Big City, Big Lights, Big Hopes: NY EdTech Week

By James Wiley and Jeff Alderson, Principal Analysts
@wileyjames| @eduventuresjeff

Over the past few years, we have seen many educational technology incubators and accelerators, with the most notable of these being LearnLaunch [learnlaunch.com/], Milken-Penn GSE [ Jefferson Education Accelerator [ and the partnership that gave rise to the ASU-GSV Summit. In mid-2016, a new player entered the ring—a partnership[ between New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and StartEd Companies that provides access to NYU’s faculty and students, funding, mentorship, legal services, sales consulting, and business development to up to 10 startups.

Before the holidays, we attended their conference, NY EdTech Week [nyedtechweek.com/], kicked off by a reception in a former location of one of Andy Warhol’s “factories.” The whirlwind stream of events consisted of TED-style talks by luminaries in the education and business space; smaller sessions (“think tanks”) on corporate learning, K-12, higher education, and prekindergarten; and pitches (“shark tanks”) by startup founders to heads of venture capital funds and other audience members.

Overall, the event presented a mix of companies seeking funding and policymakers discussing education, like those hosted by ASU-GSV. Where it differed, however, was in the sense that attendees gathered to innovate education through a collective and supporting working atmosphere, much in the way that Warhol himself thought his Factory would do. Also, the event demonstrated the hectic and heady quality that New York City brings to anything located there. In opening the conference, Alicia Glen, Deputy Mayor of New York City, made the case that the city is unique in its ability to incubate edtech given the (sometimes literal) collisions between people representing both the supply and demand relationships for jobs and skills in high-growth industries.

From the event sessions and conversations, two major themes came to light:

  • Higher education is broken. In a session moderated by Doug Lederman from Inside Higher Ed, panelists addressed the question of whether higher education was broken and, if so, how and why. Panelists discussed key areas of concern in higher education, especially cost, marketing, and improving student outcomes. When discussing what exactly “broken” meant, however, panelists differed. Some argued that higher education no longer met the needs of students and employers, while others stated that higher education has always fallen short in this area, namely for low-income students.
  • Startups need more than just funding to be successful. Many startup executives spoke about the overall set of wraparound support they required, which includes office space, mentorship, marketing advice, and business model review. While these things are necessary, however, they are not sufficient to ensure that startups can be successful. Andrew Ackerman, a managing partner of DreamIt [ an accelerator that focuses on mature (post-seed funding) startups, called our attention to some potential pitfalls facing startups, such as not having a clear understanding of how they will scale to meet potential demand. Startups, therefore, need careful handholding to gather detailed knowledge of their customers and to understand what resources they need to ensure that they can grow in a scalable way to meet market demands.

Essentially, of course, this event was about the technology companies. From our conversations, the following companies stood out:

  • Lynda.com: While Lynda.com, acquired by LinkedIn last year, is clearly in no need of funding, its director of content for LinkedIn Learning, Morty Golding, attended the event and kindly agreed to speak with us. We discussed his vision for Lynda to become the central place where users go to learn. His team’s current focus is integrating the 350,000 hours of video and 9,000 courses into the LinkedIn user experience while trying to avoid being perceived as a place where users go to obtain credentials. Lynda’s long-term goal is to utilize Microsoft’s keen interest in education, and expertise in areas such as virtual reality and machine learning, to develop richer delivery mechanisms for the learning of “soft skills“—management, communication, etc.
  • Trovvit: If you needed proof that there is a viable market for the expanding role of ePortfolios in college admissions, look no further than Trovvit [ Built as a platform to showcase extracurricular activities, talents, and skills to admissions offices, Trovvit is going head-to-head with products from the Common App, SlideRoom, and the Coalition Application. It is also calling the tools provided in learning management systems (LMS), such as Blackboard and Canvas, woefully insufficient for purposes of college admissions.While other platforms are being subsidized by participating colleges, Trovvit is launching with a freemium, direct-to-consumer model. The free offering gets you a basic profile, portfolio template, and limited space, but upgrading to a more capable account will cost between $3 and $10 per month, depending on whether you need the extensive curation and sharing abilities that a “Premium Plus” account will provide. Most families will need that higher-level account, however, to get the same capabilities that are available in multi-purpose portfolios such as Portfolium and Pathbrite. We believe that Trovvit is worth a look, given its clear focus on the tools needed by student applicants and its unique ability to involve mentors, coaches, and friends in the development of a killer portfolio for colleges and employers.
  • FutureFuel: Of the companies that delivered their pitches on the final day of the event, FutureFuel was especially intriguing. Its goal is to lessen student debt by adding student loan repayment to the employer recruitment process. Companies agree to make monthly payments to their employees’ student loans without decreasing their salaries. Why would they do that? Well, FutureFuel is partly a recruitment platform for employers where it can find highly talented employees. Also, FutureFuel serves as the platform for the payments, transferring money from businesses to the loan providers. The result, then, is that companies can quickly fill positions with talented people and employees can lessen their student loan debt without a salary reduction.

