City of Vienna taps local startup to teach refugees language courses

The City of Vienna is working with local Viennese social impact startup uugot.it to teach language courses to refugees in the Austrian capital.

The app involves learning languages while watching TV, and it is now being used by the City of Vienna in a program dubbed Start Wien – Das Jugendcollege (Start Vienna – Youth College), according to a report by Trending Topics.

The youth college program takes place at Vienna adult education centers and is aimed primarily at refugees, migrants and asylum seekers up to the age of 21, who are no longer required to attend school.

The courses offered by AMS, MA17, FSW, ESF and Waff are geared to the individual needs of students. Thus, an entry into the regular education system or career entry is possible. This primarily includes language skills and that’s exactly where uugot.it comes into play.

Philipp Etzlinger

“With uugot.it we want to develop not only a simple but also a fun way to learn languages; a method that is equally fun and accelerates the integration process,” said CEO Philipp Etzlinger via Trending Topics. Etzlinger co-founded the startup in 2016. The integration is to be promoted via current TV content, which not only teach the language but also provide insights into culture and everyday life in Austria.

uugot.it not only provides the adult education centers with the app, but also a learning platform specially developed for teaching purposes. There are videos of W24 available that were didactized by university lecturers. Both tools will now be tested at the youth college and at the Ute Bock Haus in the classroom with about 100 students until November 7th.

The app enables language learning while watching TV and translates TV content to any language. The solution includes an app-based language course for new vocabulary, helping users retain what they have learned.

uugot.it translates live TV content live into numerous languages. All uugot.it users participate at a language course which is contextually linked with content that is being broadcasted on TV at that very moment. So, uugot.it users learn and improve their language skills while watching TV with ever-changing content.

If the viewer does not understand a word, he or she can tap it on the touchscreen and get a translation in real time. At the same time, every tapped word is saved in its own learning card index. When learning the vocabulary, the context of the video can be used again.

Up until now uugot.it has been used at universities for German language teaching, especially in Latin America.