Nordic EdTech News #110: 2024-04-22
Your Week 15 - 16 update from the Nordic and Baltic EdTech ecosystem
Hello and welcome to today’s Nordic EdTech News.
It’s been a busy and event-heavy couple of weeks for the ecosystem with ITK and SETT here and ASU GSV in rather sunnier climes!
It was great to be part of the first Nordic Track at SETT. For me, the event powerfully highlighted some of the significant challenges we need to address around awareness / understanding, government policy and proving impact. But it also showcased the appetite for talking / working together and the collective willingness of key players to find meaningful, long-lasting solutions (Link).
I hope that The Nordic EdTech Summit I’m organising in Skellefteå this August will also provide a forum to address these vital issues. My ambition is certainly that the event will spark conversations and collaborations that propel the ecosystem forward.
Attendees will also be able to gain invaluable practical insight from experts and industry leaders from across our ecosystem. I’m therefore delighted to announce five more brilliant speakers.
And if you’re still wondering “Why Skellefteå?” this short film gives an insight into the region, one of its innovative training companies and its position at the heart of the new green economy. FYI: Skellefteå’s NUITEQ has also just launched a new strategic partnership with Tele2 for customers across the public sector (Link).
As a friend of this newsletter, I’m pleased to offer you an exclusive 15% discount on the Early Bird ticket price. To claim it, just enter the code FriendOfMine when buying your ticket here before the end of April.
One of the key topics we’ll cover at the Summit will be the continued acceleration in Nordic EdTech M&A activity as a route to growth. There are three notable deals to update subscribers on today.
Sweden’s ILT Education has made its third acquisition in just over a year, buying Nessy Learning Limited, a UK-based dyslexia and literacy business. The move strengthens ILT’s position in Special Needs Education and opens up new international B2B / B2C markets. (Link)
Also in Sweden, Visma has signed an agreement for the acquisition of all shares in Patrick Aspling AB, the company behind Samverka.nu, a digital platform to administer internships and PRAO (Link).
Visma’s Danish business has also confirmed the purchase of Meebook, the country’s “largest digital learning platform” (Link). The rationale for the move is clear: it “will further strengthen Visma's position in the Nordics in general and be an important and strategic building block in Visma's public offer for the education sector in Denmark.”
Clearly recent government policy decisions across the Nordics have created significant challenges for EdTechs. But they also continue to offer growth opportunities - the Swedish government last week announced a further SEK 500 million for schools in the spring amendment budget (Link), while in Norway NOK 82.7 million has been allocated to provide tailored, free education for employee upskilling in five key industry segments (Link).
Three Norwegian providers (K2 Kompetanse, Lingu and the Norasondegruppen partnership) are also celebrating after winning a significant tender to provide digital, teacher-led Norwegian training across all of the country's 357 municipalities (Link).
As always, if you’ve got a story that you’d like me to include in a future issue of this newsletter, please email hello@10digits.org, tag me on Twitter or LinkedIn or use #nordicedtech / #balticedtech.
Thanks for reading this newsletter and please recommend it to friends and contacts by forwarding them a copy or via social media.
Best, Jonathan
News from Denmark
Danish municipalities continue to push for clarification from the government in the ongoing Chromebook case (Link) as some explore open source alternatives (Link).
COMM2IG lands a significant contract (DKK 629 million) to supply computers to Danish schools and educational institutions. (Link)
LMS365 has announced that the company name will change to Zensai. The product suite has also been revamped. (Link)
Shape Robotics published their 2023 Annual Report showing a significant revenue and profit uplift. The report also confirms their ambition to hit “net revenue of 1 billion DKK by 2027.” (Link)
UVdata, the KMD subsidiary, has signed a new strategic collaboration with Zenbi to “offer a comprehensive IT package to Danish post-secondary schools.” (Link)
WOOF has successfully raised a third round of investment - no further details released. (Link)
News from Estonia
EdTech companies are at the forefront of an Estonian trade mission to Kenya this week. (Link)
There have been challenges with the digital exam pilot, but good lessons learned for the live implementation. (Link)
News from Finland
The Finnish government has announced plans to limit the availability of free learning materials for secondary school students. (Link)
Interesting podcast with Neil Selwyn and Antti Paakkari from Tampere University about the impact of technology on early childhood education in Finland. (Link)
Radically new approach to redefine legal education from FLEX UNI. (Link)
Ilona IT are working with Smowltech to expand their reach in Finnish and Nordic markets. (Link)
Kide Science has been named as a 2024 CODiE Awards Finalist in the PK/Early Childhood Learning Solution category. (Link)
Wilma Business Director: "Technology and high-quality data play an important role in the school world of the future.”
News from Iceland
The new Centre for Education and School Services is now open with responsibility for providing “students with high-quality study materials.” (Link)
Great to see the founders of Evolytes, Kara Connect and LearnCove highlighted in Vestbee’s “Top women from VC and startup ecosystem in Iceland” report.
News from Latvia
How Chromebooks supplied with government funding “reduce inequality and help in the learning process.” (Link)
Datorium promotes youth digital skills and programming abilities through innovative technology solutions across Latvia. (Link)
News from Lithuania
Alfa klasė have launched an AI-driven solution to support Maths exam revision for Lithuanian 12th graders. (Link)
Restructure announced at Vilnius Coding School to improve student experience and boost student numbers. (Link)
News from Norway
Good overview of the issues around screen use in Norwegian preschools.
Schools in Sweden will be able to access learning content from 3DL through their new partnership with Skolon. (Link)
Aiba signs a deal with MovieStarPlanet to revolutionise children’s safety in their online gaming communities. (Link)
Kör Trafikkskole have secured a new NOK 11 million investment round led by
Unconventional Ventures to fuel expansion and “put the pedal to the metal.” (Link)
Scrimba and Mistral will collaborate on a new course to “turn web developers into AI engineers.” (Link)
Natalia Kucirkova of WiKIT argues the case in Scientific American that digital books don’t count as screen time. (Link)
News from Sweden
Lotta Edholm, Sweden’s Education Minister, argues for a move towards “state regulatory governance” and a return to “back to basics” education. (Link)
Lexplore has announced a ground-breaking initiative with Utfallsfonden to promote reading skills among Sweden's young people. (Link)
Lingio is working with over 100 municipalities and several large companies to help staff learn business Swedish. (Link)
Sana’s AI knowledge assistant is now available for free personal use (Link) and the company was the only Nordic business listed in Forbes’ sixth annual AI 50.
Sveriges Lärare published a new report on “Teacher-led digitisation.” It shows that 3 / 5 of teachers surveyed regularly use digital tools in teaching, although only 5% have used AI to a significant extent to date.
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