Good day,
KABN will be presenting episode 1 of webcast series on Wednesday April 3rd, 2019. Members of management will be available to answer any questions online during the hours of 10am – 12pm EST.
When posting your question on AGORACOM Hub , please check “Question For AGORACOM’ box.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
AGORACOM
(TSXV: ICM) (OTC Pink: BVTEF) (FSE: YQGB)
FULL DISCLOSURE: Iconic Minerals is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.
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Durham College’s ESports gaming arena opens today! The arena is broadcast-grade for streaming online and competitive gaming.
Source: https://www.bttoronto.ca/videos/durham-college-opens-first-esports-gaming-arena-in-canada/
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For cannabis connoisseurs, cannabis edibles have always been an alluring proposition. Take something you already enjoy, and add it to something delicious. What’s not to like? The classic “special brownie†and the famous “space cakes†that have been enjoyed at Amsterdam coffee shops for decades are only just the tip of the edibles iceberg. Today, cannabis is being added to candy, artisanal baked goods, coffee, jerky, pizza, upscale cuisine and so much more, meaning the possibilities are endless for the global cannabis edibles market.
It’s no surprise that the Canadian legal cannabis industry is hungrily eyeing cannabis edibles as they promise to account for a huge portion of the overall cannabis market as soon as Health Canada allows it. In the meantime, however, this highly promising market segment faces some significant regulatory challenges. That won’t stop companies from taking an interest in edibles, as they already make up a huge portion of the market in legal jurisdictions where they are allowed, such as California and Nevada.
The consumer appeal of edibles is obvious. The sheer amount of variability creates countless possibilities for cannabis companies looking to make their products stand out. Edibles can be tailored to any type of cannabis consumer, from high-end dark chocolates served at posh dinner parties to gummy candies enjoyed before a rock concert. It’s easy to make edible cannabis products eye catching and appealing. For newcomers trying cannabis for the first time after legalization, edibles may provide a less intimidating entry point than smoking or vaping. And medical users often appreciate the stronger and longer-lasting effect of orally ingested cannabis.
An October 2018 report by ArcView Market Research and BDS Analytics projects the North American cannabis edibles market to hit more than $4.1 billion by 2022. According to the report, food and drink products accounted for approximately 11.4 percent of total cannabis spending in Canada and the United States in 2017. As the cannabis market matures and develops, and as edible products return to dispensary shelves in Canada, classic dried cannabis flower is expected to steadily lose market share to edibles and extracts.
Right now in Canada, though, the more immediate future of the cannabis edibles market is less certain. Edibles were not included in the first wave of cannabis legalization that took place in October 2018, with Health Canada opting to conduct further study and consultation before rolling out regulatory rules by October 2019. This put a wrench in the gears for the hundreds of cannabis companies that had made edibles a key part of their initial business strategy. In early 2019, Health Canada began a two-month public consultation period as part of the process of determining the edibles regulatory scheme. By all accounts, the restrictions are likely to be heavy. Chief among the rules will be restrictions on potency and mandates on accurate potency labeling.
The concerns over potency and accurate labeling aren’t entirely unwarranted. Cannabis edibles have always been tricky in the way they hit the user. Cannabis ingested through the digestive system can take an hour or more to for the user to notice the effect, and inexperienced users have commonly been known to make the rookie mistake of taking more under the belief that they haven’t taken a high enough dosage. Due to the intense nature of edible products, the appeal of edibles to inexperienced cannabis users in particular can be a recipe for disaster. Excessive dosage of cannabis is not highly dangerous in that it will not cause poisoning or other health emergencies, but cannabis-related panic attacks can still present a risk.
This is why cannabis companies that plan on making edibles a significant part of their business model have dedicated considerable resources to developing precision dosing technology. The challenge stems from the fact that the rate in which cannabis breaks down as it enters the bloodstream varies significantly based on a number of factors, including the specific physiology of the consumer.
Recent years have seen the development of tools for manipulating cannabis at the molecular level for greater bioavailability, allowing edibles manufacturers to provide a more predictable product for easier regulatory compliance and greater consumer trust.
