IBL News

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  • Flooded With Cash and the Open edX Software, MIT and Harvard Start to Shape their New Non-Profit Venture

    Flooded With Cash and the Open edX Software, MIT and Harvard Start to Shape their New Non-Profit Venture

    IBL News | New York

    The new, yet-unnamed, educational nonprofit that MIT and Harvard will govern together and will continue to own, advance, and enhance Open edX, MIT said yesterday. It’s expected to be a very different venture from the existing edX Inc, which will be owned by purchaser 2U, becoming a subsidiary registered as a public benefit company.

    It will start with a whopping amount of $800 million in cash paid by 2U and the property of the Open edX software. “It will explore new ways to make online learning more effective, engaging, and personalized,” said MIT.

    Once the transaction is completed, within the next four months, “the nonprofit will aim to do what edX could not: invest at the necessary scale to sustain Open edX as a fresh, vital, open-source learning platform for the world, and tackle the next great research challenges in online learning.”

    “It could, for example, invest in the potential of artificial intelligence to make online learning more responsive and personalized to the individual learner.”

    According to MIT’s President, L. Rafael Reif, the nonprofit mission, focus, agenda, aspirations, and research program will be developed following consultation with faculty of both MIT and Harvard.

    A non-disclosed part of those $800 million in proceeds that 2U paid for the edX brand, course catalog, business, and partners, will be used “to repay a recent line of credit from MIT and Harvard.”

    MIT and Harvard revealed that over the years they contributed $80 million total ($40 million each) to edX. The two institutions said that “they will not recoup those funds from the sale.”

    However, the influx of hundreds of millions of dollars will go to the new non-profit venture. The new venture will keep a non-defined number of employees of the existing edX. Others will work for 2U. The role of CEO Anant Agarwal is not clear yet.

    “He will have many options and opportunities to consider, including potentially with the public benefit company edX or the nonprofit MIT and Harvard will govern,” MIT said.

    MITx Online Will Use the Open edX Software

    On the other hand, MIT Open Learning will develop a new world-facing platform called MITx Online, which will host only the institute’s MOOCs. It will not aggregate content generated by other universities. MITx Online will use the Open edX software. OpenCourseWare and the Open Learning Library will continue working.

    2U’s “Marketing Advantages”

    In the meantime, publicly-traded 2U elaborated on the marketing advantages that it will achieve.

    Through a set of slides [PDF download], 2U executives told investors and reporters that the deal will harness the  “marketing engine” of their company with the well-known brand and course marketplace of edX, especially in terms of client acquisition’s cost.

    2U predicts it could convert 0.03% of edX’s users into paying customers. This would lower its marketing costs by $4,000 per enrollment and save 2U $40 to $60 million annually.

     

    [Disclosure: IBL Education, the parent company of the IBL News service, uses Open edX software on its platform, and provides custom ecosystems to organizations mentioned in this report and other firms.]

     

    • IBL News, June 29, 2021: 2U Buys MIT’s and Harvard’s edX Platform for $800M; Open edX Software Kept as Non-Profit

  • 2U Buys MIT’s and Harvard’s edX Platform for $800M; Open edX Software Kept as Non-Profit

    2U Buys MIT’s and Harvard’s edX Platform for $800M; Open edX Software Kept as Non-Profit

    IBL News | New York

    In a surprising deal, 2U Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU) announced yesterday that it will purchase edX Inc. — a nonprofit founded by MIT and Harvard University — for $800 million in cash.

    With the transaction, Online Program Manager (OPM) 2U will acquire all edX assets, including the brand, the website with 50 million learners, a marketplace with 230 university and corporate partners, and 3,500 digital programs.

    The $800 million proceeds will flow to a new, still unnamed nonprofit led by Harvard and MIT that “will collaborate with educational institutions, governments, and other organizations to develop and evaluate new approaches to learning and pedagogy.”  This non-profit will maintain the open-source platform Open edX, according to the press statement.

    2U stated that it plans to operate edX under its umbrella “as a public benefit entity, a class of purpose-driven organizations that balances the interests of shareholders with other stakeholders.” It means that the new edX will operate as a for-profit company, as MIT confirmed.

    The Lanham, Maryland – based company said that “it has also committed to continuing to fulfill the edX mission by, among other things, guaranteeing affordability through the continuation of a free track to audit courses.”

