(Yicai Global) March 9 -- Mobie Academy, a leading Finnish EdTech company visited Shanghai last week to showcase the infinite possibilities of harnessing technology to enhance education in China and globally.

As part of a delegation from the Finnish National Agency for Education, Mobie Academy, digital learning platform, joined a team of several leading professional educators, consultants and representatives of leading EdTech companies at the Finland-China Innovation Center (FinChi), based at Shanghai's Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park.

Kari Vatanen, Chairman of Mobie Group Ltd. has been deeply involved with ICT since almost its inception. By 1995, he held a group of companies in Finland offering digital services to 1,300 of the biggest Finnish companies, 37 governmental offices and had IT contracts with the Confederation of Finnish Industries and 8 employee and employer associations in the Nordic country.

Yicai Global: What was the genesis of Mobie Academy as an educational platform?

Kari Vatanen: "After developing a program for press reporters and journalists (Mobie Reporter), we developed a HTML5-based magazine which educators increasingly saw potential in as a learning tool. I was not convinced at first, however, Finnish teachers were asking me so many times that, at the end of 2012, I decided to start a development project with 100 Finnish schools, 2,500 teachers, a 3-year project which I financed from my own pocket. We went to the schools and we asked the teachers what will be the future of schools?, please tell us what you have gleaned from this digital learning".

Vatanen gathered together a sizeable private community of 2,468 teachers who, inspired by the learning possibilities afforded by his tech, gave him hints and insights. From this point, his new business entity decided to focus on the then nascent EdTech sector and build a develop a learning environment from scratch.

Yicai Global: What recent technologies have been incorporated into the plaform?

Kari Vatanen:"We also have private live-streamed tutoring, similar to TutorABC, VIPABC you have here, (The Yao Ming backed TutorGroup), however our platform allows tutors to check from the AI-based analytics how you are progressing in your learning. You get the feedback directly from the tutor and the tutorials are embedded inside your digital learning materials."

Informed by teacher's insights, Vatanen was faced with the challenge of introducing a gaming interface to the learning process.

Kari Vatanen: "Now, we have a Pokemon Go-style gamification platform on our learning environment. After 3 years of development we recently won the EU Learning Environment Competition, which compiled 73 of the biggest and best learning environments and we won, beating Blackboard, from the United States, which was then the biggest in the whole world. Strange to think that in 2010, there was a Mr. Steve Jobs who had popularized (yet not personally invented) this new 'touchscreen technology' (laughs). Now, there are a lot of delegations coming to Finland from China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India, California. They all want to see the 'miracle' of (tech-based) education in Finland. 

Concurrent with this success, Mobie Group work in the corporate and governmental training sphere. They secured contracts for Finland's safety, security and rescue personnel, who use Mobie Academy daily to re-train themselves. As well as providing teacher training, they also provide training for the security staff of Finnair and Securitas.