“Students are not picking universities. They just want to leave and study abroad. We make that happen,” explained Veronika Lee, the CEO and founder of Borderless, an online application that helps students from emerging markets find a university place at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions.

Lee was one of the ten finalists at the Aurora Tech Awards held in Cairo on April 13 that handed out cash prizes to the most innovative out of more than 2,000 applications from around the world. All of the projects were working in emerging markets and all were founded and majority run by women.

“Only 2.5% of all students get to study overseas, and only 5% of schools have counsellors who can advise would-be exchange students on what is available and how to get it. Those who do apply face a 96% rejection rate,” says Lee, whose platform is designed to connect young people with overseas universities.

And she knows what she is talking about. Lee was born in Uzbekistan and is a rare exception, as she won a scholarship to study at mechanical engineering at the New York College at their Dubai campus as well as a semester in the New York campus on a full scholarship worth $320,000.

She was one of the lucky ones. After attending the Tashkent International School – the only school in Uzbekistan offering an International Baccalaureate qualification where English is part of the US-aligned curriculum – she applied for her place with NYC in 2019. It changed her life.

Now based in Japan with her husband, whom she met while studying, Lee is focused on growing Borderless. As one of the first to leave Uzbekistan to study overseas, it started with a blog where she gave tips on how to apply, and living overseas as a student, connected with other students with similar experiences. The blog became well-known and the users started asking for practical tips on where and how to apply for places, until she set up an AI-assisted platform give help.

Currently dealing exclusively with US universities, as some potential students may dream of going to Harvard or one of the elite Ivy League institutions, most just want to go anywhere they can for the life experience. The platform walks a potential student through the application process, advises on necessary tests and other requirements before aggregating the applications and applying for nearly two dozen colleges using the integrated AI.

Borderless has grown fast but remains small. Free to use, the site has a premium service for those that want to apply to hard-to-get-into institutions such as Harvard. It also earns money from the universities, as many have international student quotas to fill and some marketing budget to find suitable students.

Last year’s revenues were $50,000 from 190,000 active users, including 4,600 weekly users, all achieved through organic growth without any marketing spend. But there is still plenty of expansion room; Lee says the global overseas study sector is a $30bn per year business and she hopes eventually to expand Borderless to include visa support, travel, banking, accommodation and other essential services international students need – as well as post-graduation support for residency permits and job placements in host countries for those that don’t want to go home yet.

And some more development is in the works. This year Borderless will expand to cover universities in European and Australia as well offer its services in new languages to widen its catchment area.

Uzbek education 

Uzbekistan is the perfect place to launch a service like Borderless as education is central to the Uzbek government’s strategy of investing in the country’s most valuable resource: its young people. The government has opened some 200 new universities to cater to the gamut of education needs and everything it does is aimed at “adding value.” Alumnae returning home from studying at prestigious US or European universities would be worth their weight in gold. Having already attracted universities from the developed world to set up campuses in Tashkent, that also improves students’ chances of winning a place overseas, as the international curricula and language skills are a standard part of most courses.

What is driving the government’s push to rapidly develop education is Uzbekistan’s demographic boom. While almost all the countries of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Western Europe are facing a demographic crisis due to collapsing fertility rates, Uzbekistan stands out as the fastest-growing population in all the Eurasian landmass. Around two-thirds of the population is under 30 years old, and the country is on track to overtake Poland to become the third most populous country in Eurasia in the coming decades.

Concerned about finding well-paying jobs for its burgeoning population, the government has invested heavily in training – a commitment to high-quality education was formalised in UNESCO’s Tashkent Declaration adopted in November 2022 by 150 countries that reaffirms the right of every child to quality early childhood education and sets a global agenda to transform the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)  systems by 2030. Uzbekistan hosted the conference and member states have committed a minimum of 10% of their educational budgets to ECCE programmes. 

Emerging markets students

Lee’s platform is designed to capitalise on the desire of many young people to better themselves who are living in emerging markets. High quality international education is transformative for these students, something they all understand very well. 

The AI streamlines the application process for overseas study by guiding an applicant through the requirements and then simultaneously applying to dozens of schools. It also assesses the student's profile and helps select universities best suited to their skills and qualifications. Most may dream of an elite education, but like Lee herself, a placement studying mechanical engineering at the Dubai campus of NYC may actually be a better fit. 

Initially targeting Central Asian countries, the service has grown organically through word of mouth on social media, where Borderless has 200,000 on TikTok. It now works actively with young people from Africa and Latin America, and has helped students from Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia secure placements at US universities with full scholarships – all in the past year.

“Now the Middle East is a fast-growing market for us, but there has also been a surge in Africans looking for placements on the free version,” says Lee, who speaks fluent English, Russian, Korean and some Japanese. 

The service is free to use but offers a premium tier costing between $5,000 and $20,000 for those applying to elite schools with low acceptance rates. Borderless also earns revenue from universities, many of which rely on international students to meet enrolment targets. “Australian universities, for example, rely heavily on recruiters to fill their places,” says Lee.

So far, the company has raised modest funding from a Chilean government scheme supporting startups and has attracted some angel investor backing. However, it has yet to pursue any significant Series A financing and is currently growing on the back of retained earnings.