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Speak Shop Wins Top Honors in Business Plan Competition for Socially Responsible Tech Companies
Speak Shop, www.SpeakShop.com,
is recognized for its efforts to reduce poverty by helping people in
Latin America teach Spanish using online videoconferencing.
Portland, OR (PRWEB) June 6, 2005 -- Speak Shop, www.speakshop.com,
a pioneer in online face-to-face Spanish tutoring, was awarded “Best
Social Return on Investment” in the Social and Environmental Technology
(SET) Inventors Challenge, tying with Differential Dynamics. The SET
business plan competition challenges technology companies to save the
world and investors to fund profitable solutions to global problems.
The SET Challenge attracted entries from around the world. Judges
evaluated financial profit potential, as well as each entrant’s social
return on investment (SROI) based on magnitude, clarity and
credibility. Measuring SROI makes it possible for companies to estimate
their impact to society in dollar terms.
Speak Shop, which enables Spanish language teachers in Guatemala to
profit from tutoring online using audio and videoconferencing, aims to
bring more money and stability to thousands of people in developing
areas. Until now, teachers depended entirely on the seasonal waves of
study abroad students for work.
Speak Shop estimates that in 10 years it will generate a
whopping $57 million dollar social return to teachers living in
impoverishing conditions as a direct result of being able to teach
online. It was this “social return” potential that garnered Speak Shop
a top prize in the SET Challenge. Speak Shop will be featured in the
SET Catalog to be released today. The catalog summarizes the 11
finalists and winners and is the first step of what will become an
extensive online community and publishing platform.
Through Speak Shop, teachers can take control over their own
livelihoods. They decide what to charge, set their own schedules and
receive training and marketing support from Speak Shop – all free of
charge. While a Spanish teacher will earn about $1.50 per hour working
in Guatemala and face layoffs during slow seasons, at www.speakshop.com
they can teach year-round at higher rates. But customers also benefit
from the cross-national interaction. They pay just $5 or $6 an hour for
personalized, private tutoring with native-speaking instructors and
save themselves the hassles of driving to lessons or committing to
fixed class schedules. Speak Shop supports its operations by charging a
modest monthly membership fee.
Clay and Cindy Cooper, a husband and wife team, founded Speak Shop in
2002 knowing there would be many challenges. The digital divide was and
continues to be very real and many people doubted that you could learn
a language through videoconferencing. Speak Shop had to find partners
that could support teachers with Internet access, webcam donations and
banking services. After toiling with business plans, website prototypes
and scouting Latin America for teachers and partners, Speak Shop began
signing up customers in 2005.
“No one doubted that e-commerce could help people in developing
countries out of poverty if they were just given the chance. It’s not
easy to overcome Internet problems, transfer payments across countries
and work around time differences, but we’ve shown that it’s possible,”
Cindy Cooper, Co-Founder, says. “Another big hurdle has been proving
that videoconferencing with the right teacher is a great way to learn a
language. It seems a little too sci-fi for a lot of people. But our
customers love it. It’s like studying abroad without leaving home."
Speak Shop plans to expand beyond Guatemala and Spanish in the
future. “We hope to create an international online community and make
it easier for people all over the world to communicate,” said Cooper.
“Globalization has connected our economies, but people are still
divided by cultural, political and religious beliefs. Understanding
starts with language.”
About Speak Shop
Speak Shop was created to increase access to foreign language
education and to generate economic opportunity for people in Latin
America. People around the world use Speak Shop to take live Spanish
lessons online while supporting international economic development. For
more information on Speak Shop visit www.speakshop.com
Contact:
Cindy Cooper
267-295-2862
Learn Spanish for Good
About SET Challenge
SET is the creation of two firms: SVT Consulting, founded by
leading expert in Social and Environmental Return on Investment
analysis, Sara Olsen; and Collective Intelligence, which was co-founded
by serial entrepreneur, Kevin Jones, who has led several successful
media and publishing firms in emerging markets.
Contact:
Sara Olsen
510-368-7272
www.set-info.com
www.svtconsulting.com
www.collectiveintelligence.net
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