2023 EdTechX Award Winner Spotlight — Babbel
A conversation with Julie Hansen, CRO & US CEO at Babbel
As the recipient of the 2023 EdTechX Language Learning Award, Babbel was recognised for the company’s consistent performance and its strategy to successfully widen its product wheelhouse, evidencing its efficiency with numerous academic research papers.
We spoke to CRO & US CEO, Julie Hansen to learn more about the company’s origins, strategic milestones and vision for the future.
Can you tell us about your background and how Babbel was founded?
Babbel was founded in Berlin, Germany, in 2007. Co-founders Markus Witte, Thomas Holl and two other friends previously had worked together and were teaming up again to build a music platform. When one of them decided to learn Spanish for a trip to Spain, he looked for online courses. To his surprise, he only found books and CD-ROMs, but no language courses on the web. So the group decided to rethink and ended up inventing an entirely new category: online language learning. Like many great entrepreneurial businesses, Babbel was born from a market need that the founders identified.
My personal background is in media and marketing. Before joining Babbel, I ran the digital media upstart Insider as COO and President. When I joined Babbel as US CEO, I was excited to be part of a team dedicated to enabling people to enrich their lives by communicating in a new language. Now I am also responsible for global growth of our B2C and B2B business as the CRO.
What is Babbel’s mission and what is your vision for the company?
Our aim is to create mutual understanding through language. We want to enable learners to experience the transformational power of language. A new language can help to open up a whole new world — whether through travel, relationship, education, work, or more. Babbel empowers people to speak and use that new language confidently, with real-world applicability.
We believe that language learning should be engaging and practical, which is why our vision is to continue innovating and expanding our offerings to include a variety of learning methods. We aim to be the platform of choice for anyone who wants to learn a new language effectively. We also seek to serve organizations looking to enhance communication and business effectiveness, safety in the workplace, and internationalization.
What strategic milestones have you achieved so far and what are your ambitions for the next 5–10 years?
Our milestones include taking the self-study app into a whole ecosystem, encompassing Babbel Live classes, more than 20 podcast series, and video and gaming content, as well as expanding our offerings in 14 languages. We’re proud to have sold more than 16 million subscriptions since our launch.
After having launched the Babbel for Business division and established a global presence, we aim to further strengthen our position as a leader in the EdTech industry. This includes enhancing our AI-driven features, expanding our reach into new markets, and continuously improving our user experience. Learner success will always remain our uppermost priority, for consumers and business users, where we also have plans to deepen our commitment to corporate language training. We also recognize that being purpose-driven extends beyond business metrics. It compels us to focus on causes that matter, e.g. supporting displaced Ukrainians with free language courses and partnering with organizations such as Le Flambeau Foundation serving youth in Haiti.
In your view, what makes online language teaching effective?
Online language teaching’s effectiveness lies in its flexibility and personalization. It allows learners to study at their own pace, focus on their specific goals, and access resources from anywhere. Some learners want to improve their business English; others want to speak French on a holiday trip or Italian with their grandchildren. Being a digital platform gives Babbel the opportunity to integrate advanced AI technologies to provide personalized feedback, e.g. with our speech recognition that helps with pronunciation. Our products respond to different learning goals, adapt to individual learning styles, and ensure that learners retain what they’ve learned for practical use in real-life situations.
What differentiates Babbel from other digital platforms working in the same space?
Babbel’s differentiator is our commitment to delivering high-quality language education rooted in practical communication skills. We prioritize real-world language proficiency over entertainment, and we focus on motivated learners who really want to speak a language and see a return on their time. Our courses are created by language experts and tailored to specific languages and learners’ needs. More than 200 linguists and didactic experts are constantly improving and developing our more than 60,000 handcrafted classes. We also offer a wide range of languages, including some less commonly taught ones, such as Danish and Indonesian, setting us apart in the market. Further, we create each course with both the learner’s native and target languages in mind — the curriculum is not generic, but rather specific to the challenges of each language pair. Finally, with Babbel for Business, we offer tailored solutions for companies to improve communication, safety, and efficiency through language training.
From your perspective, what trends will shape the future of education, and what role will technology play?
The future of education will undoubtedly be shaped by technology. As we’ve seen in recent years, the digital transformation of education is accelerating. Personalized learning, hybrid learning, AI-driven adaptive content, and remote access will continue to be key trends. Technology will make education more accessible and adaptable to individual needs. Education will no longer be confined to early years but will become a lifelong journey with many benefits for our brains and overall contentment, with technology facilitating continuous skill development.
Globalization makes language learning increasingly important. Languages play a crucial role in enhancing employee safety and promoting internationalization within corporations. Babbel for Business helps improve internal and external communication by enabling employees to learn languages relevant to their roles. This reduces miscommunications and ensures smoother operations. Especially in settings with heavy labor or industries with diverse workforces, language barriers can pose safety risks. Let’s think of warehouses, construction, or landscaping, for example. Language skills allow communicating effectively, which helps to reduce the likelihood of accidents and ensure everyone understands safety protocols. As businesses expand globally, language skills also become a strategic asset. Babbel enables employees to acquire the language proficiency necessary for engaging with international clients, partners, and markets. This facilitates business growth and internationalization.
Discover the full list of 2023 EdTechX Award winners here.