Regulators have been placing a range of other regulatory hurdles in the way of the edibles market. Health Canada is expected to enforce tight restrictions on edibles packaging, limiting the use of colorful graphics and other eye-catching elements largely with the intent of limiting the products’ appeal to children. Packaging will also need to be child resistant. Regulators in various jurisdictions have often restricted potency, with Health Canada expected to limit products to 10 milligrams of THC per dose. Similarly, California has focused its regulations around keeping cannabis edibles out of the hands of children with a universal cannabis product symbol, a government warning, child-proof packaging and clear labeling for potency and recommended dosage.
Not every cannabis consumer is particularly interested in smoking or vaping, but everyone is interested in tasty treats. Meeting regulatory hurdles for dosing and keeping products out of the hands of children has been a challenge, but these challenges hardly reduce the potential of what promises to be, and in many jurisdictions already is, one of the primary market segments of the cannabis industry.
Source: https://investingnews.com/innspired/global-cannabis-edibles-market/
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Display media—banner ads, specifically—has seen its share of ups and downs. In the mid-90s when digital advertising became a thing, banner ads were one of the first formats.
I can imagine those initial advertising agency media teams saying to clients, †We ran this little box on our webpage and look how many clicks it got! Look how many people used this little box to visit your site!†But then, of course, consumers got used to banner ads. They were no longer a novelty, and people stopped clicking. Instead, they started saying things like, “Those ads are annoying,†or “I don’t even notice those ads†(although studies prove they do). Everyone hated them, and display advertising budgets started to dwindle.
Enter a new buying strategy: programmatic, an algorithmic approach to putting media placements in front of the right user, prioritizing reach over environment.
Programmatic gave new life to display advertising. Suddenly banners and video weren’t as expensive. They were more sophisticated in targeting and were easier to optimize based on an end goal (translation: better than running the impressions and assuming they do something good that can’t be proven). By 2010, sophisticated digital advertisers were funneling large amounts of their display media budgets to this approach. Today it’s all media teams talk about: programmatic banners, programmatic video, programmatic native, and now, programmatic TV, programmatic out of home and programmatic mail.
Hold up, though—that’s not programmatic. Programmatic has gone beyond what it is at its roots … to a buzzword for seemingly any media with a bit of data behind it.
Programmatic has gone beyond what it is at its roots—a modernized and automated approach to media buying—to a buzzword for seemingly any media with a bit of data behind it.
There are three pieces required to make something programmatic:
Demographics and interest targeting have been in digital media’s corner for a while. With a programmatic approach, you can slice and dice those targeting technologies, add others and stack them all on top of each other. This includes first-, second- and third-party data. The ability to determine if a person is within our target audience based on their demographics, what their interests are, where they are geographically, how often they travel, what type of credit card they use, how long they’ve owned their home and on and on is right up the programmatic alley.
Before programmatic buying was available, display buyers would identify sites with the highest reach against their target audience and buy a set number of impressions directly from said site. This isn’t the case with programmatic. Now we’re in an exchange, bidding to get the best placements in front of the most qualified users and paying only a penny more than the next advertiser we won the bid from. Buying programmatically is much more efficient and garners a far wider reach. You’re finding the best available user, regardless of the content they’re in. Not to say that premium environment prioritized in the days of old isn’t important. White lists and premium marketplaces can get you high-quality contextual placements while using a programmatic approach.
At one time, ads ran and we served X number of impressions or ads ran, we ran X number of impressions and Y people clicked on them was the furthest extent to which you could report on your display media performance. You could take this information and adjust your strategy for next time. But with programmatic, algorithms are getting continuously smarter, and you’re able to optimize based on a multitude of factors. So now your campaign can improve as time goes on instead of waiting until the end so you know what to do better next time. Budgets can be prioritized according to what users are doing post-exposure in real-time. For example, if placement A is performing better than placement B, the algorithm will shift bids to prioritize the better performer.
These three features are possible with digital media, but at this point, it isn’t possible for traditional media channels to pull all of them off. As time and technology goes on, traditional media channels will get closer to achieving this. Television, with the use of smart TVs and OTT devices is the closest.
Data available for television targeting has become much more sophisticated in recent years, but they are lacking in real-time bidding. Most TV being bought “programmatically†is still purchased two weeks ahead of time, not at the exact second exposure is available. And while we can now use data to identify high indexing programming, the targeting isn’t 1-to-1 unless it is addressable. Out of home is in second place, and will be easier to achieve on small digital boards (think ATM or gas station screens) where a user can be identified by their phone’s proximity to the screen.
