How an Estonian mum is using Google AI to help children learn in their own language

An interview with Kelly Lilles, CEO and co-founder of ALPA Kids, a native-language e-learning app for preschool children.

I am a mother of two young boys and back when we lived in the Canary Islands, I faced a struggle many parents living overseas know well: I wanted my children to read and speak Estonian with ease and know their roots. I looked for educational apps for them in Estonian, but was disappointed to find that there were none. There are 7,000 languages in the world, yet so much of the content our children consume is only in English. My husband and I realised that if we didn’t build the solution ourselves, no one else would. This was the start of our edtech learning platform, ALPA Kids.

ALPA Kids offers culture-based e-learning games for children aged 3 to 8, taught entirely in their native language. Our platform features over a hundred games that align with school curricula, while staying true to their cultural context.

I was a linguist in the public sector with zero experience in setting up a business, pitching, tech, or sales. What I did have was a lifelong passion for languages. Even as a little girl growing up in Estonia, I was fascinated by Finnish radio and children’s animation, which sparked my love for languages — a skill that eventually became the foundation of my business. I’ve always been a risk-taker who gives my full heart to everything I do. When my husband and I started ALPA Kids, we decided to quit our jobs and move back to Estonia.

Initially, our process was entirely manual — research, translation, localisation, and animation were all time-consuming tasks. As a startup with limited resources, we needed a better way forward. We began to integrate Google AI into our workflow bit by bit, mostly for content generation initially.

“Realising the potential for greater efficiency, I completed a Google AI course, which helped me see that AI wasn't just a tool, but the gamechanger we needed to scale.”

We started using Gemini Notebook to delve into our sales data and stumbled upon a revelation that changed the way we market the app. Our data and finance officer corralled us all into a room and said, “You have to see this.” He presented slides crafted with Gemini, revealing a clear correlation: weather was a massive driver for our in-app purchases. When it rained, kids were stuck indoors and parents turned to ALPA Kids.

“We used Gemini Notebook to build a predictive system that lets us optimise our marketing spend for any given day, whether it’s a holiday or a rainy forecast. For a startup with limited budgets, this optimisation is crucial; it means we achieve 20 percent more user installs for the same marketing spend.”

We also use Gemini to support our entire localisation process, including research and translation. Embedding AI in this process has made a massive difference. Previously, localising for a new market would take two months and cost between €5,000 and €10,000. Now, it takes just three days and €40. Of course, to ensure we tap into the right cultural context, we use local experts to validate all the research and sometimes even travel to countries we’re expanding into. For example, the team spent three months in India to understand the education system, everyday family life, and other cultural nuances by speaking with teachers, parents, and partners.

Once localised, animation brings our content to life. Google Veo, an AI-based video generation model, assists our team to shape ideas and create animations much faster — whether it’s our mascot, Alpa the alpaca, who interacts with children by answering their unending questions or other animations that tap into the specific culture of each country.

Integrating Google AI has made a huge difference to us as a small business. Google AI has transformed our go-to-market strategy, collapsing launch timelines from three months to three weeks and enabling us to scale into 15 new countries every year. ALPA Kids currently reaches 2.5 million children across 170 countries in 17 languages. My ultimate goal is to bring ALPA Kids to every corner of the globe. I truly believe it’s when you bring together the human touch and AI that miracles happen.