After releasing the “X plan” strategy which focuses on dimensions of curriculum, technology and user service, Sequoia-backed Xigua Chuangke has upgraded its Children's Programming classes by opening the AI double division mode.
Just a few days ago Xigua Chuangke (西瓜创客) announced its B round of financing worth CNY 150 million. The round was led by New Oriental (新东方), SAIF Partners (赛富基金), Baicizhan (百词斩/薄荷阅读), old shareholders Sequoia Capital China (红杉资本中国), and Matrix Partners China (经纬中国), with Lighthouse capital (光源资本) as the financial advisor.
The company announced at the event that the amount raised will be used to further improve the LEAP curriculum system, promote learning evaluation based on “AI+ Big Data” and upgrade the teaching intelligent assistant system to build an active community.
"The integration of AI technology will assist teachers in refining services and operations, provide data support and advice for more targeted and personalized education and guidance," said Ming Zhong (肖铁翔), founder and CEO of the startup.
Lack of teachers is one of the shortcomings that restrict the development of children's programming industry. The personnel engaged in children's programming education must be outstanding talents. They must understand programming and have a solid foundation in the field of children's education.
Xigua Chuangke says that the AI double-teacher mode effectively solves the problem of high-quality teachers from the supply side, ensuring high-quality courses, and flexible scheduling of time and place according to user needs.
The founder of the company believes that AI online education has three stages: the 1.0 stage is to identify students' problems, the 2.0 stage is based on data-assisted teacher decision-making, and the 3.0 stage is based on 2.0 stage’s precipitation of teaching big data in the process. Dynamically assess learning performance and achieve true personalized education through self-adaptation.
In the first quarter of 2019 alone, coding companies targeting children received huge investments. The company standing out amongst all was Codemao (编程猫), which completed its latest round of financing worth approximately CNY 600 million in January.
In recent years children's programming education sector has been very hot. Even with a low capital environment, this year quite a few programming education companies managed to raise funds over CNY 100 million, such as Codemao, XiaoMaWang, Hetao, Xigua Chuangke, etc. However, the current children's programming track is still in the early stages of development, there is a lack of quality teachers, lack of standardization of the curriculum system and a couple of other major issues.
Although the concept of AI has passed, the application of AI in the field of education has been paid attention to and favored by many people. Only time will tell if it can actually solve the problems of the education industry.
From a global perspective, almost every developed country is stressing children's programming education, which might explain why China is accelerating the development of its programming education at home.