MUGALIM — a startup that teaches effective teaching methods

Aisuluu Zhamangulova, city — Bishkek, CEO and co-founder of MUGALIM , @aisuluu.zhamangulova 

How It All Began

The project was initiated during the pandemic in August 2020 as a volunteer initiative to support the transition to online learning. At that time, we simply wanted to help teachers adapt to online education. We had no idea where this journey would ultimately lead. Between August and December 2020, more than 1,000 teachers were trained with the support of over 300 mentors.

The Team

In December 2020, we completed our volunteer project. However, through close collaboration with teachers, we realized there were many gaps and challenges affecting the overall quality of education. By then, we understood that the quality of children’s education cannot exceed the quality of their teachers. So we decided to continue: we prepared a pitch, found an investor, and began developing an online platform for teacher training. Initially, there were three female founders, and we handled everything ourselves. Today, our team consists of six people. We have a platform with online courses featuring content from the Ministry of Education of the Kyrgyz Republic, UNICEF, MERCYCORP, and other experts.

Online courses are great, but they are not enough. We aim to assist teachers directly in the process of conducting lessons, help them automate routine tasks, and free up more time for creative and effective teaching. In March 2024, we launched the MUGALIM AI platform — an artificial intelligence-based tool for schools and teachers.

Target Audience

We strive to inspire and support teachers and students at every stage of the educational process by creating innovative and interactive tools that make learning more engaging, effective, and productive.

For schools, our platform enables continuous monitoring of learning quality. Student and teacher data will be collected and analyzed, allowing schools to make decisions based on real data.

For teachers, our platform allows generating lesson plans, tests, interactive games, and other educational materials with just two clicks. These materials are based on national educational standards, age-specific characteristics of children, and the fundamentals of neuro-pedagogy. Creating and administering assessments on the platform saves teachers’ time, identifies struggling students, and generates recommendations and tips to improve teaching practices.

Students can take tests online and immediately receive personalized recommendations on areas where they need to strengthen their knowledge.

Our target audience includes schools, teachers, and students with parents who want to timely diagnose learning quality and improve their performance through personalized recommendations.

We launched on March 3, 2024, and acquired over 7,000 registered users, with an average of 900 users actively using the platform daily.

Incubation Programs

We participated in programs such as Accelerate Prosperity, which helped us understand how startups operate and inspired us to work in this format. Later, we joined the PEAK program and the EBRR mentorship program supporting women entrepreneurs.

Challenges

When starting a startup, you need to get used to the idea that there will be many difficulties, and it’s better to stop calling them “difficulties.” We faced our share of challenges, and there was a time when we considered shutting everything down. But our mission runs deep within us; we believe in it and continue working despite all obstacles.

For those at the early stages of building a startup, I would advise not to cling to your initial idea but instead follow audience needs and start earlier.

Achievements

MUGALIM AI achievements:

— In three months, we developed the platform with all key features

— Without a marketing budget, we attracted our first 7,000 users to the platform — tested the monetization model and acquired our first paying clients

— Received a 100% scholarship to participate in the Swift Launch accelerator program with this project.

Plans

Currently, we are actively refining the platform for expansion into three markets: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. We are actively seeking schools for pilot projects, applying to international accelerator programs, and looking for investors.