uDocz, the Peruvian study note exchange platform that has received US$2 million from Silicon Valley

uDocz is a Peruvian startup that has received a US$2 million investment from Silicon Valley. With a strong presence in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, as well as Peru, this platform allows students and teachers to share their study notes from anywhere in the world. That is, they use the technology to exchange knowledge almost immediately.

The platform was founded by Ricardo García and Carlos Effio. They currently have more than 600,000 users in Mexicoits largest square, and more than 450,000 students in Peru. However, with the investment they have received, they hope to have 8 million users in Latin America and Spain in the near future.

Trade spoke with Ricardo García, co-founder of uDocz and software engineer. Graduated from the Peruvian University of Applied Sciences (UPC), it was during his time as a student that he, together with his partner, devised this startup.

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—How does uDocz work?

It is a platform that focuses more on the community. What do I mean by this? You can share all kinds of information such as class notes, manuals, guides and you can also find official books from some publishers. If a student wants to share a note, they upload the material on the platform and it goes through a review by some moderators, who evaluate if the document violates any kind of uDocz rule.

For example, that it is not original to the person, that it is not good content, that it is content that harms the comfort of other users. Once it is approved, it goes through a conversion process. This part is more technological. The document, whether it is a PDF, Word or a presentation, is converted to HTML and is viewable in uDocz. So, it can be shared anywhere in the world and can be read from a cell phone, a tablet or a PC.

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—How is the free version of uDocz different from the Premium version?

Our goal is to grow the community. Then, As soon as you register in uDocz, with the ‘Free’ version, you have access to all the parallel materials on the platform. But, for example, if you liked a material and want to download it, there are two ways to do it. The first is with 25 uDocz points and the second is with the subscription. How do you get the 25 points? Each document that you upload to uDocz, that is evaluated and approved, gives you 25 points.

What does that mean? That to be able to download we ask you to collaborate with the community. The other way would be by subscribing. When you do, you can infinitely download all the materials that are on uDocz, except for the ones in the store section.

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—How exactly is the conversion of the documents?

The conversion is based on a free software called ‘PDF to HTML X’, from which we have taken that source code and improved it. We have implemented other types of packages, such as new fonts, because every day I think a new font appears. So, we have to always be updating to be able to provide support.

This program works in C++ (programming language). So what does he do? The first thing is that it opens the PDF itself and starts scanning all the letters it finds. Namely, when opening the PDF, it reads the metadata, finds fonts, because sometimes there are embedded fonts, and starts to replicate it as the document is seen until transforming it into HTML. It generates the necessary styles, the necessary fonts, and thus it is already converted into HTML.

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—What happens when a handwritten text is uploaded?

We are working to be able to detect handwritten text. At the moment, we still haven’t perfected that part and when someone uploads a handwritten note, we just display it as an image.

—How did the idea of ​​creating uDocz come about?

Surely, many have gone through the same as me when they had some work or research at the university, and they had to go to the library for a document. There are always two copies of this, but sometimes they were already taken, and you had to wait weeks. It is a bit difficult to find it and, on many occasions, you only have to buy it. Based on this, one day together with my partner Carlos we decided to come up with a solution.

Since I am a software developer, I said: “Why don’t we allow ourselves to have a copy of this book, obviously with all the required licenses, and have it online, in the cloud, so that everyone can access what they need?”. Thus he was born uDocz. At first we wanted uDocz to be the “Netflix of books”, basically, but then over time it was transformed into comfort.

Carlos Effio and Ricardo García, the founders of uDocz. | (Photo: Diffusion)

—With books it’s a little more difficult because of copyright…

In the process we realized that there is a lot of bureaucracy to obtain licenses, permissions with publishers, and since we wanted to grow, we decided to focus first on the community. But, at the same time, also negotiating with these publishers. In fact, we currently have agreements signed with several important publishers such as SAGE or Cengage.

—How do you decide which documents are relevant to the community?

We have a set of guidelines, which we give to our moderators. Precisely these indicate that the files do not infringe copyright or that the material is really useful. For example, now that memes are in fashion, they can upload some. So if someone uploads a meme of something and the moderator thinks it’s not useful content, they just suspend the document. In doing so, the document remains hidden and the user who goes to the ‘My Uploads’ section will see that his document is there and we will explain why it was not approved on the platform. In general, these cases do not usually occur. We have seen that there is quite a bit of proactivity on the part of users. They usually upload super good material that helps the whole community.

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—Despite the fact that uDocz has more users in Mexico, the two founders are Peruvian and it was created here.

Yes, Mexico is our largest market right now and, in fact, that’s why my partner just traveled there a few days ago. But yes, It all started here in Peru. It was a Peruvian project. Sometimes, as they say, one is not a prophet in his own land.

—Will uDocz have versions in other languages?

Yes, in fact we have thought about it, but since the first thing we want to do is position ourselves in Latin America, we are focusing 100% on Spanish-speakers, including Spain. But, yes we have projection to support more languages. Obviously, the first will be the English one, which is one of the largest squares in the world..

—With the investment of US$2 million they received, they plan to increase their number of users to 8 million. How many students do you see on the platform by 2025?

Until 2025, I would increase it by about 2 million, more or less. 10 million users in Latin America practically. In our region alone there are an average of 100 million students, so it is a very, very large square.

Source: Elcomercio