People struggling to learn English as a second language will soon have a tutor in the palm of their hands. Brock University graduate Milad Nourvand and his partner Hossein Tajarenejad are behind a new smartphone application to cut down on the learning curve. Nourvand, 30, the co-founder of LingUp, a program that perfects a person’s speech and understanding of the English language, is launching Sept.
1 on iOS and Android. It will cost between $10 and $20 based on monthly, or yearly plans. Last year, Nourvand was recognized for co-founding CareCanada, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine helping connect people with health-care professionals, through a program at the Brock LINCubator — the Learn, Ideate, Navigate and Collaborate incubator).
He was awarded a $5,000 Dobson Entrepreneurial Excellence Prize for the business pitch. Nourvand, a recent Iranian immigrant to Canada, experienced firsthand how complex English can be after studying it for more than a decade as a second language. “When I came to Canada, I found that I was having trouble talking fluently and confidently,” he said.
“Talking with my peers, other international students, I found they were experiencing the same problem.” He said that spurred him to find a solution that would allow people learning English the ability to practise and get feedback using artificial intelligence. “Fluency comes from regular practice with others, like language partners or tutors, but finding a language partner .