As we look back on 2023, one word in particular comes to mind: pride. We are proud of the way we’ve built on our learning, grown both collectively and individually, and overcome the challenges of another year.
For Lü, the last twelve months have been a vibrant adventure full of fulfillment, achievement, and surpassing ourselves.
This past year, everything we’ve accomplished has been guided by our mission to create magical learning experiences that allow all children to reach their fullest potential, a strong culture that shapes our team, and four firmly rooted core values that chart our path and define our identity.
1. Together
Our collective intelligence and emotional awareness are strengths that make us a cohesive, united, agile, and balanced team.
In 2023, we further enhanced our collective intelligence through interdepartmental collaboration. Significant improvements in our day-to-day operations redefined our work methods, making them more rigorous, and the impact on our stakeholders was considered at every step.
2023 by the numbers
- 602 units were produced. If they were all stacked, they would be as tall as the Shanghai Tower: a remarkable 632 meters!
- Producing all these units required a lot of hard work from our production team, who can attest that an impressive number of bolts were involved. Specifically, 58,688 M8x16 bolts were used in the past year.
- 2023 also marked a significant milestone for Lü with the creation of the 2,000th Lü system!
- With so many newly distributed systems, there has been an influx of new users. In total, 450 users were trained over the course of the year, equating to about 6 times the total number of Lü employees!
- Interdepartmental collaboration between the production and engineering and customer support teams led to more than a 30% reduction in support tickets.
- We couldn’t have achieved these numbers without the great new employees we’ve welcomed into the fold—22 new positions in all!
The Lü Championship, a unifying project
In 2023, the Galactic application was the focus of the Lü Championship, a competition that united both students and our team. The Lü team pulled out all the stops to provide an unforgettable experience for the kids. And our efforts paid off! A total of 962 teams from 82 schools in 8 countries around the world competed between December 4 and 8. It was a record turnout in the Championship’s 6-year history!
Awards and recognition
This year, there have been some achievements that have made us particularly proud. Here are a few of our more significant milestones:
- Won the prestigious innovative manufacturer award at the Fidéides 2023 organized by the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Québec
- Ranked 44th in L’actualité magazine’s Les Leaders de la croissance 2023 ranking of fastest-growing businesses
- Recognized for the second year in a row as one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies by The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine
These distinctions are made even more meaningful since they recognize our team members’ commitment and remarkable perseverance. We can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for us!
Broadening our horizons
Together, we’ve also strengthened our presence in a variety of markets. Among others, we’ve established ourselves in the Miami-Dade and Hillsborough school districts in Florida, and in Albuquerque Public Schools in New Mexico. It’s also worth mentioning Ridley College, where we installed our first unit in a private school in Ontario, as well as our monumental debut at 42 schools in the St. Louis Public Schools school district in Missouri (the largest project in Lü’s history!) Of course, special recognition goes to Melbourne, the city that marked our arrival Down Under, and the Lü system that earned the title of the greatest traveler of the year.
*Cue I’ve Been Everywhere by Johnny Cash*
Our systems aren’t the only globetrotters—our sales team was also on the road in 2023. From the Sommet du numérique en éducation (Montreal, QC) to Bett (London, UK), the PHE National Conference (Charlottetown, PEI), SHAPE (Seattle, USA), TCEA (Texas, USA), and ISTE (Philadelphia, USA), we’ve gone to a wide range of events to promote Lü internationally.
2. Net positive impact
Every day, we remain focused on the impact our actions and decisions have on children and teachers.
We estimate that Lü encouraged a million children around the world to be active in 2023. In addition to that achievement, we also set a record for system use, with a total of 171,535 hours. That’s quite something!
A year of research
Our partnerships with three universities have led to a number of in-depth studies to assess Lü systems’ impact on physical education:
- At Université Laval, a dedicated team is looking into how the use of Lü might be integrated into the physical education curriculum in Quebec.
- The Université de Sherbrooke is focusing on evaluating the intensity of physical activity our applications encourage.
- The Haute école pédagogique du canton de Vaud is exploring the link between the physical activity our applications encourage and skills development in other subjects.
We look forward to sharing the results of this research in 2024!
