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Good practice Imported

Otsimo — AI-Personalised Special-Education Games for Autistic and Down-Syndrome Learners in Turkey

Türkiye · Ankara · See the Türkiye profile · See the Ankara profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 46% 53/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Otsimo pairs 80+ adaptive games and 100+ speech-therapy videos with AI personalisation for children with autism and Down syndrome; distributed free via Turkey's Ministry of Education and Turkcell, it has reached 150,000+ users and expanded into the US market.

>80 exercises
Adaptive gamified exercises
>100 videos
Speech-therapy videos
>150,000 people
Global users
>10 awards
International awards won
Otsimo — AI-Personalised Special-Education Games for Autistic and Down-Syndrome Learners in Turkey

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Otsimo, with Turkey's Ministry of National Education and Turkcell
Period
2016–present
Keywords
special education, assistive technology, autism, AI-adaptive learning

Context

Otsimo is an Ankara-based special-education app founded in 2016 by Zafer Elcik, offering more than 80 adaptive gamified exercises and more than 100 speech-therapy videos to build cognitive, social and speech skills in children with autism and Down syndrome.

Activities

Turkey's Ministry of National Education partnered with mobile operator Turkcell to distribute Otsimo free of charge to students nationally; the company has since expanded into the United States market.

Results

The app has been used by more than 150,000 people globally, has been featured by Google Play and the App Store, has won more than ten international awards, and has been recognised by HundrED and MIT Solve; no independent, controlled evaluation of learning outcomes was found in the public record.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — No public cost/budget figures; distributed free to Turkish students via the Ministry of National Education/Turkcell partnership.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Founded August 2016; ongoing; expanded into the US market.
Staffing & skills
Otsimo (private company) founder and team, Turkey's Ministry of National Education (distribution partner), Turkcell (distribution partner)

Conditions for success

  • Free distribution partnership with a national ministry and telecom operator to reach students at scale
  • App design personalised/adaptive to each child's pace

Common failure modes

  • No independent controlled evaluation of learning outcomes identified
  • No published child-specific data-protection policy identified

Where it fits

Governance type
private company with public-sector distribution partnership
Scale
national (Turkey), expanding internationally
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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