Xplor Education - Entrepreneur of the Year

Company: Xplor Education, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Company Description: Australian company Xplor provides childcare management software which provides time-saving tools for childcare centre businesses and facilitates virtual access to early childhood education. Our ultimate mission is to enable childcare care centres to focus on what they do best - delivering essential early childhood education and care - while we automate and simplify the administrative burden.
Nomination Category: Entrepreneur Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Entrepreneur of the Year - Computer Software - Up to 500 Employees

Nomination Title: Mark Woodland

As the Founder and CEO of Australian company Xplor, I believe in the power of technology to solve big problems. Access to high quality early childhood education and care is a critical building block for children; helping them develop the skills they will need at school, into their teenage years and even their adult years. Xplor facilitates this access through enabling childcare care centres to focus on what they do best - delivering essential early childhood education and care - while we automate and simplify the administrative burden.

The childcare industry has a significant administrative burden due to complex compliance and operational requirements and yet traditionally most childcare centres have relied heavily on manual processes. Frustrated by the outdated systems in childcare and not able to afford an app developer, I taught myself to code and over the next few years developed Xplor. Now Xplor reaches 1.5 million children and we’re on track to reach 2 million children by 2024.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit in Australia, we developed a live learning product which enabled the live streaming of classes directly into the home. This ensured consistency in education for children and also allowed centres to continue to charge parents for the service; maintaining their revenue and ensuring their viability. Many centres have continued to offer live learning as an alternative and flexible solution for families.

While there will always be a need for physical educators in physical environments, the ability to access virtual classes from the very best educators anywhere in the world can lift the quality of early childhood education and care everywhere. The costs of bringing a specialist art teacher into a centre, for example, can be prohibitive.

Learning delivered virtually also creates digital occupancy, which gives centres additional growth opportunities. Centres could theoretically be operating at 500% occupancy while still complying with educator to child ratios for example.

As an extension of live learning, we opened up the Xplor platform to educators and other subject matter experts such as doctors, to provide virtual classes, share advice and provide other content with the over two million families on the Xplor platform. This could include anything from a virtual music lesson through to a video on safe sleeping practices.

Not only does this provide additional value to families and retain connections between children and educators, but it also gives educators another opportunity to earn. A class may cost 99c for example, but when sold at a high volume it can be very lucrative for the educator. This helps solve another major challenge in the industry - the ability to attract and retain great talent. If educators have alternative revenue streams and can therefore be remunerated well, they are more likely to stay in the profession.

The first solution of its kind in Australia, Xplor Space - launched in March 2020 - lists childcare centres and their real-time availability, so parents can enrol directly. Not only does this make it simpler for families to enrol in childcare it also enables centres to increase occupancy.

In a world-first, Xplor has leveraged machine learning so educators are able to diagnose basic health conditions such as rashes or bites. By taking a photo of the child via the app and channeling the image through machine learning the educator instantaneously gets an answer as to what the problem may be and can take immediate action.

Xplor has grown dramatically in the last year. We now have 157 staff, more than double the 63 staff we had at the beginning of 2020. As demand for our service increased, we scaled up accordingly.

We are an employer of choice with an employee satisfaction score of 82.5% with a goal to increase this to 90%.

-Currently reaching 1.5 million children through the platform and on track to reach 2 million by 2024
-Went above and beyond to support childcare centres to remain viable throughout the pandemic
-Launched Xplor Space in March 2020, to help centres improve occupancy
-Launched live learning during the pandemic to enable live streaming of classes directly into the home
-Opened up the platform to educators and other thought leaders to provide additional value to families while giving educators another opportunity to earn
World-first use of machine learning to diagnosis health issues and take immediate action
-Doubled Xplor staff from the beginning of 2020 to 157 people
-Xplor employee satisfaction score is 82.5%, with a goal to increase this to 90%