Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 1:24 PM on Thursday, January 9th, 2020
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New tool uses AI to flag fake news for media fact-checkers
A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool could help social media networks and news organizations weed out false stories.
The tool uses deep-learning AI algorithms to determine if claims
made in posts or stories are supported by other posts and stories on the
same subject.
By: University of Waterloo
A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool could help social media networks and news organizations weed out false stories.
The tool, developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo,
uses deep-learning AI algorithms to determine if claims made in posts or
stories are supported by other posts and stories on the same subject.
“If they are, great, it’s probably a real story,” said Alexander
Wong, a professor of systems design engineering at Waterloo. “But if
most of the other material isn’t supportive, it’s a strong indication
you’re dealing with fake news.”
Researchers were motivated to develop the tool by the proliferation
of online posts and news stories that are fabricated to deceive or
mislead readers, typically for political or economic gain.
Their system advances ongoing efforts to develop fully automated
technology capable of detecting fake news by achieving 90 per cent
accuracy in a key area of research known as stance detection.
Given a claim in one post or story and other posts and stories on the
same subject that have been collected for comparison, the system can
correctly determine if they support it or not nine out of 10 times.
That is a new benchmark for accuracy by researchers using a large
dataset created for a 2017 scientific competition called the Fake News
Challenge.
While scientists around the world continue to work towards a fully
automated system, the Waterloo technology could be used as a screening
tool by human fact-checkers at social media and news organizations.
“It augments their capabilities and flags information that doesn’t
look quite right for verification,” said Wong, a founding member of the
Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute. “It isn’t designed to
replace people, but to help them fact-check faster and more reliably.”
AI algorithms at the heart of the system were shown tens of thousands
of claims paired with stories that either supported or didn’t support
them. Over time, the system learned to determine support or non-support
itself when shown new claim-story pairs.
“We need to empower journalists to uncover truth and keep us
informed,” said Chris Dulhanty, a graduate student who led the project.
“This represents one effort in a larger body of work to mitigate the
spread of disinformation.”
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at 11:00 AM on Thursday, January 9th, 2020
SPONSOR: NORTHBUD (NBUD:CSE)
Sustainable low cost, high quality cannabinoid production and
procurement focusing on both bio-pharmaceutical development and
Cannabinoid Infused Products. Learn More.
When CBD met chocolate
The health-conscious, environmentally-aware consumer has encouraged
new trends in the chocolate sector that affect flavour, texture and
harvesting. Greater Goods has gone one step further, infusing the
beloved food of the gods with CBD. Bethan Grylls hears from its
co-founder about why this combination works.
Indulgent, premium and good-for-you: these words will be familiar to
the modern-day confectioner as they look to address current trends1 and
differentiate themselves in a competitive market. Be it a new sensory
experience across taste, texture or colour; the lure of single-origin
sourcing; or a guilt-free treat, the realms of chocolate innovation and
buyer demands have stretched well beyond the days of penny sweets.
Some brands have taken things one step further, combining trends like
organic, fair trade and non-GMO confectionery, with the demand for CBD –
a term that was Googled 6. 4 million times during April 2019.2
Greater Goods, based in
Oregon, US, is one example, offering its customers a selection of
cannabinoid-infused ‘goodies’. Despite being a modest husband and wife
venture, the team says they are looking to compete against the larger
companies through hand-crafted, fun and unusually-flavoured products.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:30 AM on Thursday, January 9th, 2020
SPONSOR: BetterU Education Corp.
aims to provide access to quality education from around the world.
The company plans to bridge the prevailing gap in the education and job
industry and enhance the lives of its prospective learners by developing
an integrated ecosystem. Click here for more information.
Edtech Unicorn Byju’s Gets $200 Mn From Tiger Global
Secondary transactions are expected to provide exit to early investors
Byju’s plans to launch Online Tutoring in next few months
Byju”s has reportedly been valued at $8 Bn with this investment
Bengaluru-based edtech company
Byju’s, on Thursday (January 9), announced that it has raised funding
from New York-based Tiger Global. The company didn’t share the funding
amount, but reports have said that Tiger Global has invested $200 Mn in
Byju’s.
