IBL News

Category: Platforms | Tech

  • Edmodo.com Will Shut Down Its Platform and Service on September 22

    Edmodo.com Will Shut Down Its Platform and Service on September 22

    IBL News | New York

    The popular collaboration tool for 12-K instructors, Edmodo.com, with 100 million users, announced this month that it will shut down its free platform and service, including the mobile apps, on September 22, 2022. Seen as a competitor to Schoology and Google Classroom, Edmodo social platform has been operating for 15 years.

    The accounts of teachers, students, and parents are expected to be permanently deleted after the platform is shut down. ​​”You can be assured that your personal data will not be shared, transferred, or sold to any 3rd party and, in fact, once permanently deleted, it will not be accessible or recoverable even by Edmodo,” said the owner of the company, China-based, publicly-traded NetDragon Websoft, that paid $137.5 million for Edmodo in 2018.

    Users will need to manually export their files and information to a personal device or drive before the Edmodo platform shuts down.

    “After more than a decade of ensuring Edmodo can stay a free tool for all, we have found that it is no longer viable for us to maintain the level of service you deserve and that we can take pride in ourselves,” explained the parent owner company, the Hong Kong-based NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited.

    This Asian company — which established China’s first online gaming portal, 17173.com, and China’s influential smartphone app store platform, 91 Wireless — said that the Edmodo platform will be offered in some countries outside the U.S. “The Company expects to realize substantial savings in operating cost, which will accelerate the path to reaching operating profitability of its education business.”

  • Varsity Tutors Acquires Codeverse, a Platform that Teaches Kids to Code

    Varsity Tutors Acquires Codeverse, a Platform that Teaches Kids to Code

    IBL News | New York

    Nerdy Inc. (NYSE: NRDY), the owner of live online tutoring and classes platform Varsity Tutors, announced yesterday the acquisition of Codeverse, a platform that teaches kids to build apps and games with real code, for a non-disclosed amount.

    “Coding is one of the fastest-growing segments in education, yet the tools and resources for students have not kept up with the increasing demand,” said Chuck Cohn, Founder, and CEO of Nerdy.

    Varsity Tutors will integrate Codeverse’s tools as part of its membership offering.

    Codeverse was founded by husband and wife duo Craig Ulliott and Katy Lynch with a mission to “teach a billion kids to code.”

    Nerdy’s flagship business, Varsity Tutors provides 3,000+ subjects and multiple formats through its platform, including one-on-one instruction, small group classes, large format group classes, and adaptive self-study.

    In the second quarter of 2022, Nerdy reported revenue of $42.2 million, up 29% compared to the second quarter of 2021. Gross profit of $28.8 million in the second quarter increased 35.2% year-over-year. The company claims to hold no debt and $121.0 million in cash on the balance sheet.

    Among its investors, Nerdy has Learn Capital, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and TCV. To date, the company has raised over $107 million.

    https://youtu.be/uUo9weedgi0

  • O’Reilly Says Its Business Grew at 45% Through Its New Platforms

    O’Reilly Says Its Business Grew at 45% Through Its New Platforms

    IBL News | New York

    O’Reilly reported a 45% growth in enterprise sales during the first half of 2022 on technical content and technologies, especially on its cloud communications platform Infobip. No further data was disclosed.

    Through a PR-driven press release, the Boston-based media tech company also announced it added 82 new hires in the same period, resulting in an increase of its global employee base by 20%.

    Recent platform innovations include on-demand courses, Microsoft Azure cloud labs, mobile app enhancements, and an improved audiobook experience.

    O’Reilly’s live online training events drew 500,000 user registrations in 2022. O’Reilly expanded the delivery of its Superstream events as well, with new series focused on security and software development, joining the existing series on AI and ML, data, cloud, software architecture, and open source.

    In 2022, O’Reilly hosted two free O’Reilly Radar events that attracted 8,000 registrations, including Building the Workforce of the Future, featuring Jeff Teper, Tim O’Reilly, and Robin Carnahan, and Innovation in the Cloud with host Sam Newman. Later this year, O’Reilly will host similar events on security and on data and AI.

    The O’Reilly learning platform was included by Training Industry on its Top Online Learning Library Companies list. EdTech Digest named O’Reilly a finalist in the 2022 EdTech Awards. O’Reilly customer Grubhub was recognized with a LearningElite award from CLO for its returnship program, powered by the O’Reilly learning platform.

    The company named Jeanne Cordisco as chief people officer and made some promotions on its executive team, including Carmen Vetere to chief marketing officer and Adam Witwer to chief product officer. Other promotions include Mike Tuckerman to senior vice president of new business sales and Jerry Roche to senior vice president of sales and customer service.

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  • Udacity Puts Its Platform on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace

    Udacity Puts Its Platform on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace

    IBL News | New York

    Udacity.com launched its Digital Transformation Platform suite solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS) marketplace last month.

    This suite focuses on in-demand technologies, mentor support, and project-based learning taught by industry experts.

    Programs include a curated content catalog in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data science, autonomous systems, and cloud computing.

    The price of the platform starts at $150,000 per twelve months.

