IBL News

Author: IBL News

  • About 222 Million School-Aged Children Around the World Need Education Support

    About 222 Million School-Aged Children Around the World Need Education Support

    IBL News | New York

    Conflicts, wars, refugee displacement, and the COVID pandemic are taking a huge toll on children’s education. Millions of vulnerable children are holding on to the hope that education will allow them to fulfill their dreams.

    Specifically, the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children requiring educational support has grown from an estimated 75 million in 2016 to 222 million today, according to a report released by the United Nations.

    This research outlines that of those 222 million girls and boys, as many as 78.2 million are out of school. Close to 120 million in attendance are not achieving minimum proficiency in math or reading.

    In fact, just one in ten crisis-impacted children attending primary or secondary education are actually meeting proficiency standards.

    The most impacted countries are Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen.

    “We need governments, businesses, foundations, and individuals to support the vital work of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises,” said the UN Secretary, General António Guterres.

    In September, in New York, during the 77th UN General Assembly, the UN will celebrate a summit titled Transforming Education to deal with this problem. “The Summit seeks to mobilize political ambition, action, solutions, and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4,” states the UN.

    Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group, called for more financial resources “to ensure that every child and young person can receive a quality education exist in the world”. He added: “Governments, private sector, and foundations can and must unlock these resources”.

     

  • The tCRIL Organization Releases Nutmeg, the 14th Version of the Open edX Platform

    The tCRIL Organization Releases Nutmeg, the 14th Version of the Open edX Platform

    IBL News | New York

    The Center for Reimagining Learning (tCRIL) — the MIT’s and Harvard University’s non-profit organization that manages the Open edX software and its community — released the 14th version of the platform, called Nutmeg.

    This release spans changes in the code of the edX platform — used at edx.org — from October 15, 2021, to April 11, 2022. The code was cut on April 12, 2022.

    To date, Open edX releases have been Maple, Lilac, Koa, Juniper, Ironwood, Hawthorn, Ginkgo, Ficus, Eucalyptus, Dogwood, Cypress, Birch, and Aspen.

    The next one will be Olive. It will be released on December 9th, 2022. The open-release/olive.master branches will be created two months earlier, on October 10th.

    In a blog post this month, Sarina Canelake, an Open edX engineer, detailed some of the new features, deprecations, removals, and security updates to the code, including overhauls on Tutor.

    The release notes feature additional breaking changes.

  • FINRA Will Invest $90M Coming from Fines to Robinhood to Educate Newer Investors

    FINRA Will Invest $90M Coming from Fines to Robinhood to Educate Newer Investors

    IBL News | New York

    FINRA, the not-for-profit dedicated to protecting investors, approved a $90.1 million initiative to reach and educate new and self-directed investors in June. The funding will come from fines paid by Robinhood Financial LLC in 2021.

    A part of this initiative will be based on promoting compliance by FINRA member firms through education, compliance resources, or ensuring that FINRA’s employees are highly trained in the market, products, and businesses it regulates.

    Also, in June, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) launched a public-service campaign titled “Investomania” to help investors make informed investment decisions and avoid fraud.

    Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission launched “Investomania,” a public-service campaign aimed at young investors with similar goals.

    This educational campaign reminds investors to do their due diligence when making investment decisions.

    The campaign also reminds investors to take advantage of the free financial planning tools and information on Investor.gov, the SEC’s resource for investor education.

    “With the growing access to markets, it’s as important as ever for investors to take time to educate themselves. I encourage investors to go to Investor.gov for accurate and unbiased investment information,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

    More than 40 million users have accessed Investor.gov since it launched in October 2009, and thousands of investors are testing their investing knowledge by taking a new quiz published each month on Investor.gov/quiz.

    These are some of the videos of the campaign:

    https://youtu.be/av3k_lcGm9g

    https://youtu.be/L3TwZOMm6Wc

    https://youtu.be/6uVGEG5W16Q

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB7KJ1nlKsM

     

     

  • Meta Delivers Five New Certificate Programs in Coursera.org in Software Engineering

    Meta Delivers Five New Certificate Programs in Coursera.org in Software Engineering

    IBL News | New York

    Meta (Facebook) announced five new Professional Certificates on Coursera.org on Software Engineering, a field projected to grow 22% by 2030.

    The programs, designed by experts at Meta, are self-paced, completely online, and cost $49 per month.

    They target professionals that don’t have relevant experience or background in software engineering. The skill areas taught revolve around HTML, CSS, Java Programming, Python, and MySQL.

    Meta said that earning the certificate will grant access to its company Career Program Job Board, a job search platform with 200+ potential employers and career support resources.

  • Class.com Completes the Acquisition of Blackboard Collaborate

    Class.com Completes the Acquisition of Blackboard Collaborate

    IBL News | New York

    Class.com will be the new proprietor of Blackboard Collaborate, once the transaction process is completed this week.

