March 22, 2021

Introducing Next Knowledge & Alice: Learning company
launches with A.I.-powered digital learning companion

Delivering a lasting method to enhance learning — proven over 30 years and with 1000s of learners

Napanee & Toronto, Ontario – After two years of development, Next Knowledge has officially launched to the market as a learning company dedicated to enabling deep learning and purposeful writing that remains out of reach for countless learners. Their proven and proprietary method, LIRN (patent pending), has been built into their Artificial Learning Intelligence & Comprehension Engine (Alice), an A.I.-powered digital learning companion that has launched with the firm as a companion to enhance anyone’s learning.

Next Knowledge

The firm was co-founded by Lawrence Feld and Stephen Straker who came together with a mission to change the world’s relationship with learning. Lawrence’s proven method and educational expertise partnered with Stephen’s technology and business background led to the inception of Next Knowledge. Today, Next Knowledge is a small but mighty team of individuals that have come together to create lasting social value. They are motivated by the knowledge that their methods and tools can improve lives.

​“Learning is a struggle for far too many. Issues with comprehension and retention can plague individuals for their entire lives,” says Stephen Straker, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Next Knowledge. “Learning-based challenges lead to decreased confidence, stress and chronic underachievement. And it doesn’t have to be that way.”​

The LIRN Method

Chief Learning Officer and Co-Founder of Next Knowledge, Lawrence Feld, developed the LIRN method over thirty years ago after exhausting his entire toolkit while helping a child that was struggling to pass in school in spite of an extremely high IQ. Since developing the method, LIRN has been demonstrated to work effectively on thousands of learners from a broad range of ages and abilities.

“LIRN is a series of steps any learner can take to truly comprehend, retain and ultimately reuse the material in front of them,” says Lawrence. “The method provides the foundation needed for individuals to keep learning successfully in all stages of life. I’ve seen it work with almost immediate effect in learners ranging from masterful to the most challenged.”

Digital Learning Companion

Next Knowledge’s Artificial Learning Intelligence & Comprehension Engine, Alice, is the digital delivery agent of the LIRN method. Alice was designed to be a companion on a learner’s journey, always available and ready to give them a starting place in the materials at hand. Alice works with learners through reading and comprehension, and on to help them create their own writing about the topic they’ve studied.

The primary issue with jumping into new learning material is finding a starting point: understanding what the material is about, what the various subtopics and relatable material is, and how to organize it into an approachable frame for study. Using artificial intelligence paired with a traditional proven methodology, Alice creates suggestions around topics, relevant highlights and more, providing a starting point for the reader. Once they understand the material, Alice helps them to organize their ideas into thoughtful, well-informed original writing.

Alice is designed to help any learner. The key is the companion nature of Alice: she stays with you while you are learning and working with the material, making suggestions and helping you through the steps of reading and writing. Alice is equally effective for both the high-functioning learner with excellent study habits and the lower-functioning learner with fractured study and learning habits, and everyone in between.

Social Mission

The team at Next Knowledge believe that education is a right, not a privilege, and they have designed their tools to help the many, not just the few. Because they passionately believe that quality education should be accessible to all, they are working to make that a reality. Embedded in their business model is a social mandate to help as many people as possible. From today onward, Next Knowledge stands behind a “buy one, give one” model: with every paid membership, Next Knowledge will give one to someone in need.
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The business model aims to partner Next Knowledge with its members to deliver lasting social value. Together, they can break down the barriers of learning for those who might not have access to the resources they need and deserve.

​About Next Knowledge

Next Knowledge is a learning company working to transform the way learners learn and teachers teach. Using a proven method and A.I.-powered tools, the team is striving to remove barriers that prevent individuals from achieving a mastery of comprehension and retention that will benefit them in every stage of life. To help reach as many people as possible, with each paid membership Next Knowledge has committed to giving a membership to someone in need. Their mission is to provide lasting social value by delivering a proven method to help people comprehend, retain and reuse information… forever.

​For more information, contact Suzanne Peters (sp@suzannepeters.ca).