(Left to right) Sisca Margaretta, Chief Marketing Officer, Experian APAC; Ben Ho, Project Manager & UX Designer, AfterSchool Education; Ronald Tse, Founder, AfterSchool Education; Dev Dhiman, Managing Director, Experian SEA & Emerging Markets

At Experian, we are committed to supporting social innovation and investing in ideas that offer societal benefits. Since 2014, Experian has invested over $9 million to social innovation projects that have helped over 13 million people globally access essential everyday services.

This year, Experian is proud to collaborate with DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia that focuses on a similar mission – to identify and support social ventures with the potential to generate positive and sustainable social impact in Asia. The Experian Powering Opportunities Award, that includes a $15,000 cash prize and a year’s mentorship, was created as part of this competition to recognize social enterprises that harness innovative technology to solve the needs of their communities.

The winning idea: An app that provides secondary students in Hong Kong with personalized and affordable learning experiences.  Called ‘AfterSchool Education’, the app offers a range of quality modules including Business, Science and languages at almost half the price of market tuition fees. The app makes education fun by letting users unlock new courses and review their progress, at the same time, indicate areas where they are facing gaps and provide learning recommendations. In less than two months, the platform now has an active community where users can connect, discuss and learn from fellow students, promoting a collaborative learning experience for all.

Ronald Tse, founder of AfterSchool Education, shared that the app was developed on the belief that education should be affordable and accessible for everyone, including underprivileged students who are unable to afford tutorial courses. “Our next steps are to develop more high-quality content, as well as partner with NGOs to provide support for needy students. The prize money will be used to help us strengthen our app by improving its learning effectiveness as well as marketing to broaden our outreach,” said Ronald.

Ben Elliott, CEO for Experian Asia Pacific shared: “We are extremely pleased to grant AfterSchool Education with the Experian Powering Opportunities Award to help expand their app to more students in Hong Kong. Their mission aligns closely with our company’s vision of using technology and data to make a positive impact in society. By sharing our expertise to nurture social entrepreneurs like Ronald and through our collaborations with the right partners, we can have a much greater impact on communities.”

Stay tuned as we share more updates about AfterSchool Education’s mentorship journey with us!