Last week I visited the EdTechEurope conference in London. Congratulations to the team for putting together a rich program and high quality of production!

I love meeting the entrepreneurs and sensing their passion. It’s great to hear their vision and see the innovation. They trigger my curiosity. How could we put this to work for better learning impact for our customers? What could this mean for the educational ecosystem we serve? Could this company disrupt our business?

I’m a member of the Advisory Board of EdTechEurope and spoke on the panel “CEO Talks on Digital Transformation” together with Rob Grimshaw (CEO at TES Global) and Karine Allouche Salanon (CEO at Pearson English Business Solutions). There was a lot of talk about the role of the teacher in this session which I liked since I believe the teacher is the killer app in education.

Scaling up?

I wonder if this conference tells us something about a wave of investment (and disruption) in edtech in Europe.

Is there more action?

This is the third time the meeting was held and each time participation has doubled, this time to 650 people. Is this simply because it’s a well-run and well-timed initiative? Or is the series tapping into an underlying trend of growing investment into edtech? At this rate, we’ll need to hire Wembley Stadium for EdTechEurope-2022!

Going global?

This year we had many more visitors from outside Europe. There was a particularly interesting session from SWSWedu – great to see Zaption and Cerego there, re-connecting after our recent trip to Silicon Valley! Also, the session on “Edtech Opportunities in Asia” was very worthwhile, especially for the useful advice from Prof Ping-Cheng Yeh on China. Are these signals of a growing global market for services and technology in education?

Who are the Champions?

It’s thrilling to see so much innovation taking place in edtech; IBIS Capital estimates that there are more than 3000 e-learning start-ups in Europe alone. Is this typical for a wave of disruptive innovation? Or an expression of the (sometimes hyper-) local nature of education? From an investment and partnering perspective however, it’s increasingly difficult to see the wood for the trees. Is there a risk that our industry is spreading talent and resources too thinly?

Looking forward >> Time for a Champions League?

These questions around scale trigger my interest in the idea of a “Champions League” of edtech companies, to lead the growth and transformation opportunity for education in Europe. These companies could act as magnets for talent, ideas and capital and help to bring scale to the industry. TES Global probably has such ambitions and is backed by the deep pockets of TPG. Pearson is the World’s biggest learning company and has extensive size and international reach. Sanoma Learning has a great reputation for excellence in education and digital transformation. Who are the other players who could help bring scale to the industry? Learn Capital (London)? Google?

I’m interested to hear your views on this.