LISTEN
In the last Edtech Insiders interview we talked to Andrew Baird, President & CEO of the global hub of Education For Employment (EFE-Global). In the episode, Andrew shares about his work on connecting great talent with great opportunities across the Middle East and Africa. When Covid-19 forced education programs to seek online solutions, the situation surprisingly opened new doors for various populations in the MENA region:
“Previously, the vast majority of our training was face-to-face, in-person training. That no longer being possible, we certainly moved as quickly as we could - within three months, we were doing online classes and it transformed quite frankly what we are able to do [for example] for women. This provides opportunities where maybe families had some hesitancy to have their daughters, their sisters attend an in person training, not knowing who is there, if they would be interacting with men. In a virtual space, we can do that with much more safety for them and peace of mind for their families. We have been able to get deeper into refugee settings through the use of technology. So I think that's opened up the doors for populations as well. ”
BIG FIVE HEADLINES
In case you missed it, here are the headlines hosts Ben and Alex highlighted in the last This Week in EdTech episode for the season:
Politics heat up and the education space seems to be taking all the hits. The recent ruling against Roe raises questions whether educational institutions would be able to support an increased number of students who are pregnant or parenting. 'Don’t Say Gay’ bills limit educators’ rights to discuss gender identity and will likely affect the amount of support they could offer to LGBTQ+ students. Schools are spending billions on high-tech defense for mass shootings.
Some ISTE highlights:
New bottom-up sales models for K-12 relying on educator community.
Consolidation is big and Microsoft is here for it with Minecraft, Flipgrid and others under its wing. Is Microsoft the underappreciated edtech player and the dark horse of the race for the Metaverse?
Lavish ISTE booths and big energy at ISTE. Reflecting on how tough the last couple of years have been for education, ISTE calls for ‘A Major Infusion of Joy’ in teaching.
Teachers Are Reminded of the Value They Bring to Ed-Tech Companies
Michael Chasen, CEO of Class Technologies, says, 'The education landscape has forever changed', referring to the rise of virtual synchronous learning as opposed to asynchronous.
Recommended Resource: Emerge Edtech Insights’s Top 50 — emerging companies for higher education
Layoffs continue: celebrity-taught classes platform MasterClass laid off 20% of its staff in an attempt to cut costs and achieve self-sustainability. While CEO attributes the change to “the worsening macro environment”, some see this as the downfall of Masterclass’ model for education .
Funding + M&A
Funding: Leap, JobGet, Wilco, Neol, Cinematic Health Education, Kibo School
ANOTHER BIG FIVE… OR SIX
Some more headlines you don’t want to miss.
Layoffs in the edtech space continue, globally. After spending billions on new acquisitions in the past couple of years, India’s Byju’s cuts over hundreds of jobs and pushes back payments for $1 billion acquisition.
Jobs of about 11,000 employees in India have been eliminated this year due to the market correction (or so has been the single most popular excuse), according to estimates. Investors in India, as is the case elsewhere, have significantly slowed the pace of their investments as tech stocks globally fall to a level not seen in recent years.
On a brighter note, Nairobi- and London-based company Kukua raises $6 million, led by Alchimia and Tencent. Kukua is the “edutainment” company behind “Super Sema”, the first African animated superhero franchise.
“We’ve always seen our target audience as global. We wanted this to be a mega success in Africa and the rest of the world. So similarly to ‘Black Panther,’ which attracted the most diverse audience ever for being an all-African story and cast, our mission is really on both fronts. We want to showcase the beauty and a different narrative coming from Africa to the rest of the world. And of course, for all the kids here in the continent to see themselves represented,” shares Italian born and raised CEO Lucrezia Bisignani.
LinkedIn buys EduBrite, a Fremont-based SaaS learning platform. The acquisition “aims to help LinkedIn further deliver on its vision to create a skills-first approach to hiring and learning” by implementing EduBrite’s certification assessment engine to making testing and verification of users’ skills simpler.
TaskHuman, a platform connecting users with wellness experts through real-time interactive video calls, lands $20M to expand its virtual coaching platform. During the pandemic, the company has seen consistent growth, reflecting the move of many services online.
“From case studies, we have found return on investment in four main areas: preventing burnout, reducing employee attrition, improving employee engagement and recruitment, and reducing medical cost claims,” says CEO Ravi Swaminathan.
Coding Dojo Secures $10M of Venture Debt Financing from Eastward Capital Partners. CEO Richard Wang says:
While talent is evenly distributed, opportunities are not. Everything we do is aimed at minimizing the economic divide caused by access to affordable, quality technical education. This new capital will fund Coding Dojo's high growth initiatives, enabling both ourselves and partner institutions to further expand digital literacy around the globe.
Edtech unicorn Vedantu opens an offline hi-tech “Vedantu Learning Center” in Muzaffarpur following similar moves by Byju's, Unacademy and PhysicsWallah. Indian edtech companies adjust to the normalizing of the pandemic situation by expanding to hybrid tutoring. Co-founder and CEO Vamsi Krishna shares:
Exams such as JEE and NEET are high-stakes exams and after speaking with so many parents over the years, we understand that these competitive exams require dedicated supervision & personalized attention, and our current hybrid model facilitates this for students in tier 3 and tier 4 cities.
READ
Online Learning: What Next For Higher Education After Covid-19? by Muhammad Sohail for World Economic Forum
A brief, to-the-point summary of learnings to take home as we approach the post-pandemic era of education.
How Learning Happens by Paul A. Kirschner and Carl Hendrick
“Terrific recent book that walks through the most important articles in educational psychology one by one.” - Alex Sarlin