The company has used the name "FutureLearn" for many years and has built up recognition as South Africa’s leading accessible education solutions provider. It has also become one of the fastest-growing education companies in the country by completing several mergers and acquisitions during this time.
The brand change to Optimi is therefore designed to reflect the company’s combined and strengthened focus on supporting every step of an individual’s learning journey.
Importantly, this change to Optimi only happens at the corporate level, meaning that all the individual businesses within the Optimi group - from Impaq to Media Works and others - will continue to operate normally under their own brand names.
As part of honing our organisation’s focus, these individual brands will fall under four segments within Optimi: these being Optmi Home, Optimi Workplace, Optimi Classroom and Optimi College. Combined, these segments service over 200,000 learners:
- Optimi Home provides accessible home education and after-school solutions for parents, tutors and children. It consists of South Africa’s leading home education provider Impaq, which has been operating since 2002 and has grown to service 18,000 learners across the country. Other leading brands in this segment include on-demand tutoring service Tuta Me, learning software specialists CAMI and examination preparation workbooks Quanta.
- Optimi Workplace provides accessible workplace training products and services for corporates and the public sector. It consists of South Africa’s leading adult education provider Media Works, which has been in operation for over 23 years. Through its Matric Works offering, Media Works has helped thousands of adult South Africans complete their matric.
- Optimi Classroom provides accessible classroom solutions for schools and tertiary institutions. Brands here include the likes of teacher and learner solutions provider ITSI and Teach360. This segment further includes Arrow Academy, which is an innovative school that uses several of Optimi’s other offerings.
- Optimi College provides accessible accredited courses for adults. Businesses in this division include the likes of vocational education provider College SA (founded 2007). College SA is Optimi’s most recent acquisition. Matric Works also falls within this segment owing to the various courses it offers for adult learners.
Regarding the rebrand, CEO of Optimi, Stefan Botha, says: “The brand change to Optimi signals the coming together of all of these brands, offerings and their respective capabilities. All of these companies have been around for several years already, and they've been successful in their own rights. We're now bringing this all together under one umbrella and merging the best of all of these brands into an organisation that will take us into the future.”
Botha further says: “The change to Optimi signifies how our company is focusing on continuously adapting and being ahead of the curve in an age where technology and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are set to have major impacts on the education space. At Optimi, we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of this and bringing cutting-edge innovations to market, helping our customers and users take the next important step in their educational journeys.”
Finding new meaning in Optimi
"Optimi" is a newly coined word designed to represent the values of a diverse range of education solutions.
"Opti" stems from the Greek phrase meaning "light, sight". It symbolically forms part of words such as "optimise" and "optimistic", which each respectively mean making the most effective use of a situation and being hopeful and confident about the future.
Meanwhile, the "mi" in "Optimi" is an alteration of the word "my", representing an individualised approach and personal journey in one’s education.
The new Optimi logo further encompasses these themes by indicating forward momentum through its ‘O-shaped’ design. The logo drives home the message that Optimi is here to help individuals move forward in their education journey, at every step of the way.
Optimi falls within the PSG Alpha stable. The PSG Group is the company behind success stories such as Capitec, PSG Konsult and Curro. PSG was established in 1995 and is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Nico de Waal, CEO of PSG Alpha, says: “We are excited about the energy that this new rebrand of Optimi will bring to the education market in South Africa. We believe that Optimi is well positioned to leverage its educational technology and know-how to make education more accessible and affordable.”