So, when you hear a media channel being referred to as programmatic, make sure the term is being used correctly. Advances in technology in digital and traditional channels that allow our campaigns to be more precise are very exciting and enticing, but check against these three features to ensure you know how your media dollars are being used.
Source: https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/confused-about-what-makes-something-programmatic-it-needs-these-3-features/
Vancouver, British Columbia–(April 1, 2019) – Iconic Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: ICM) (OTC Pink: BVTEF) (FSE: YQGB) (“Company” or “Iconic”) is pleased to announce that St-Georges Eco-Mining Corp. (SX) has released further information on their metallurgical work on Bonnie Claire lithium bearing sediments dated March 31, 2019. SX states “St-Georges Eco-Mining Corp. is pleased to inform its shareholders that it can confirm that it has achieved complete and total recovery in leach of lithium from the bulk material provided by its partner Iconic Minerals.” SG reports leaching 100% of the lithium while not affecting 88% of the remaining solids. The process uses Nitric and Citric acid at room temperature which reduces cost over other leaching methods. The sample tested which contained 963 ppm Li before processing contained 8,025 ppm lithium after processing, a gain of 833 percent. SX also announced that because the leach process removes most of the salts from the sediment the remaining material may be suitable for a nitrate based fertilizer by-product.
SX Goes into more details of the ongoing work on Bonnie Claire sediment which are quoted below:
“Developmental testing has results in 100% of the lithium leached to be repeatedly recuperated using the patent pending leaching technology developed by St-Georges.
Below are the steps tested in the course of the Phase 1 development of the process.
Step 1: Screening
The lithium material is being screened to remove pebbles and other coarse material like calcium.
(Independent testing and review of this stage was performed during the course of the months of March and April 2018 by SGS Lakefield laboratory in Ontario)
Step 2: De- Agglomeration
The agglomerated material is being feed into a roll grinder to break down the feed into the original fine particles before drying.
This was also done and reviewed by SGS Laboratories. After these 2 initial steps review, SGS performed an XRD and chemical analysis for each of the elements and crystalline forms.
Step 3: Concentration
Two approaches where developed and tested. Air Classification and Flotation Concentration. These co-exist as linear task A and B of the Concentration step at this stage. St-Georges is currently working on eliminating one of the sub-task with the hopes of drastically reducing costs and time of processing.
Task 3a: Air Classification
In this step the material is separated by density and particle size. In the particular case of the Bonnie Claire material, the lithium is contained in the superfine particles. These particles are too fine to be screened. Independent review and testing of Task 3a was performed in the scope of the month of November 2018 by the laboratories of Netzsch Premier Technologies LLC of Exton, Pennsylvania. The resulting material was reduced by 55% with a cut-off at 5 microns. The resulting material was sent by Netzsch for chemically analysis to the laboratories of the Centre de Technologie Minérales et de Plasturgie Inc.(CTMP) at Thedford-Mines in Québec. The labs results confirmed that 100% of the lithium remained in the resulting concentrate when properly de agglomerated.
Task 3b: Floatation Concentration
The CTMP labs performed at the demand of St-Georges a traditional froth floatation with deionized water. These tests were unsuccessful forcing the company metallurgists to adopt a different approach. St-Georges patent pending technology using a silicate salt saturated medium will be independently reviewed and tested with bulk material within the first part of the month of April by CTMP.
Step 4: Selective Leaching
Using St-Georges patent pending acid mix solution of Nitric and Citric acids, the CTMP reviewed and independently tested 2 batches of material from the Bonnie Claire lithium deposit.
Leach test 1:
Material from this initial test was passed though task 1 and task 2 but skipped Classification and Concentration. The results are:
100% of the lithium was leached at atmosphere pressure and low temperature. The total leach time was 1 hour resulting in 12% of the initial total mass. The Company set-up to improve on that result.
Leach test 2:
Material from this leach test was passed through task, 1, 2 and 3a. 100% of the lithium was leached at atmosphere pressure and low temperature. The total leach time was 1 hour resulting in 12% of the initial total mass.
Optimization of these tasks should yield results in industrial settings that would reduce the total mass to a target percentage below 5%.”
Iconic Minerals is encouraged by these metallurgical results and looks forward to St-Georges future announcements.