    In addition, 2U ensured that it will contribute “to the ongoing development of the fully open-source and independent platform Open edX.”

    2U and edX described the deal as “an industry-redefining combination that will help power the digital transformation of higher education, expand access and affordability, and usher in a new era of online learning.”

    A themed, PR website called Transformingdigitaleducation.com was specifically created to announce the transaction.

    With over 80 top universities as customers, 2U said was expecting “to approach $1 billion in yearly revenue by the end of 2021.”

    In 2020, edX revenues were 84.6 million, and its operating loss $17.4 million, according to public records.

    “By combining 2U and edX’s global reach and offerings from free to degree, together we believe we can fully realize our shared vision, meet the growing worldwide demand for online education, and deliver growth and long-term value to shareholders and other stakeholders,” said 2U Co-Founder & CEO, Christopher “Chip” Paucek.

    “As edX looks to its next phase of growth and impact, joining forces with 2U marks a major milestone in our evolution,” said Anant Agarwal, Founder, and CEO of edX and MIT Professor.

    “Today’s announcement will carry forward this mission on a whole new scale, connecting many more learners with a wider range of high-quality options for content, credentials and degrees. With online education rapidly changing, it’s the right moment for this leap of evolution for edX,” said Harvard president Larry Bacow and MIT president Rafael Reif in a joint statement. “At the same time, the nonprofit that emerges from this transaction will enable us and our partners to support innovation that enhances learning for all and, we hope, play a catalytic role in closing the learning gap that exists for far too many.”

    2U said that it will contribute to supporting the Open edX platform, despite it will belong to MIT and Harvard’s new non-profit company. “Following the closing, 2U expects to be a significant contributor of code to the Open edX platform, and the transaction is expected to increase the impact that Open edX can have in supporting learning outcomes around the world. Open edX currently powers approximately 2,400 learning sites worldwide.”

    • MIT’s view: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

    • Harvard’s view: Harvard and MIT-led nonprofit to tackle longstanding inequities in education

    • MIT News: FAQs on agreement to sell edX to 2U, Inc. and fund nonprofit to reimagine digital learning

  • Chromebooks See a Surge of Demand of 43.4 Million Units Due to the Pandemic

    Chromebooks See a Surge of Demand of 43.4 Million Units Due to the Pandemic

    IBL News | New York

    Google’s Chromebooks will grow 33.5% this year, while tablets — which compete at similar price points — will increase only 1.8%, according to a forecast from IDC. In total, there will be 43.4 million Chromebooks shipped, while tablets will reach 166.5 million units.

    This surge is due to the increased demand for lower-cost remote learning devices after the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “Beyond 2021 both categories will continue to struggle as consumer and education demand is expected to slow,” said Anuroopa Nataraj, Research Analyst with IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, in a statement.

    “With the relaxation of lockdown restrictions, consumers will begin to increase spend on travel and other modes of entertainment, which in turn will impact growth in these devices,” she added.

    After the 2021 drop, IDC predicts that Chromebooks will see a comeback in 2025.

    According to the research firm, Chromebooks work well when high performance and legacy support are not a priority, but they don’t supplant Windows and Macs.

  • AI Technology in Education Will Grow 40% Annually Until 2027

    AI Technology in Education Will Grow 40% Annually Until 2027

    IBL News | New York

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the education market will cross $20 billion by 2027, according to market research and consulting provider Global Market Insights. It is expected to grow at a Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% between 2021 and 2027. K-12 will account for over 30% of the revenue share.

    The rising demand for online learning platforms after the COVID outbreak has prompted the development of innovative AI machine learning-based solutions.

    AI is helping to improve student’s learning styles by offering personalized tutoring, immediate feedback, and gauging pre-existing knowledge.

    “With AI, students feel comfortable making the errors necessary for learning, which they would otherwise be hesitant to make in front of their human tutors and peers,” says the report.

    Experts say that machine learning will allow us to understand educational patterns and suggest variations for teaching methods while enabling unbiased grading systems for both students and teachers.

    According to the author of the report, one of the participants in the AI education market will be IBM, AWS, Microsoft, Google, Nuance, Century Tech, Blackboard, Pearson, Cognii, Volley.com, Blippar, Knewton, Jenzabar, Content Technologies, PLEIQ, Luilishuo, Pixatel System, Cerevrum Inc., CheckiO, and Quantum Adaptive Learning.

