musings & critique about hi-tech, academia, building startups, and a journal to building eKita
Sunday, August 12, 2012
This one is part rant, part accurate analysis, and part cool-aid.
A recent workshop in DC on lean made me start thinking about this issue again and I spent a good deal of my time there investigating this question with a wide range of people (both involved - and not involved).
It all began with an opening-day pitch by a participant who wanted to work on a project, briefly described as:
"Lets help solve the education problems of the USA - lets build a tool to help facilitate learning by students and make it fun and social - to help stem the rapid decline of the US in the world education rankings (USA currently #22 in education)"...this excellent, passionate pitch with an already working idea behind it - got no votes.
Which really by itself cried out one singular fact: education still just 'aint important/cool/fashionable/{insert whatever} in the USA.
This actual problem in itself ended up becoming the project that the only 3 people present at the 50+ workshop who were even so much as interested in education, worked on. The problem was quite simply "making educational achievement cool" - and an attempt to solve it was built over the weekend, turning into something called Smart-ly.com.
Back to the main issue though: is education a serious topic yet for the USA? Because until education itself is a serious topic - education technology never will be.
I dont believe it is. In fact I'm not sure if it ever will be.
There are of course the evangelists, and champions of the cause - but we are far and few in-between, we are marginalized, we are often used for political points, and there is no interest by the people in positions to make positive changes to actually do so - or even so much allow it to happen.
"Red Tape" (ie: bureaucracy) is still a predominant force to be reckoned with in doing any educational based project, and it seems to only get thicker.
I spoke with Brainscape CEO Andrew Cohen and his team of 4, huddled in a small office space of about 10sqm, at a local shared office space called TheAlleyNYC about what his views on this were and why he chose to startup a company in the education tech sector in NY.
The main answer was that this was his community, and it seemed like the connections to doing something locally for him was the only question needing answering.
OK - understandable...and I fully admit that not many people are as dedicated as we are at eKita to making sure this works on a global scale - and we are pulling all stops to make sure we are in the right environment and market to do so - but the sheer resistance factor of doing this type of project out of the US - and especially NY (which has its own little ecosystem/mentality and behaves very incubated to the rest of the world) - should be a pretty heavy concern, or at least I would think - of aspiring edu-tech companies looking to setup there.
Apparently its not, and I believe this is more due to lack of experience and/or exposure internationally for at least the ones I've talked to.
I also talked with a few other startups and even long-established companies in edu-tech while out there - including TLC, Chalkable (ironically trying to do something similar to us), and I even noticed there is Socratic Labs out there too - a purely edu-tech focused accelerator (incubator?) type deal (no website yet, ironically).
At the end of the day it begs to question the differences between the US and basically everywhere else (OK - Europe and Asia at least) when it comes to education.
In Europe, where I have already ample experience in edu-tech both within institutions and now a growing experience outside - when tools and platforms are built for education, they are done quite seriously. When Lund University needed a new, cutting edge labratory toolset in 2002 to integrate with their already cutting-edge custom Linux OS for the science faculty - they pulled all stops and built an entire inhouse development team of software engineers (including me) and network experts to get it done. With a budget that would float your current day typical startup for 2 to 3 rounds of funding.
This is what I mean when I say serious.
The governmental ministries in education also have departments dedicated to advancing edu-tech within schools in general. Something the US does not have - and it is one of the only western countries that lacks it.
Israel even has its own private sector CET (Center for Education Technology) which has strong support and full collaboration from the government. They are also building an edu-tech incubator to help fund & build more edu-tech startups with support from their entire network of schools and infrastructure - which eKita was actually invited to join as one of the first 5 companies, but unfortunately it didn't quite fit us.
In Asia its even more intense. With the highest ratio of spenditure per capita on education (up to 70% of household income in some parts of Asia is spent on education) - and full government (federal and local) support as well as institutional interest in being truly cutting edge - the reality of it is that when doing something which has an obvious advancing factor for education tech in Asia: they roll out the red carpet.
Bureaucracy becomes a thing long distant, even in typically bureaucratic countries, and the funding for educational improvements is easily regarded as a highly lucrative sector by many (not nearly all, yet - but many).
Like this picture here undertones: staged "technical classrooms" posing for a picture that are rarely seen mainstream and are more commonly used for promotional brochures than actual learning.
I'm optimistic - so I'll leave my answer open, but I believe the facts speak for themself; at least for now.
Labels: alleynyc, Asia, education, edutech, Europe, new york, news, social entrepreneur, startup, university, USA, workspace
Friday, July 27, 2012
Well the last few days have been quite eventful. Still running quite behind on backlog of work (when am I not?) but its worth piping in here to jot some things down.
This week started off great when on Monday I had a chance to catch up with Claude Barthels who is going to be one of my organizers on the ground for setting up 3 Day Startup in Luxembourg.
I caught him up to speed on things, and we are going to continue talking with the student group BetaCube to get more team members to organize it with us.
We already have a few sponsors committed and are going to start moving forward again now. We had previously been putting things on hold in order to respectfully give Farvest their chance to react and participate since they were the initiator - but as entrepreneurs we simply cant wait around for slow moving overweight corporates to get in line. So, happily, all organizers and sponsors involved thus far have agreed - lets get this show on the road!
Tuesday started off nice and fresh with a local meetup called OpenCoffee, where from 9:00 until 12:00, tech people meetup at a nice coffee shop downtown and share projects, business ideas, technology tidbits, and have a good time networking.
