Takeaways from the world's largest edtech summit

Reflections from the annual ASU GSV EdTech summit in San Diego from Aug 9-11

Continuing a good practice from the last post, this one also has the TLDR at the end. The rationale is written here.

—

Switching up style from previous posts, this is about reflections from ASU + GSV EdTech Summit. It’s the world largest congregation of edtech professionals, ranging from entrepreneurs and operators to university and school administrators to non-profit and government officials. Because of travel restrictions, folks from India, China, and other regions couldn’t attend in person. But the summit team did a great job with hybrid events to carry forward the essence from previous summits.

I have been looking forward to this event for weeks now as I’m a big believer in the power of edtech to make a difference in this world, we as a firm partnered with close to two dozen edtech companies globally, and it’s a great avenue for serendipity and inspiration.

Below are some key takeaways for me. Note that these are from my personal perspective and from the things I participated in. So, it’s not representative of the full tone and tenor of the event.

1.) Edtech’s moment is now and here to stay: For 30 years, it’s been a well-known fact among educators that a student with personalized learning could perform 2 standard deviations better than those who didn’t. i.e., "the average tutored student was above 98% of the students in the control class”. However, personalized tutoring at scale is hard and expensive in the offline world. It has become feasible with technological advances in hardware (cheap devices - mobile phones and chrome books), bandwidth (availability and affordability), internet payments, video infrastructure powered by the cloud, and ML/AI/VR advances. Leapfrog progress on some of these factors enabled the rise of Edtech in Asia (e.g., Reliance Jio led affordable internet access in India, payment and BNPL like financing ecosystems, Agora APIs, etc.,).

Covid 19 seems to have changed these ecosystem factors in the western hemisphere too and propel edtech on that “hockey stick growth curve” of adoption. In the US, National and local governments made it a key priority (and invested tens of billions of dollars) to get broadband and device access for students. Despite zoom fatigue, teachers and administrators seem to agree that a digital-enabled education system is superior to the previous system. It is seen as the key to enhancing affordability, accessibility, and effectiveness. Furthermore, millennials are becoming parents now, and our generation knows responsible device use is good to progress ahead in life than be fearful of screentime.

In summary, there seems to be a secular consensus that money isn’t the problem in the US but that the bottleneck is developing and scaling the right K12 solutions. It feels very similar to e-commerce evolution over the last 20 years and this prophecy from Jeff Bezos back in 1999. It’s just a more effective and efficient end state. The only question is who’s going to be the Bezos and Amazon of Edtech. It could be a global founder and distributed team leveraging the best of multiple edtech ecosystems!

As Vamsi from Vedantu says (with whom we are lucky to partner with for the last few years), EdTech is not about slapping a video and comments box together but about learning outcomes. It’s that perfect fusion of pedagogy, psychology, and product to deliver a personalized and adaptive learning journey. That’s what propels the “two standard deviation” outcome in students, and the company’s success in the long term. This thinking and confidence in the product made Vedantu offer a refund if the student’s learning doesn’t improve!

2.) Skilling and retention of employees: If you’re following the US markets lately, the Labor shortage has been top of the mind for everyone. This article by the Washington Post does a good job explaining the extent of the problem and the causes. There are hundreds of similar articles hypothesizing on causes. But the relevant summary for this post is that there are over 10 million job openings (!!) in the US, ~30-40% of Americans are thinking of switching jobs after the pandemic (“the great resignation”), and 66% of unemployed people are considering switching fields of work altogether.

Source: WSJ Article

So, it’s not a surprise that the flavor of this earnings session is the labor shortage and companies scrambling to hire, skill, and retain talent. There were over a dozen sessions at the summit on upskilling, with at least 50 startups tackling this problem from different vantage points, employee base, and geography.

Furthermore, universities are in a tough spot due to the drying up of revenue from executive and distance education programs - which are high-margin revenue streams that subsidize undergrad education and other research work. Exception of pioneering universities such as the HBS and ASU, almost every university - including my alma mater Stanford - is scrambling to fill these revenue gaps. Partnerships and technology sales to universities used to take months, if not years. But that seems to have changed now. Most university officials I spoke to at the summit said that sales cycles are weeks now and that there is a wholesale attitude change to digital adoption, especially to those that could generate revenue, followed by those that could keep costs in check.

Based on these factors, the companies with the most promise seem to fall under these buckets:

• Help frontline workers such as baristas and others get a remote college degree while being employed. Thus, prolonging retention at least till they graduate and long-term loyalty. No wonder Guild Education was the star of the summit! (S/o to several of my Stanford GSB friends who work there)

• Help non-exec-level white-collar workers upskill themselves to move up the ladder. Some edtech companies take the B2B route and help employers offer it as a perk to employers; whereas some others sell directly to end consumers with a pitch to switch fields of work or move up. Different models seem appealing in different markets, but the universities seem to love these companies. It’s because all this is incremental revenue and new programs. Earlier, only senior execs were sponsored by their companies due to the high price point for in-person programs

• Help sell and deliver exec-ed programs. Companies that help sell senior exec learning programs in other markets (ala channel sales); and companies that give tooling for hybrid delivery (digital + physical) and management of the program

3.) Diversity, equity, and inclusion: This has been the central theme of the summit with attendees, panels, and topics reflective of it. It’s a topic that doesn’t need too much explanation after all the events in the last few years in the US and around the world. But here are two stats that highlight the statistical salience.

The first is from this week’s US census details release:

The second is from NCES on the gender of teachers in the US. From my experience living and working in India, Africa, and Latin America, other countries also have a similar ratio.

So, it was good to see more women and minorities - especially those with prior teaching backgrounds - on the panels and in attendance. There were so many rich nuggets of information that wouldn’t have come up otherwise. Especially on the link between childcare and societal context of a child’s upbringing for early learning edtech to work. There were even some off-the-cuff remarks that were profound from a product/marketing standpoint of view - When all else is equal, parents love a platform that gives deadlines than one that doesn’t. This is because parents don’t want to be bad cops and want guidance to plan their child’s homework time and weekend time.

—

Overall, kudos to the ASU and GSV team for putting a summit of this scale and breadth to further an important technological wave of this era. I’m already looking forward to the next one!

Have a good weekend everyone!

—

TLDR version:

1.) Like eCommerce, EdTech is here to stay even after the pandemic. It’s a better way to teach, learn, and manage. Consumer behavior may be slightly volatile from the current peak after the pandemic ends, but it’ll be to the up and right in the long-term towards digital-enabled learning.

2.) Hiring, skilling, and retaining is top of the mind for leaders. Universities are eager to partner due to lost revenues from exec-ed and distance learning programs. “Demand pulled forward" (DPF)” moment for the upskilling sector. Strong uptick for these models: sponsorship of college degrees for front line workers; upskilling of non-exec level white-collar workers (both B2B2C and B2C models); and channel sales and tooling solutions for executive ed programs.

3.) DEI is finally getting the stage it deserves. Diverse panels made the summit a lot richer.