Tag Archives: Learning

Scaling European Edtech

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I recently came across this interesting report from Navitas Ventures – Global Edtech Ecosystems 1.0: Connecting the World of Education Technology.  Navitas analysed 20 cities with leading edtech ecosystems representing about 40% of global edtech.  Beijing, the Bay Area and New York are top of the class, with Boston, London and Shanghai challenging.  They also assessed a further 14 emerging ecosystems at different states of maturity.  It’s clear that edtech is thriving across the globe!

Scale is essential to success in digital and you can see that in edtech too, with the predominance of China and the USA.  In addition, given the demography and emerging status of the edtech ecosystems in India and Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s likely that together these four regions will give birth to a generation of edtech giants.  Edtech could significantly improve the life chances of hundreds of millions of people in these regions by increasing access, participation and engagement in education.  It’s a powerful promise!

HolonIQ

Source: HolonIQ

What about Europe?

Europe has some natural advantages in the edtech space.  We are home to many world-class education systems such as Finland. There’s a rich start-up scene in a number of European cities with London leading (but will Brexit make us BETT-sick?). Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Helsinki and Amsterdam are vibrant and promising too, in fact there are more than 3000 edtech ventures across Europe today. Furthermore, there is significant and reliable spending on education through governments and ready access to venture and growth funding privately.

However, we lack scale

A lack of scale probably results in us under-serving our own customers.  It restricts our ability to expand to international markets. And it potentially exposes us to competitors grown in the big markets.  A lack of scale is restricting our potential.

European Champions

To address this, I think we need to create a European edtech network with strong go-to-market capabilities so we can effectively scale successful concepts across the continent.  I believe this network would be well served if it includes a handful of Champions to acts as magnets to talent, ideas and capital.

Learning organisation

I am interested in your ideas about how we could bring more scale to European edtech and what you think about the idea of building a European network with Champions.  How could we make that happen?  I’m also curious to learn from some of the challenger and emerging edtech ecosystems: how are they approaching this, what’s working and what’s not?  Learning is in our DNA, we need to put those skills to work if we are to bring this potential to life.

Strongest result in our history so far at Sanoma Learning

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We always win

Last week Sanoma announced the financial results for 2018, which were very good with improved operational profits across all three divisions.

“Best result ever at Sanoma Learning”

For Sanoma Learning this was the best result in our history so far, with profitability increasing by 10% from € 55.6M in 2017 to € 61.2M in 2018.  This very much helps to underpin the major investments we are making in the digital transformation.

“Win locally”

I’m especially proud that a large part of this very good performance came from gains in market share in many of our countries, demonstrating that our learning materials are appreciated by teachers and pupils and that we are competitive in the market. Our Learning Impact survey showed that teachers believe our solutions support them in reaching their learning objectives (92%), enable them in their workflow (87%) and help in student engagement (83%). This really highlights the important work we are doing in enabling teachers in developing the talents of our children.

“Working together across borders”

A second driver of the good results in 2018 was the High Five program where we are working together on investing in the next generation of Sanoma Learning, and funding that journey by creating leaner processes on a number of back-office activities. This gave a solid underpinning to the results in 2018, and we will see further benefits in 2019.

“New growth through acquisitions”

In addition we announced at the end of 2018 our intention to acquire Iddink Group which  will increase the size of Sanoma Learning by about half going forward.  Iddink will help us to accelerate the digital transformation of secondary education in The Netherlands, will extend our role in Belgium and will bring us a new position and new opportunities in Spain. During the course of 2019 we expect to become the owner of Iddink.

Thank you!

I very much want to thank the teachers and pupils who work with our courses for your trust in us. I would also like to thank our teams for the good work in 2018. I know we asked a lot of you and I appreciate the important work we did together.   This has truly been a team effort!

