Hi all,

We are proud to announce that Myngle is nominated for the Techcrunch The Europa’s Tech Awards. Voting is opened for  The Europas, the tech innovation awards honouring the best tech companies and startups across the web and mobile scene from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. On July 9, TechCrunch Europe will hold the first Europe-wide tech awards ceremony in London, for 300 people.

Myngle is nominated for the category Best European Web Application or Service.(EMEA).

Deadline for voting is tomorrow, Wednesday July 2, 11.59 PM.

Thank you TechCrunch The Europa’s Organizing Committe for nominating Myngle and dear Mynglers, please vote for Myngle. Let us all hope this will be the 5th prize of Myngle.

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We have good news for you:

We have upgraded this months referral reward, now you will get 5% if somebody you referred buys lessons or a package on Myngle.

We have a new product for you to promote: Myngle Giftvouchers. We have giftvouchers of €25, €50 and €100. You can promote Myngle as a gift and get the new 5% sales percentage! So if your referrals buy a giftvoucher of €100 you will get €5 euro from us!

You know best what Myngle product suits your friends, colleagues, readers, students, employees or customers so in our referral system you can select what you would like to promote!

Login to our referral system now to see the latest changes!

P.S. If you have any special requests for a certain banner size, languages or links you can always contact us at affiliate@myngle.com

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Dear all,

A couple of weeks ago (June 4th 2009), Myngle was invited as guest speaker to a PricewaterhouseCoopers event “Growing with ambition’’ to present to a large public of entrepreneurs as example of successful Dutch start-up.

PricewaterhouseCoopers organized this event together  with Rabobank, NextStage, New Venture en Syntens. The objective was to present business cases of successful entrepreneurs with 3 to 5 years of life of the Company and high Revenues and growth.
Myngle is still very young, and much smaller than the other companies that presented that day, but was invited because of the early successes it already booked, the many awards won and the fact that it was able to ensure healthy funding even in this moment of economic downturn.

I presented Myngle as business case, from idea to implementation, with particular attention on how to get the right funding to finance growth:

1. First decide: how fast do you want to grow? The decision on which type of funding and the amount very much depends on the stage of development of the company:
• Angels, VCs, Bank loans best fit different stages of growth. In the case of Myngle, the bank loan was the right choice for that moment of development of the company.

2.The official ‘Tips & tricks’ are all well known, and can be found also online in different articles on how to get VC funding, but they are important:
• The business must be well understood and explained in each of its critical aspects: opportunity, problem, target market, competitive advantage
• In a very early stage of execution, you do not have results yet to support the case, so most important ingredients to predict future success are the team, the product and some initial validation done with real users

3. Myngle additional ‘Tips & Tricks’: these are things we learned along the way, and probably one of those examples that as first time entrepreneur you just  ‘discover’ but will gladly apply it in any new venture in the future
• Awards, PR and high profile partnerships are important for a startup to gain visibility as well as credibility, and help set one start-up aside from the many others.
• Plan well your cash needs as the funding process normally takes longer than expected. Even once the price and value is set and agreed, it is the discussion and agreement of the small clauses in the contract that takes the most time. Plan to have sufficient money to be able to conduct all discussions with peace of mind, without cash constraints.

After the workshop, I had the chance to exchange some ideas with some of the other speakers - owners of more mature successful companies - and a lot of other entrepreneurs.
This was the most fun part of the day! 

Marina

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Hi all,

We are proud to say that Myngle was elected as a winner again. According to FEM Business and Finance Magazine, Myngle is one of the 5 most brilliant start ups in Media. The complete list consist of 25 companies in ICT, Clean Tech, Industry, Life sciences and Media.

All 25 startups were elected for being innovative. Where large companies put a hold to their innovative activities, these companies thrive on that.

This election is in good company, as we are also still proud of winning Accenture Innovation Award, Benelux Venture Award,  European Venture Award and Plugg’s People Choice Award. Another moral boost for our team to work on constant and never ending improvement of the platform.

Thank you FEM.

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Hi all,

I am happy to announce a new partnership, this time between Energy Translations and Myngle.  Since a few days Energy Translations has its own language academy, powered by Myngle. They can now offer a pre-selected number of courses and teachers to their customers, making use of the complete-elearning solution of Myngle.

The advantages of having your own language academy:

• Own web environment, “Your Language Academy” page
• Live online instruction to your employees/ customers with only selected teachers
• Your choice of languages, levels of learning.  Choose from 20+ languages
• Content tailored to needs of your employees/ customers
• Personal assessment of competency, context needs, and personal objectives in the first session

You want an academy as well? Feel free to contact us.

About Energy Translations

EnergyTranslations is a reliable, fast & rapidly growing language service provider. They help you communicate efficiently with your audience.