It was quite impressive, actually, the turn out - both in quality, diversity, and quantity! Alot of very big movers and shakers doing lots of big things here in Bangkok.
These meetups in Bangkok are quite good actually, I'm impressed each time.
Of course - everywhere I go and everyone I talk to about 3DS here results in nothing but positive eagerness to be involved and see it happen. From Tuesday's meetup alone I found 2 more event organizers who are keen to help build 3DS here in Bangkok with me. Both of them are founders of their own startups.
So we went and had lunch together, when one of them also called a contact of his to come join us. Not surprisingly, the contact was also very interested in 3DS. It was none other than the President of GEW Thailand.
Since we are already planning to do 2 GEW events in conjunction with eachother we discussed adding him to the mix. The response was excellent! We now have a very eager potential partner to work with, who will be involved in deploying the first 3DS here in Bangkok as one of the high-lite GEW events!
Wednesday was a workday at home to actually catch up on things.
There has been an incredible amount of progress and movement in Israel regarding 3DS events, on all 3 fronts: Center Region, North Region, and South. All are seeming to move along quite nicely - although as always there have been big changes and things to take care of.
Thursday was a great day again in town, where I had the pleasure of having a nice brunch with Jakob Lykkegard, a relative "local" in Thailand - originally from Denmark - who has had an incredible story mixed with business and adventure all around Asia. He learned Chinese and lived there until realizing he didnt like it so much - so he learned Japanese to live there, and still wasnt all that satisfied - so now he lives in Thailand (and yes has apparently learned Thai as well). Quite a story by itself for a young professional but wait - theres more. He's exited a few companies already, especially focusing on facebook games and similar social media markets, and currently invests and gets involved heavily in others. With a big focus here in Thailand now that he's found the place he wants to call home. A veritable well of experience and knowledge of how to setup business here in Asia, he's already been of great help to me in setting up eKita here...And obviously - he's very excited about 3DS too!
Thats not all though - Thursday also had me following up on a conference call to Lux to speak with another one of our supporters there who confirmed their eagerness to sponsor the event. Since its a firm we already work with quite alot all around the world, its always nice to continue doing business with them.
Well - today, Friday, have 2 more conference calls to Europe and one big weekly crunch session for eKita.
Then I'm going to try and squeeze in a meetup with Kelly Kampen, Bangkok StartupDigest curator and a "local" entrepreneur as well (www.jajoop.com & www.do.jo) before being late to my lady's friends' birthday party, heh... ;-)
I caught him up to speed on things, and we are going to continue talking with the student group BetaCube to get more team members to organize it with us.
We already have a few sponsors committed and are going to start moving forward again now. We had previously been putting things on hold in order to respectfully give Farvest their chance to react and participate since they were the initiator - but as entrepreneurs we simply cant wait around for slow moving overweight corporates to get in line. So, happily, all organizers and sponsors involved thus far have agreed - lets get this show on the road!
Tuesday started off nice and fresh with a local meetup called OpenCoffee, where from 9:00 until 12:00, tech people meetup at a nice coffee shop downtown and share projects, business ideas, technology tidbits, and have a good time networking.
It was quite impressive, actually, the turn out - both in quality, diversity, and quantity! Alot of very big movers and shakers doing lots of big things here in Bangkok.
These meetups in Bangkok are quite good actually, I'm impressed each time.
Of course - everywhere I go and everyone I talk to about 3DS here results in nothing but positive eagerness to be involved and see it happen. From Tuesday's meetup alone I found 2 more event organizers who are keen to help build 3DS here in Bangkok with me. Both of them are founders of their own startups.
So we went and had lunch together, when one of them also called a contact of his to come join us. Not surprisingly, the contact was also very interested in 3DS. It was none other than the President of GEW Thailand.
Since we are already planning to do 2 GEW events in conjunction with eachother we discussed adding him to the mix. The response was excellent! We now have a very eager potential partner to work with, who will be involved in deploying the first 3DS here in Bangkok as one of the high-lite GEW events!
Wednesday was a workday at home to actually catch up on things.
There has been an incredible amount of progress and movement in Israel regarding 3DS events, on all 3 fronts: Center Region, North Region, and South. All are seeming to move along quite nicely - although as always there have been big changes and things to take care of.
Thursday was a great day again in town, where I had the pleasure of having a nice brunch with Jakob Lykkegard, a relative "local" in Thailand - originally from Denmark - who has had an incredible story mixed with business and adventure all around Asia. He learned Chinese and lived there until realizing he didnt like it so much - so he learned Japanese to live there, and still wasnt all that satisfied - so now he lives in Thailand (and yes has apparently learned Thai as well). Quite a story by itself for a young professional but wait - theres more. He's exited a few companies already, especially focusing on facebook games and similar social media markets, and currently invests and gets involved heavily in others. With a big focus here in Thailand now that he's found the place he wants to call home. A veritable well of experience and knowledge of how to setup business here in Asia, he's already been of great help to me in setting up eKita here...And obviously - he's very excited about 3DS too!
Thats not all though - Thursday also had me following up on a conference call to Lux to speak with another one of our supporters there who confirmed their eagerness to sponsor the event. Since its a firm we already work with quite alot all around the world, its always nice to continue doing business with them.
Well - today, Friday, have 2 more conference calls to Europe and one big weekly crunch session for eKita.
Then I'm going to try and squeeze in a meetup with Kelly Kampen, Bangkok StartupDigest curator and a "local" entrepreneur as well (www.jajoop.com & www.do.jo) before being late to my lady's friends' birthday party, heh... ;-)