The report further said that
secondary transactions, estimated at $100Mn-$200 Mn, are also expected
to provide exit to early investors. The round reportedly valued Byju’s
at $8 Bn. The company didn’t specify the same and also didn’t share
details of plans to use the funds.
Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO, Byju’s said, “We are happy to
partner with a strong investor like Tiger Global Management. They share
our sense of purpose and this partnership will advance our long term
vision of creating an impact by changing the way students learn. This
partnership is both a validation of the impact created by us so far and a
vote of confidence for our long term vision.â€
Byju’s Growth Plans
Founded in 2008 by Divya Gokulnath and Byju Raveendran, Byju’s offers
a learning app, which was launched in 2015 and has learning programmes
for students in classes IV-XII, along with courses to help students
prepare for competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE, and GMAT.
Byju’s was last valued at $ 5.7 Bn and has raised over $969.8 Mn funding from investors such as General Atlantic, Tencent, Naspers, Qatar Investment Authority, and Canada’s Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) among others.
In January 2019, Byju’s also forayed into the US with the acquisition of Osmo,
a US-based learning platform. Over the last year, the company’s
fundraising has focused on international expansion. The expansion to the
Middle East, the US, the UK, South Africa, and other African and
Commonwealth markets have been on the cards.
Further, Byju’s has also tied up with Disney
to launch its edtech services for kids in classes 1st to 3rd. BYJU’S
Early Learn app for young children aged between 6 to 8 years old with
Disney’s stories and characters from Disney Princess, Frozen, Cars, Toy
Story franchises and more. This year, the company is planning to launch
Byju’s Online Tutoring, which will further help the company to
accelerate its growth and profitability.
In the past 12 months, Byju’s claims to have witnessed tremendous
growth with over 42 Mn registered users and 3 Mn paid subscribers from
both rural and urban areas in India. It claims that the average number
of minutes a student spends on the app has increased from 64 minutes to
71 minutes per day over the last year and the annual renewal rates are
as high as 85%.
The company had claimed to have tripled its revenue from INR 520 Cr
to INR 1480 Cr in FY 18-19 and turned profitable on a full-year basis.
The company also said it is on track to double revenues to INR 3000 Cr
in the current financial year.
“Byju’s has emerged as the leader in the Indian education-tech
sector. They are pioneering technology shaping the future of learning
for millions of school students in India. We are excited to support Byju
and the team,†said Scott Shleifer, Partner, Tiger Global.
Challenges In Edtech Amid Increasing Investor Interest
The impact Byju’s has created has been highlighted in Mary Meeker’s
Internet Trends 2019 report. The report said that Byju’s number of
paying students between the ages of 9-17, had crossed over 1.5 Mn in March 2019 from the 1 Mn mark in the last financial year.
Digital evolution and the boom in smartphone adoption are expected to
define the way Indian students learn. Real-time book updates, online
tutoring, edutainment, online test preparation, web-based research, and
gamification — technology has changed our traditional education system
in more ways than one. With more than 260 Mn enrolments, India has the world’s largest K-12 (primary and secondary) education system.
According to DataLabs by Inc42, there were 3,500 edtech startups in India in 2018. Between 2014 and 2019, a total of $1.802 Bn was raised by edtech startups across 303 deals.
Byju’s close competitors include Toppr and Unacademy, who are working towards dominating the Indian edtech segment, which is expected to be a $1.96 Bn market by 2021.
DataLabs noted that one of the reasons for
edtech startups being unable to go mainstream and attract investments is
lack of awareness about the latest education technology in the country.
To support the sector, the government is working on national education policy as well.
The draft policy has “proposed the revision and revamping of all
aspects of the education structure, its regulation and governance, to
create a new system that is aligned with the aspirational goals of
21st-century education, while remaining consistent with India’s
traditions and value systems.â€
The draft policy says that technology will play an important role in
the improvement of educational processes and outcomes. The draft policy
says that the relationship between technology and education at all
levels is bidirectional.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 9:56 AM on Thursday, January 9th, 2020
GEMS™ Mobile and the HeartCheck™ CardiBeat to be integrated with the CareOS smart mirror
Entered into a partnership agreement with CareOS SAS , a subsidiary of Baracoda Group (“CareOS“), to provide consumer ECG monitoring technologies through the CareOS Poseidon smart mirror health and beauty hub.
