The Memrise Story

3 friends. One passion for language learning. Now over 65 million learners in 189 countries.

From the Beginning

Memrise was founded by Ed Cooke, Ben Whately and Greg Detre, three friends who met while studying neuroscience and psychology at Oxford.

They were united by a fascination with the way humans learn and a determination to use technology to help people learn more effectively.

After graduation Ed got deep into the study of memory techniques. He became a Grandmaster of Memory. He won the US memory championships one year, and then trained
a journalist to win them the very next year - a story chronicled
by the journalist in the book, Moonwalking with Einstein.

Greg went to Princeton to earn his PhD in
neuroscience, while Ben moved to Qiqihaer,
a city on the Sino-Siberian border to see if
he could teach himself Chinese by applying
his theories on second language acquisition.

They came back together a few years later, and combined their separate research to create Memrise.

A platform that leverages memory techniques, deep understanding of neuroscience and novel approaches to second language acquisition to make learning a language dramatically easier and faster.

We’re a research-driven organisation

Our company grew out of serious research, and a research mindset remains core to our organization.
We believe that we can radically change the ability of normal people to become multilingual. Being a polyglot is going to be the norm. Making that a reality means constantly experimenting with cutting edge tech.

If that sounds like fun, come join us!

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