each student across the world has an innate curiosity to learn, the team at Alef has developed a transformational technology-enabled education solution that recognizes that every student deserves a customized learning journey – moving from the traditional teacher-centered model to a new, learner-centered model.  

Alef is the world’s first, transformational technology-enabled education solution which is a complete end-to-end mainstream form of formal classroom-based academic learning. Alef enhances the learning experience of K-12 students, by taking existing curricula and reshaping it for the 21st century.

Using an innovative and immersive multi-lingual learning-science framework, with in-house hypermedia content powered by cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence, the Alef technology and can carefully synchronize with a school’s curriculum to deliver a custom-made learning experience that enables each student to learn at their own pace.

With anytime, anywhere access, each student is supported by a community of teachers who can make individualized decisions to ensure that they are meeting their short and long-term goals.  

For further information, please contact:
Iman Ahmed
ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller, Dubai, UAE 
Tel +971 4 4507 695 
iman.ahmed@bm.com

© Press Release 2017