Edtech startups seek to unlock opportunities and potential

At the height of the pandemic, schools across the world were shut. Globally, over 1.2 billion children were out of the classroom. This sudden loss of physical classrooms led to a boom in the education technology (edtech) space.

But even before COVID-19, there was already high growth and adoption in edtech. We spoke with the founders of edtech companies in LinkedIn’s Top Startups 2022 to get insights into the inspiration of their edtech solutions and how it is impacting students.

Angga Fauzan , Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Indonesia's MySkill , came from an underprivileged family and almost dropped out of school due to financial problems. Going through that, he wanted to help people acquire skills so that they and their families would have the opportunity for a better life.

Fauzan says that the quality of higher education in Indonesia is unequal, and there is a huge gap between education and industry needs which impacts the quality of university graduates.

“Hence, we would like to tackle the supply-demand issue on skilled workers by disrupting the way people obtain skills and build their career path.”

“MySkill has a vision to democratise access to upskilling and career enhancement in order to develop highly skilled talent for Indonesia. We provide a multidimensional approach to pursue this vision which is independent, interactive and personalized learning.

“MySkill has three main features. First, on-demand eLearning content with almost 1.000 video provided and subscription-based payment. Second, intensive live class / bootcamp with experts and focused on building a strong portfolio. Third, one on one mentoring with HR, such as CV review and interview preparation.

“Our vision is to democratise access for upskilling and career preparation for around 70 Million young workers in Indonesia. We could not do this alone. Hence, strategic collaboration is required between academia, industry, government and communities. There are also a lot more gaps to be filled in every sector, and inequality issues for education, upskilling and job quality in third and fourth tier cities in Indonesia. Hence, we hope that technology development and innovation could accelerate our vision.”

For Hugh Yao , Founder and CEO of Singapore’s LingoAce , being able to learn a new language can help children unlock new opportunities and bridge connections. This would also give them a competitive edge for future professional opportunities.

“Being bilingual opened so many doors for me personally and professionally. It’s a gift that I wanted to pass on to my children. But I witnessed firsthand how challenging it was for them to learn Chinese through traditional teaching methods, which relies on a lot of rote-based memorization. It was hard to see how bored and overwhelmed they were. As a parent, I wanted to make language learning fun, engaging and effective. What I quickly learned was that there were many more parents just like me: they wanted a language class that was designed for their kids who are digital natives.”

“When it comes to teaching Chinese as a second language to young children, one of the biggest challenges is access. It may be hard to believe in Singapore where Chinese is taught as a core subject, but in many parts of the world, it is incredibly difficult to find a great language teacher and an effective class that’s designed for young modern learners.??

“That’s why we thoughtfully designed a curriculum pegged to globally accredited syllabi that uses gamification, role playing, animated storytelling and other interactive multimedia. With the advances in video chat, we were able to build an online classroom that connects professionally certified teachers with students around the world. Today we have learners in more than 100 countries and regions and more than 4,500 teachers.”?

Henry Motte de la Motte , Founder and CEO of Edukasyon.ph in the Philippines, wants to solve the broken journey from education to employment there.

“Every year, 1.5 million high school students in the Philippines graduate high school, with little to no guidance on how to navigate their college and employment. Edukasyon.ph sought to resolve this through a platform that incorporates specialized search, tailored guidance, thousands of articles, videos and gamified learning experiences, to help students figure out what, where and how to study, and what career to get post graduation.

Motte-Mu?oz says that the education landscape has shifted in the last two years, and he wants to empower every Filipino learner through the experience of quality education to be successful in life.

“As Filipino students return to classrooms, some are catching up on unfinished learning, but others are falling further behind, widening pre pandemic gaps. Today, Edukasyon has also evolved to adapt to the challenges in the last two years.”

“In the Philippines, there are emerging Edtech startups that are driving quality and accessible education and we are excited to see what we can do together. Millions of Filipino learners are struggling with both digital and learning gaps and we look forward to collaborating with the community, both public and private institutions to solve this together. We also will be looking out for more shifts happening in the next few years.”

For the founders of Singapore’s Geniebook , personalisation and scalability has been one of their key focuses. Co-Founder and CEO Neo Zhizhong (Neo) shares:

“As teachers, we loved seeing students succeed. And we realised this: education is personal. You might be great at biology, but I might struggle. I might be ready for advanced chemistry, but you need more time with the basics. We are learning different things at different paces to improve.

"Armed with this knowledge, we started Geniebook to provide students with exactly what they need: personalisation.

"Geniebook delivers personalised education at scale, so students can improve in the areas they need help with but don’t waste time on topics and concepts they have mastered. Powered by our patented technology, Geniebook finds the best questions from our question bank to help our students improve in the shortest amount of time.”?

What will the future of education look like, and how will technology transform classrooms and the craft of teaching? Join the conversation using #LinkedInTopStartups.

Reported by: Adrian Tay