TORONTO, ONTARIO /January 8, 2020 / CardioComm Solutions, Inc. (TSXV:EKG)(OTCPINK:EKGGF)(“CardioComm” or the “Company“), a global provider of consumer heart monitoring and electrocardiogram (“ECG“) device and software solutions, is pleased to confirm it has entered into a partnership agreement with CareOS SAS (France), a subsidiary of Baracoda Group (“CareOS“), to provide consumer ECG monitoring technologies through the CareOS Poseidon smart mirror health and beauty hub.
The partnership will see CardioComm’s FDA and Health Canada cleared
GEMS™ ECG management software and Smart Monitoring ECG reading service
integrated into the touch and gesture controlled smart mirror. The
GEMSTM software will be capable of recognizing ECG devices made by
multiple device manufacturers which will permit CareOS customers more
options in choosing a device of their preference. The HeartCheck™
CardiBeat will be a CareOS recommended device given its availability in
Canada, the US and Europe. When taking an ECG, the user will activate
the smart mirror’s display to connect to a selected ECG device. The
Smart mirror will also display the ECG trace in real-time during the
recording. Once recorded the ECG can be replayed and there will be no
limit to the number of ECG reports the user can generate. Users will
also have the option to send any of the recorded ECGs to CardioComm’s
SMART Monitoring ECG reading service to have the ECG reviewed and a
triage ECG report provided.
CareOS’ interest to integrate CardioComm’s easy-to-use ECG monitoring
technologies into the Poseidon smart mirror compliments both companies’
objectives to produce a credible, privacy-first, intuitive personal
care platform that improves wellbeing and long term health. The
innovative Poseidon smart mirror was also awarded the Consumer
Electronics Show (“CES“) Innovation Award in the Smart Home category for a second consecutive year.
CardioComm was the first company to enter the personalized ECG
monitoring market and it did so to address an unmet availability of
medically credible heart monitoring solutions to the consumer market.
The Company is motivated to develop partnerships with innovative
organizations like CareOS, to assist in bringing new “firsts” to market
that can leverage medically credentialed technologies that physicians
are already familiar with and that will enhance the consumer’s health
monitoring experience.
CardioComm is listed as a partner on the CareOS website and the Company will also be present at CES.
To learn more about CardioComm’s products and for further updates
regarding HeartCheck™ ECG device integrations please visit the Company’s
websites at www.cardiocommsolutions.com and www.theheartcheck.com.
About CardioComm Solutions
CardioComm Solutions’ patented and proprietary technology is used in
products for recording, viewing, analyzing and storing
electrocardiograms for diagnosis and management of cardiac patients.
Products are sold worldwide through a combination of an external
distribution network and a North American-based sales team. CardioComm
Solutions has earned the ISO 13485:2016 MDSAP certification, is HIPAA
compliant and holds clearances from the European Union (CE Mark), the
USA (FDA) and Canada (Health Canada).
About CareOS
CareOS, digital center of self care, is a privacy-first, intuitive,
open platform for personal intelligence that works naturally into an
individual’s hygiene, beauty, wellness and preventative care rituals. It
makes the best possible use of time we spend in front of a mirror to
improve our health and appearance by organizing and enhancing
information from connected devices, digital services and CareOS’s own
AI, powered by Tensorflow Lite. CareOS is a Baracoda Group company, led
by experts with decades of experience in connected devices and wellness,
specifically to provide support to consumers in their bathrooms,
salons, spas and retail stores. To learn more about CareOS, please visit
the Company’s website at https://care-os.com/.
This release may contain certain forward-looking statements and
forward-looking information with respect to the financial condition,
results of operations and business of CardioComm Solutions and certain
of the plans and objectives of CardioComm Solutions with respect to
these items. Such statements and information reflect management’s
current beliefs and are based on information currently available to
management. By their nature, forward-looking statements and
forward-looking information involve risk and uncertainty because they
relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the
future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and
developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by
these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.
