On the ABC’s of Language Learning with The Co-Founder of Voca Tooki

Mohammad Owesat accepting an award from Mohammad Abo-Nada, CEO of Ibtikar

For Mohammad Owesat, Co-Founder of Kideo and their flagship product Voca Tooki, the mission is clear: make language learning accessible, effective, and so engaging that kids don’t even realize they’re learning.

Voca Tooki is a gamified language-learning platform founded in 2021 and already used in schools across the Middle East, Turkey and Brazil. Designed for children from kindergarten through grade 9, it aligns directly with local curricula to help students master reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. Voca Tooki recently won first place for the Ibtikar Middle East Special Track at the Global EdTech Startup Awards. We sat down with Owesat to learn more about his journey and how the company is evolving. 

Build, Lead, and Build Again

Growing up in Baqa al-Gharbiyye, Owesat first engaged with computers when he was in second grade. “That’s when my family got our first PC. I started playing with the popular games back then - Digger, Sonic, Pacman. I interacted with the characters, the levels - and I was curious to understand how it works. I knew I wanted to learn about this world.” From those early days he quickly found his passion and went on to study computer science in High School and at the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology. “As an aspiring engineer it was not easy to find work. At my first job at Converse, I was working for practically nothing. But for me, it was the opportunity of my life,” Owesat recalls. His career led him to companies like Converse and Intel, where he shifted from software development to technical leadership.

Owesat met his co-founders at Intel and the Technion, and launched Kideo, a venture from which they built over 120 educational games for preschoolers. “We had about 300 million users around the world playing our games,” Owesat recalls with pride. Kideo taught them what children loved and what kept them going, and they went on to search for a sustainable business model. “We decided to create a complete solution for learning and leverage the experience that we gained with Kideo,” he shared.

Entering Classrooms with Intentional Play

Voca Tooki was born through that intentional pivot, and started with only a few slides in a deck that Owesat and his co-founders shared as they visited over 80 schools, gaining momentum and trust before they even had a working product. This was post COVID, as schools were overcoming their initial barrier into technology-enhanced learning. 

“On the first day of school, September 1st, we launched the first release of Voca Tooki, an English learning game for schools, and they loved it.” The team soon added Hebrew and continued to expand to other languages with engaging games and activities.

“There are two approaches to language learning”, Owesat explained. “One is that you learn a new language based on your native language. The second is the immersive approach”. Some schools need native language scaffolding, like in Israel and Ramallah. Others, like Turkey or Brazil, prefer the immersive approach. The Voca Tooki team can support both, tapping into children’s natural attraction to games to create an engaging learning experience.

Voca Tooki leverages AI to adapt over 500 activities to specific textbooks, matching its sequence, vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension to the individual learner. Children learn reading, writing, speaking and comprehension with gaming features such as points, avatars and social play. Owesat refers to the products as a holistic system, aimed at teachers as well. “Teachers can see analytics, follow up on students, gain insights with AI and identify strengths and weaknesses as they adjust their lesson plans based on how the kids are doing” he says. 

Students learning English with Voca Tooki

Going Global with the GESAwards

Beyond Israel and Ramallah, Voca Tooki is expanding into new markets, focusing on South East Asia and Latin America. “Education systems in these regions are struggling with a shortage of teachers. They have a hunger for effective systems for language learning,” Owesat says.

The recent recognition from the Global EdTech Startup Awards as a Special Track Winner for the Middle Eastern Markets sponsored by Ibtikar, was pivotal. Owesat shared that “when you start working with any publisher or potential customer and say you are the winner of GESAwards, you are instantly communicating trust. Now they know you have already proven yourself, that you stand out in the crowd”. He credits the award with shortening sales cycles and opening doors internationally. “It solves a lot of conversations and discussion. Having this kind of prize just gives you the opportunity.” Mohamad Abo-Nada, CEO of Ibtikar Basecamp and Founder of the Special Track shared that “The Middle East is a fast growing market in education, but it requires more than simple translations to offer truly effective local and regional solutions. The GESAwards Middle East Special Track gives startups a trusted bridge into the region and access to global scale.”

Today, Voca Tooki is a market leader in Israel as the most used language learning app in schools. They are ready to scale and achieve their vision of helping children everywhere learn the languages they need for their future.