EnglishCentral Opens New R and D Center in METU Technopark
Grand Opening Includes President Erdoğan

Ankara, Turkey – February 18, 2019 – EnglishCentral, the leading provider of online English conversation solutions, today announced the grand opening of an R&D center in Ankara, Turkey. EnglishCentral joined President Erdoğan of Turkey as part of the grand opening of the METU Technopark, IT & Innovation Center, a newly designated high-tech R&D Center in central Ankara.

At the heart of the Center is Middle East Technical University (METU), the leading technical university in Turkey. As President Erdoğan articulated at the grand opening, “the idea of the Center is to form a close collaboration between the university and industry, powered by the world’s leading technology companies that bring an innovative spirit to the technopark”.

EnglishCentral is proud to be one of the founding tenants in the new technopark, along with other technology leaders such as Samsung, Tüpraş, the largest energy company in Turkey, and Onedio, the premier social media site in Turkey.

The EnglishCentral team, located in the technopark, now consists of 30 members, and will serve as one of the key R&D centers for EnglishCentral globally, focusing on machine learning and speech recognition, the two technologies behind our proprietary speech assessment system called IntelliSpeech℠.

“We have been incredibly impressed by the level of talent we’ve been able to hire at our tech center in Turkey,” said Alan Schwartz, CEO of EnglishCentral, Inc. “We are hiring top talent out of METU, Bilkent and other universities, and the team there is now working on our most challenging projects to serve our customers in Turkey as well as globally in Japan and other countries.

“Our plan is to use Turkey as our base to expand to both toward Europe and towards the Middle East”, said Kağan Cihangiroğlu, EnglishCentral’s General Manager for Turkey & the Middle East. “In addition to technical talent, we have teamed with up with a number of the leading universities in Turkey to develop English language learning curriculum that leverages our strengths in Speaking Assessment, and Adaptive Learning.”

For a tour of our new office in Metu Technopark, check out this video:

About EnglishCentral:
EnglishCentral is the most widely adopted online English language conversation platform in the world, changing the way students and professionals across the globe learn to speak English. Adopted by over 500 universities, schools and corporations in over 100 countries, the company delivers interactive, video-based language learning experiences for both self-study and one-on-one tutoring, providing one of the most widely adopted and complete platforms for practicing and mastering English conversation online. Its extensive library of videos lessons, proprietary IntelliSpeech℠ speech assessment technology, and pre-built course modules guarantee results for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. EnglishCentral entered the Turkish market in 2011, and now has over 500,000 registered users in Turkey. In addition, EnglishCentral has established partnerships with many of the leading universities and companies in Turkey, including, Bahçeşehir University, TOBB University, Bilkent University, Bilgi University, Turkish Airlines, Şişecam, Turkish Ground Services, and many more.
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EnglishCentral Contact:
Kağan Cihangiroğlu
General Manager for Turkey & the Middle East
Phone: +903122405045
Email: kagan.cihangiroglu@englishcentral.com