Masako attended the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference study tour in 2012, and they recently had their annual gathering in Tokyo. She presented Lyriko via Skype at 5am Boston time. She talked about enterprises in Boston and how she’s adapting to the new working style. People were surprised about how the working environments are different between Tokyo and Boston and curious about “bootstrapping.” It was a great opportunity to connect with Japanese social entrepreneurs.

We’re so excited to announce that Lyriko is a winner of the Apps for Class Challenge! The contest is a partnership between the Verizon Foundation and Innovate+Educate. We submitted Lyriko in collaboration with our non-profit partner Fill My Cup!, which shares our mission to help people reach their full potential through language and literacy education. With the financial support of the contest sponsors, we’ve been able to begin testing Lyriko with about 1,000 kids learning either English or Spanish in three middle schools in North and South Carolina: Ranson Middle School, Saluda Trail Middle School, and Sullivan Middle School. We’ve spent eight days with those kids so far and gotten some amazing feedback. Our favorite moment was when one Spanish teacher said her student who is always the least engaged absolutely loves Lyriko! We also loved hearing the kids singing the songs they were learning after they finished playing and before they started the next day. This whole program is an amazing opportunity for us, and we’re so grateful to be involved!