Looking forward >>

We have a big year ahead of us not least with the launch of new platform Kampus in Finland and Sweden, Bingel in The Netherlands, new reforms in Upper Secondary Education in Poland and other reforms in Belgium.  We will be working hard to progress the High Five Program. And we expect to finalize the transaction with Iddink and further develop the business.

We have a strong plan for the coming years and are highly committed to making a positive impact on learning and teaching.  Looking forward >>

Accelerating the digital transformation of education. Sanoma Learning acquires Iddink Group, a leading educational platform and service provider.

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Sanoma Iddink

Earlier this week we announced that Sanoma Learning intends to acquire Iddink Group, a leading educational platform and service provider.

Pupils and teachers especially appreciate “blended learning solutions”: mashing up physical and digital approaches to inspire learning.  However the digital element of blended learning in schools needs a boost.

Together, we want to accelerate the digital transformation of education

Together with Iddink and in close cooperation with schools and other partners in the market, we want to accelerate the digital transformation of education. Sanoma Learning invests heavily each and every year in new blended learning solutions.  Iddink Group is also a frontrunner on the digital transformation, with amongst others the leading platforms Magister and Eduarte and intelligence service TIG.

Personalised Learning

Thanks to digital, we will in the future be able to serve pupils with tailored learning materials which play seamlessly on learning platforms in schools.  We believe this will enable personalisation, increase the motivation of pupils, and support the work of the teacher. Positive news for learning and teaching!

Iddink Group and Malmberg & VAN IN will be independent units Sanoma Learning. Naturally, Iddink Group will continue to collaborate closely with other publishers; future solutions and platforms we create will be available and open for the entire market.  This is what schools are asking of us and what will benefit pupils and teachers the most.  Open platforms, populated and integrated with great and up-to-date blended learning content, available to all.  Malmberg and VAN IN will of course, in turn, also continue to cooperate with other educational service providers.

I’m really excited about this development, which I think is going to help us to make a great leap forward in serving schools, especially as we go through the digital transformation together!

Looking forward >>

At the d.school Stanford

Creating a European Champion in Learning

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CMD cover

We’re an ambitious company and we are working on building a European Champion in Learning.

Last week we held our annual Capital Markets Day event in Helsinki – which is a good chance for us to share our plans with the investment community.  It was a positive day.  The team was in good spirits and there were lots of great questions from the participants.

I talked about our approach to building a European Champion. Check out the video of the session here.

Our starting point is strong: we serve 10m pupils and 1m teachers in some of the world’s best and most advanced education systems.  We’re a front runner on the digital transformation and have a strong financial performance and track record.  We have a solid plan and believe we can add even more value for our customers in the future.

We have a three pillar strategy to build this European Champion:

  • Win in local markets, by serving our customers well
  • Work together across borders to create one integrated company
  • Make selective acquisitions in current and new learning markets

We’re really excited about the opportunities for the business and our team is going for it!

I’m interested to hear your views and if you see opportunities that you think we should be developing too.

CMD strategy

 

 

Winning Spirit of Nowa Era at 25

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Magda

MD of Nowa Era Magda Walczak inspiring the team at the event

Last week we celebrated the 25th anniversary of Nowa Era.  It was really fantastic to be there together with the team, especially in such an exceptional year!

Past to Present

25 years ago it would have been almost impossible to imagine the success that Nowa Era has become today.  I wonder in those early days whether Mariusz and Magda even dreamed

  • We would become the market leader
  • Serving nearly every school in the country in some way
  • With such an outstanding quality of offering.

Present to Future

If you think what the team has achieved in the last 25 years – just imagine the next 25!

The key to the success of Nowa Era is our people

  • Who are doing extremely important work in enabling high quality education
  • In talented and hard-working teams
  • And striving to do it to the very best of their ability.

Spirit of Nowa Era

I call this the “winning spirit of Nowa Era“. I believe it will help us to make the next 25 years even more successful than the first 25.

With respect and appreciation

With respect and appreciation I would like to thank the teams for their commitment and outstanding achievements.  We are extremely proud of you.