Switzerland based Jacobs Foundation has called for a culture shift in the development of education technology products in India. The foundation also urged edtech venture capital (VC) funds to make greater use of evidence in investment decision-making, after Indian edtech start-ups received a combined total of $4.7 billion in VC funding last year.
“Today we are calling for a culture shift in edtech. The Indian investment and research communities should work together, and with partners around the world, to integrate more evidence in the development of edtech products,” Fabio Segura and Simon Sommer, co-CEOs, Jacobs Foundation, said.
To bridge the gap between learning science and edtech, the foundation has claimed to commit $44 million to three interlinking initiatives around the world. It has launched the Learning Edtech Impact Funds (LEIF), claiming to deploy $33 million through leading edtech VC funds for investing in projects backed by research. The partner VC funds include BrightEye Ventures, Educapital, Learn Capital, New Markets Venture Partners, Reach Capital, Rethink Education, Sparkmind.vc, Owl Ventures, and Kaizenvest.
Analysts predict that India’s edtech sector, currently valued at around $3 billion which they expect to grow to $30 billion within the next 10 years. “Investors will make better decisions, start-ups collaborating with researchers will improve their products, and students will have access to edtech that benefits their learning. There is not a moment to lose for students disrupted by COVID,” Segura and Sommer said.
The funds will work with the Jacobs Foundation’s newly launched edtech research centre at the University of California Irvine, Connecting the Edtech Research EcoSystem (CERES). CERES will collaborate with edtech companies and produce scientific research into how children learn through technology.
With inputs from PTI.
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