All translations are done by professionally qualified and certified mother-tongue translators, who are experienced in their areas of expertise. Therefore they can make sure that your marketing concepts do not fail because of the language barriers but become successfulworldwide. Furthermore they guarantee most competitive translations of
documents and texts of every kind and independent of your timezone.

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Dear Mynglers,

Here we are with our first mini-project to make a small difference in the world. I hope the first of many.

When I look at myself, where I am now, I cannot avoid thinking that I have been very lucky. Somehow I was born in a place that could provide me with everything I needed, a family that could afford it, a Country that has as basic principle education and working opportunities available to everyone. That made of me what I am now, but not everybody has been so fortunate. I think many of you share the same thoughts.

Thea is one of those idealistic people willing to give-up everything to go where she can do good. She will be leaving for Guatemala as project coordination for Foundation Los Niños, which has the aim of helping children out of poverty and illiteracy.
Thea does not speak good Spanish (yet), and her resources are all to be devoted to her project.

We want to sponsor Thea, and are looking for Spanish teachers willing to teach her Spanish for free.
You give lessons to Thea, we waive our fees on the future lessons you will give to paying students. And of course, you will get special visibility as contributor to our first project to ‘make the world a better place’.

We will then follow Thea in Guatemala, to see how her work is going. And we have few more ideas on how to help there too. I am sure we will all feel proud, especially those teachers that will help Thea now.

Thea in her own words

My name is Thea van Zwieten, 51 years. When I was about 16 years old I had a dream to do something overseas where people lived in poverty. I always thought “Well, I’m not a doctor or a nurse, so what can I do over there?” And now, 35 years later, I’ve the opportunity to work for the Foundation Los Niños in Guatemala. At the end of the year I will leave the Netherlands to work as a project-coordinator for this Foundation. I believe that every child in this world has the right to have opportunities like I have had. In Guatemala there are a lot of children who are not going to school and there is a lot of illiteracy and poverty. I think education is the key to breaking the circle of poverty. This is also a milleniumgoal “In 2015 every boy and girl will be able to complete a full course of primary education”. With all my heart I want to contribute to this goal.

In order to achieve this, it is important that I speak good Spanish to communicate with the children and all the other people I will work with. I have had lessons in the past. However during the next 6 months, I want to prepare myself by improving my knowledge and communication skills.

About Foundation Los Niños


Los Niños is a registered Dutch foundation that undertakes and supports projects in Guatemala. Our goal is to facilitate educational projects, and to increase the independence and self-supporting abilities of the poorest children and their families.
The foundation has existed since 2002, when Ana-Maria Ackermans and Carla Nolte met in Antigua. Seeing the poverty, hardships and lack of education, they decided to dedicate their energy and love to the children and people who need it most. The central pillar of support is education, as it is the key to rising above the state of poverty. We focus on building, expanding and improving schools for children without resources. Support also includes scholarships for secondary and vocational education. Furthermore, we aim to directly improve the living conditions of children at home by giving attention to, among others, nutrition, hygiene and medical care.

For more information you can visit the website: http://www.stichtinglosninos.nl/en/index.php

If you believe in Thea’s dreams and want to become part of it, please contact us to ‘sponsor’ her Spanish.

Write to Elisa: elisa@myngle.com

Thank you!

Marina

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Dear Mynglers,
here I am back for the second part of the report on the event International Cooperation 2.0.

Myngle, although being a commercial organization, could be a good example of ‘flat world’:
•  Equal learning opportunities for students no matter where in the world they are located
•  Equal working opportunities for teachers that can earn a sizable income (sizable compared to local living standards)

The main question is how to leverage this in the benefit of international cooperation, whether there is a need for languages learning or it should instead be taken a step further into broader education.
There are in fact 4 potential beneficiaries in less developed Countries: a)local students, b)local teachers, c)local entrepreneurs, d)NGOs/aid workers.

During the presentation, we asked the attendees to split into sub-groups to discuss about 3 different topics.

Here are some of the ideas and conclusions coming out of the working sessions:
1.   Can language education help social development?
•    Yes, English is needed in many Countries to get better jobs, be able to use the internet etc.
•    Coach local foreign language teachers in order to be better teachers that have high impact on their local community of students
•    Do language swap: local teachers trained in English in exchange for teaching their native language

2.    Can Myngle bring additional job opportunities to less developed Countries?
•    We could offer job opportunities to some Countries with high demand for their native language (example: Spanish from South America)
•    Better trained teachers are more successful teachers, therefore have better chances of getting good jobs
•    In many Countries, women do not easily get jobs outside of their home. Myngle could offer an alternative with a stimulating job within the constraints of their cultural system

3.    How to use Myngle as tool for local entrepreneurs?
•    Make it a knowledge-base in order to exchange experiences amongst entrepreneurs, local and from abroad
•    Use it as a two-ways exchange, not only from coaches, but also as exchange and storytelling…
•    Teach also ‘soft skills’, business skills etc. which are not often taught in less developed Countries

Everybody who is interested in this, please let me hear your voice, opinion, ideas, so that we can start  building this dream into real action. Let’s start small, try, learn, and develop it further.

