The edtech market has finally balanced out after what many would call an explosion of K12 technology tools during the pandemic. With some products fizzling out, it’s this leader’s job to ensure that new edtech meets the demands and expectations of educators using the technologies.
At the height of the pandemic, there was some “irrational exuberance” as new edtech products and platforms popped up left and right, says Ash Kaluarachchi, chief executive officer of StartEd and producer of EdTech Week. The two organizations are focused on the training, networking and gathering of investors, educators and policymakers to assist edtech founders and nonprofit leaders at each stage of launching and scaling an organization that makes an impact.
In 2021, investment in edtech startups was steady, but companies that shouldn’t have earned capital did and that negatively impacted users. “Those solutions either turned out not to be efficacious or simply went away because they didn’t work in the first place,” says Kaluarachchi.
Now, we’re in what he calls the balancing stage. Investment is down to levels he hasn’t seen in 10 years, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“If you look at the greater companies created in this space and others, they came to be in times of need and strife around 2007 and 2008,” he explains. Now, a clearer vision of the edtech market has emerged with the expiration of ESSER dollars and other atypical funding streams that were “warping our view,” he says.
Connecting startups with district leaders
Superintendents and other district leaders are uniquely positioned to leverage ties with edtech startups. Last month, edtech inventors, educators and district leaders rallied together in New York City for EdTech Week, bridging ties between educators and edtech inventors.
Kaluarachchi and his team are working to change the relationship between edtech and school leaders to allow educators to provide feedback to innovators in their startup’s early stages.
“If district leaders and administrators are coaching startup founders when companies are at that phase, they can direct the vision and mission to be efficacious and be involved personally and financially in the creation of companies early on as advisors,” says Kaluarachchi.
EdTech Week’s mission is to serve as senior executives for startups getting their products off the ground. Innovators must achieve several things, including finding their product-market fit. This involves getting to know the consumers: Educators and district leaders.
In one of EdTech Week’s programs, founders spend a week with 15 to 20 individuals who know the edtech space well. In the real world, these conversations happen less frequently over a longer period, which Kaluarachchi says is inefficient.
“We create the space for those conversations to happen efficiently and the learning to be extracted far more quickly,” he explains.
Similar gatherings like the Future of Education Technology Conference allow educators to witness first-hand the latest and greatest innovations entering the K12 space.
As for the innovators themselves, they’re gaining exposure to some of the largest districts in the country through events like FETC’s Pitchfest, a dynamic competition where selected edtech startups present their products and services to a live audience and a panel of judges.
Opportunities like Pitchest and EdTech Week are instrumental in nurturing the relationship between edtech and school districts. Kaluarachchi says the current relationship is rather unhealthy. “A lot of innovators, when they entered the edtech space, came from other tech areas. They didn’t necessarily come from the classroom,” he explains.
More from DA: Deepfakes: Why they are now K12’s problem, too
Addressing emerging technologies
Artificial intelligence seems to be the dominant force in a world where innovators can utilize a wealth of technologies to enhance their products. Your company is the odd one out if your platform doesn’t incorporate the tool.
Kaluarachchi says AI should never become the main focus. However, he predicts we’ll eventually refer to it like we casually acknowledge the internet. In the meantime, innovators and edtech startups should continue identifying the problem they’re trying to solve with their products.
“When it comes to figuring out how we should be talking about AI, it needs to be talked about within the context of each of the problem spaces,” he explains.