The Bonnie Claire Lithium Property Characteristics:
The Property is located within Sarcobatus Valley that is approximately 30 km (19 miles) long and 20 km (12 miles) wide. Quartz-rich volcanic tuffs, that contain anomalous amounts of lithium, occur within and adjacent to the valley. Geochemical analysis of the local salt flats has yielded lithium values up to 340 ppm. The gravity low within the valley is 20 km (12 miles) long, and the current estimates of depth to basement rocks range from 600 to 1,200 meters (2,000 to 4,000 feet). Four drill holes have identified an open ended, 43-101 compliant resource of 28.58 billion kilograms of lithium carbonate equivalent. The drilling that defined the current resource only covered an area of 3.0 km2 (1.2mi2), while previously run MT geophysics show a potentially mineralized area of 27.3 km2 (10.5mi2). Drilling to date has shown strong correlation between the MT results and the lithium mineralization. The thickness of the lithium mineralization is unknown, but drilling indicates it is greater than 600 meters (2,000 feet). The current claim block covers an area of 57.5 km2 (22.2mi2). Further drilling has been permitted and metallurgy to determine the most efficient recovery method is currently in progress.
On behalf of the Board of Directors
SIGNED: “Richard Kern“
Richard Kern, President and CEO
Contact: Keturah Nathe, VP Corporate Development (604) 336-8614
For further information on ICM, please visit our website at www.iconicmineralsltd.com. The Company’s public documents may be accessed at www.sedar.com
Forward Statement: This news release includes certain forward-looking statements or information. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Iconic expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/43818
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 01, 2019 – BOUGAINVILLE VENTURES INC. (“Bougainville” or the “Company”) (CSE: BOG), providing cannabis infrastructure and seed-to-sale services to I-502 tenant-growers, is pleased to announce that its first 10,000 square foot cultivation facility in Oroville, WA will be occupied by a Tier-3, I-502 tenant (the “Tenantâ€) starting June 01, 2019. The Tenant is currently in the process of obtaining occupancy approval from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) to begin planting the Tenant’s crop for the season. In addition to the 10,000 sq. ft. space the Tenant is planning to plant a 20,000 sq. ft. out-door crop. The Tenant is licensed to build out up to 30,000 square feet on the existing property in Oroville, WA.
CEO, Andy Jagpal Comments:
“We are excited to
see our first Tier-3, I-502 tenant move forward towards a successful
growing season. This first planting season signals a new phase for
Bougainville concept of providing fully built out turnkey facilities to
cannabis growers and processors.These facilities remove financial
barriers for cannabis cultivators as traditional funding can be limited.
In addition, steps are being taken to get a second tenant up and
running for the 2019 growing season. We are moving towards our goal of
revenue generating self-sufficiency.â€
About the Washington I-502 Marijuana MarketÂ
In November 2012, the Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) passed Initiative 502 (I-502) pursuant to a vote by the people of the State of Washington. I-502 authorized the WSLCB to regulate and tax recreational marijuana products for persons over twenty-one years of age and thereby created a new industry for growing, processing and selling of Washington State-regulated recreational marijuana products. A recent WSLCB commissioned report by the Rand organization suggests that there are currently up to 650,000 recreational marijuana users in Washington State, worth approximately $1.25 – $1.5 billion USD in annual sales.Â
About Bougainville Ventures, Inc.Â
Bougainville provides cannabis infrastructure and seed-to-sale services to I-502 tenant-growers leasing greenhouse facilities space and providing fully built-out, turnkey solutions and ancillary services including processing, cannabis expertise and marketing and sales resources. Greenhouse canopies provide a 50% saving in cultivation cost. Bougainville has 10,000 sq.ft., in near production in Oroville, WA, sufficient land for two more pods of the same size.
For more information please visit: http://bougainvilleinc.com/
On behalf of the Board of Directors
BOUGAINVILLE VENTURES INC.
_____________________
Andy Jagpal, CEO and Director
For further information, please contact the IR department at [email protected] or by phone at 1-877-517-7816.
SPONSOR: Enthusiast Gaming Holdings Inc. (TSX-V: EGLX) Uniting gaming communities with 80 owned and affiliated websites, currently reaching over 75 million monthly visitors. The company partial 2018 reported revenue of $7.4 million representing a 625% increase over the same period in 2017.
