Adaptive Reader's user-centered approach drives deep localisation for the UAE schools market
A US-built reading platform that meets every learner at their level is entering one of the world's most multilingual schools markets — with EdV running the appraisal, the localisation, and the introductions on the ground.
Adaptive Reader transforms any book or text into leveled, multilingual and accessible formats — across print, digital and audio. The challenge it brought to EdV was a familiar one for a focused young company: how to globalise, and enter the UAE schools market, without losing sight of the inclusive education work that anchors it at home.
The UAE is, in many ways, the product's natural home — classrooms where a single teacher may face thirty children speaking twenty languages, and a national drive toward inclusion that a level-and-language tool is built to serve. For Adaptive Reader's founder, the question was never whether the opportunity existed, but whether chasing it would cost the company its focus.
"I was curious about international expansion, but what kills startups is a lack of focus. For us, it was clear that our primary energy needed to stay on the U.S. K–12 market…"
Ethan Pierce Founder & CEO, Adaptive Reader
Even established businesses need to consider globalising. Diversifying across markets reduces the business risk that arrives with government policy and funding changes — but only if the home market never loses its champion.
The product
A user-driven product
It is a genuine double-edged sword. Operating in a single market leaves a company exposed to system-level policy, regulatory and funding changes; yet diverting resources away from "home" risks serving neither market well, and stalling growth in both. The way through, for Adaptive Reader, has been the same instinct that built the product — listen to users first.
"[After creating a prototype], the very first thing I did was recruit seven teachers for anonymous user research interviews. I had assumed it would be a digital-first product, but those initial conversations completely shifted my thinking."
Ethan Pierce Founder & CEO, Adaptive Reader
Adaptive Reader's proactive and wise use of feedback is one of its core strengths, alongside the product's strong technical capability. EdV tailors its support to complement client capability, not duplicate it.
On the ground
Deep localisation
EdV's signature rapid discovery confirmed that, with minor adaptations, Adaptive Reader would be a strong fit for the needs and requirements of UAE schools — then went to work opening doors and catching the details a founder a continent away could not.
"EdV was able to quickly connect us with inclusion leaders at a major school group and facilitate real feedback from educators using the application. That input was incredibly helpful in understanding the kinds of content they'd actually use — and where we were likely to run into challenges… EdV gently and generously pointed out these kinds of details, which has been invaluable in helping us improve."
Ethan Pierce Founder & CEO, Adaptive Reader
"I was especially impressed by the thoroughness of EdV's discovery process. They interrogated the technology from both a usability and technical perspective, carefully evaluating where it would and wouldn't map to the region. They invested real time upfront — evaluating the product, the team, and our approach — which was a strong trust signal for me. It showed both their competence and how protective they are of their school relationships. It's clear they only bring in products they truly believe in."
Ethan Pierce Founder & CEO, Adaptive Reader