In evaluating these statements, readers should not place undue
reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.
The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking
statements and forward-looking information contained in this release
other than as required by applicable laws, including without limitation,
Section 5.8(2) of National Instrument 51-102 (Continuous Disclosure Obligations).
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as
that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:15 AM on Wednesday, January 8th, 2020
SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions (EKG: TSX-V)
– The heartbeat of cardiovascular medicine and telemedicine. Patented
systems enable medical professionals, patients, and other healthcare
professionals, clinics, hospitals and call centres to access and manage
patient information in a secure and reliable environment.
mHealth Market is Expected to Be the Fastest Growing By 2025
According to experts from TMR, the global mHelath market stood at US$23.9 bn in 2017.
This revenue is expected to gain an
impressive value of US$118.4bn by the end of 2025. Experts project this
growth to occur with a meteoric CAGR of 22.1% during the forecast period
from 2017 to 2025.
The globalmHelath market bears
a highly fragmented vendor landscape, says Transparency Market Research
(TMR) in a recently published report. This is solely because of the
existence of large, medium, and small-scale players in the market. Withings, FitBit, Apple Inc., Jawbone, and Dexcom are the dominant players working in the global mHelath market.
Out of the various strategic alliances
adopted by players in the global mHelath market to hold a sizeable
stakes, capitalizing on the emerging opportunities and acquiring latest
technologies and tools has gained maximum popularity. The level of
competition among leading vendors is getting escalated with rising use
of technologies and smart devices such as wearables. The global mHelath
market is expected to grow steadily due to the presence of highly
established players who are concentrating on improving their product
quality, facilitating product differentiation, and enhancing
geographical reach. These companies are also attempting to introduce
advanced and new products into the industry on a daily basis.
According to experts from TMR, the
global mHelath market stood at US$23.9 bn in 2017. This revenue is
expected to gain an impressive value of US$118.4bn by the end of 2025.
Experts project this growth to occur with a meteoric CAGR of 22.1%
during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.
Among various products in the global
mHelath market, connected medical devices hold substantial share, which
is expected to boost the global mHelath market during the forecast
period. This is because of rising focus towards fitness and increasing
use of heart rate monitors among people. Region wise, North America is
expected to lead the global mHelath market in the coming years. This is
attributed to a strong technological infrastructure along with high
healthcare expenditure in the region.
Integration of Wireless Technologies to Fuel mHealth Market’s Growth
Health-related technologies and mobile
applications are often known as mHealth, which helps in managing
patients’ experiences. Such health mobile technologies and apps utilize
advanced data analytics to help medical professionals in providing their
patients best care at low cost. These health mobile applications
facilitate easy and better health management through simple apps such as
diet, exercise trackers, and calorie-counting. Such USPs are driving
the global mHelath market. Along with this, rising penetration of
internet connections and smartphones, and rapid technological
advancements in healthcare industry are the factors majorly fueling
growth in the global mHelath market.
Furthermore, mHelath ensures continuous
communication between medical professionals and patients, thereby allow
physicians to monitor, and diagnose patients without seeing them in
person. Such benefits are also boosting the global mHelath market. Apart
from these, rapid adoption of connected devices for monitoring various
chronic diseases, and increasing demand for cost-effective medical
services are also propelling expansion in the global mHelath market.
Low Physician Density May Hinder mHealth Market’s Growth
Growing reluctance of physicians to move
over conventional methods, lack of regulations, concerns about data
security, and low density of skilled professionals are some of the major
challenges in the global mHealth market. Nonetheless, persistent demand
and rising prevalence of various lifestyle disorders is believed to
help industry players overcome these challenges in the near future.
About Us
Transparency Market Research is a
next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based
solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals.
Our reports are single-point solutions
for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data
collection methods along with ability to track more than one million
high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and
proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for
making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations
that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized
solutions through adhoc reports. These requests are delivered with the
perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving
methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.
TMR believes that unison of solutions
for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the
key to help enterprises reach right decision.