Thank to all of you out there who share the same dream,
Marina

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Dear Mynglers,

As you know, Myngle-commercial has a little brother that we are nurturing on a side till we find the right way to let him grow. The little brother is the more idealistic part of Myngle, the one that could be made useful to serve a purpose different than a for-profit strategy.

I have been long fostering this idea, trying to find ways to reach out to the less developed Countries and use Myngle as vehicle to bring value there where people have been less fortunate. I still don’t know exactly how and when is the right time to take the dream out to a full-fledged implementation, but in the meanwhile we can work on taking the first steps. You can start small, drop by drop we can make a difference. All of us together.
I’m sure many of us share this idealistic dream….

Last Friday 5th June 2009 Myngle was invited to present at the 1%event - International cooperation 2.0.
From the flier of 1%event: “We are the first generation that has in our own hands the knowledge and the tools to work together on a worldwide scale. If all together we are able to write an online encyclopedia (Wikipedia), then we should be also able all together to solve poverty.”

The 1%club is a great initiative, a company that has a beautiful idealistic vision: 99% for commerce, 1% against poverty.

The founders, Anna and Bart, are fantastic people putting their effort to change the world!

Their belief is simple, and at the same time very powerful: if each of us gives just 1% of his money, or 1% of the time or just 1% of anything we have, we can really make a difference.  A marginal effort for the individual can deliver big results for the whole. We can keep 99% of the rest, but that 1% could be sufficient to change the world, bring a solution to impact poverty.

A beautiful video was used for the start of the conference, which well represents the spirit of this crowd of people who do believe that together we can change the world:

Myngle was one of the 4 keynote speakers, something that we consider an honor as well as extremely interesting, as it means that also a for-profit organization can be leveraged to do some good in the world. The power of all of us together is exponentially stronger than the scattered actions of a few individuals.

The other 3 keynote speakers were very relevant players in the area of social responsibility and cooperation, bringing on the table an impressive knowledge and commitment:
•  Ruud Lubbers: ex Dutch Prime Minister and initiator of Worldconnectors and Earth Charter
•  Kirsten Verdel: first and only foreigner that worked in the Obama e-campagne
•  Bennett Grassano: Kiva- the largest online microcredit, who flew in from Silicon Valley to attend the event

Ruud Lubbers made a very inspiring introduction to the day, talking about the WorldConnectors and the Earth Charter, the place where policy, business and civil society work together on different themes and issues related to international cooperation and the global community.
“There is an additional dimension to be added to the 4Ps- says Lubbers - and that is the P of PNEUMA, which in Latin means ‘spirit’, ‘spiritual’. Earth is a place where we can be globally connected.”

I’ll come back to you soon with some ideas I have

Marina

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Hi all,

Recently we announced the strategic partnership between Cervantes and Myngle.  First result is the fact that now we offer all Spanish students on Myngle the following:

AULA VIRTUAL DE ESPANOL (AVE)

 AVE is THE perfect tool for your Spanish studies! Interactive, easy and fun to learn with!

Great news for you: like many other students on Myngle, you can now get access to the cool virtual learning environment developed by Instituto Cervantes. For EUR 56, you can learn for 4 months at your own pace, from your sofa within an awesome interactive learning space! In the end of the course, you will receive the Cervantes certificate acknowledged around the world.

You can now subscribe at  http://www.myngle.com/ave

As you probably know, Instituto Cervantes is the largest Spanish teaching organisation in the world and is a strategic partner of Myngle for Spanish learning.

Of course, as before, you are always welcome to take live online lessons on Myngle.

Thank you and all the best with your Spanish progress!

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Three weeks ago we first told you about our new affiliate program. If you become an affiliate you can earn money by spreading the word of Myngle with your friends, family and visitors of your website/blog! For teachers this is a possibility to not only earn money by teaching on Myngle, but also share in the revenue of students they bring in. Double money!! So teachers, promote your Myngle profile and earn money twice.

We have a lot of websites promoting Myngle through our affiliate system already and the power of many is really helping Myngle! Affiliates bring in quality traffic, in our case students taking lessons. See some of the coolest examples of our Myngle banners around the world:

• Deutschnetzwerk
• Caportuguese.blogspot
• Sprakkurs.weebly.com
• Spainimmersion.blogspot

Apart from banners it is also possible to promote Myngle through inserting a link to Myngle on your website! If people then register through that link you will receive the same revenue share as with the banners! A perfect example of this is Myngling to Learn a Language on missiontolearn.com!

We hope that together we can make the Myngle affiliate program a success! Help yourself by helping the Myngle platform grow.

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