    “We are bringing to the AWS Marketplace – the ability for companies to transform their legacy workforces into job-ready cloud professionals, capable of powering their cloud transformations,” said Gabriel Dalporto, CEO of Udacity.

     
    Udacity Platform Fee Udacity Talent Transformation Platform + Initial STU Count Included $150,000 $285,000 $405,000

  • Data Management Top 50 Start-Ups Are Valued Over 100 Billion

    Data Management Top 50 Start-Ups Are Valued Over 100 Billion

    IBL News | New York

    Enterprise data management will grow at least 12.8% annually from the period of 2022 to 2027 to attain over $150.6 billion by 2027, according to the consultancy Expert Market Research.

    In 2021, the business of managing data became the fastest growing area of infrastructure. It was estimated to be worth over $70 billion and accounted for over one-fifth of all enterprise infrastructure.

    “Data continues to be one of the most important and furiously growing innovation drivers across both large enterprises and new start-ups,” said an analyst of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

    Data management marries the field of software engineering, analytics, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing.

    Andreessen Horowitz has elaborated a list of the most exciting companies in data management in 2002. Overall, these companies are valued at more than $100 billion. In aggregate, they have raised $14.5 billion, with 20 having reached unicorn status by 2021.

    Data50 List:

    RANK COMPANY CATEGORY LOCATION VALUATION RANGE WEBSITE
    1 Databricks Query and Processing San Francisco, CA $5B+ Databricks
    2 Fivetran ELT & Orchestration Oakland, CA $5B+ Fivetran
    3 Scale.ai AI/ML Palo Alto, CA $5B+ Scale.ai
    4 OneTrust Data Governance & Security Atlanta, GA $5B+ OneTrust
    5 Dbt labs ELT & Orchestration Philadelphia, PA $1B-$5B Dbt labs
    6 Starburst Query and Processing Boston, MA $1B-$5B Starburst
    7 Collibra Data Governance & Security Brussels, Belgium $5B+ Collibra
    8 Dremio Query and Processing Santa Clara, CA $1B-$5B Dremio
    9 Dataiku Query and Processing New York, NY $1B-$5B Dataiku
    10 Hugging Face AI/ML New York, NY $250-999M Hugging Face
    11 DataRobot Query and Processing Boston, MA $5B+ DataRobot
    12 Primer.ai AI/ML San Francisco, CA $250-999M Primer.ai
    13 Snorkel AI/ML Palo Alto, CA $1B-$5B Snorkel
    14 Anyscale AI/ML San Francisco, CA $1B-$5B Anyscale
    15 Firebolt Query and Processing Tel Aviv, Israel $1B-$5B Firebolt
    16 Astronomer ELT & Orchestration Cincinnati, OH $100-$249M Astronomer
    17 Alation Data Governance & Security Redwood City, CA $1B-$5B Alation
    18 Weights & Biases AI/ML San Francisco, CA $1B-$5B Weights & Biases
    19 Sigma Computing BI & Notebooks San Francisco, CA $1B-$5B Sigma Computing
    20 Monte Carlo Data Observability San Francisco, CA $250-999M Monte Carlo
    21 OctoML AI/ML Seattle, WA $250-999M OctoML
    22 Census Customer Data Analytics San Francisco, CA $250-999M Census
    23 Hex BI & Notebooks San Francisco, CA $250-999M Hex
    24 Hightouch Customer Data Analytics San Francisco, CA $250-999M Hightouch
    25 Amperity Customer Data Analytics Seattle, WA $1B-$5B Amperity
    26 BigID Data Governance & Security New York, NY $1B-$5B BigID
    27 Privacera Data Governance & Security Fremont, CA $250-999M Privacera
    28 Immuta Data Governance & Security Boston, MA $250-999M Immuta
    29 Bigeye Data Observability San Francisco, CA $250-999M Bigeye
    30 Matillion ELT & Orchestration Greater Manchester, United Kingdom $1B-$5B Matillion
    31 Heap Customer Data Analytics San Francisco, CA $1B-$5B Heap
    32 Tecton AI/ML San Francisco, CA $250-999M Tecton
    33 Imply Query and Processing Burlingame, CA $250-999M Imply
    34 Sisu Data BI & Notebooks San Francisco, CA $250-999M Sisu Data
    35 Rudderstack ELT & Orchestration San Francisco, CA $100-$249M Rudderstack
    36 ActionIQ Customer Data Analytics New York, NY $250-999M ActionIQ
    37 ClickHouse Query and Processing Portola Valley, CA $1B-$5B ClickHouse
    38 Airbyte ELT & Orchestration San Francisco, CA $1B-$5B Airbyte
    39 Rockset Query and Processing San Mateo, CA $250-999M Rockset
    40 Labelbox AI/ML San Francisco, CA $250-999M Labelbox
    41 Explorium AI/ML San Mateo, CA $250-999M Explorium
    42 Rasa AI/ML San Francisco, CA $100-$249M Rasa
    43 Prefect ELT & Orchestration Washington, DC $250-999M Prefect
    44 Materialize Query and Processing New York, NY $250-999M Materialize
    45 Coiled AI/ML San Juan Capistrano, CA $100-$249M Coiled
    46 Preset BI & Notebooks San Mateo, CA $100-$249M Preset
    47 Metabase BI & Notebooks San Francisco, CA $100-$249M Metabase
    48 Iterative.ai AI/ML San Francisco, CA $100-$249M Iterative.ai
    49 Robust Intelligence AI/ML San Francisco, CA $100-$249M Robust Intelligence
    50 Fiddler AI/ML Mountain View, CA $100-$249M Fiddler