Tags: EKG, mhealth, small cap stocks, stocks, tsx, tsx-v Posted in CardioComm Solutions | Comments Off on #Mhealth Market is Expected to Be the Fastest Growing By 2025 – SPONSOR: CardioComm Solutions $EKG.ca – $ATE.ca $TLT.ca $OGI.ca $ACST.ca $IPA.ca
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:45 AM on Wednesday, January 8th, 2020
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Cannabinoid Infused Products. Learn More.
Canadians Bought 100 Tonnes Of Legal Cannabis In First Year
Canadians bought nearly 100 tonnes of legal recreational cannabis in its first year of availability, according to new figures released by Health Canada.
Health Canada said 88,676 kilograms of dried flower cannabis was sold
in Canada in the first year of legalization, according to its Cannabis
Tracking System. Overall sales of legal dried cannabis by weight have
nearly tripled since October 2018.
Statistics Canada said Tuesday that Canadian household spending on
cannabis totaled $1.27 billion in the third quarter of 2019, with the
illicit market accounting for $860 million of that figure and the legal
market estimated at $417 million.
While 100 tonnes may sound like a lot, the amount sold through legal
channels was far below what analysts projected Canadian demand would be,
a sign that the illicit market continues to weigh on legal sales. CIBC
World Markets said in mid-2018 that the Canadian market would demand
about 400,000 kilograms of legal pot annually, while the Bank of Nova
Scotia forecast total cannabis demand in Canada will be 900,000
kilograms this year.
Health Canada also said that the total active cultivation area for
cannabis in the country reached 1.78 million square metres at the end of
September, a sizable jump from the 452,896 square meters of cultivation
that was licensed for legal pot a year earlier. Nearly five million
cannabis plants were being grown by producers at the end of the first
year of legalization, Health Canada said.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:10 AM on Wednesday, January 8th, 2020
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Crypto Today: Bitcoin is ready for a massive bull’s run
Here’s what you need to know on Wednesday
Markets:
The BTC/USD is currently trading at $8,347 (+5.8% on a day-to-day
basis). The coin has been moving within a strong bullish trend and hit a
new 2020 high at $8,464.
The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at $144.7 (+1.18% on a
day-to-day basis). The Ethereum retreated from the intraday high of
$147.96; now, it is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid low
volatility.
XRP/USD settled at $0.2145 after a spike to $0.2255 on Tuesday. The coin is down 1.15% in recent 24 hours.
Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day
are Quant (QNT) $3.9 (+17.5%), Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.9973
(+13.57%) and Horizen (ZEN) $8.43 (+13.16%), The day’s losers are,
Decentraland (MANA) $0.0335 (-8.5%), MaidSafeCoin (MAID) $0.0810
(-7.42%) and Komodo (KMD) $0.5434 (-5.92%).
Bitcoin (BTC) rallied to as high as $8,464 amid the escalation of
geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. While the correlation is not
clear, many experts believe that Bitcoin is growing due to rising
conflict between the United States and Iran as a push towards the recent
high occurred amid the news that Iran had attacked US military bases in
Iraq.
Tether (USDT) market capitalization increased by $500 million on
CoinMarketCap due to the rating adjustments; however, some experts
believe that this development might have served as a buy signal for algo
bots and set Bitcoin’s bullish ball rolling. BTC/USD started
snowballing in a few hours after CoinMarketCap updated its Tether
capitalization.
Cryptocurrencies may be an exciting concept, but they won’t threaten
the dominant position of the US dollar, according to International
Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist, Gita Gopinath. She believes that
the technologies have not reduced the costs of moving between the
currencies, which is the critical barrier on the way to overtaking USD.
Industry:
Istanbul update implemented on Etheereum network at the end of 2019
increased the scalability of StarkEx protocol for centralized exchanges,
StarkWare experts noted.
“StarkEx *measurements* (not approximations, nor estimates) break
Ethereum’s scalability record post-Istanbul, with a 2000X improvement
over Ethereum Layer-1: 9K trades/sec at 75 gas/trade (or 18K
payments/sec) (1/5)”
Binance Charity Foundation launched a program aiming to help
Australia mitigate the consequences of bushfire. The blockchain-based
charity platform created by one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency
exchanges invites everyone to participate in the program and donate
funds to support Australia. Binance intends to donate $1 million.