The global video game competitions market has reflected a significant growth over the recent years. The visible growth exhibited by the video game industry has contributed to an increase in the number of video game competitions and tournaments. This is further fostered by the expanding technology that acts as a catalyst to the expansion of video content, virtual reality, products, special eSports events, and most prominently video game competitions and tournaments. Future Market Insights (FMI) in its recent market intelligence report pertaining to the video game competitions market provides a holistic overview of the key trends shaping the fortune of businesses conducting video game competitions through eSports programs.
According to the FMI study, the popularity of video game competitions is expected to witness a significant rise as the millennials are opting for virtual gaming compared to the conventional sports formats. Various colleges and institutions are looking forward to initiating video game competitions for their students. An addition in this line is the Alma College that stated that it would add team video game competitions to its offerings of intercollegiate athletics. The college would be able to attract top students with the help of such team video game competitions while providing innovative ways for students to excel professionally and academically.
FMI unveils that the video game competitions landscape is expected to register considerable growth with the various eSports programs being launched across the globe. The eSports market has witnessed major profitability owing to the increasing proliferation of video game competitions.
ESports Audience Continue to Grow Steadily as Companies Focus on Prominent Coverage of such Events
The global Esports market is expected to exhibit a significant growth owing to various factors such as the continued deployment of eSports in leading universities and the increasing number of eSports initiatives driven by the growing consumer preference shift. The younger generation is increasingly attracted to virtual gaming thereby strengthening the future scope of the eSports market. The extensive research study on the eSports landscape presented by Future Market Insights (FMI), covers the major developments witnessed in the eSports landscape.
“Media companies are giving greater preference to the coverage of eSports, thereby contributing to its increasing awareness amongst consumers. This is expected to create greater demand for eSports among consumersâ€, Senior Analyst, Future Market Insights.
For instance, a recognized eSports organizer and producer, ESL entered into a partnership with broadcast companies in China, Huomao and Huya, wherein the companies would gain an equal share of media rights of the ESL events that would be conducted in 2019.
Recognized companies are sighting notable opportunities in the eSports market, such as NASCAR which is preparing for its new eSports league called the eNASCAR Heat Pro League, and several others including NFL, NBA, MLS’ and NHL, have also moved into the eSports business. FMI study, therefore, asserts that eSports would remain a profitable business for companies.
The research study uncovers various opportunistic avenues offered by the eSports market, where emerging players could undertake key strategies to attain greater market presence.
Source: http://www.keepfacts.com/technology/344/video-game-competitions-on-a-rise-companies-spot-lucrative-opportunities-in-north-america-says-fmi-study-2/
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Carolyn Ray · CBC News
CBD oil has been touted as a solution to everything from ways to limit human anxiety to pet medicine. (David Zalubowski/Associated Press)
Mona Scott was one of the first people to line up at a marijuana store in Nova Scotia on the first day of recreational legalization, eager to get her hands on a type of non-impairing cannabis extract after hearing about its medicinal benefits.
But she quickly discovered there was no CBD oil in stock that day in October, nor have there been any bottles in the 10 times since that she’s visited the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. store in Truro, N.S.
“The last time I went in was about the first week of December when the guy walked over to me and said, ‘We don’t have any and we’re not going to have any for six months,'” said Scott, who sought out the oil to treat her anxiety.
Pure CBD oil doesn’t make the user high because it does not contain THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. While research on the benefits of CBD oil has been limited, it has surged in popularity as a treatment for medical issues including pain, seizures and nausea.
Scott is one of a long list of Nova Scotians who have caused a huge surge in demand for the product, something one licensed producer said has caught them completely off guard.
“The popularity of CBD oil and CBD in general has far exceeded our expectations,” said Ray Gracewood, chief commercial officer of OrganiGram, a licensed producer based in Moncton, N.B.
“To this point, CBD oil is the biggest surprise from an adult recreational perspective, and has got the potential to be a huge product within that channel.”
So far, OrganiGram is the only company that has been able to provide any supply to the NSLC, said a spokesperson from the Crown corporation.
“We currently have products containing up to 20 per cent CBD but not the pure CBD oil,” said Beverley Ware. “Every province is in the same situation.”
At this point, no producers have even given them a timeframe for when it may be available for purchase.
