Squirrel AI Learning appears at 2019 Slush Helsinki as the Only Invited Chinese Education Company with Derek Haoyang Li sharing the Concept of AI-powered Education

HELSINKI, Dec. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, the top global venture capital conference "2019 Slush Helsinki", one of the largest commercial activities in Northern Europe, was held grandly in Finland. Slush has become the largest, most influential and highest-quality international innovation and entrepreneurship summit of European scientific and technological innovation activities. The conference was attended by more than 25,000 insiders and more than 2,000 investors from all over the world. Squirrel AI Learning was the only Chinese education company to be invited to give a speech at this feast of science and technology. Derek Haoyang Li, the founder of Squirrel AI Learning, shared the inside thoughts at Slush. Other speakers are David Simas, CEO of the Obama Foundation, DIANE BRYANT, former COO of the Google Cloud and incumbent President of Intel, ANDREAS WEIGEND, a former chief scientist of Amazon, and BRUCE PITTMAN, chief engineer of NASA, and interpreted in detail the development of the AI+ education industry.

Founded in Helsinki, Finland in 2008 and rated as a top global startup and technology industry conference by Forbes, Slush is about science and technology, game, the Internet, electronic technology, music, etc., serving as a platform where start-ups and technological talents get in touch with international Investors, large enterprises and media.

At the 2019 Slush Helsinki, the founder of Squirrel AI Learning Derek Li said, "As the first AI adaptive education brand in the entire Asia-Pacific region, Squirrel AI Learning has developed and owns the region's first advanced algorithm-based AI adaptive learning engine with completely independent intellectual property rights. Powered by AI technology, the learning engine is used to solve many problems in China's traditional education industry, such as the uneven distribution of educational resources and the low learning efficiency of students. AI education will eventually grow into personalized education and provide every student with a learning solution and an AI expert teacher of his own."

At the 2019 Slush Helsinki, DAVID SIMAS, CEO of the Obama Foundation, briefed the other attendees on the values and responsibilities upheld by the Obama Foundation: The Obama Foundation shoulders the mission of improving people's quality of life by communicating and cooperating with the world, promoting young leaders to change the world, cultivating and supporting young leaders that are able to provide solutions for global sustainable development, and exploring a way to provide opportunities and resources for them in their future career.

Famous venture investor Michael Moritz, a partner of Sequoia Capital, gave a profound insight into technology entrepreneurship, "Economic fluctuations provide a golden chance to establish a company." In times of economic fluctuations, users are more willing to risk trying a start-up's product—provided that they think this start-up's product can help them improve efficiency and reduce costs. It is the best time to sow when other people are in panic and frustrated. Reverse thinking helps to reap a high payoff.

DIANE BRYANT, former COO of the Google Cloud and incumbent President of Intel, expressed her view on the hottest topic of science and technology—AI, "Today, AI remains like a baby clamoring for food. The academia is exploring and researching tirelessly. This area still has endless potential for development."

AI Empowerment: AI makes education more efficient

Founded in 2014, Squirrel AI Learning is China's first AI unicorn company to apply an AI adaptive learning technology to K12 education. It is also a top Chinese AI company that has earned a place in the world's scientific and technological circles, and been named one of the Top Ten high-growth AI companies by Deloitte.

At the conference, Derek Li pointed out, "The AI technology can revolutionize the education industry, which has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and provide every child with a best teacher. This is a dream of educating people. It used to be an unattainable dream, but now we have a chance to make it come true. In the manner of AI + education, Squirrel AI Learning helps to enhance children's learning capacity, learning method, learning thinking, creativity and imagination, thus increasing their learning efficiency. That is of great value to the development of the whole society."

There are many problems with China's traditional education industry, such as the uneven distribution of educational resources. The severe unevenness is caused by the great developmental gap between the coastal areas and the inland areas; serious shortage of excellent teachers makes it impossible for most students to gain high-quality learning resources; the traditional teaching is a kind of test-oriented education, which features non-variant learning content and learning progress, with individual differences ignored; children are just taught how to acquire knowledge, but their ability, thinking and learning method fail to be developed.

For a long time, Chinese students have been under a much heavier learning burden than that on their counterparts in other counties, but conversely, their inventiveness is much weaker than their counterparts in developed countries after they grow up. The main reason is that Chinese students learn inefficiently and think in a rigid way. They repeat learning while solving hundreds or thousands of examination questions, but are not clear about the range of their own ability value.

