XcitED20 announcements: Helsinki to become the Learning Capital of the World!
XcitED is a yearly edtech conference run in Helsinki, Finland. This year, as so many other events, we moved it online and were happy to welcome 800 participants from all parts of the world to enjoy inspiring keynotes, cheer on GESAwards semifinalists, meet edtech investors and mingle at a virtual dinner. But this wouldn’t be XcitED without important announcements as well! And those announcements make us believe that Helsinki is truly becoming the Learning Capital of the World! Read below why.
New initiative aims to build future edtech solutions with collaboration in Greater Helsinki
On 3rd November at XcitED 2020, Helsinki Business Hub announced a strategic initiative to build hybrid learning in Greater Helsinki together with tech companies, startups, schools, educators, and investors.
“The collaborative environment, the tradition of life-long learning, innovative pedagogy, and active edtech ecosystem have created a strong base to build future education solutions in Helsinki. The new normal has made the demand for new hybrid education models go through the roof. In Helsinki, we have everything that is needed to build solutions that match these needs. We see that with joint activities we can achieve something bigger than just separate individual innovations.” Marja-Liisa Niinikoski, CEO of Helsinki Business Hub describes.
In the spirit of collaboration, Helsinki wants to invite all the international players to join this movement. The first opportunity is Helsinki Edtech Virtual Summit on 10th December 2020, which dives into hybrid learning by sharing best practices and experiences worldwide. The event is targeted to all startups, VCs, CVCs, schools, and professionals who want to share and hear the latest insights about hybrid learning and recent developments in the global edtech market.
“Finland is the world’s happiest nation and we believe that life-long learning is a key to a better world. Helsinki is a place where innovation, collaboration, one of Europe's strongest tech hubs, the world's best education system, and digital readiness together create an excellent environment to develop new innovations for the global edtech market. Collaboration and co-creation are in our DNA. That is why we believe that whether you are an investor, company, or startup, you will find the best ecosystem and business environment in Helsinki.” Marja-Liisa Niinikoski says.
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Helsinki Education Hub brings education innovators together
Helsinki will be the global capital of learning. Helsinki Education Hub, which will start operating next year, is a concrete step towards this purpose. It combines innovative learning and education startups, Finnish pedagogical knowledge, an innovative learning environment and academic research into world-class products and services. One of the main goals is to promote startups’ new businesses in the field of learning and education. The concept of Helsinki Education hub is national and international from the beginning. Helsinki Education Hub is funded by Innovation Fund of City of Helsinki for 2021 - 2023. The target is to develop and expand Hub´s activities after that.
“We establish a modern and innovative edtech startup and competence center for learning and education ecosystem. We bring the ecosystem actors (edtech startups, incubator, practitioners, academics, corporations, investors and third sector) together. We promote edtech startups’ business expertise especially in commercialization, internationalization and team skills. We internationalize testbed for learning and launch a systematic collaboration within education and learning ecosystem.” says Mia-Stiina Heikkala, NewCo Helsinki’s Edtech startup business advisor.
The city will create a physical and virtual co-operation and learning and piloting space, and a showroom in the heart of Helsinki. It will launch a systematic dealflow with edtech startup business advisory services, an incubator, a testbed for learning, corporation co-operation and research. It will organize joint and targeted events and trainings. Overall, the Hub will provide a multi-purpose space for the ecosystem´s actors’ needs. Helsinki Education Hub will start its operations in the spring of 2021. More information will follow soon!
Education Finland
Education Finland is a governmental cluster programme supporting Finnish educational service and product providers in their growth on global education markets. The programme is coordinated by the Finnish National Agency for Education, working closely with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and Business Finland. The members represent educational institutes on all levels of education and private companies. The programme is a hub of Finnish education expertise and solutions that can help you on your path to educational success.
“We warmly welcome the Helsinki Education Hub to be part of our innovation ecosystem. We have noticed the increasing need for early phase services, and that is precisely where education incubator is needed. When the company starts to gain international ground and seek growth, that is where we step in as a PPP -partner for the finest Finnish education companies”, says Programme Director Jouni Kangasniemi from Education Finland.
Edtech Finland is the national association for edtech companies
The association strengthens the conditions of doing business in learning and education technology. Members are companies registered in Finland, working on edtech solutions or services. The board and the advisors are founders, CEO’s and business experts and they know what it takes to innovate and develop new solutions with pedagogy first approach. They support each other in starting new businesses, growing innovative companies, opening new market opportunities, and they actively participate in designing and building new kinds of networking and collaboration models with the whole ecosystem.
Edtech Finland association is celebrating its first year of operations and is currently planning even more activities to support Finnish edtech companies in collaboration with all the other edtech ecosystem players.
Helsinki-based xEdu Edtech Accelerator launching a Global Program
xEdu Edtech Accelerator is launching the first truly global acceleration program for edtech startups that will run in 2021. xEdu is partnering with leading edtech accelerators of the world to create a unique program. Parts of the program will be organized in collaboration with University of Southern California’s Rossier School’s Edventures of US, with Injini of South Africa, and with Eduspaze of Singapore, based on the strongholds of each of the accelerators. The program will also be collaborating with the leading edtech investors.
The program will run in March-July 2021 and the application period for it will be opened in January 2021. Stay tuned and follow our newsletter!
