An innovative approach
GIL, which stands for Grow Up in Language, is a Palestinian start-up founded by Sami Abu Heiba, an Arabic teacher. Building off his experience, Sami identified the best and most efficient way for students to learn languages: full-immersion. However, he was also aware that encouraging learners to join real-world conversations could enduce anxiety and reduce students’ performance. That’s why he set out to build GIL.
The idea behind GIL is to build an Arabic VR app to help international, travelers, students, and business learn Arabic by using interactive realistic scenarios based on 360 videos. One of GIL’s specificities is that it offers a variety of Arabic dialects, something most other Arabic courses fail to account for. Indeed, many Arabic learners are frustrated to find out that learning Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is rarely useful when having informal, day-to-day conversations.
One of GIL’s specificity is its use of Virtual Reality (VR) to create an entirely new learning experience for its users. Through Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology, the user, immersed into a real-life scenario through a VR headset or a phone, can get direct feedback on their speaking performance. These scenarios can range from booking a hotel room to ordering a falafel in the streets. All dialogues are double translitarated (in Arabic and English), allowing the learner to get a bird’s eye view of what’s going on. If you want to see how this works in action, check out GIL’s live demo by clicking right here.
Business model
GIL operates on the widespread “freemium” model. Users get to complete their first learning unit for free, and then pay a monthly/yearly subscription if they wish to continue.
Next steps
Sami was recently a guest on the GrowHome Show, pitching GIL to four high caliber investors from the Palestinian diaspora. Here were some of the key takeways.
GIL’s key value propositions:
- Offering 10+ Arabic dialects/accents to interact with and learn.
- The GIL app works with VR headsets, but is also fully compatible with a smartphone.
- Investing in GIL means an early ticket into the rapidly growing VR education sector.
- No outstanding competitors in the VR Arabic learning space.
Current traction:
- 100 free users on the GIL app
- App is up and running on the Google PlayStore, with 11 scenarios available.
- $30,000+ in revenue (from individual Arabic lessons the GIL team provides).
More info
To learn more about GIL’s technology, its business model, and its goals for the future, feel free to listen to GIL’s episode on the GrowHome Show, during which Sami was questionned by our 4 diaspora investors.
Contact GIL
If you are interested in using, investing or simply learning more about GIL, feel free to reach out to the GIL team at support@gil.world or at +972 (56) 900–1222.
Connect with Sami on LinkedIn.
Who are we?
GrowHome is a platform connecting diasporas to entrepreneurs back home. The problem we’re trying to solve is twofold: on one hand, diasporas often gain professional and financial resources abroad which they want to share with people back home, but they have no easy way to do so. On the other hand, entrepreneurs in emerging countries have incredible talent, but lack access to business opportunities. On GrowHome, diasporas can mentor, collaborate and fund entrepreneurs from their home countries.
Join our diaspora waiting list at www.growhome.app
We are launching our BETA product in Jordan and Palestine, early 2021.
To get updated on our progress, follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Youtube.
Listen to the GrowHome podcast on Spotify, in which our founder Marwan Abdelhamid host a sort of “Palestinian Shark Tank” show.
We also organize events connecting diaspora organizations to entrepreneurs back home. If you want us to organize one for your organization, please contact us at info@growhome.app
