Our next EdTech dinner is coming up on Tuesday 30th September and we’ve got a special treat for you. The COO of Memrise will be sharing his fascinating story after dinner and there will be a chance to ask questions and chat with him informally over dinner.

Ben trained as a psychologist at Oxford University before becoming fascinated with learning languages. Having found learning languages extremely difficult himself, he moved to a remote corner of China to teach himself Chinese and try to work out how learning languages can be made easier. Chinese seemed like the most challenging place to start.

The Memrise Chinese courses, now one of the most widely used Chinese learning tools in the world, grew out of the materials that he made in Qiqihaer. The Memrise learning platform has now helped over a million people learn over 100m words in over 200 languages. The latest Memrise product, Cat Spanish, was launched in mid November – it is an iOS app that teaches introductory Spanish entirely through cute pictures of cats.

Ben previously founded two other startups – an online shirt tailoring service (in Shanghai) and a vintage motorcycle restoration factory (in Beijing) – and worked as an analyst and assistant fund manager on the Guinness Atkinson China Hong Kong Fund (US$500m). Oh and he’s also written a book. Four years ago he started Memrise while living in a yurt in co-founder Ed Cooke’s garden.

Check it out and brush up on your Chinese > www.memrise.com

Join the other fascinating startups coming to next week’s dinner by booking your spot here.