In this demo‑day pitch, founder Mursal Hedayat introduces Chatterbox, a language and cultural tutoring service delivered by refugees. She frames the problem as the underutilisation of highly educated refugees in the UK, citing 117,000 refugees, high unemployment, and a £48 billion loss to the UK economy from language skill gaps. Chatterbox’s mission is to train and employ refugees to teach their native languages, turning this untapped talent into a solution for the booming global language‑learning market (valued at $58.2 bn in 2011). The business targets three segments: individual learners, universities seeking to enhance student experience and demonstrate social impact, and corporate clients needing sector‑specific language training. Pricing is £15 per hour for conversation practice plus a £500 installation fee per language for institutions. Early traction includes a version‑1 platform with 40 customers, a pipeline of over 1,000 refugee applicants (10 recruited), a £6,000 contract with SOAS University, and discussions with a language‑services provider for potential white‑labeling (including the British Army). The team comprises Mursal (social‑innovation graduate and former refugee), Ellie (impact consultant and tutor), Lena (Oxford languages graduate), and two tutor consultants, Hekma and Ayad. The pitch ends with a call for partnerships and customers.
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TranscriptAuto-generated · 5 min
My name is Mursal, and I'm the founder of Chatterbox. Chatterbox is an online and in-person language and cultural tuition service delivered by refugees. We're on a mission to highlight the significant untapped potential within the refugee community. There are around 117,000 people with refugee status living in the UK right now. And despite the fact that they have above-average levels of education and training, They are far more likely than average to be unemployed, underemployed, in poorer working conditions, and receiving lower pay. 20 years ago, my mum would have been one of those statistics. She, like many other people in our community, learnt to lower her aspirations when we became refugees. So this Afghan civil engineer with over a decade of experience, speaking 4 languages, was chronically underemployed in work that did not make full use of her skills and talents. Meanwhile, the UK economy loses an estimated £48 billion every year in missed trading opportunities because we don't have the language skills in our workforce. Globalisation has and will continue to increase global demand for language learning. This is evidenced by the fact that this sector has had phenomenal growth, reaching an estimated value of $58.2 billion. In 2011. So Chatterbox brings together the problem of underutilized refugee talent with the opportunity in the demand for their language skills. We train and employ refugees from academic, professional, and industrial backgrounds to teach their native language and culture. We're looking at 3 market segments at the moment. The first is individual online and in-person language tuition. Where we stand out as an inspirational provider with a very attractive mission. Universities employ us to meaningfully connect with the refugee situation and also to improve their student experience via our conversation practice for language department service. As you all know, the funding structure for universities has changed quite significantly, and student experience is becoming much, much more important. And finally, for business language learners, we represent unrivalled sector-specific language training. Who better to teach you engineering Arabic than an Arabic-speaking engineer? Our pricing structure is currently: we charge an hourly or daily rate for our training, as well as an installation fee for institutions. So the pricing system for a university would be £15 per hour for conversation practice, as well as a £500 installation fee for each of the languages that they require. Chatterbox would have helped someone like my mum if it existed 20 years ago. We are a springboard towards employment in the skilled sectors for refugees, and we do this by overcoming some of the most significant barriers to their employment, things like social isolation and discrimination against their overseas experience, qualifications. Languages are a catalyst for faster and more efficient integration of refugees into the workforce, something that benefits both them and society. 3 months ago, we didn't even have a website. Today, we've built and tested version 1 of our online and in-person language tutoring service, and with 40 customers. We've also, through partnerships with influential refugee organizations like the Refugee Council and Refugee Action, identified a pool of over 1,000 prospective applicants who meet our criteria, of which we've recruited 10. And I'm absolutely delighted to be able to announce today that 2 weeks ago, we won our first institutional client, at SOAS University for a contract of £6,000 worth of conversation practice. And we are now in discussions with an established language services provider who is going to potentially white-label our services for clients including the British Army. The team that's going to be delivering this is myself, Mursal. I am a Year Here graduate in Social Innovation and a former refugee. Ellie is an experienced impact consultant, as well as being an experienced tutor, and Lena is an Oxford University Languages graduate. We've also added 2 members of the team who are also tutors. Hekma and Ayad consult with us on a regular basis about the design of the service. Hekma's here today to field any questions you might have for her. Charterbox is about connecting on many different levels, and we want to connect with you. So if you, or your business, or a business you know currently purchases language learning services, please get in touch with us. Or if you have any questions or suggestions, please do so as well. My name's Mursal, I've talked to you about Chatterbox. Thank you very much for listening.
