December 14, 2020 4 min read
2020 put companies to the test for their adaptability. New scenarios and abrupt changes forced companies to deploy new strategies that moved old structures. In this scenario, the educational factor plays a fundamental role in the development of greater flexibility in organizations, the greater the learning culture there is, the more agile they are to respond to changes. hackU , a Colombian online education startup, aims precisely to contribute to strengthening the educational culture within companies, making learning a habit and not an obligation.
hackU uses the microlearning methodology to transfer open educational content to thousands of non-digital natives and professionals who need to update their knowledge without losing sight of their work. The company uses the WhatsApp messaging service to facilitate user access to its study modules and to generate a direct channel with a learning coach.
Photo: Courtesy HackU
“According to researcher Rodolfo Llinás, users forget up to 93% of what they memorize in a traditional way. This is directly related to the fact that users have very short learning cycles and they decrease depending on age or educational level, since concentration is a developed capacity. For this reason hackU works with educational micro content, sending capsules that last an average of 10 minutes, thus favoring continuous learning ”, comments Santiago Salazar, Executive Director of hackU.
hackU understood that educational content has a diminishing expiration date, producing content for an education company implies that in a few months it will be offering something out of date, that is why Edtech opted for the use of open educational resources, which are updated daily and can be of better quality by taking advantage of sources such as Harvard Business Review, TED or the WEF, among thousands more. Currently, there is more than a trillion open educational content circling the web that doubles every 18 months.
Along with this, the startup is committed to dynamic, striking and friendly content, aimed at transforming learning into a habit. This strategy has captivated clients of the stature of companies such as Bancolombia, Postobón, Grupo Bolívar, Grupo SURA and Grupo Nutresa, among others, adding more than 10,000 active users in 8 countries and more than 250,000 content sent to date.
“In today’s world, time is very precious. hackU wants to prevent professionals from spending precious minutes watching low-quality or outdated content, on the contrary with our development we want to leave behind traditional memorization and we seek that our users develop a continuous habit of learning in a simple and satisfactory way and become learners throughout life (Lifelong learners), ”added Salazar.
How does it work?
hackU responds to the educational needs of each client -which can be any company that needs to train its collaborators effectively- and proposes content aligned with the learning purpose. This material is sent directly to users through WhatsApp. “ We understand that this significantly impacts the success of the educational process, as you only have to take one step to begin your learning experience,” explained the Executive Director.
But not only that, knowing that online education requires two fundamental components, such as having discipline and being self-taught and that not all people have developed these strengths, hackU humanizes the learning experience through a coach who is in constant interaction. with the students to solve doubts and accompany them in the process.
The benefits of microlearning are many. For example, it facilitates learning, generates greater content retention, has accessibility on multiple devices, helps save time on learning, is dynamic and motivating, and also allows users to choose when to learn. “At hackU we give students the choice of days and the amount of content they want to receive per week. Thus, there are some who want to study 6 days a week, others 3 and some who leave it open to the times that they manage in their schedule, ”said Santiago Salazar.
Through this education methodology, friendly with current technologies, companies can update the knowledge of their collaborators in a transversal way. But not only that, hackU goes a little further and bets on an educational transformation that generates a real culture of learning, where professionals feel motivated to acquire new knowledge.
