We turned the captcha into a language learning tool that could teach South Africans a new language, one word at a time.

We built a fully-functional captcha that works as a security tool for web forms, but also simply and easily teaches the user a word in a new South African language.

The user is shown a word visually and is also given the option to hear an audio recording of the word (thus facilitating different learning styles). Once submitted, the user is given the translation of the word as well as the language the word is from.

We successfully introduced iCaptcha into the web development market by first getting a number of popular websites to launch it on their platform. We then made it widely available via a dedicated website and a plugin on Drupal. We offered iCaptcha open source and free of charge so developers would be incentivised to implement it, getting even more exposure for the campaign.

Our goal was to create awareness for our client’s brand while giving South Africans an appreciation for the diversity of languages in their country.

By extending our client’s language-teaching service to a broader market by designing it into the functionality of the commonly used “captacha” we were able to provide users with unexpected utility while creating awareness for our client’s brand.

To get the greatest reach for the campaign, we encouraged high-traffic websites to incorporate iCaptcha into their web forms in order to maximise the exposure for the tool and for our client’s brand. iCaptcha is very relevant to the web development industry as it enables websites to get the security verification they need, but in a more interesting and productive way, thus enhancing their user experience.

iCaptcha is an innovative new language-learning tool.

Millions of regular “captchas” are filled out every day. They are used by web forms to ensure that users are human beings and not robots. To most people, these captchas feel like a waste of time.

Our primary innovation revolved around using Bilingo’s data as captcha codes (the computer-generated code that underpins a captcha’s security functionality) in order to give the common captcha a new and more valuable purpose for users.

iCaptcha now serves as a valuable utility to help South Africans learn new languages while generating awareness for our client’s brand.

Millions of captchas are filled out everyday online. They are used by web forms to ensure that users are human beings and not robots. To most people, captchas feel like a total waste of time.

South Africa has an many different languages, though most South Africans can only speak one or two. Bilingo, a language learning site that aims to familiarise South Africans with the country’s 11 official languages, realised they could put captchas to better use.