    Class Technologies (Class.com) acquired the virtual conferencing tool from Anthololgy, paying $210 million last May.

    The tool will be renamed Class Collaborate. About 1,750 educational institutions and organizations were using it as Blackboard’s clients.

    Michael Chasen, co-founder and CEO of Class and former CEO of Blackboard, announced that the tool will be changing with new features. “Educators and learners expect innovative and advanced solutions that enhance the online and hybrid learning experience,” he said.

     

    “The long-term vision is to bring together the best of both products to develop a learning platform that can support the various ways in which institutions want to engage in synchronous learning now and into the future,” the company added in a PR release.

    Under the transaction, Class will be the preferred virtual meeting technology partner for Blackboard. “The two teams are working closely together on joint go-to-market initiatives, including a large presence at the upcoming Anthology Together conference in Orlando, Florida.”

    Class is a heavily funded company after attracting $160 million within a year. It raised a combination of equity and debt from investors such as SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Owl Ventures, Emergence Capital, Educational Testing Services (ETS), Arizona State University (ASU), Maven Ventures, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Fund, SWaN & Legend, Chimera Investment, Sound Ventures, Catalysis Capital Management, Guy Oseary, Bill Tai, and Super Bowl champion and entrepreneur Tom Brady.

     

     

  • Degreed Buys Its Former CEO’s New Company and Puts Him to Lead a New Strategy

    Degreed Buys Its Former CEO’s New Company and Puts Him to Lead a New Strategy

    IBL News | New York

    Degreed.com announced this month the acquisition of the talent academy platform, Learn In,  and the return of Co-Founder David Blake as CEO. The transactional amount of this acquisition — the fourth of Degreed — was not disclosed.

    Interestingly, David Blake was the Co-Founder and CEO of Learn In. According to the company, “Blake’s plans for the future of Degreed were divergent with the current direction, so an amicable decision was made that he return to the company as CEO and execute that vision.”

    Dan Levin, who has been Degree’s CEO since April 2021, will step down, apparently in an “amicable” transition of power.

    “Just as Degreed created the LXP market, Learn In has begun for talent academies,” said David Blake, the new CEO of Degreed. “Now together, we have the product and technology to help our customers deliver business capabilities at scale with continued innovation in the learning and skills space.”

    Learn In helps companies establish internal talent academies, supplementing the features of Degreed LXP (Learning Experience Platform), including a prepaid learning stipend card, a skills marketplace, a custom program builder, a tuition benefits manager, and dedicated coaching.

    “As Degreed and Learn In come together, it will offer a more integrated opportunity for organizations like ours to engage employees and build a broader range of skills—from curious, ‘in-the-moment’ learning through to deeper reskilling and credentials,” said Gina Jeneroux, Chief Learning Officer at BMO Financial Group.

    According to TechCrunch, “Blake said that he disclosed all conflicts and recused himself from representing Degreed during the negotiation process. He solely represented himself as the CEO of Learn In, while Degreed’s board of directors represented the other side. Even still, it’s hard to completely extract bias from any financial deal, particularly one as tangly as this — the two companies have shared investors including GSV, Firework Ventures and Album VC.”

    Degreed raised $32 million in June 2020 in a  round led by Owl Ventures. Its total capital raised to date is $182 million. Learn In launched in April 2020 with $3 million in seed financing and attracted $13 million in April 2022.

  • 2U Inc. Receives an Offer of $1 Billion with a Premium of 50%

    2U Inc. Receives an Offer of $1 Billion with a Premium of 50%

    IBL News | New York

    Indian virtual education conglomerate Byju’s submitted a buyout offer worth $1 billion in a cash deal, or about $15 per share, to 2U (NASDAQ: TWOU), according to Bloomberg. As a result, shares of 2U Inc. went up 17.42% to $10.92. This is not the first time rumors surfaced regarding a 2U buyout.

    The offer, made to 2U’s board last week, represents a 61% premium to 2U’s closing price of $9.30 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday, June 21. It gives the Lanham, Maryland-based and edX owner company an enterprise value of about $2 billion, despite having a current market cap of $841 million, and about $1 billion in debt and other liabilities.

    According to Bloomberg, the talks with 2U could still fall apart, and a deal may not materialize. 2U’s board has not taken a position yet.

    After having secured $2.4 billion for international expansion, Byju’s is trying to make a big acquisition. The Indian company — which has a valuation of $22 billion and 115 million students using its platform — is also bidding for Chegg Inc.

    With the shares of 2U having declined 80% since a peak of $55.55 in early 2021, assets acquisition looks attractive in the market, said the experts.

    2U paid $800 million to acquire edX in July 2021.

    • News about 2U on IBL News

  • Amgen Foundation Will Invest $30M on Open edX-Based LabXchange Platform

    Amgen Foundation Will Invest $30M on Open edX-Based LabXchange Platform

    IBL News | New York

    The Amgen Foundation announced this month that it will double its investment in Harvard University’s online science education platform LabXchange.org donating an additional $30 million.

