Here's how you can foster innovation in educational technology through strategic thinking.

La pédagogie au service des apprenant de tout age nécessite d’être en veille permanente pour trouver toujours la meilleure approche le meilleur outil et ce toujours au service de l’apprenant. Aujourd’hui c’est l’IA et toutes ses richesses possibles pour individualiser, pour de nouveaux outils d’aide à l’apprentissage. à nous de nous approprier cet outil et d’en tirer le meilleur au service de la pédagogie.

There are an impressive amount of new tools emerging right now, largely thanks to AI. Make sure you learn about new technologies and adapt them as early as possible, ideally in test environments. I've done this in the past, which has given me a competitive advantage. A simple example: I was an early adopter of Zoom when everyone was using WebEx and GoToMeeting/Webinar. When the Zoom hype happened, my organization was already using it following my suggestion. I was the only one in my sphere who was familiar with it, so I really leveraged that knowledge to make the transition to virtual as smooth as possible.

Technology adoption decisions need to be local. What works in urban India's top private schools won't work in urban schools operated by the government. An even bigger divide is between urban and rural schools in terms of infrastructure, accessibility, connectivity, etc. EdTech solutions need to be targeted at specific usecases, and it can only happen when we deeply understand the needs of users from very diverse backgrounds. One India-specific point here is that we need to create content for EdTech solutions in languages people learn in. With most states having state-specific preferred languages, we need to meet the users where they are. It is EdTech solutions which need to adapt to user needs and not the other way round.

One of the best ways I like to introduce new or "old" EdTech in the classroom is through purpose, curiosity, and co-learning with my students. We explore the concept via EdTech together, share our ideas as we create individually yet as a whole, and discuss what did and didn't work along the way. This way, I can be super intentional in molding the EdTech into something that my students will find useful in the classroom.

I deeply believe in the power of good data which is objectively captured to help in identifying the solutions and improvements which can make a real difference. As EdTech founders, we should be integrating data capture, analysis and presentation deeply within our products. We need to make it a core feature and not an after-thought. When working with government schools, we at Kidlet create customised dashboards for every level of government decision makers which allow them to see learning progress in real time. They can identify where the gaps are, what is working well and what can be improved. This is the first step in making our education system better from the ground up!

A lot of us founders are so laser-focused on improving our own products that we sometimes fail to see if and how we can impact the big picture. I think the one thing we should be doing is continuously talking to every impacted user: from students and teachers right up to state-level education leaders. We need to hear their perspective and let them guide our product development.