Blockchain Speaks Online Learning Platform’s Language

With one million registered users and 130,000 online courses ranging from JavaScript to hobbies and sports, Tutellus is the largest peer-to-peer online learning platform in the Spanish-speaking world. But it suffers from the same core challenge as other edtech ventures and the online courses offered by traditional colleges and universities: low student engagement and high dropout rates.

To turn the tide, learning platform, created in 2013, embraced the blockchain last fall, using tokens to involve students and teachers. With a June ICO currently in pre-sale, Tutellus hopes to make good on its goal of “changing the world through education.”

ThirtyK spoke with Miguel Solana, an early investor, director and advisor to Tutellus, about paying students to study, responding to employer needs and the broader shifts disrupting education. Before setting up his own blockchain advisory firm, Miguel led the innovation strategy of Santander Bank in China. Before that he was with Telefonica/O2 and at the World Bank.

ThirtyK: As an established platform, why did Tutellus move to the blockchain?

Solana: The transition came as a result of the major constraint for edtech platform growth, which is user engagement. People get excited about signing up for courses, but dropout rates are very high. People get tired, they say they’ll do it next year. It’s painful [to educators because] it involves huge customer acquisition costs and low retention rates.

A lot of us thought edtech was going to take off faster, but we later realized how hard it was to build [new] models. We started thinking about designing an incentive model that could address low engagement. One of the ideas we started to explore was the blockchain and how a tokenized model could incentivize students, teachers, and the whole community to ensure dropout rates go down and engagement goes up.

ThirtyK: The white paper describes the tokenized concept of paying students to study. How does the model work?

Solana: We shifted the concept of how we treat students by thinking about them as assets. We’re building assets for society and the future, and we should incentive students for being these assets. Teachers also have been badly disincentivized. Good teachers earn the same as bad teachers.

We have a dual token structure. One token is the STUT, which is an internal token that measures relevance and rewards good behavior in class, such as enrolling in a second course, helping other students, or being active in the learning community. You cannot buy relevance, so you can’t purchase it. You earn it. Teachers also can earn STUTs by getting high marks from students or contributing to the placement of students in the job market.

“Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Chinese but it’s more spread out, so that’s an advantage,” says Solana. “So we start from a strong entry point.”