UN Technology Innovation Labs partners up with xEdu to create a unique Learning Accelerator
United Nations Technology Innovation Labs (UNTIL) and xEdu, one of the world’s leading EdTech startup accelerators, announced that they will team up to accelerate the development and implementation of new learning solutions around the world.
Under the initiative, titled “UNTIL-XEDU Learning Accelerator”, the selected startups that are developing and providing learning solutions for the needs of the emerging economies are able to join the xEdu acceleration program of Fall ’18. The program will include additional tailormade modules focusing on the specific issues of the developing countries and will continue with chosen UNTIL country pilot deployments in the Spring of 2019.
Welcoming the collaboration between UNTIL and xEdu, Mr Salem Avan, Chief of Knowledge Management at UNHQ in New York stated “UNTIL is pleased to work with key partners to bring first tangible results out from the collaboration between Finland and the UN that resulted in the creation of UNTIL Finland in Espoo, supported by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. With the insight that Finland has on how to use technology to make education work, we can expect great things from the collaboration.”
“During the last two years xEdu has been focusing on helping startups to scale-up their education and learning innovations in a sustainable way. This would not have been possible without the help of the Finnish education system, cities of Helsinki and Espoo, nor our main business partners Samsung and Telia. We believe that the collaboration with UNTIL is a great way to empower the startups, and to speed up the global deployment of the best learning innovations. This can create sustainable impact in education,” noted Antti Korhonen, CEO of xEdu.
Overall, it is estimated that in the upcoming years millions of learners will benefit from faster access to new scalable learning solutions provided by the education startups accelerated through the collaboration in the upcoming acceleration programs.
The initiative, which will be coordinated out of UNTIL Labs in Espoo, Finland, is kicked off with a true startup clock speed. The currently open application period for the upcoming xEdu acceleration program will be extended for an additional two weeks, ie. the application period for the UNTIL-XEDU Learning Accelerator will be open until the 22nd of August 2018, and the program starts already in mid-September after the selection process is over. Concrete results of the first joint acceleration program will be featured in Helsinki at the world-leading startup conference Slush in December of 2018.