    As a lead sponsor and co-founder of LabXchange, the pharmaceutical company donated $13 million for the launch of the project in January 2020. The advertised goal was to build a library of learning experiences in science to complement in-person education and inspire the next generation of scientists.

    The award-winning platform was based on the vision of the late Harvard Professor and scientist Robert Lue, who sought to make science education accessible to everyone.

    This Open edX software-based platform currently contains 16,000 learning resources at no cost, including curated and personalized online lab experiments, interactive lessons, and videos. Harvard’s Office of the Vice Provost of Advances in Learning (VPAL) manages the project.

    “To date, we’ve reached 20 million users in 230 countries and territories around the world,” said Gaurav Vazirani, Managing Director at LabXchange. “To fully realize our vision, we aim to grow our global science classroom from 20 million people to 50 million by 2025.”

    “By overcoming barriers of cost and geographical location, LabXchange is helping to level the playing field, so learners of all ages everywhere have access to world-class science education,” added Judy Brown, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Amgen and Chairman for the Amgen Foundation.

    According to the Foundation, “the additional funding contribution will allow LabXchange to expand and deepen collaborations with STEM organizations worldwide, and pursue opportunities to serve more learners, particularly in communities that are underserved.”

    In addition, over the next three years, the platform will develop more data science, biotechnology, and environmental content, translate content into 30 languages, launch a new teacher ambassador network, and increase content for middle schoolers.

    • News about LabXchange at IBL News

  • Web3 Learning and Talent UK’s Neol Attracts $5.2 Million from Investors

    Web3 Learning and Talent UK’s Neol Attracts $5.2 Million from Investors

    IBL News | New York

    The Web3 phenomenon, featured as the next big wave in crypto is gaining traction.  Experts say that marketers will use public, virtual wallet information to target users. NFTs, governed by smart contracts, will reward users registered with a credential of their choice for engaging with ads — with token drops or other on-chain benefits.

    As this new marketing ecosystem begins to pop up, some start-ups are reshaping the Web3 networks with user experience as a central tenet.

    Last week, London-based Neol announced it raised $5.2 million in a seed round to build out a Web3-enabled, decentralized, and tokenized cohort-powered learning and talent platform. [Neol’s founders, in the picture above].

    It’s similar to On Deck, although instead of targeting founders and start-up operators, it will be aiming mostly at design and creative freelance professionals. For example, if a global fashion brand wants to reimagine its packaging or supply chain to be more sustainable, it can put the call out to Neol’s community for solutions.

    A decentralized and tokenized platform community of members build their own cohorts and create a token or a kind of Neol currency, sharing this way the wealth vision that’s core to Web3 companies.

    It’s like a tokenized, Web3 university with teachers that are rewarded financially, beyond their salary, for building a richer learners community rather than just supporting the school’s brand.

    Similarly, it might happen in the e-learning environment for freelancers. This market is expected to grow roughly 24% annually until 2028.

    Neol’s financing round was led by Kyu Collective Japan’s ad agency and VC firm Global Ventures. Other participating investors were Tony Xu, CEO of DoorDash, LearnStart, FJ Labs, and Paribu Ventures.

    Neol claims to have run eight cohorts with over 600 learners and 200 customers.

  • German Learning Platform CoachHub Raises Another $200 Million

    German Learning Platform CoachHub Raises Another $200 Million

    IBL News | New York

    Berlin-based 1:1 coaching platform CoachHub closed this month a $200 million Series C funding with the goal of fueling its global expansion, particularly in the United States.

    The round, led by Sofina and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, followed an $80 million funding eight months ago. To date, this three-year-old company has raised $330 million.

    Existing investors, including Molten Ventures, Speedinvest, HV Capital, Signals Venture Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank/SVB Capital, also participated in the round.

    With a workforce of 850 employees, CoachHub “aims to provide a tailored coaching experience to employees at all levels to help advance their careers,” stated Yanni Pipilis, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers.

    Research company Gartner said that the corporate digital coaching segment is expected to grow by up to 100 times by the end of the decade.

    “We believe 1:1 coaching will continue to be one of the most effective ways of enhancing the socio-emotional and leadership skills needed to thrive in an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving workplace,” said Harold Boël, CEO at Sofina.

    CoachHub matches learners to a pool of 3,500 certified business coaches in 60 languages and 90 countries. The company employs 150 product engineers along with a team of 30 leading behavioral scientists.

    “The app couples human intelligence with AI technology to pair employees with their ideal coaches and curate a library of content that enhances their learning journey,” the company pointed out.

    The firm claims that it is currently serving 500 customers, including household names like Coca-Cola, Danone, Toyota, LVMH, L’Oréal, Credit Suisse, and Twitter.