Nordic EdTech News #38 : 2021-03-08
Your Week 8 and 9 update from the Nordic & Baltic EdTech ecosystems
Despite spring break holidays, the last couple of weeks have continued to generate their fair share of news across the Nordic and Baltic EdTech ecosystems.
As is often the case, Kahoot! leads the way with news that they have acquired Whiteboard.fi to provide “more powerful learning tools for educators worldwide” (Link). It’s Kahoot’s second acquisition of a Nordic EdTech business since acquiring Drops (from Estonia) in November 2020.
The deal is worth a total consideration of $6 million, with a further $6 million depending on Whiteboard’s performance in 2021-2022. Certainly their recent performance has been hugely impressive, growing active users by over 400% in the last 6 months to reach more than 7 million users on a 30-day basis. (Link)
There’s a clear hint in the press release that Kahoot! aren’t done yet either. As CEO Eilert Hanoa states, “We will continue to expand into new areas to make Kahoot! the ultimate learning destination, no matter the age, location or context, and to make learning awesome!" We’ll be watching with interest.
In other funding news, Sweden’s imagiLabs announced that they have raised €250,000 in pre-seed funding to “continue growing internationally and building its community of coders” (Link) The investment comes on the back of strong recent growth and is led by a stellar list of angel investors.
I’m really pleased that Paula Dozsa, Co-Founder & Lead Developer at imagiLabs will be the subject of the next NEN interview, which will be in subscriber inboxes next Monday, 15th March. And if you missed it, last week’s interview with Esben Trier, CEO of EdTech Denmark is available here.
Notably Denmark, Estonia, Finland (and Germany) called on the EU this week to accelerate its digital transformation (Link). This comes as the Nordic Council publish a recording of their recent webinar on education and digital futures.
Similar regional cooperation is also evident in a forthcoming virtual event entitled ‘The future of education in the new Nordics’. This takes place at 13:00 CET on 25 March and brings together leading EdTech companies and experts from Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland and Sweden. Sign up here to attend.
Finally, two more events and two reports to bring to your attention.
Leading Finnish EdTechs are sharing their insights on play-based learning in early childhood education on Wednesday 10 March. (Details here)
The latest CBN Science webinar takes place on 18 March, looking at Data Science for Learning Through Play. The keynote is from Valentino Pacifici, Director of Data Science at Sana Labs. (Sign up here)
McKinsey’s latest Teacher Survey highlights the scale of pandemic learning loss as well as providing evidence of the impact of online learning/teaching.
Lots of invaluable insights and takeaways in Brighteye Ventures’ latest report - ‘The State of EdTech Marketing 2021.’
As always, do let me know if you’ve got any feedback or a story to include in a future issue of this newsletter by emailing hello@10digits.org. Sharing this email with your network is also much appreciated!
Best regards, Jonathan
News from Denmark
Teaching in lockdown has been more “textbook and portal-driven” according to a survey of Danish teachers. (Den)
New CEO appointed at Airtame (Link) as they sign a major European distribution agreement. (Link)
CanopyLAB CEO, Sahra-Josephine Hjorth, is featured on the Real Leaders Podcast. (Link)
The Swedish municipality of Södertälje chooses the Cicero library system. (Link)
Great to see Mads Bonde, Co-Founder Labster, on Cheddar talking about how virtual labs are inspiring future generations of scientists. (Link)
News from Estonia
How Estonia sparks children’s interest in IT education. (Link)
Estonia’s Covid-19 response is highlighted in a WEF study on the lessons from remote learning (Link) and in work by the EU Science Hub. (Link)
From particle physics to language learning – find out how Mait Müntel left physics to become the CEO of Lingvist. (Link)
Tallinn Library wins European Citizens Prize for online reading initiative. (Link)
New co-heads of the Jõhvi Coding School have been announced. (Link)
The Estonian Technology Compass for Education discusses online learning, emphasising that technology cannot replace contact teaching, but it can enrich it. (Link)
News from Finland
Code School Finland help schools in South Africa to include coding education in everyday classes. (Link)
Sad to learn that there’ll be no more Dare to Learn events. (Link)
Funzi launch their first White Paper, looking at the future of learning and employability. (Link) A recording of their recent online event about mobile learning is also now available.
Olli-Pekka Heinonen has been appointed as the new director-general of The International Baccalaureate. Congratulations! (Link)
Language Clubhouse launch new partnership in Laos. (Link)
Sanoma Learning announce that net sales grew “significantly” in FY 2020, up 49% to EUR 499.7m. (Link)
Interesting interview with Mika Kasanen, CEO of School Day, outlining his views on Finnish education and SaaS business models. (Link)
Don’t miss this virtual event on 18 March from the University of Helsinki looking at the future of education. (Link)
Persuasive argument that robotics education should be compulsory for all. (Link)
A call for more education funding to bring Finland up to “Nordic levels.” (Fin)
News from Iceland
Dates announced from Utís 2021 - will be held between 5 and 6 November. Applications to attend open 15 April. Details here.
News from Latvia
Concerns raised about internet capacity and computer equipment for schools during distance learning. (Lat)
Edurio create best practice resources with Latvian schools and teachers (Lat) as CEO Ernest Jenavs shares his thoughts on how schools can build back better. (Link)
Exonicus helps to train doctors to learn skills and maintain preparedness. (Lat)
News from Lithuania
Lector Pro and mOintellect win prizes at the MITA Tech Hub Demo Day (Lith)
News from Norway
Inspera have been awarded a national contract (via SUNET) to provide digital assessment to all higher education institutions in Sweden. (Link)
itslearning announce significant improvements to their LMS platform during 2021. (Link)
Students at Øvrebyen high school are using Ludenso Create to work on a sustainability project, and to express their ideas in AR. (Link)
No Isolation are featured in Monocle’s ‘On Design’ radio show showing how they help young people with long-term illness to stay connected to the classroom. (Link)
News from Sweden
Frustration mounts with ‘dysfunctional’ digital solutions developed by municipalities. (Link)
Detailed coverage in Breakit of Astrid Education’s growth in Asia. (Swe)
The municipality of Köping outline how they use Matteappen to support maths teaching across their schools. (Radio report in Swedish)
ILT Inläsningstjänst announce that Polylino is now being used by schools in Switzerland, the seventh country to use the service in 2 years. (German)
ICYMI - Anna Nordell-Westling, CMO and co-founder of Sana Labs, featured on the Women in AI blog. (Link)
Unikum report strong interest in their webinar series. (Swe)
UR’s 2020 report details their rapid response to the pandemic and significant increased use by schools. (Swe)
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