LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wisdom – the social audio app built to democratise mentorship – is now live in the UK, the US, Australia, and Canada. Founded by Dayo Akinrinade, the Wisdom app is an inclusive space where diverse people come together to have conversations that matter.
On a mission to become the next big social audio community, Wisdom taps into the intimacy and authenticity provided by the emerging medium. Drop-in social audio is transforming social networking because it takes interactions and conversations back to their roots. As the oldest medium, and one that is the most “human” of all societal interactions, audio is the antithesis of the heavily filtered nature of today’s visual-led apps and one which helps amplify voices of all groups and communities.
Wisdom is the latest app to launch in the white hot social audio market. Unlike other social audio applications, like Clubhouse, Wisdom is designed from the ground up to promote conversations that matter: conversations of substance on a topic of importance. Members can chat live with experts in dozens of topics from parenting, fitness, and dating to startups, mental health, and beauty. They can listen live or playback the recordings in their own time.
In Wisdom, when a mentor starts a talk, listeners can queue up to ask questions. A timer keeps the conversation moving so no one guest can monopolise the conversation; making sure all voices are heard. Inspired by Tiktok, Wisdom leverages an algorithm-first design that quickly learns what members like to listen to. Talk recommendations are made by a deep-learning neural network.
Dayo Akinrinade, founder and CEO of Wisdom, said: “I founded Wisdom to democratise access to mentorship. During my time at OneTech, London's largest diversity in startups programme, I noticed that diverse individuals from underrepresented groups lack access to mentoring. I also personally experienced how impossible it is to use platforms like LinkedIn for mentoring. The inboxes of experts are inundated with “pick your brain” requests which end up ignored unless the request is via a warm introduction, which is itself a crystallisation of systemic inequality.”
A global platform for mentorship
Connecting with others in a meaningful way has been proven to make people happier, with deep conversations with strangers more enjoyable than small talk. Wisdom will cultivate this, with thousands of people already signed up as mentors, making it the largest platform for mentorship in the world. These experts will be able to use Wisdom to share their knowledge, interact directly with their audience and give back while getting on the ground floor of the next big social audio community.
Though the platform will be free to members, as part of its mission to democratise mentorship, Wisdom will also empower its mentors through monetisation tools so they can grow their own businesses. Monetisation features will be added to Wisdom later this year.
Akinrinade added: “Consider that Masterclass has no more than hundreds of experts on its platform and does not allow deep interactions and is not free. With Wisdom, we are building something very different. Ultimately what we are building with Wisdom is a new social graph … the Mentor Graph. This is not a messy ‘talk graph’ of anyone on any topic but a social graph of the people who can help jumpstart a career, or change a life for the better. People today hunger for conversations that matter. We believe Wisdom is the platform where these conversations can live.”
The Wisdom app is available for download today for iPhone. Android is coming soon.