Berlin-based bitcoin bank Bitwala included ether (ETH) to the list
of available services. The bank allows customers buying ETH, the
second-largest cryptocurrency asset by market capitalization, right from
their current accounts. The company explained the decision by
Ethereum’s significant role in decentralized finance (DeFi) movement,
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, January 7th, 2020
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More Canadians passing on beer in year one of legalization
The report cites data from industry advocacy group Beer Canada, which found beer volumes fell by three per cent through November. Declining sales have led to several partnerships between alcohol and cannabis companies, such as Constellation Brands Inc.’s investment in Canopy Growth Corp. in November 2018. The recent decline in volumes is “far worse†than trends seen in the previous four years, when beer industry volumes fell an average of 0.3 per cent, according to Cowen & Co. analyst Vivien Azer.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:35 PM on Tuesday, January 7th, 2020
Investment Highlights
Kenbridge property has a measured and indicated resource of 7.14 million tonnes at 0.62% nickel, 0.33% copper
17.5 (21.8 fully diluted) percent equity stake in Eloro Resources and 2 percent NSR in their La Victoria property
Kenbridge Ni Project (ON, Canada)
Advanced stage deposit remains open in three directions, is
equipped with a 623m deep shaft and has never been mined
Preliminary Economic Assessment completed and updated returned robust project economics and operating costs including a NPV of C$253M and cash costs of US$3.47/lb of nickel net of copper credits
Plans for Kenbridge include updating PEA,
advancing the project through to feasibility and exploring the open
mineralization at depth
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:03 PM on Tuesday, January 7th, 2020
SPONSOR: BetterU Education Corp.
aims to provide access to quality education from around the world.
The company plans to bridge the prevailing gap in the education and job
industry and enhance the lives of its prospective learners by developing
an integrated ecosystem. Click here for more information.
The Major Edtech Trends In 2020, According To VCs In India
India, being one of the youngest countries in the world and boasting a rapidly-growing startup ecosystem, offers a widely untapped opportunity for many sectors, both locally and globally.
Venture capitalists have gravitated to the Indian market in great numbers in the past decade to pour capital into this opportunity, pushing startups towards scalability in every sector.
Edtech startups need to take stock of the VC view of the ecosystem and keep pace with the trends they expect in the new year.
Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup
phase and the public company phase. — Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union
Square Ventures
India, being one of the youngest countries in the world and boasting a
rapidly-growing startup ecosystem, offers a widely untapped opportunity
for many sectors, both locally and globally. Venture capitalists have
gravitated to the Indian market in great numbers in the past decade to
pour capital into this opportunity, pushing startups towards scalability
in every sector. Edtech is no different, and in recent years, this
sector has become one of the biggest opportunities for tech startups in
the Indian context.
As Unitus Ventures’ senior associate Sunitha Viswanathan told Inc42,
the large market of close to 250 Mn students in the K-12 segment and
over 10 Mn youth graduating every year mean that India is the land of
massive potential for edtech disruption.
“Given the huge lopsided teacher: student ratio, this can only be
solved by using tech. Hence, there is a necessity more than a choice.
And rightly so,†she added.
While we spoke to edtech startups about the trends
they expect to observe in 2020, we also wanted to take the VC view and
what they expect from the ecosystem in the new year. What will be the
factors that make or break edtech startups in 2020.
Factors For Success In Edtech
Indians spend tens of billions on education every year. With
disposable incomes continuing to rise, there is a massive prize for the
startups that achieve success in this space. According to Anirudh Damani,
managing partner, Artha Venture Fund, the key to success for an edtech
startup will be to sell directly, thereby keeping a short feedback loop.
“That will allow them to innovate faster, adapt, and cater to their
end-user requirements quicker. Therefore, in my opinion, selling
directly to end-users is the key to creating success in the edtech
space,†he added.
Sajith Pai,
director, Blume Ventures further said that the increased focus on
regional language learning and data analytics will play an important
role in the success of edtech startups in 2020, just like it did in
2019.
