10 December 2014 at 9:00 am
EdTech connections good for business
Edtech businesses are ready to form an industry association to help develop the sector and take advantage of global growth running at an estimated 24 percent a year.
This was the view from Education New Zealand hosted networking events for over 40 representatives from the edtech sector in Wellington, Auckland and Dunedin last month.
It was a great opportunity to share development and export experiences and meet like-minded business contacts. As well as making new business connections, attendees were interested in ways to create more opportunities to learn and collaborate.
Bennett Medary, Chairman of the NZ Technology Industry Association, spoke to the meetings about creating a group of edtech members under the NZTech umbrella. Edtech investor, Dr Sue Watson, Chief Executive of Summit Education Asia Pacific, facilitated the discussion.
Views were varied but overall attendees were positive about the formation of an edtech sector group, particularly as part of a well-established industry association. There was interest in a group that connected widely across sectors including with educators, other tech companies and investors.
Chris Bulman of Bud-e-Digital said: “Getting together is important so you can learn from what others are doing and joining with NZTech would mean that edtech companies are hooked into the wider tech sector.“
Other priorities expressed for the group included coordination and monitoring of international research and trends, support to take New Zealand companies to market, and established opportunities for networking and real collaboration.
“Working together means the sector can have more resources to build the reputation of New Zealand edtech which is good for us all,” said Joanne Ho of Kiwa Digital.
NZTech and ENZ are working on the formation of an edtech group and will be contacting people who offered support at the meetings to help develop a programme for the group to grow the value of the edtech sector.
To learn more about global edtech opportunities and New Zealand’s special advantages – a high quality education system and an innovative, problem solving culture - watch this video from the EdTech for Export conference held in late June this year.
