Nordic EdTech News #54 : 2021-11-15

Your Weeks 44 and 45 update from the Nordic & Baltic EdTech ecosystem

For a newsletter that usually celebrates the achievements of the Nordic EdTech ecosystem, it is unusual for me to highlight two potentially damaging recent developments.

The first is in Denmark where a new payment model has been controversially revealed for Unilogin (Link). (This is the national digital ID used by all school students and staff that provides access to key services and online teaching resources.) STIL (The Danish Agency for IT and Learning) is looking to increase the fee paid by “service providers” (i.e EdTech companies) to fund Unilogin’s operation and development. Unsurprisingly this has not been well received, with opponents claiming that it “…is destroying a burgeoning EdTech ecosystem” and that it will act as a tax on digital learning resources (machine translations).

Similarly in Iceland, Menntamálastofnun (The Icelandic Directorate of Education) has been accused of “directly hindering the normal development of the educational technology market in this country.” Work, opponents argue, is required to increase availability of EdTech resources in Icelandic and to give schools greater control over their budget and resources. Read the full story here.

On a more positive note, it’s great to see Estonia’s reputation for pedagogical and technological excellence continuing to spread. In a paywalled article headlined “Want the best schools in Europe? Try Estonia”, the Times looks at the secrets behind its success.

Part of that is certainly due to a thriving network of innovative EdTech businesses. One of those is Mentornaut, an online tutoring platform, who recently announced a €200K investment round led by the Estonian Business Angels Network (EstBAN). The business has also recently launched in Kenya. In other funding news, Norway’s Eduplaytion, producers of the Numetry maths game, closed their latest investment round at NOK 30 million (Link). The product is already used by 80,000 Norwegian students in 600 schools. Congratulations to both businesses!

And if you’d like to learn more about Norwegian EdTech’s leading light, Kahoot!, then do watch this interview with CEO, Eilert Hanoa.

Kudos also to the Nordic and Baltic EdTech businesses shortlisted for the 2022 BETT Awards (LEGO, Moomin Language School and Mussila). And those named in the HundrED Global Collection 2022 (Eduten, Kide Science and Learning About Forests).

Many of these entrepreneurs are members of N8, the Nordic EdTech Forum. The organisation last week announced that its 200th member had joined - please consider getting involved and adding your voice to this unique community of EdTech founders.

Don’t miss the forthcoming IHub4schools webinar on 25th November looking at how the Covid pandemic might act as a catalyst for educational change (Link). There’s a strong Nordic and Baltic presence with perspectives from Estonia, Finland, Norway and Lithuania.

To repeat the announcement in the last newsletter XcitED will be taking place at the new Helsinki Education Hub on 30th November. This year’s theme will be “Scale up” and there’s a great programme of keynotes and panel discussions featuring Brighteye Ventures, Educapital, the European Edtech Alliance, Unicef, Yes.vc and Zanichelli Ventures. XcitED will also feature the GESAwards Nordic & Baltic semi-final, where eight great companies will be pitching for a place in the global final. Book your tickets now!

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 always much appreciated!

Best regards, Jonathan

News from Denmark

• New research from DPU shows that Danish teachers are now using digital teaching more than before the Covid-19 pandemic. (Link)

• Sign up for the 6th Conference on Digital Learning Technology on 8th December.

• Labster awarded the "Next Global Hot Thing“ at the Digital Economy Awards. (Link)

• Shape Robotics' sales slump in Q3 but remain confident of hitting annual targets (Link) as their Romanian subsidiary secures deals with national Ministry of Defence (Link) and Lumina Foundation (Link).

• Ugly Duckling Games launches new Drama Studio tool for primary school students to create 3D animated stories. (Link)

News from Estonia

• Amazing to see that children are now solving 1 million maths problems a day on 99math! (Link)

• Edumus continues to expand - it is now working with 200 schools in Estonia and 50 in Ukraine. (Link)

• The initiatives supported by the Heateo Haridusfondi (Good Deed Education Fund) have reached nearly 80% of Estonian schools and almost 40,000 students. (Link)

News from Finland

• Great feature on Vietnamese national TV higlighting Eduten and its use in local schools. (Link)

• Ten teams have started the first incubation programme at the EdTech Incubator Helsinki, organised by Helsinki Education Hub. (Link)

• A recording of the HundrED Innovation Summit 2021 is available here.

• Over 1,000 students have participated in Kide Science’s story-based workshops in the Dubai Cares pavilion since Expo 2020 Dubai began. (Link)

• Update from Marble on participation and pitching at Web Summit. (Link)

• Mightifier partners with CambriLearn to provide a social-emotional learning curriculum to online students. (Link)

• New Nordic Schools launches the beta version of their new Nordic Learning Platform. (Link)

• New “Online Road Safety” resources launched by Suojellaan Lapsia to keep children safe online. (Link)

News from Iceland

• Evolytes signs an agreement with Kópavogsbær municipality. (Link)

• News that Atlas Primer, Kara Connect and Mussila made the HolonIQ NOrdic Baltic 50 hits the national press. (Link)

News from Latvia

• Students at Ventspils Technical School lead a shift to VR and other digital education technologies. (Link)

News from Lithuania

• BitDegree announces Haskell Academy Programme with ADAFinance to provide free Blockchain training. (Link)

• Edukraftas confirms expansion to the UK. (Link)

• The Marius Jakulis Jason Foundation agrees to support Teachers Lead Tech. (Link)

• Work continues to update the Lithuanian national curriculum. (Link)

News from Norway

• Concerns raised by IKT-Norge (Link) and Tekna (Link) that the government’s funding plans for digital education do not go far enough.

• Inspera get to market first with their 2021 year in review. (Link)

• “Strong continued growth” for Kahoot! in Q3 (Link) as they launch Kahoot!+ Study for HE students (Link) and team up with Minecraft. (Link).

• New research project gets underway to “..point out a direction for the further digitization of Norwegian basic education.” (Link)

• Store norske leksikon seeks support to develop a new, free online encyclopedia for children and young people. (Link)

News from Sweden

• Detailed Wired story about Stockholm’s infamous school app and its long-running battle with competitors and parents. (Link)

• Albert confirms strong growth in revenues but increased losses in their Jan - Sept investor update. (Link)

• DigiExam extends its relationship with Stockholm municipality, who have completed more than 2 million digital exams. (Link)

• imagiLabs release a new Collaborative Coding feature to leverage Apple’s much-awaited SharePlay feature (Link) as their CEO, Dora Palfi, wins “Advocate of the year” at the Nordic Women in Tech Awards. (Link)

• New statistics from Läromedelsföretagen detail the per pupil spend on teaching materials across Sweden’s 290 municipalities. (Link)

• Fredrik Bengtsson, CEO of NE (Nationalencyklopedin), responds to the recent Teaching Aids enquiry. (Link)

• Skolverket recommends 12000: 2020 as the common technical standard to facilitate interoperability in schools. (Link)

• Strawbees launches a new teacher platform (Strawbees Classroom) that’s been developed with their teacher network. (Link)

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