UK Investors Back Crowd Sourced Learning Hub To Compete With US
The promised December launch of mylearningworx at Google Campus will be the first major investor led crowd-sourced learning project in the UK.
Online, November 30, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Similar projects have been the flavour of 2012 in the US with around $70 million committed by venture capitalists to just nine start-up projects, aimed at varying social and business sectors and crowds.
Although the nature of online crowd sourced learning means that its reach is worldwide, it also depends on cementing a close-knit crowd that can foster a common desire to drive creativity and success in their particular fields. By focusing on the UK, mylearningworx will bring together groups of individuals and organisations to generate content for communities with a strong understanding of the learners and their context.
mylearningworx is currently in beta. Its official launch event is being hosted at London's Google Campus on Thursday 13 December 2012.
There is an average of $7.5 million funding per venture in the US and these sites have become the investment choice of the moment for venture capitalists on the east and west coasts. With the continuing rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and increased use of technology in education and workplace learning, crowd sourcing is a revolution in the provision of learning and skills development.
mylearningworx aims to 'democratise UK learning' by offering course created by the crowd, for the crowd - that is any Internet user. Learners and authors alike are encouraged to share knowledge by creating content, then offering it for free or for a fee that they set. Ratings and feedback help learners choose the right content for them based on their development requirements. Content will cover anything and everything from IT skills to baking. And successful authors can earn good money.
mylearningworx managing director, Martin Belton, comments: "A dedicated crowd sourced learning hub, like mylearningworx, takes the wisdom of the crowd, organises it, fills in the gaps, validates it and then shares it with the world."
He continues, "Authors in the US are already earning thousands of dollars in income for their courses. Harnessing and sharing knowledge in the form of courses represents an accessible and flexible new industry at a time of continuing redundancies and so called 'underemployment'. This is a unique opportunity for UK plc to profit from our their existing knowledge by developing the skills of others."
About mylearningworx
mylearningworx is the UK's first 'crowd-sourced content' learning centre. As a UK company, it focuses on offering courses that are relevant to a UK audience. That includes learning to help people at work or just to get more out of life. The mylearningworx team believes anyone can write and deliver powerful online learning to the world. And through mylearningworx people can reach out and share knowledge and skills with thousands of others for both home and business use, for everybody's benefit.