Kahoot!, a global learning and engagement platform, wants to continue its expansion in Asia-Pacific this year as part of its growth strategy.
"In 2024, we increased our investment for growth in Asia-Pacific, particularly in Southeast Asia. This strategy is continuing this year, as we're building a team in Singapore that will support strong growth in the region," said Ahteram Uddin, vice-president of commercial for Asia-Pacific at Kahoot!.
The company localised its platform to the Thai language in December 2024. The platform is recording strong usage growth across its three segments in Thailand, with potential for further growth in Thailand and the region, he said.
Kahoot! wants to continue its expansion in Asia-Pacific this year, adding offices in Japan and Australia. The company recently announced its localisation of the Vietnamese language.
Mr Uddin said Thailand is a priority market with strong growth in usage and more Thai teachers, students and professionals and even social users using Kahoot! every day for engaging learning experiences.
Thailand, with more than 24 million participants over the last 12 months, is one of the important markets for the firm in Asia-Pacific, he said.
"We are doing a lot of local partnerships in terms of content. We will be bringing a lot of Thai publishers to provide educational content on the platform, focusing a local experience to ramp up growth," said Mr Uddin.
"With the government's Thailand 4.0 policy, we see demand for digital learning tools expanding rapidly both within education and work-life. Kahoot! is committed to delivering easy-to-use tools that raise engagement and learning outcomes in any setting."
Kahoot! covers three main areas: corporate training, learning experiences for students and social environments, and schools.
Every year, more than 1.6 billion participants learn with its platform globally and more than eight million teachers use it to support their students' learning.
Kahoot! uses a "freemium" pricing model, which means the basic usage of the platform is free while access to some of the more powerful features is charged. So there's a licensing fee and more users across segments choose to convert to paid subscribers to get access to artificial intelligence (AI) features and many more advanced features.
Meira Koponen, learning design manager at Kahoot!, said global trends show education is under pressure as educators are tired and burnt out, with teacher shortages in many nations.
Between 2015 and 2022, the attrition rate among primary school teachers nearly doubled, with 9% of teachers expected to leave the profession within their first five years.
Student well-being is in crisis with anxiety, climate worries and an uncertain future weighing on learners, she added.
Globally, absenteeism is increasing and boredom is a key factor. On average, 19% of 15-year-olds cite boredom as a reason for missing school.
"Engagement is a significant factor in promoting learning outcome," Ms Koponen added.
In Thailand, one in seven children aged 10-19 are estimated to have mental health disorders. Additionally, 20% of 15-year-old students report feeling lonely and 18% feel excluded.
"Emotional challenges are linked to disengagement, lower academic outcome and dropping out of school," said Ms Koponen.
She said she sees AI and gamification as tools to solve real classroom challenges. AI enhances content creation by unlocking ready-to-use quality content, saving educators time, said Ms Koponen.
"We have brought very responsible AI usage to the platform and we are using AI for simplifying learning and making it fun. I don't think there is any threat or competition from generative AI. Rather we have simplified AI usage and it is complementing learning via Kahoot!," added Mr Uddin.