Name: Illia Filipov
Age: 25
Education: Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, radio physics
Profession: Founder of EdEra online education platform
Did you know? The last stage of a job interview with Filipov is often held in a bar.
Illia Filipov, 25, is the founder and CEO of online education studio EdEra, which makes online courses, interactive books and materials for students, adults and businesses.
Three-and-a-half years ago, when Filipov started creating his first online course about mechanics, he didn’t expect it would become his full-time job. Instead, Filipov, who then studied at the radio physics faculty of Taras Shevchenko National University, planned to earn a Ph.D. in the United States.
While preparing for tests to enter university, Filipov teamed up with his business partner, Artem Ilchuk, and colleagues from university to create a course and a textbook about physics that would be interesting and easy to understand.
“We were really upset when we saw those courses (from universities abroad) that there were no such courses in Ukraine,” he recalled. “We wanted to create a cool course by combining the methodologies of different physics schools — ones abroad and in Ukraine.”
Filipov said that online courses from post-Soviet countries had the same problem as their offline education: They were overloaded with facts and weren’t designed to spark students’ interest. “Plus, we were annoyed about design of our textbooks, with their bad layout and clumsy pictures,” Filipov said.
Filipov and his colleagues took online courses on teaching and web design. They shot video with minimal equipment, but spent a lot of time making it look professional. After completing their first course, Filipov and his team decided to go forward.
“Surprisingly, we weren’t worried about earnings, we just liked our product and enjoyed the process,” Filipov said.
In 2015, Filipov and his business partner Ilchuk became experts on the development and production of distance-learning courses at Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine, where they created a course on the convention on human rights for judges. Meanwhile, the team started making commercial courses for companies.
“We’re not a production studio. We consider ourselves co-authors of our courses… We’re a sort of bridge that helps to deliver the best things that a course lecturer can teach to students,” Filipov said.
Filipov is now overseeing more than 20 projects EdEra is developing.
One of the most popular ones, “Life hacks of the Ukrainian Language,” has been certified by Ukrainian Education Ministry. The ministry and EdEra are also working together on a course for primary school teachers who need to upgrade their qualifications.
“We’re interested in solving real challenges in education, Filipov said. “We’re not just making courses for the sake of making courses.”
