Nordic EdTech News #16 : 2020-03-30
Your Week 12 & 13 update from the Nordic & Baltic EdTech ecosystems
As the world grapples with the increasing impact and spread of Covid-19, global and regional EdTech businesses continue to extend their support for educators and learners. It’s particularly heartening to see continued co-ordinated action across the Nordics and Baltics. Most notably 40+ remote learning solutions have come together to support educators in a project initiated by the businesses themselves and by Estonia’s Education Nation initiative. Full details here and contact the team to get involved!
Other significant updates include:
Denmark - The edtechdonor.dk scheme continues to attract high profile attention (Link) and support including from Margrethe Vestager of the European Commission.
Estonia - Shakira has tweeted her support of Estonian EdTech businesses offering their products and services for schools to use. (Est, Eng)
Finland - Nearly 30 members of the Finnish EdTech community have now launched their response to the crisis with free resources available via the Koulu.me website.
Lithuania - Fantastic to see Lithuanian EdTech businesses pooling their resources and offering their resources to education. (Link, Link)
Sweden - Amazing co-ordinated response from key national authorities with new #Skolahemma initiative to support schools. (Swe, Eng)
The OECD’s publication of the TALIS Survey also emphasises the importance of such collaboration to address the Covid-19 pandemic (Link). The individual country notes here also make fascinating reading.
We’re already seeing the significant impact of Covid-19 on EdTech businesses with research from HolonIQ finding that more than half of global executives surveyed have negative future expectations. More locally, the Hub’s Nordic Startup Survey (Link) also clearly indicated founders’ concerns around future investment and sales.
EdTech businesses are now deploying a new range of business models (Link) to address these challenges. If you're a business leader or startup founder who’d like some support in adapting their business to these challenging times, I’d love to help. Please get in touch via jonathan@10digits.org.
Stay healthy and with best regards, Jonathan
News from Denmark
CanopyLab detail take-up of free platform/resources offer. (Link)
Claus Hjortdal outlines opportunities to transform Danish schools. (Den, Eng)
The Ministry of Children and Education outline increased usage of digital resources (Den, Eng) and publish advice to support online learning. (Den, Eng)
Integrating Shape Robotics’ Fable and Micro:bit. (Link)
Watch out for data processing agreements when signing up to use free digital resources via Skoleliv. (Den, Eng)
News from Estonia
Tõnis Kusmin, CEO of 99math on how the corona virus will transform digital education. (Link)
A group of Estonian startups and the Education Nation programme are organising a series of webinars to support educators and parents. (Link)
Great Estonian initiative to give children laptops for online learning. (Link)
HITSA report on the impact of the shift to digital learning (Eng) and outline increased usage of key resources/sites. (Est, Eng)
News from Finland
Five leading Finnish digital language solutions profiled here. (Link)
Great profile of Fuzu founder, Jussi Hinkkanen. (Link)
Funzi launch their Future Pack to give learners the skills to take charge of their lives and build a better future. (Link)
Fascinating profile of New Nordic School in Forbes (Link) as they launch new The Nordic Way Vlog series. (Link)
Kide Science announce new product for families with young children (Link) and announce partnership with Chinese learning centre network Oran Bear. (Link)
Panda Training won the Latvian Hackforce COVID hackathon. Congrats! (Link)
School Day have developed and launched their @Home product in under 3 weeks. Available to all educators in Europe and North America through June ‘20. (Link)
News from Iceland
Mainframe Industries, an Icelandic/Finnish gaming company raise $8.2m at Series A, led by Andreessen Horowitz via Northstack. (Link)
Mussila identified as a leading app for children to learn to play music. (Link)
News from Latvia
Anatomy Next, Edurio and YaClass all feature in Sifted’s Top Latvian startups to follow in 2020. (Link)
Riga Stradins University (RSU) prepares to help Y12 students online. (Latvian)
Further support from Solfeg.io to support online education and teachers. (Link)
Additional government advice and support for online learning here and collections of online teaching materials via #Skola2030 here. (Links in Latvian)
Uzdevumi review the first week of online, distance learning. (Lat, Eng)
News from Lithuania
In response to Covid-19, Google for Education prepares for launch in Lithuania (Link) and their online training courses get underway. (Lith, Eng)
BitDegree offer free career courses / resources to support learners. (Link)
130 Lithuanian schools have started using Sanako Connect’s online language learning platform as part of moving their classes online. (Link)
News from Norway
How Norway moved 800,00 students to online learning (Nor, Eng - paywall) and the response to shifting all colleges and universities online too. (Nor, Eng)
How Kahoot! supports businesses through virtual employee training. (Link)
Lær Kidsa Koding create Hjemmekodeklubben to support parents with coding and computer science education. (Nor, Eng)
MakeKit prepare to launch Hover:bit on Indiegogo (31/03 @ 1600 CET). (Link)
Skooler acquires Loops Education. (Link)
News from Sweden
Dugga, Gleerups, Natur & Kultur, Studi, StudyBee announce new initiatives and support for teachers and schools.
EdTech businesses are ready if all of Sweden’s schools close. (Swe, Eng)
Find out more about Haldor (Swedish) as they launch webinar series. (Swe, Eng)
ICYMI - IST completes acquisition of Schoolido, a digital learning service for grades 4-9. (Swe, Eng)
Microsoft Sweden and My Dream Now start programme to support teachers. (Swe, Eng)
Swedish Edtech Industry CEO Jannie Jeppesen argues that schools can emerge stronger from this crisis. (Swe, Eng)
Thanks for reading and see you again soon!
Many thanks, Jonathan
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