Standing with Ukraine: Drops

When I think back on highlights of my career, I think of projects that have impacted me and the users I'm serving. I can't think of a better example of this than the Ukrainian projects I worked on with Drops.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the team at Drops Language Learning made a plan—not based on metrics or AB tests—but on what was the right thing to do.

🇺🇦 Refugee Program🇺🇦
Drops is operated by a compact international team. We worked quickly to implement a program to offer free language courses to Ukrainian refugees to help them feel more at ease with their new surroundings. We ultimately delivered over 200k premium subscriptions to Ukrainians.

🇺🇦 Adding the Ukrainian Language to Drops 🇺🇦
Next, I lead the Learning Content team to produce a new Ukrainian language course in the app to help those who are welcoming refugees. It usually takes 4-6 months to launch a language, but I was able to cut that down to 6 weeks. I did so by:
🌊 Streamlining the production process
🧠 Finding creative solutions to simplify the course itself
📊 Leveraging our data to pick the most useful content to include in the course

🇺🇦 Sharing Our Story at Lesbians Who Tech 🇺🇦
The way we use technology has potential to impact the lives of millions. I had the pleasure to speak about this project at the Lesbians Who Tech conference. I covered how we built our refugee program and new Ukrainian language course, and broke down the key lessons we learned along the way. The recording for the whole talk can be found at the link above.

🇺🇦 Localizing Drops for Ukrainians 🇺🇦
Adding a language course to the app was half of the project—with 200k Ukrainians with access to our premium subscription, we needed to ensure that they could learn all of our 50 languages with Ukrainian as their native language. To tackle this time-sensitive project, we proceeded to localize and release all of our content in batches.

🇺🇦 Collaborating with UKRAINEPRIDE 🇺🇦
Following our first Pride Campaign (see my portfolio for more details on that!), we teamed up with the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ organization to translate and voice our pride content in Ukrainian.

🇺🇦 Following Up with Learners 🇺🇦
I've followed up with our Ukrainian learners through surveys to hear how their language learning journey was going and how we could continue to improve. The responses we received, especially the notes of gratitude, will stay with me for a long time.