Conclusion

Time will tell if the leaders of these new companies will heed the warnings of both the keynote presenters and those entrepreneurs whohave gone before:

“Have you examined the historical record before jumping in with a new idea that may not be new at all?”

“How and when will we know that your product is successful based on measurable changes in student outcomes?”

“Will your product scale to impact large numbers of students, families, and educators, or will you only have small pockets of success with individual cohorts?”

As we get to work on our 2017 research agenda, Eduventures will be focusing on helping our edtech clients answer these questions and many more through our advisory relationships and published research.

News Release

StartEd and NYU Steinhardt Launch NY Edtech Accelerator and Incubator

Jul 5, 2016
Modified
Jul 5, 2016

StartEd Companies and NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development today announced a new collaboration to create an EdTech Accelerator and Incubator on NYU's Washington Square campus.

StartEd Companies, Inc., a public-benefit corporation, today announced a collaboration with the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University to galvanize the education innovation ecosystem and provide programming in the fields of education entrepreneurship and education technologies. The centerpiece of this collaboration will be an EdTech Accelerator and Incubator on NYU's Washington Square campus.

NYU Steinhardt - StartEd Incubator
The collaboration will include an Incubator for Edtech companies housed in a historic NYU Steinhardt building near Washington Square Park in the heart of Greenwich Village. Edtech companies can join the NYU Steinhardt community and work in an open-creative environment together with NYU faculty and students.

NYU Steinhardt Edtech Accelerator powered by StartEd
The NYU Steinhardt Edtech Accelerator powered by StartEd is now accepting applications for the October 2016 class from innovative startups focused on technology solutions to improve education and learning -- across all stages from birth through lifelong learning. Each of the 10 companies selected for the program will receive up to $170,000 in funding. Applications are available at Rolling admissions begin immediately with final selections concluding in early September.

The intensive three-month mentor-led Accelerator program, dedicated to education entrepreneurship, will run from October 2 to December 21, 2016. It provides mentorship, coaching, legal services, development expertise, sales consulting, and business development, among other resources. It is designed to help Edtech entrepreneurs accelerate their companies, culminating in a Demo Day where companies will present in front of an unparalleled network of angel and venture capital education investors.

“As the nation’s first ever School of Pedagogy, NYU Steinhardt has actively participated in 125 years of innovation in education, particularly here in New York City. We see the EdTech Incubator and Accelerator as a natural extension of that ongoing commitment,” said Dominic J. Brewer, Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of NYU Steinhardt. “This collaboration with StartEd enables our faculty and students to interact with exciting, emerging companies from all around the world, and some of the country’s most successful Edtech entrepreneurs. Our hope is that this combination of world-class scholars and tech-savvy innovators will create a fertile breeding ground for the next generation of pathbreaking educational solutions.”