An enhanced catalog of applications
On the product development side, the team has worked hard to make the system more stable and introduce new features to meet the needs of our community. For example, the Dojö training application has had dozens of new movements added, along with the ability to create custom content via the Lü Community.
For the new school year, we created a series of atmospheric content and motor skills games in the Wörlds application. More recently, we completed a full overhaul of the Chröno application with the release of a brand new application inspired by feedback from our users—the Roütine application, which you can use to create movement sequences by integrating video, sound, and light. The new utility was an instant hit with our users.
Our users have also benefited from better support in the past year, with the introduction of programs and tools to help them use Lü to its fullest potential. These include the Training Program, the Lücademy and activity sheets.
3. With care
As a team, we are equipped to work in a way that respects diverse circumstances and needs, stays constructive, and shows empathy and integrity.
Caring is deeply woven into our corporate DNA, permeating the very nature of our products and services. By working together with respect, empathy, and integrity, we create an environment where every voice is essential and every experience is valued. That is our way forward, and that is how caring guides our collective path to success.
What does this mean in practice?
We established four committees in 2023: the Environment Committee, which finds ways to reduce our ecological footprint; the EDI Committee, which aims to promote an equitable and inclusive culture; the Community Committee, which seeks to strengthen our community ties; and the Wellness Committee, which prioritizes employee health and happiness. In fact, we recently celebrated a major achievement thanks to these initiatives. We’ll tell you more about it in a few weeks!
We also participated in various initiatives to give back to our community. To name a few, we donated costumes and accessories to the Saint-Roch YMCA to help children enjoy Halloween, and we contributed to the Obstak – Mouvement Urbain sports center as part of a La Ruche campaign to encourage young people in Quebec City to get active. Our team members are also involved in various charities, donating over 85 hours of their time.
We also introduced Workleap Officevibe, which improved our ability to listen to each other and celebrate our achievements. The platform has played a crucial role in fostering open and constructive dialogue within the team, while providing an interactive space dedicated to acknowledging good work.
Healthy body, healthy mind
We demonstrated our commitment to health and wellness with a rich and varied series of activities over the course of the year. Here are a few memorable moments that helped promote an active and balanced lifestyle:
- In April, a quarterly training session on nutrition fed our knowledge and promoted healthy lifestyle choices.
- In May, Vincent, our CEO, proudly took on the Grand défi Pierre Lavoie, inspiring a team to begin training for 2024. Expect to see more of us there this year!
- In June, 26 of our colleagues took part in the Défi Entreprises fitness challenge. That same month, the streets of Philadelphia witnessed our collective energy during the Lü ISTE run, an edition that attracted a record number of participants!
- In October, we held an edifying training session on emotional intelligence, and 10 Lü employees participated in the Défi Entreprises soccer tournament.
- The icing on the cake was the introduction of an annual exercise allowance of $250 per employee to encourage physical activity.
4. Going further
As a team, we are committed to learning continuously, working with curiosity and diligence, and surprising everyone (including ourselves!) with the extent to which we exceed expectations.
We kicked off 2023 with our European partner, Megaform, by announcing our joint acquisition of Marbotic, a French educational technology company that specializes in tangible interfaces. Integrating the members of the French team has enriched our organization and ushered in a new era of innovation and creativity.
Understanding, improving, innovating
Over the past year, we have worked diligently and dug deep. We scrutinized every detail, explored new perspectives, and polished our foundations. We were relentless in our search for solutions, all while analyzing, improving, and optimizing our practices. Learning to understand our users has been a valuable lesson that we continue to work on. We left our comfort zone to learn how to work more effectively together, welcoming new players and adopting new methods to strengthen our cohesion.
This year, our commitment remains the same, but our gaze is resolutely turned towards the future. We aspire to serve our users and beneficiaries better than ever by gaining an in-depth understanding of their needs, constantly improving our products, and perfecting every point of contact with Lü.
These efforts will mark 2024, as will our determination to perfect our governance and operational efficiency. Refined decision-making processes, informed decisions, better honed business intelligence, more agile project management, and the clarification of roles and responsibilities will all help us continue to grow and evolve.
