UCL startup ZNotes helps millions of students globally

Education technology and social impact startup ZNotes, founded by UCL alumnus Zubair Junjunia, has evolved into a global force, reaching over 5 million students.

ZNotes addresses educational inequalities by giving millions of students across 190 countries unrestricted access to high-quality educational content. The platform has developed into a global community and empowers learners to become active contributors in the education system.

In 2021, Zubair received the Diana Legacy Award, in recognition of his exceptional contribution to education. Named after Diana, Princess of Wales, it’s recognised as the highest accolade a young person can receive for their social and humanitarian efforts.

Alongside this, in 2023 Zubair was appointed a Generation17 Young Leader by the United Nations Development Programme and Samsung for ZNotes' scale of impact on the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (quality education).

The business has been recognised by other global organisations too, including One Young World. And in 2023 Zubair became the world’s youngest recipient of the Freedom of the City of London.

Aged just 23, Zubair was also one of the youngest commencement speakers in the history of UCL at the 2023 Graduation Ceremony.

From informal beginnings to global movement

ZNotes traces its roots back to Zubair seeing huge education disparities himself in Saudi Arabia a decade ago, during his first set of high stakes exams, the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSEs).

A tech enthusiast, diligent student and copious notetaker, he decided to build a site to post his class notes so that anyone with an internet connection could freely access them. He describes the initial idea as simply being “the digital version of the age-old practice of group study”.

“I didn’t plan for ZNotes to be anything but a way to share my resources with other students. The pivotal moment really came when other students decided to help as well. I’m prouder of this more than anything else - young people dedicating their time by contributing notes and supporting each other through this growing ecosystem.”

Since those informal beginnings ten years ago, and becoming a registered organisation in 2020, ZNotes has now grown into a unique, community-powered learning platform. Over five million people have visited the site to access content since launch, and there are now more than 500,000 registered users.                

Taking the offering global

Zubair describes his journey with ZNotes as “shifting up a gear” during the second year of his master’s in Mathematics at UCL. With exponential growth on the platform, he realised he needed some help evolving ZNotes from a passion project to a startup.

“I approached UCL Innovation & Enterprise and successfully applied for their UCL Launch programme (now called ‘Build your business or social enterprise’).

“I learned a whole host of things on that first course, from the legal side, to financing,” he explains. “But more than anything it gave me the confidence to speak about what I was doing and share our ambitions. From there, the startup and impact continued to scale.”

ZNotes was part of the Hatchery incubator at BaseKX, UCL’s dedicated entrepreneurship hub, managed by UCL Innovation & Enterprise. BaseKX plays host to a vibrant community of the university’s most promising startups by providing free, tailored support and dedicated office space.

Staff from UCL Innovation & Enterprise also helped Zubair in obtaining a Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa, to enable him to continue growing the company in the UK after graduating.

The future of education is youth-led

Zubair is keen to underline ZNotes’ community-led approach, which empowers learners to co-create resources, engage in peer-to-peer learning, and contribute to a robust content eco-system. 

“Built with, and alongside, students we’ve developed a community-powered learning platform, where selected authors from all over the world can add content directly. We also integrated Discord to cultivate the community and enable peer learning.”

“We ran a survey of 23,000 students in 2023, to assess the impact of ZNotes on people’s education. 91% cited our platform as being crucial or highly useful for their academic success and 87% overshot or achieved their self-set target grades. Interns reported a 77% improvement in job candidacy, and contributors saw a 15% increase in importance serving marginalised communities.”

Supporting young people to make a difference

With over 100 contributors, 70 interns and 40 ambassadors, ZNotes has also become a catalyst for young people who want to make a difference. 

“ZNotes ensures every student has a level playing field when it comes to high-stakes exams. But it does much more than that. It inspires and empowers young people to become leaders and changemakers. 82% percent of our contributors have engaged with more community initiatives since being involved with ZNotes. And one in five of our interns have launched their own initiative or joined another one tackling a social problem.

“Our vision now is to reach and impact 100 million learners in the most under-resourced education systems around the world. Given how rapidly ZNotes has grown, we’re determined to keep scaling, so that learners all over the planet have access to the high quality educational resources they need to thrive. And that young people themselves can get involved as agents of change and be part of this global movement.”

Links

Find out more about:

• Entrepreneurship support for UCL students and graduates
• ZNotes
• Zubair’s UCL Commencement speech:  a call to action for people and our planet
• Meet the Generation17 Young Leaders: The Story of Zubair Junjunia

---

Image © ZNotes