Let’s take “Conservation Finance” as an example. I receive a brief overview of the course content, its learning objectives, the number of subtopics covered and the time taken to study them. All it takes is a click on the menu item “Content”, and you’re ready to go. I’m immersed in “Qwoll”, an app I downloaded for free from the App Store on my smartphone just a minute before. “In creating Qwoll, we sought to help people become lifelong learners and provide them with content that matches their interests quickly and easily,” says Kyle Blackwell, one of the two founders of the startup, which also lends its name to the eponymous app. Blackwell and his co-founder Kadir Celep have received funding within the context of the Berlin Startup Scholarship.

“The best information from the best sources”, the two founders promise on their website. Their offer of curated content can also be construed as a challenge to the daily flood of news media. “The internet, professional and social media are part of the problem and not its solution,” believes Kyle Blackwell, whose last position was with the publishing house Axel Springer. All too often, says Blackwell, the information machine is just that - solely concerned with pumping out new content, running ads and driving people into political camps rather than exceeding the scope of the news to improve understanding of global issues and increase existing knowledge.

But that is precisely the declared mission of the enterprising pair, born in the US and Turkey respectively, who have lived in Berlin for several years, have been working together since June 2022 and seem to complement each other perfectly in the areas of business and technology development. Here, they have so-called “casual learners” in mind: people who have completed their education and/or studies, yet are still curious and looking to expand their knowledge, but who only have a certain amount of time to spare because they are busy at work, have family obligations and still wish to practise sports, relax and maintain their social lives. “We focus on people between 27 and 45 who are at the beginning of their professional life or right in the middle of it,” says Kyle Blackwell. This is the company’s specific target group. But Qwoll is actually a cross-generational platform. “Who, rhetorically speaking, can ever afford to stop learning in the 21st century?” asks Blackwell with a hint of irony.

Although these days lifelong learning is very much a relevant theme, it should be as low-threshold and efficient as possible. If not, the two founders are firmly convinced that, despite the best of intentions, many people’s learning aspirations remain pipe dreams. Instead, they deem customised digital content that can be integrated seamlessly into individual daily schedules promising, as opposed to thick books that gather dust on your shelves or pricey further education courses that many cannot afford. “Qwoll is a gateway to exceptional multimedia content. We believe a lot of the best content is already out there,” says Blackwell. The courses contain links to journal articles as well as videos and podcasts. The key prerequisites are that the content have been reviewed for accuracy and that it isn’t paywalled, so that users can access it.

In the current test phase, the number of courses on Qwoll is still manageable, and all topics are hand-picked. The selection ranges from the aforementioned course in “Conservation Finance” and “Mindfulness, Is It For Everyone? to the “History of Haiti 1492- 1940”. The content, which is exclusively in English, has been compiled by dedicated curators. “I discovered, and am continuing to discover an amazing number of people who both experts in their fields and willing to share their knowledge,” says Kyle Blackwell. Some want to give something back to society because they themselves have enjoyed an excellent education. Others seek to gain attention and make a name for themselves by creating content on a specific topic, while others aim to earn money with the project. Blackwell is also building his ever-growing network with the aid of a regular newsletter which can be subscribed to by interested parties via the website.

Which brings us to the subject of finance and the business plan, absolutely essential to an educational start-up that has set itself a goal as worthy as that of lifelong learning. Blackwell’s experience in news media and belief in individual ownership of self-development leads him towards a consumer subscription focus. But he admits, “you need to be agile” in this space and stage. They are exploring possibilities to complement direct to consumer income streams, such as partnering with community organizations and higher education.

The integration of artificial intelligence is also a topic under development. This is because it is desirable that Qwoll should learn to understand who likes to learn and how, and adapt the content to these interests and usage habits accordingly with increasing proficiency, this with a view to the desired efficiency in learning. In this way, the founders would like Qwoll to become a kind of individual “pocket library” for everyone. It’s all supposed to work a bit like it did back in Pennsylvania, when ten-year-old Kyle asked to learn about turtles at his primary school’s library. A certain Mrs Cook researched a few options and guided him to starting point and then promised to lend him another book if he liked the first. Such an inspiring story.

Qwoll is learner customised content on the one hand, and, simultaneously, a “discovery platform”, as Blackwell calls it. It’s no coincidence that the duo’s motto is “Boundlessly Curious”. Those who liked the course “Conservation Finance” may well look for other topics, subsequently staying with Qwoll because content is only available there so conveniently, and nowhere else. Then the platform could eventually become the essence of its name: a constantly flowing source of new knowledge. In their search for a suitable name, Kyle Blackwell and Kadir Celep were inspired by the German term “Quelle” (“source”).