According to Derek Li, in this context, Squirrel AI Learning has chosen to develop intelligent adaptive education to empower China's education industry with the AI technology.

The Squirrel AI Learning adaptive education system can split a knowledge point at the super-Nano-level, e.g., the concept of rational number can be split into 20 knowledge points. Thus, the system is able to get a clearer understanding of a student's mastery of the knowledge points and thereby detect his weak points accurately.

According to Derek Li, the Squirrel AI Learning system is equipped with a low priority pool, which can dynamically sort all knowledge points learned simultaneously with easy-to-learn knowledge points put first and difficult knowledge points stored in the isolation pool. For students with a poor foundation, they can lay a solid foundation for their own learning and develop confidence first, and then enhance their learning enthusiasm slowly to receive personalized education in an orderly way.

Squirrel AI Learning also splits students' learning capacity and method, making them "definable, measurable and teachable". Then the MCM systems can detect their different learning capacities and rates and weak points, thus drawing a clear portrait for them. Not only can students master effective knowledge points, but they will also have their creativity and imagination enhanced under the guidance of the Squirrel AI teacher with their learning potential fully tapped.

Squirrel AI Learning's independently developed MCM system can truly make quality-oriented education a reality. By subdividing each learning thought, the system can detect students' model of thinking, learning capacity and learning methodology. For students with the same exam performance, after the end of evaluation and detection, the MCM system can recognize their different learning capacities and rates and weak points, thus drawing a clear portrait for them. Squirrel AI's MCM system can not only help students with learning, but also improving their lifelong thinking ability and method so as to tap their potential and make up for their weaknesses. Only in this way can they be fashioned into talented people.

According to Derek Li, different professions require different MCMs. Knowledge acquired may be forgotten, but capacity training needs to be continuously improved all the life. In the MCM system, AI helps every student build a model of thinking, learning capacity and learning methodology. That is the only way to fashion students into more outstanding talents.

Facing the unfairness of education and the disparate development of educational resources, AI + education provides a new way to solve the above social issue. "There is a hot social topic: It is increasingly impossible for a humble family to give birth to an honorable son. This is because the educational resources in remote areas cannot be compared with those in first-tier cities. Even in the first-tier cities, there is a great difference in education quality between the best schools and average schools. In Squirrel AI Learning's system, every student has an AI expert teacher, which offers one-on-one tutoring to the student according to his personal situation to help realize the fairness of education. Wherever you are, Beijing or Tibet, you can enjoy the best educational resources on the Internet.

Derek Li points out that for AI+ education, what matters most is the upgrading of AI technology, so only consistent technical support is able to bring the features of AI+ education into full play. As for the development of AI technology, Squirrel AI Learning has put in much time and energy: Squirrel AI Learning cooperates with Stanford Research International (SRI) in developing techniques, and has established a joint laboratory of AI adaptive learning with the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences; this year, it set up a joint laboratory with the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). All core scientists of Squirrel AI Learning come from global AI education unicorn companies such as ALEKS and RealizeIt. Tom Mitchell, the luminary on machine learning and former Dean of the School of Computer Science, CMU, serves as a chief scientist of AI while Ken Koedinger, a professor at the Department of Computer and Psychology, CMU, serves as a chief learning scientist.

Owing to its concentrated research on AI technology, Squirrel AI Learning has carried off many awards and honors, such as the Rise Award, a top European technology award, the Reimagine Education Asian Sliver Award, the "Oscar Award in the educational circles", and TOP 30 SAIL (Superior AI Leader) by WAIC (World AI Conference), becoming a benchmarking enterprise in the AI adaptive education industry.

Data show that so far, Squirrel AI Learning has set up more than 2,300 learning centers in more than 700 cities and counties in more than 20 provinces of China, benefiting nearly 2 million students and bringing quality educational resources to tens of thousands of families.

"Student-oriented education, including teaching in accordance with students' aptitude, has been the ultimate aim of education for thousands of years. It is also Squirrel AI Learning's ultimate pursuit," said Derek Li. After the conference, he talked about Chinese education and Finnish education with Esko Aho, former Premier of Finland, and about the concept of personalized education with Tarmo Toikkanen, one of the master souls of Finnish education. He also communed with Olli-Pekka Heinonen, Director-General of the Finnish Ministry of Education, on the possibility of education cooperation between Squirrel AI Learning and Finland for the purpose that more school-age students around the world can have access to the results of AI + education.

SOURCE Squirrel AI Learning