Reasoning Mind

Business model

The idea of Internet community in which children can interact with each other and study mathematics under the leadership of creative teachers is the cornerstone of an online service. Work with the server application including the training materials on mathematics is performed via the web browser. Depending on age of pupils its different options are available to them.

The head of the company Alexander Hachatryan told CNews that pay for use of the program of school "the subsidized sums determined at the level available to schools, and the difference between the subsidized amount and actual cost becomes covered due to charity and the regional governments. The price of a subscription for the program is for schools from $35 to $70 for one pupil a year plus expenses on teachers".

In addition to training of school students, Reasoning Mind is also engaged in training of teachers to work with the service.

Assets

The company has offices in Houston (Texas, the USA) and Moscow. Number of staff totals now more than 120 people where programmers, developers of training courses, personnel for support of teachers, etc. enter.

Sponsors

The largest sponsor of the program is the oil giant ExxonMobil which is considered the most expensive company in the world: its total capitalization at the Nasdaq exchange is estimated at $415.6 billion (July, 2011).

The development director of Reasoning Mind Jesse Obbink in a conversation with CNews noted that in the USA "many corporate and charitable organizations understand that education is a socially significant business as it is of great importance for success of future generations", - she says. According to Obbink, "for the last 10 years the attention of the American charity to education considerably amplified as information on correlation between achievements at school and the social and economic status is widely adopted more and more".

Among sponsors of Reasoning Mind also public and educational funds and the agencies, banks and also individuals are registered. It is a lot of sponsors and among the IT companies: for example, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Cisco. Many of IT partner, by words Jess Obink, render donations not by money, but profile products or services which provide free of charge or on the reduced price. "Many of our sponsors after ExxonMobil estimated the fact that we involve pupils in studying of mathematics from early age, along with it providing them formation of world level in this subject", - she says.

Performance Indicators

In July, 2011 it became known that the number of pupils at the American schools studying mathematics using an online service of Reasoning Mind developed by the Soviet scientist Alexander Hachatryan exceeded 23 thousand human. Here pupils more than 160 schools in five states of the USA – Texas, California, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Missouri enter. In the next two years the company expects increase in number of his subscribers up to 100 thousand pupils.

History

The Reasoning Mind non-profit organization which developed an online service, Alexander Hachatryan based at the beginning of the 2000th, and its active implementation at schools began in 2007-2008.

Interest in the American school education at Hachatryan arose soon after emigration in the USA. He was dissatisfied with how teach mathematics at high school where his son studies. By 12 years it replaced 7 schools – three state and four private. "This experience was absolutely awful. In terms of the program of school not strongly differed – all of them taught children to basic skills on reading, the letter and mathematics and trivial knowledge in the field of sciences and humanitarian objects, - Hachatryan tells. - The fact that we appeared in "an educational vacuum" was worse.

"The mathematics was considered as boring and if the pupil liked to read, to him the nickname "botanist" was immediately pasted, - he says. It, Hachatryan notes, created Wednesday where children were not encouraged being thinking, innovators, researchers.

Despite success of the program in the USA, in Russia in the next 5-10 years Hachatryan is not going to start it. According to him, the organization of training at the American schools strongly differs from Russian, as well as there is a difference in educational standards. Development of the program for the Russian pupils would become the whole new project which would demand considerable labor and financial resources. "We for this purpose now do not have neither that, nor another", - the head of Reasoning Mind summarizes.