    Europe is expected to hold a significant market share with supportive government initiatives.

     

  • NVIDIA AI-Based App Turns Rough Sketches into Realistic Landscapes Scenes

    NVIDIA AI-Based App Turns Rough Sketches into Realistic Landscapes Scenes

    IBL News | New York

    NVIDIA’s Research team announced this week, as a free beta, its Canvas AI app, which instantly turns simple brushstrokes into realistic landscapes images.

    The app displays the photographic result as people paint, allowing creating backgrounds quickly and speeding up concept exploration.

    NVIDIA Canvas is part of NVIDIA Studio, a program that provides creators with hardware and software tools to assist in realizing their creative visions. It is a much more user-friendly version of the prototype GauGAN, deployed in 2019. It runs on a Windows 10 equipped computer with a decent Nvidia graphics card.

    The software uses a form of AI called generative adversarial networks (GAN). To deliver realistic portraits, it has been trained on an NVIDIA DGX system using over 5 million images.

    “The tool isn’t just stitching together pieces of other images, or cutting and pasting textures, but creating brand new images, just like an artist would,” explained Stanley Tack, from NVIDIA.

    The created image can be imported into Photoshop, to continue refining it or combining with other artwork.

     

  • Stanford University Sets Its Video Wall for 250 Students on Zoom

    Stanford University Sets Its Video Wall for 250 Students on Zoom

    IBL News | New York

    Stanford University set a 32-foot by 8-foot video wall with 250 students at once on Zoom, as shown in the picture below.

    Once a week, Stanford’s students in Ethics, Public Policy, and Technological Change participate this way in conversations with instructors.

    The panel group is the result of three simultaneous Zoom sessions of up to 100 students.
    Students can see multiple presenters.

    Teacher Assistants post real-time questions from students to the video wall, and facilitate breakout rooms and polls.

    They also toggle video feeds from five different angles, so that instructors can move around.

    Director of Classroom Innovation at Stanford University, Bob Smith, set the system in Wallenberg Hall, according to Stanford Magazine.

    edSurge explained that “no matter how big your screen, Zoom can only display up to 49 people in each session. So the class was divided into three different Zoom sessions of up to 100 students each. Then a teaching assistant helped feed all three of those sessions into a fourth room, making it possible to control which speaker is featured on everyone’s feed but that can draw on users in any of the Zoom sessions.”

     

    Before Stanford University, the pandemic inspired institutions such as Harvard University to use a similar Zoom approach, as IBL News reported last December.

    David J. Malan, professor of Computer Science at Harvard University and leading instructor at the Cs50 MOOC, shared a multiple gallery view setup by using Zoom Rooms for enhanced remote and blended learning sessions.

    Mr. Malan also showed how Harvard recreated the look, feel, and interactivity for 150 students at a time in a theater on campus. The institution used a setup with a series of TVs and cameras running two interconnected Zoom Rooms [picture below].

  • ASU-GSV Releases the List of the World’s 300 Most Dynamic EdTech Companies

    ASU-GSV Releases the List of the World’s 300 Most Dynamic EdTech Companies

    IBL News | New York

    ASU+GSV published this month a list of the world’s 300 most dynamic EdTech companies.

    Those innovators will be recognized during the ASU+GSV Summit conference, which will take place this August 9-11 in San Diego.

    The event will be the most important gathering of entrepreneurs and investors after the Coronavirus pandemic. In addition, it will be the first in-person event. In the last edition, the summit attracted over 5,500 attendees.

    The Covid’s impact ushered a new era in education, from B.C. to A.D. — Before Coronavirus to After Disease, as ASU-GSV described it.

    Global venture capital investments in education technology grew more than 170%, to $13.3 billion. Year-to-date in 2021, the number is around $5 billion. Globally, education is a $7 Trillion sector.

    The 300 mentioned companies — IBL Education, parent of this news service, among them — are the most transformative growth organizations in digital learning, according to ASU-GSV.

    Many of the platforms of those companies have been able to aid in transitioning classrooms online, maintaining access to educational resources and opportunities, and up-skilling and re-skilling workers.

