Why We're Building This
Once upon time... the world was One. Quite literally! Africa was nestled into the Americas with Euroasia sitting on top and even Australia cudding up. How things have changed...
Global communication
With all the challenges we face as a species, it's hard to see the way forward. Once thing for is for certain, and that's we're going to need to work together and come up with global solutions for old and new problems. If we can connect the curious minds of the world for language and intercultural exchange, we're quite sure that would help.
Decentralizing information networks (again)
Big social media has gained increasing prominence within our society, potentially causing or exacerbating issues of loneliness, disinformation and polarization. To address these issues, the EU is encouraging competition by mandating interoperability. The U.S. may follow suit with something like the ACCESS Act for which the Telecommunications Act of 1996 offers a promising precedent. We built Pangea Chat on Matrix, an open, decentralized protocol to allow anyone to run their own server and still connect to the learning network. Pangea Chat could catalyze a decentralized future by offering a concrete example of the benefits of interoperability, open-source and decentralized networks; and directly helping universities, schools, and community organizations build their own language learning communities without needing to build the technology themselves.
Human connection - with AI help
When we got started on this, there was just drill-and-skill or open-ended conversation without support. Now, AI can provide guidance and assistance, and ready access to conversation partners. That's awesome. However, the default move for everyone in edTech these days is to hook students up with the chatbot and call it a day. Given the epidemic of loneliness and disconnection, we think that's a huge missed opportunity. We want to use AI as guide on the side, helping learners connect with each other, not as the main event. It's a big challenge and a big part of our raison d'etre.
The Team
A small team building big tools for language learners worldwide.
Will Jordan-Cooley
Founder & CEO
Education game designer turned ed-tech founder. General maker of things.
Gabby Gurdin
Frontend Developer
Flutter developer shaping the learner experience across iOS, Android, and web.
Brord Van Wierst
Chief Information Security Officer
Full-stack engineer working on AI-powered language tools and infrastructure.
Wilson Le
Software Engineer
Building the backend systems that power conversation activities and analytics.
Daniel Isbell, PhD
Advisor
Applied linguistics researcher specializing in L2 assessment and technology-mediated language learning.
How Did It All Start?
From Will, our founder
I went into education as a way to make a difference. I started as a math teacher but that was way too hard (respect to all the math teachers out there). As an undergrad, I helped Virginia Institute of Marine Science model native oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay, and decided to pursue an MA at Columbia University Teachers College to teach people about complex systems like climate change. At BrainPOP, I worked on educational games about ecology, body systems, and history. My educational philosophy has always been 'learn by doing' with just-in-time instruction and feedback.
Then I started traveling, and ended up moving to Spain after I met someone in Toronto-tero (I don't know if that's a joke outside Catalonia). I'd studied Japanese and French in high school (remembered very little) and had zero Spanish. I decided I could teach myself through WhatsApp with friends + translation. After a while, I started wondering what it would look like to build playful learning structures around that experience.
In 2018, I met Brord (one of the goofy guys in the picture) at a coworking space in Barcelona. He spoke five languages and agreed it seemed like a good idea so we got started!
I'd built game prototypes in the past but this project was a much bigger challenge. For years, it was a side project I couldn't stop working on - coding, showing it to people in Barcelona's coffee shops and bars, and pitching to investors (to no avail). During the COVID lockdown, I found my way to a Lighthouse Labs incubator program. It was actually based in my hometown though I was in Barcelona at the time. A conversation with Sean Mallon led us to apply to the National Science Foundation in the winter of 2020. We then waited eight months without hearing anything. They finally expressed interest in August 2021, but it took another eight months for the funding to arrive! But it arrived.
I was able to hire Pangea Chat's first two employees (and the first employees I'd ever hired or managed or anything else). There have been many hands and minds involved in shaping Pangea Chat along the way and many more to come. Thank you to the past and future Pangea team, our advisors, our research partners, and the language learning communities who have welcomed us in and given us feedback along the way.
Also. Pangea Chat is entirely grant-funded, with the exception of a $30k convertible note from my parents that floated us between our Phase I and Phase II NSF awards. That has meant we could focus on building the right product before worrying about monetization, and build with the public good in mind. We hope that shows.
Supported By
Funded by the National Science Foundation to research and build the future of social language learning.
