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Virtual English teacher robot Buddy is finishing the year in the leading position in the education and children categories in the Turkish market, which it entered in the last quarter of 2020. Buddy.ai has been downloaded more than 600,000 times in Turkey.

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ISTANBUL (TR) - Buddy's growing interest shows the need for an affordable solution for children to learn English and how education is transforming for today's children, who we call “digital natives”. Buddy.ai is an application that provides game-based education, using artificial intelligence and sound technology, teaching English spoken language to the generation Alpha in a fun way.

Undoubtedly, 2020 has been the year that has left the greatest traces so far in the century we are in. Of course, the great transformation we have experienced from economy to social life has caused education to change as well. In the last 20 years, e-learning and educational technologies have been frequently talked about, and the education world has been in a slow transformation, but we have never experienced a situation where distance education and e-learning are the only options. Like all the world, Turkey, which fights the pandemic throughout the year, is undergoing major changes in social, economic and educational areas. Responding to a great need in this period of transformation, Buddy.ai paves the way for millions of children around the world to teach the global language English at low cost with the right technology and team.

San Francisco-based Buddy.ai leverages voice-based artificial intelligence technology used by voice assistants like Google Assistant or Apple's Siri. The mobile application developed by the company includes Robot Buddy, a sympathetic cartoon hero with artificial intelligence, where children aged 4-10 can talk and play games. Virtual teacher Buddy helps children grow their English vocabulary, improve their listening comprehension and speaking skills by chatting and playing games. While children perform various tasks in the game, they learn more than 1500 words in 14 different topics.

Founded in 2017, Buddy.ai is a young company but its history is full of success. By the beginning of 2020 LETA Capital venture capital firm $ 1 million investment, Buddy, the Latin American market in July, while Turkey entered the market in September. The technology and methodology Buddy used has also won worldwide awards. In 2020, he won the Innovation Award at the Global Education Technology Startups competition in London (GESAwards), the Education award at the South Summit and the ENlightED award in Madrid.

In Turkey, where schools and pre-school institutions are closed for most of the year, Buddy was downloaded more than 600,000 times in the last quarter of the year. Buddy, which has repeatedly ranked number one in the Kids and Education categories in the Apple Application Market, has been showcased in the application market 3 times. Turkey has become the third country Buddy is most widely used in December 2020. Buddy, which uses a Turkish interface with a complete localization, also has a Turkish support team serving for Turkish users.

Buddy.ai co-founder Ivan Crewkow summed up his view of the Turkish market as follows: “We are grateful for this warm hello to families in Turkey. As a result of our conversations with many children and their families who are learning English with Buddy, we learned that they are happy with the learning process with Buddy. It was very inspiring for us to have thousands of Turkish children learning their first English words with Buddy. In 2021, we are making our preparations in such a way that improvements are made to the needs of our students in Turkey.”

About Buddy.ai

Buddy.ai, is a voice and artificial intelligence-based English teacher for children. Buddy.ai it allows children to talk to an artificial intelligence-based virtual teacher, Buddy, giving them an experience as if they were talking to a teacher live. With its fun virtual character, speech recognition technology and adaptive learning technique, Buddy makes English speaking practice accessible to 500 million children worldwide, and achieves 80% of the basic educational practices that are routinely practiced at a cost of 2%. In this way, teachers and parents give students the unlimited practice of speaking necessary to master English. Buddy.ai his firm is based in San Francisco, has been invested by venture capital and has more than 30 thousand fee-paying users worldwide.