edtech
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Sesame Workshop and IBM team up to test a new A.I.-powered teaching method
Can A.I. help build better educational apps for kids? That’s a question Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind the popular children’s TV program “Sesame Street” and others, aims to answer. The company has teamed up with IBM to create the first vocabulary learning app powered by IBM’s A.I., which adapts itself the child’s current reading level… Read More
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Crunch Report | China’s Didi Chuxing Valuation Hits $50B
Didi Chuxing is valued at more than $50 billion, SiriusXM acquires Automatic for more than $100 million, Apple Music wants to be Apple Video with the next iteration of the app focused on video and Everfi raises a $190 million round. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
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Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man Ozobots are on the way
Ozobot, a golf ball-sized toy robot that helps kids learn to code, will be available in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man characters as of this summer. Evollve Inc., which makes the Ozobot, has previously offered character skins from Disney’s Marvel Avengers, including Iron Man and Captain America. Read More
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Everfi raises $190 million to teach life skills and touchy subjects online
EVERFI Inc. has raised $190 million in Series D funding to teach students online the life skills and touchy subject matter that they never learned in school. A sampling of courses offered by Everfi range from “Harassment Prevention Training” for the workforce, to “Alcohol EDU” for college students and “Vault Understanding Money” for fourth-, fifth- and… Read More
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Robot tutor Musio makes its retail debut in Japan
A cute, robotic language tutor called Musio, has made it from crowdfunding campaign to full-fledged product with a debut in stores this week in Japan. Priced at JPY 98,000 (about US $900), Musio is now sold online through SoftBank’s marketplace and Amazon Japan, and through a handful of brick-and-mortars stores. Read More
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Why Flybrix skipped crowdfunding to launch its LEGO drone kits
Flybrix first dreamed up a drone that kids could build with LEGO bricks in 2015. At the time, the co-founders debated the merits of launching with a crowdfunding campaign. They craved the exposure that brands attracted on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but they knew consumers were growing suspicious of promises made by crowdfunding hardware startups. Read More
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How Osmo decides to make its tangible, high-tech toys
Many toys today include high-tech and interactive components that keep kids in front of screens. But when it comes to health and educational development, studies have found that kids benefit from things like building with blocks, playing with both hands and looking away from screens at least every 20 minutes. Osmo has dedicated itself to designing toys that bridge the digital and physical. Read More
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Google.org grants $50 million to nonprofits striving for equal access in education
Google.org is donating a $50 million block of grant money to education tech nonprofits striving to create equal access to education around the world. The money, and in-kind services from Google, will support organizations working to bring quality educational materials and teacher training to students in developing nations, and to help students in crisis maintain their education. Read More
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Makeblock raises $30 million for robot-building kits for kids
Remember when kids could simply play with their toys? They still can. But parents are increasingly spending on toys that are chockablock with tech components, and that promise to turn their kids into software developers or robotics engineers. The Toy Industry Association, which held its International Toy Fair in New York last month, has even identified robotics-education as a major trend… Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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Crunch Network
Rethinking return on education investment
A new generation of tech-enabled startups are beginning to reimagine how students finance their education. Higher ed’s transformation is fueling a convergence of fintech and edtech that aims to blur the line between learning and earning — and will force students, colleges and financial institutions to think differently about return on education investment. Read More
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Gaming/learning platform Kahoot! hits 1B players
In its ongoing mission to make learning great again, Kahoot! today hit a number of stats few companies can brag about: The company celebrates 40 million monthly active users and a total of 1 billion players moving through its platform over the past four years. Read More
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Crunch Network
What Betsy DeVos’ confirmation means for innovation in education
Following Betsy DeVos’ confirmation as Secretary of Education, the American education system could drastically pivot in unexpected ways. It’s difficult to know exactly how. What we do know is that the declining state of education, and historical opposition DeVos has already faced for her views on its privatization, will lead to the development of new technological advancements. Read More
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Nearpod raises $21 million to turn mobile devices into a teaching tool rather than classroom distraction
Nearly 80% percent of American adults have smartphones these days, according to Pew Research. And the kids are catching up, studies from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggest. Now, an education tech startup called Nearpod has raised $21 million in venture funding to help teachers turn mobile devices into a positive force for learning in the classroom, rather than a distraction they must… Read More
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Crunch Network
Not another AI post
This post is about a better world brought by human ingenuity. It’s about a human opportunity, an invitation to founders and investors in advanced economies to come and help us change the lives of billions of humans. Come join the movement to help mankind move forward for a better, fairer future. It’s time! Read More
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Brightwheel raises $10 million to keep parents in-the-know about their kids’ day at school
You may have seen the startup Brightwheel scoring an investment from Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca on Sharktank last year. Or you may know Brightwheel if you have kids in preschool, daycare, or other early education programs these days. Brightwheel’s mobile app helps pre-K teachers and care providers to manage their business, while sending parents updates about their kids throughout… Read More
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Ozobot raises $3 million for toys that teach kids coding basics off-screen
There are many toys on the market today that promise to teach kids programming skills, and a good percentage require the use of a connected tablet or smartphone. At a time when parents are already struggling to keep kids’ screen time to a minimum, father and entrepreneur Nader Hamda wanted to build something different. He also observed a lot of expensive educational toys on the market… Read More
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Teachable books $4 million to turn everybody into educators online
Education tech startup Teachable (formerly known as Fedora) has raised $4 million in a Series A round of funding according to CEO and founder Ankur Nagpal. The company provides a platform that’s like a Shopify or a SquareSpace for tutors or teachers. Its platform allows subject matter experts to quickly construct online courses and sell or give them away to their followers, setting their… Read More
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Oohlala aims to school the university-specific app space with a $4M Series A
There’s an app for everything these days, including attending college, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good app. Oohlala has changed that for hundreds of schools so far with its custom university-specific apps for students, and it’s looking to expand with a $4 million Series A round it announced today. Read More
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Lingo Live raises $5.2 million to help employees become truly fluent
Tech startups have tried to make language learning possible without human tutors since way back in the 90s when CD-ROMs and Rosetta Stone were state-of-the-art. The rise of social media and smartphones inspired a new wave of language learning apps like Duolingo, OKPanda, or Lingua.ly, to name a few. But the CEO of Lingo Live, Tyler Muse, asserts it’s not possible to become fluent at… Read More
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Crunch Network
The broken edtech ecosystem investors once avoided is changing
Previously considered risky investments, it’s true that many edtech startups — commonly founded by “teacherpreneurs” hell bent on mending education through tech innovation — either tank or fail to achieve true scale. Why is this the case, when basic reasoning leads us to believe there is no other professional better placed to address the issues facing education… Read More
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