Due to the ongoing pandemic, the economic recession has led to some 10.9 million unemployed Filipinos according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). With the decline in the economy and decrease in labor opportunities, 24-year old entrepreneur Paolo Isyasa founded Course Belt, an online learning platform that provides comprehensive and flexible access to quality education.
With the aim of providing life-transforming and affordable learning experiences for Filipinos who lost their jobs during the pandemic, Course Belt leverages technological and digital opportunities as an innovative response to the effects of the global crisis on the education sector.
Founded in 2020 at the beginning of the community quarantine, the startup company has been offering job-relevant courses and resources to fuel Filipino’s budding freelance careers as well as provide newly unemployed Filipinos with alternative sources of income.
“Eight months ago, I was severely burdened to see some of my friends lose their jobs because of the pandemic. So I asked myself, how can I help? And that’s how the Course Belt was born. It’s a platform for learning new skills at one’s own pace. Filipinos have the guts and skills, we just need to empower them,” according to Paolo Isyasa, Founder of Course Belt.
Course Belt has attracted and upskilled more than 21,000 paying students in learning areas of copywriting, digital marketing, web development, SEO writing, Facebook Ads management, graphic design, and social media management among others. The startup has also generated over PHP5M worth of revenue by banking on the Filipino workforce’s demand to learn and prepare themselves to eventually land a job in the digital space.
For as low as PHP199 (up to PHP499), one can take high-quality courses online. Course Belt delivers expert instruction through online tutoring and comprehensive training manuals, in addition to students having access to Facebook groups for them to connect to the Course Belt team for any clarifications and questions they have.
“The main reason we are offering it at a very affordable rate is because we basically just want to help people earn a living during this tough time. We maintain an active community of learners where they can interact with one another and we provide localized and bite-sized content from local instructors, local examples, even local jokes,” added Isyasa.
Course Belt seeks to easily provide all the benefits of an effective learning platform from the comfort of one’s own environment and schedule. Online classes make it simple to interact with the tutors, course materials and receive instant feedback. The platform is designed for students to get the most out of their training and develop themselves from it.
“We are continually reviewing and adapting our programs to create a learning platform that is interactive, and hassle-free yet affordable and easily accessible. Going forth, we aspire to help unlock opportunities for people from all walks of life to realize their career objectives,” Isyasa said in closing.
CIIT College of Arts and Technology earlier placed bets on the startup as an investor. On top of that, Course Belt has recently won Draper Startup House Manila Pitch Perfect Competition bagging the prize of Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship Program from Silicon Valley-based Draper University. The competition is sponsored by QBO Innovation Hub, the country’s premier startup accelerator.
Course Belt looks forward to offering programming courses for kids in the very near future.