Annie Advisor wins major global edtech award

The Helsinki-based company stood out for its preventative support chatbot, which lowers students’ threshold for asking for help and aims to reduce dropout rates. The 300 000 US dollars in funding will enable Annie Advisor to develop its services further and integrate research-backed support programmes directly into the chatbot. 

“The visibility brought by the Tools Competition has already led to inquiries from foreign schools,” said Miska Noponen, CEO and co-founder of Annie Advisor. “There is significant interest in the Finnish student support system and the support bot. The same challenges with student wellbeing and dropout rates exist everywhere.”

Currently, over 30 secondary and higher education institutions in Finland and abroad use the Annie bot to help to identify students in need, offer immediate support and track interventions. Annie Advisor also recently won the mSchools Lab competition in Spain, which will lead to pilot programmes in seven schools in the autumn of 2024. The company has set a target of preventing 100 000 students from dropping out by 2027. 

The company’s ambitions align with a growing focus on mental health and wellbeing, as highlighted by various local innovations in the field.

Global acknowledgement

The Tools Competition is among the world’s largest educational technology innovation contests. It aims to promote advancements in educational technology and address urgent global learning needs. The competition is backed by prominent organisations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation and the OpenAI Foundation.

Annie Advisor was awarded in the competition’s Accelerating & Assessing Learning track, as one of 14 winners selected from 700 submissions. The track sought solutions that dramatically improve learning outcomes for all students while contributing to the field of learning engineering.