Tomorrow University
Founded
Germany, 2020
Working with Cosmos since
May 2020
Industry
Online Education Platform
Tomorrow University (ToU) is a next-generation online university for global impact accredited by the German government. We are building ToU with the latest pedagogy to help people learn competencies, build a community, and connect with people from around the world to achieve their goals.
We believe that education needs an upgrade. We wanted to develop a social learning experience online that felt similar to a campus. With traditional video conferencing and messaging, we felt it was too transactional; you click a button, and you're in a conversation; you click a button, and you're out. Learning is not just confined to the classroom. But in a physical campus, the magic happens when students meet before the class, mingle, meet friends, and ask whether they prepared for the class. After the class, some students stay, stick around, and ask the academic a question.
There are many challenges to making learning online truly social. We want to take online learning to the next level. Technology gives new opportunities. And for us, if you want to create a new university designed for online-first, it must feel different. Thankfully, we came across Cosmos.
The first one was transactionality. It's not about getting in and getting out. But in Cosmos, you can fly in; you see who is there. You can chat with people. We didn't expect the random connections. After class, students can stick around in small groups and chat with classmates, some you know and some you don't.
What I love about Cosmos is that it's not just a grid of videos. With other video conferencing tools, it's just a window with videos of people. You lack context. What does the environment look like? What is the culture I am in? Tomorrow University is all about culture—we are about curiosity, courage, and community. And we want to express this culture. The Cosmos space gives us an environment, which is so important. This is actually what next-generation learning looks like.
In Cosmos, conversations in a group are just so much better because students have possibilities. For example, students can whisper with people beside them, like in real life. Academics have drop-in office hours. Students can see if the academic is free and line up to talk to them. If it's really urgent, they can jump into the room if it's not locked and interrupt, like in a real university, where you just open the door. Sometimes, if it's locked, they can knock. This is really great because it supports the flow of conversation.
We can share emotions. In most video calls, after a great talk, the most awkward thing is that there's silence afterwards. In Cosmos, you have the opportunity to clap, and there's also the sound of clapping. This gives a sense of the audience's reaction, and it gets louder the more people clap. So it's really a way more satisfying experience as a speaker, an attendee, or a student.
Cosmos is now an essential tool. We use it for every course discussion, lecture, internal meeting, and event. The students love it because it's not just another transactional call going in and out. It's something where you see what's going on so they can approach people to talk. In a nutshell, it's important because the community is all about bringing people together.
Cosmos is a leap forward when it comes to having conversations and making a university more social. Cosmos is the right place to build a university that is social, where learning is about learning from each other to solve the big challenges of the world.
Christian Rebernick
Founder and CEO - Tomorrow University
Create a supportive community of learners in Cosmos where they find like-minded peers to talk-live.
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