Edtech’s Focus On Increasing User Adoption In 2020
Omkar Kulkarni,
the head of GMC Calibrator (Gray Matters Capital’s Digital Accelerator
Program, suggests four areas that edtech startups in India need to focus
on in the near future:
Gain engagement by learning insights through user behaviour analytics
Highlighting common user patterns to improve product and monetisation at early stage
Cut reliance on digital marketing to reach out to users
Deliver content through a human-centric design process to increase engagement
Blume’s Pai further added that products that teach with a mix of
technology and human intervention will be able to generate faster
adoption while keeping costs low and scalability high.
“Also, college admissions and employability are becoming highly
competitive and thus big stress points for parents and students. Thus,
education platforms that can create FOMO among students (or parents) –
either by having a large number of students on board or by having the best students onboard, attract more customer adoption faster,†Pai told Inc42.
Pranjal Kumar,
CFO and head of Education Fund at Bertelsmann, believes that being
outcome focussed i.e. credentials, test results, job placements etc will
deliver a higher chance of success for edtech startups. “High-quality
product with high average-order-value and the right balance of online
and offline, depending on the target learner and segment of education
should be the focus in the near future for edtech startups.â€
7 Trends For Indian VCs In Edtech In 2020
Indian edtech startups are currently focussing on all fronts — B2B,
B2C, B2B-B2C and C2C. The most prominent sub-sectors have been test
preparation, online certification, skill development, online discovery,
STEAM kits, and enterprise solution among others.
According to Datalabs by Inc42, in terms of
the number of unique edtech businesses funded between January 2014 and
September 2019, skill development-focused startups have been the most
preferred. However, capital inflows into the test preparation and online
certification segments are comparatively higher. Together, these two
sub-sectors make up for 91% of the total funding in edtech startups.
This shows an imbalance in terms of business models in the Indian edtech
ecosystem.
However, according to Bertelsmann’s Kumar, a few more models are
expected to see a lot of innovation in the near future. He said
bootcamps with or without job assurance, higher education, online
programme management models, K-12 tutoring will be huge markets and are
currently starved of quality teaching both in curricular as well as
co-curricular subject.
Here’s what VCs told us to expect in 2020.
Skilling Startups
The pace of change in technology continues to accelerate. Therefore,
education is no longer just the standard 12+4+2 experience. There’s a
need for continuous education that will re-skill or up-skill the workers
of today for the challenges of tomorrow. Startups that provide
platforms to teach, train, and engage the working population to improve
their skills will do very well.
AI Transformation
AI in edtech can help understand better how learning actually
happens. If we can understand how one learns the steps in quadratic
equations, then this can be used in classrooms by teachers to deliver it
more effectively. This will help define pedagogy more tightly
OTT Educators
Even though we hear a lot of buzzwords like artificial intelligence,
virtual reality and blockchain, it is the exponential increase in
viewership of the likes of TikTok, YouTube and other OTT platforms that
will see a trend of content creators delivering educational content on
OTT platforms to improve discoverability, reach and scale.
Parents To Invest More
Another challenge for edtech platforms is the cost aspect for
families. As far as high school education is concerned, VCs see parents
getting more accustomed to spending on tech products for cognitive
learning as well as a change in focus of parents from traditional
curriculum to 21st-century skills.
Unbundling Of Education
Don’t hope for an edtech superapp. Venture capitalists see startups
providing customers (students and teachers) specific standalone services
(test prep, counselling, professional and vocational training among
others) rather than a combined / bundled product which does it all.
Vernacular Learning
Just over 10% of India’s population can speak English. To build large
businesses that can capture greater value, incorporating vernacular
learning is key. As seen in the OTT, media and entertainment space,
regional language learning will be one of the biggest trends in 2020,
according to the VCs that Inc42 spoke to.
Learning for ‘Yearning’
Learning programmes that cater to non-professional interests, or
those that work with passion projects and hobbies will see an uptick
according to investors. These may or may not lead to employment-related
outcomes, but will be about holistic individual skill development, which
will be critical for the edtech ecosystem as well as startups at large.
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