The NSLC said no producers have been able to give them a timeframe for when pure CBD oil will be back in stock. (Paul Palmeter/CBC)
Gracewood said OrganiGram has been reserving its supply for its medical patients, who have not experienced a shortage in their medicine.
The company is now shifting its production to try to fill the gap for retail stores. Gracewood said they have orders from one end of the country to the other.
“It represents almost half of our business now,” he said of their medical business. He said because no producer has been able to make enough oil to fill the demand in the recreational market, the company is still relying on estimates as to how much they need to produce.
“The reality of the production environment is that cannabis takes a certain amount of time to grow within our facility and therefore it takes us some time to adapt to changes within forecasting.”
The demand in oil also has OrganiGram pushing to create new partnerships with hemp farms, as CBD can derive from both cannabis and hemp.
“This entire industry is completely new and there’s no way that anybody could have forecasted all the variables, whether it’s the attractiveness of CBD oil, or the demand for pre-rolls or the balance between dried flower and cannabis oil,” Gracewood said.
OrganiGram is facing a class-action lawsuit over cannabis that was tainted with unapproved pesticides in 2016. Gracewood wouldn’t comment on whether the case was affecting their production.
In the meantime, Scott has started advocating to change marijuana laws. She started to order pure CBD oil from the United States. While she received the first few bottles, other orders have since been seized at the border.
She said if Canadian producers can’t fill the void, she should be able to order from other countries.
“For Canada to open up with legalization and to no have it to offer people, I was quite shocked by that.”
Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cbd-oil-nova-scotia-shortage-1.5075665
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India’s education system suffers from a lack of investment, and the apps aid students who want extra tuition away from overcrowded classrooms and crumbling schools.
Major foreign investors are ploughing funds into India’s growing “edtech” industry as they seek to capitalise on the world’s largest school-age population who face fierce competition for university places.
“I have been using Byju’s since last year and my performance has really improved. I understand mathematical concepts much better now,” says 16-year-old Akshat Mugad referring to a Facebook-backed, Indian education app.
Byju’s has become one of the world’s largest online learning sites since it was founded in Bangalore in 2011 and is currently embarking on an ambitious overseas expansion.
It is just one of dozens of startups betting that kids are eager to learn differently from rote memorisation techniques that are used across much of Asia.
Edtech platforms are also taking off in other Asian countries, notably China and Taiwan.
“We wanted to make education fun,” said Manish Dhooper, the founder of New Delhi-based Planet Spark, which uses “gamified” teaching methods.
Interactive
Garima Dhir enrolled her six-year-old boy into a Planet Spark programme to study maths and English because she wanted him to get used to using technology at a young age.
“With interactive classes, my son is picking concepts without any stress and enjoying the process without fear of failure,” she told AFP.
Robomate, Toppr, Simplilearn, Meritnation and Edureka are others in the market.
India has an estimated 270 million children aged between five and 17.
Its online education sector is projected to be worth $2 billion to Asia’s third-largest economy by 2021, according to research published by accounting group KPMG two years ago.
With revenues heading for $200 million, Byju’s says it has around 32 million users in India using its e-tutorials that feature animations, live classes and educational games to match India’s school curriculum.
It has raised more than $1 billion in funding since the beginning of last year, including from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, valuing the firm at around $5.4 billion.
“We want to be the largest education company in the world,” founder Byju Raveendran, 39, whose stake in Byju’s is now thought to be worth almost $2 billion, told AFP.
‘Ask Alexa’
Analysts say technology has the power to transform education in India but note that at the moment it is largely the domain of middle-class families.
A year-long subscription to Byju’s can cost upwards of $150 for example, a small fortune for the majority of Indians.
At a state-run school in Mumbai teacher Pooja Prashant Sankhe is using technology in a rather different way to change how her pupils engage with lessons.
The 45-year-old hides an Amazon Echo device in a shop window mannequin. When AFP visited children aged 11 approached and asked questions such as, “Alexa, how many states are there in India?”.
They also did sums and then asked Alexa for the answer to find out if they had done them correctly. The device plays the Indian national anthem at the start of the school day and healing music during meditation sessions.
Indian media have carried reports of a teacher doing the same thing in another school in rural Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital.
“The kids get really excited when they ask her questions,” said Sankhe, 45. “Pupils are coming to school more regularly now because of Alexa,” she added.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-edtech-boom-indian-kids.html