Ghent’s ‘TikTok for training’ is helping America train thousands of workers

The US government is releasing millions to train thousands of textile workers in some Central American neighboring countries. This is done with the help of the Ghent scale-up Manual.to.

Jorim Rademaker actually wanted to build a platform to digitize picture books. “I am the son of an inventor and a plastic education teacher,” says the Ghent entrepreneur. ‘I carry that with me, professionally as a software developer, and privately as an illustrator and lover of children’s books. The idea was to bring these two things together in a platform on which my children could easily upload and share visual stories themselves.’

However, Rademaker’s idea soon turned out to be much more widely applicable. If small children could easily upload images and accompanying text step by step, why couldn’t adults do the same with more complex step-by-step plans? This is how the idea for Manual.to was born, a platform for organically digitizing manuals.

“Who enjoys using a manual on paper or in a PDF file?” asks Rademaker. ‘If I ask that question in a room of 300 people, maybe five hands will go up in the air. But when I ask who has repaired or solved something at home with the help of YouTube, almost everyone responds. That says something about how people want to learn, also in the workplace. What we make possible is that you can easily pass on all the practical knowledge in your company digitally, in a way that is then actually used.’

In concrete terms, Manual.to built a platform that allows you to quickly upload digital step-by-step plans, including video and photos. ‘Now imagine that, as an experienced worker, you know perfectly how to replace the filter of a complex industrial machine,’ Rademaker gives as an example. ‘Then you can use a smartphone or tablet to document all the steps, as you would explain them to an intern. Once you have completed that process, save it and our software will give you a QR code that you can stick on or near the machine. This way, anyone who has to do the same can fall back on the practical knowledge of an expert, even long after his retirement.’

It’s a way to ‘instant know-how‘ to share in your organization, is how Rademaker likes to put it. ‘Tasks that today might be done by one or two experienced technicians can soon be done by 80 percent of your people with a good and user-friendly manual – one that people like to use. That makes a real difference, we hear from our customers. One of those customers recently informed us that where it used to take four months to train a new employee, this can now be done in two weeks.’

Manual.to’s solution is now used by a whole host of companies and organizations, including big names such as Microsoft, the British health service NHS, Umicore, ABB, DuPont, Recticel, ArcelorMittal, CEVA Logistics or BekaertDeslee, a global player in mattress textiles. “The latter has 19 factories, spread all over the world, where often the same machines are installed,” says Rademaker. ‘In the past, knowledge from the field remained local, because it was not visual and was not translated. Our technology makes it very easy to exchange best practices and share knowledge throughout the organization.’

The Ghent scale-up now has a nice new customer with the American government. Manual.to’s platform will be used in the coming years to train thousands of workers in Central America to work in the growing textile sector in the region. The US government development agency USAID is releasing $2 million for the project, which is called Hilando Oportunidades. The aim is to combat unemployment in the region, and in this way also proactively prevent migration from the region.

In the first phase of the project, 1,500 people will be trained in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador with the help of the Manual.to platform. The American university NCSU, with which the Ghent company has been working for some time, pours the necessary knowledge into the simple digital manuals.

The project is a nice additional showcase for Manual.to, which is growing at a strong pace. In recent years, turnover has consistently doubled, earning the company a place in the Deloitte Fast 50 for the past two years, a ranking of the fastest growing companies in the country. This year, Manual.to aims for a turnover of 3 million euros.

For the time being, that growth will occur completely organically. “We are doing very little marketing for the time being, and have hardly raised any external capital,” says Rademaker. ‘At the same time, we have been profitable for years. That is a quite unique combination in our sector.’ Nevertheless, Rademaker is considering a ‘serious financing round’, ‘to fully capture our market’.

External capital must help take a step towards Rademaker’s final dream. ‘I want to build the most impactful company in the world. We actively say that we want to make the lives of 1 billion people better. How fantastic wouldn’t that be? Well, we think it’s possible. What we build is actually a kind of combination of YouTube and Wikipedia. Or a TikTok for training. There is a huge market for it.’