Persona Education shortlisted for the 2023/24 WISE Edtech Accelerator
Press Release
Bristol, UK, 30th May 2023
Persona Education has today been shortlisted for the prestigious WISE Edtech Accelerator 2023/24 programme, organised and managed by the World Innovation Summit for Education, Qatar Foundation. The WISE Edtech Accelerator is a key part of the Qatar Foundation's edtech programme, aiming to support innovation and build an edtech community focused on revolutionising teaching and learning.
Image: Persona Education
For over six years the WISE Edtech Accelerator has supported edtech founders from around the world to scale innovative solutions to key challenges within the world of education. Each year, it delivers a bespoke program aimed at supporting startup growth through one-to-one coaching, masterclasses with industry experts, and access to a global network of investors and education specialists.
Startups in the Accelerator gain access to a community of over 50 edtech founders from 18 countries, interaction with industry leaders from the private sector, non-profit organisations and government, as well as networking opportunities with potential donors, investors and partners. Coaching and mentorship is provided by a hand-picked team of experts specialising in: marketing, sales and fundraising; product strategy, development and road-mapping; market insights and positioning.
Selected ventures also have the opportunity to attend WISE@ Forums and the WISE Summit in Doha, convening over 4,000 attendees from 100 countries.
A committee composed of leading experts in education and entrepreneurship supports the WISE Edtech Accelerator team to select startups according to how well the venture addresses the problem it aims to solve, how innovative the solution is, the potential educational impact, and potential for growth and scalability.
Persona Education has been shortlisted for the 2023/24 Accelerator, in recognition of its mission to boost young people's wellbeing, employability and success, with Persona Life Skills, the Social-Emotional Learning platform built around a unique personality insights framework developed for and with young people. This is the only personality insights platform designed specifically for young people, and the only Social-Emotional Learning platform built around personality insights. The software incorporates intellectual property developed with funding from highly sought-after UK government R&D grants.
Over 400 schools in 41 countries have registered to use the Persona Life Skills platform with 118,000 students, the geographies showing most interest being the Middle East, India, UK and US. It is being taken to market by an experienced team with a strong >20 year track record, supported by a high quality advisory panel.
Pete Read, CEO & Co-founder of Persona Education, said, “We are very pleased indeed to be shortlisted for the WISE Edtech Accelerator for the second time in two years. One of the biggest challenges in education currently is the effective delivery of Social-Emotional Learning to secondary students, to address the crisis of wellbeing and employability among our teenagers. With generative AI on the scene, the urgency of developing social-emotional skills alongside academic knowledge and technical skills has taken an order of magnitude leap. As today's teenagers get older there will be a negative cascade into society as a whole if we don't address the problem in a preventative way, at scale, now. Persona Life Skills is already part of that solution for thousands of young people around the world, and this support from WISE is a welcome validation.”
To find out more about the WISE Edtech Accelerator, visit the programme website.
ENDS
About Persona Education Ltd
Persona Education is a UK based edtech start-up developing life skills solutions for secondary students and educational institutions. Its web and mobile online learning platforms are built around a scientifically proven personality insights framework, that is social, practical and memorable. For further information contact info@persona-life.com or +44 (0)117 313 2897.
About Persona Life Skills
Persona Life Skills is an online Social-Emotional Learning platform for schools and colleges that uses personality insights to help teenagers navigate their life journey. The scaffolded, age appropriate curriculum guides students in building 22 life skills that map to GL PASS, IB Learner Profile, Unicef, Ofsted, ISI, Skills Builder, AS Tracking, VIA Character and Gatsby benchmarks. For further information contact info@persona-life.com or +44 (0)117 313 2897.