The NYU Steinhardt Edtech Accelerator powered by StartEd will provide edtech start-ups with access to the industry's most powerful network of experienced leaders in the education and technology fields. Mentors and advisors include CEOs and founders of the most successful edtech startups; active edtech venture capitalists and angel investors; leaders of the largest educational publishers; technology enablers and functional specialists from the largest technology firms; and education policy experts. They include:

Jeanne Allen, Center for Education Reform

Seth Andrew, Senior Advisor at The White House focused on Education Technology

Frank Bonsal III, Director of Entrepreneurship at Towson University

Dom Brewer, Dean of the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development

Ted Brodheim, former President at ePals and CIO at CIO NYC Department of Education

Luyen Chou, Chief Product Office at Pearson

Peter Cohen, President US Education at McGraw-Hill Education

Alvin Crawford, CEO at Knowledge Delivery Systems

John Danielson, Senior Advisor to the Global Education Sector.

Cristina Dolan, MIT Media Lab Alum, Co-Founder OneMain, Chair MIT-EF NY

William Ethridge, former CEO Pearson North America

Adam Fried, District Superintendent at Harrington Park School District

Susan Fuhrman, President at Teachers College, Columbia University

Denise Galluci, CEO at GEMS Education Americas

Paul Gollash, CEO at Voxy

Matt Greenfield, Managing Director at Rethink Education

Sarah Holloway, CoFounder NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education (CSNYC)

Jonathan Harber, former CEO of Pearson K-12 Technology and founder, CEO of SchoolNet

Michael Horn, Co-founder of Clayton Christensen Institute; Director, Robin Hood Education + Technology Fund

Jeremy Johnson, CEO at Andela and CoFounder of 2U

Ash Kaluarachchi, former Program Manager at Techstars and Director at EDGE Edtech

Vivek Kamath, Partner at Tyton Partners

Arrun Kapoor, Managing Director of SJF Ventures

John Katzman, CEO at Noodle Education and former CEO at 2U and The Princeton Review

Jason Klein, CEO at On Grid Ventures; Chairman of Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater NY

Lisa Lewin, former Managing Director of Tech Product at Pearson and VP at McGraw-Hill Education

Doug Lynch, Professor at University of Southern California and CLO at Cognotion

Michael Moe, Co-Founder & Partner at GSV Asset Management

Daniel Pianko, Partner at University Ventures

Nasir Qadree, Head of Education at Village Capital

Josh Reibel, former CEO at Amplify Learning at Amplify Education

Jason Saltzman, CEO & CoFounder at Alley

Rick Segal, Managing Partner at Rethink Education

Maia Sharpley, Executive Vice President, Innovation and Strategic Initiatives at Charter Schools USA

Ben Wallerstein, CEO at Whiteboard Advisors

Chris Whittle, former CEO at Avenues: The World School and CoFounder of Edison Learning

"Some of the greatest challenges in global education will be solved through edtech startups," said Jonathan Harber, Jonathan Harber, former CEO of Pearson K-12 Technology and founder amd CEO of SchoolNet. "New York is the perfect hub for Edtech, hosting the largest K-12 school system in the nation, the biggest community college network, the education publishing giants, the headquarters to the largest corporate training departments, the financiers backing major education companies, cutting edge researchers, two million active students, and more. By companies and entrepreneurs to improve the world."

NYU Steinhardt and StartEd will also soon announce the dates for NY Edtech Week, a major conference to be held in December 2016.

About StartEd:
By galvanizing an eco-system of education innovation in New York City, StartEd aims to accelerate edtech entrepreneurs to tackle to world's greatest education problems. Co-founded by edtech entrepreneurs, StartEd runs edtech accelerators, three-month intensive bootcamps for early stage edtech companies, and co-working communities for the edtech community. For more information on StartEd Accelerator, please visit: or follow us on Twitter @startedaccel

About the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (@nyusteinhardt):
Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development prepares students for careers in the arts, education, health, media, and psychology. Since its founding in 1890, the Steinhardt School's mission has been to expand human capacity through public service, global collaboration, research, scholarship, and practice. To learn more about NYU Steinhardt, visit steinhardt.nyu.edu.

Press Contact

Shonna Keogan

Shonna Keogan

(212) 998-6796

From 1 10 January 2016