    Deborah Quazzo, Managing Partner of GSV Ventures and Co-founder of the ASU+GSV Summit — now in its 12th year — said in a recent podcast interview that the education industry had entered a renaissance.

     

    • Resource:
    GSV Edtech 150 — the Most Transformational Growth Companies in Digital Learning

  • Hollywood Celebrities Set a Film School in Partnership with Los Angeles’ Public System

    Hollywood Celebrities Set a Film School in Partnership with Los Angeles’ Public System

    IBL News | New York

    Hollywood elites have begun to put their philanthropy effort into Los Angeles’ public education system.

    According to The New York Times, a group including George Clooney, Eva Longoria, Don Cheadle, Eva Longoria, and Mindy Kaling, is set to start a film and television school in the city’s public school district. “Everyone is recognizing that the industry needs to do better,” Clooney told the newspaper.

    The project, called the Roybal School of Film and Television Production, is one of at least three partnerships started between Hollywood’s benefactors and Los Angeles Unified School District.

    It aims to diversify the pipeline of cinematographers, visual effects artists, and other workers.

    Recently, the music giants Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine announced they were starting their own specialized high school in South Los Angeles.

    In this century alone, Bill Gates; Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Priscilla Chan; LeBron James; and MacKenzie Scott have made donations to reshape American education.

  • IBM Launches a Global Program to Improve the Skills and Employability of Thousands

    IBM Launches a Global Program to Improve the Skills and Employability of Thousands

    IBL News | New York

    IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced this month a global project, in collaboration with 30 governments, community colleges, non-profits, and employment agencies, to improve the skills and employability of underserved populations — such as veterans, women, minorities, refugees, and unemployed young adults.

    This initiative is part of the IBM SkillsBuild program to skill 500,000 people by the end of 2021.

    The program is designed to empower job seekers within 3-6 months with professional workplace readiness and technical skills, earn badges and credentials and provide personal mentoring.

    “Closing the global skills gap is one of the most pressing issues of our time,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM, Chairman and CEO. This accomplishment would add $11.5 trillion to global GDP by 2028, according to the World Economic Forum.

    “70% of employers can’t find the skills they need for roles like data analytics, software development and remote customer service,” said Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup Chairman & CEO.

    Those 30 global organizations are ActionAid Italia Onlus, The American Indian Foundation Trust, Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development, Argencon, Bay Area Community College Consortium (BACCC), Bruxelles Formation, Cité des Métiers, CSC Academy, CSRBOX, Edunet Foundation, Fondazione Human Age Institute, Fundación Konecta, Junior Achievement Americas, Junior Achievement Italy, Laboratoria, Mission Locale de Paris, Reacha Foundation, Tata Community Initiatives Trust, The Royal Alberta College, Technifutur, Technology Ireland ICT Skillnet, Training Point, Turkish Industry & Business Association (TÜSİAD), Unnati Foundation, Uvi Jagriti Sansthan, VetsinTech, Jeevitam-VSS Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd, Workforce Development Inc., and 60 000 rebonds.

    Workforce solutions company ManpowerGroup will also partner with IBM to connect these job seekers to career opportunities.

  • The University of Cambridge Offers Eight Free Courses on Creative Arts on edX

    The University of Cambridge Offers Eight Free Courses on Creative Arts on edX

    IBL News | New York

    The University of Cambridge — founded in 1209 and ranked among the world’s top 10 higher ed institutions — is offering on the edX.org platform a series of valuable, free courses of writing, performance art, screenplay, and comedy writing.

    In total, there are eight courses intended for those in the entertainment industry looking to solidify their skills.

    – Writing successfully for the Stage
    – Finding your voice as a playwright
    – Reconceiving Space: Installation and Performance Art
    – Capstone: Bringing it all together
    – Building your Screenplay
    – Stand Up! Comedy Writing and Performance Poetry
    – Business Success in the Screen Industries
    – Digital Platforms in Performance

    Learners who successfully complete the courses can obtain a paid, verified certificate.

    Altogether, these courses are featured as an 8-months MicroMasters Program in Writing for Performance and the Entertainment Industries, offered at a graduate level for $1,400.

    “By collaborating with EdX, the University is enabling learners from all over the globe to benefit from Cambridge’s passion for knowledge and discovery, giving as many people as possible the chance to experience the quality of a Cambridge education,” says the university on its edX page.