     

  • Fast Company Selects the Most Innovative Educational Companies

    Fast Company Selects the Most Innovative Educational Companies

    IBL News | New York

    The most innovative companies in education are trying to supplement traditional schooling and democratize access to education, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic blasted online education and exposed its many challenges.

    Following these criteria, Fast Company magazine chooses the ten most innovative corporations in education, analyzing everything from online classes and digital textbooks to AI tutors.

    Among the transformers, Fast Company selects Duolingo and Coursera, which are expanding their reach into new markets.

    Others are offering a new spin on music education (like the app Trala), monetization on course creation (Maven), or enhancing early childhood education (Lovery and A Kids Company About).

    Here is the complete list, along with a brief explanation elaborated by Fast Company:

    1. Maven — For empowering creators to monetize their expertise as courses
    2. Duolingo — For translating its language-learning app to test English proficiency
    3. Coursera — For helping Indian businesses and universities invest in online learning
    4. Pearson — For making textbooks more affordable—and less biased
    5. Trala — For adding rosin to the bow of online music instruction
    6. Lovevery — For creating low-tech toys to support early childhood development
    7. A Kids Company About — For building a topical kids’ multimedia brand
    8. Sketchy — For taking the pain out of test prep
    9. Riiid — For turbocharging tutoring with AI
    10. PowerSchool — For supporting school districts as they reopened

    • Fast Company: The World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2022

  • Open edX’s Maple Version of the Platform Includes Advanced Features

    Open edX’s Maple Version of the Platform Includes Advanced Features

    IBL News | New York

    The Center for Reimagining Learning, Inc. organization — the new non-profit entity of MIT and Harvard that stewards the Open edX software — posted the technical notes and description of features of Maple, the 13th version of the platform released on December 20th. The next version, scheduled for mid-year, will be called Nutmeg.

    Maple replaces Lilac, released on July 2021. It includes new features, such as the following:

    • The Learning Micro Frontend (MFE) is now the default course experience for learners, including section effort estimates, learner progress celebrations, and jump navigation.
      The user can see the estimated time to read and watch videos, plus the number of activities, on the course outline.
    • Ability to give users course and library creation rights on a per-organization basis.
    • The jump navigation feature gives learners the ability to jump into any part of the courseware at the click of a button instead of having to navigate manually through units.
    • Mobile app enhancements:
      • Course dates can now sync with a user’s default calendar app.
      • Ability to detect iframe content within the HTML block, giving the user the option to view the iframe content in the mobile browser.
      • The LTI Consumer XBlock is now supported natively in the iOS and Android apps.
    • CourseGraph graphical representation of course data in neo4j popular graph database.
    • Reusable Rubrics: Course staff can now reuse a rubric from an existing ORA.
    • Improvements on course authoring’s common problem editor.
    • The studio is changing to become an OAuth client of LMS, using the same SSO configuration.

    For production, along with the native Open edX installation, a dockerized distribution based on Tutor was released.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Moderna Will Train Its Employees in AI, In Partnership With Carnegie Mellon University

    Moderna Will Train Its Employees in AI, In Partnership With Carnegie Mellon University

    IBL News | New York

    Moderna, Inc., (Nasdaq: MRNA) announced the launch of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

    With its AI Academy, the well-known biotechnology company intends to educate its employees on AI and machine learning capabilities and skills.

    This program will focus on data quality and data visualization, statistical thinking and models, machine learning algorithms, and AI ethics.

    Classes will be both in-personas and online. The AI Academy will use the CMU-home-developed learning platform called ISLE (Integrated Statistics Learning Environment).

    Moderna will launch the program this week with its first cohort of students. In early 2022, will be the full rollout.

    The company’s goal is to identify and integrate these technologies into “every Moderna system and process to bring mRNA medicines to patients.”

    The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical firm — which is pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, “attributes its speed in part to the incorporation of digital technologies,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna.

    “We believe AI is a key enabler of our ability to build the best version of Moderna now and into the future. This AI academy will enable us to make AI part of the company’s ways of working, part of our DNA. We look forward to driving this with Carnegie Mellon’s team.”

    To design and deliver Moderna’s AI Academy, CMU’s Department of Statistics & Data Science, a part of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Tepper School of Business are collaborating with professors across the university.

     

  • Docebo and EdCast Announce an Integrated Learning Solution

    Docebo and EdCast Announce an Integrated Learning Solution

    IBL News | New York

    Two learning platforms, Docebo Inc (NASDAQ: DCBO; TSX: DCBO) and EdCast, announced a strategic integration partnership intended to create an AI-powered solution. No further financial and technical details were provided. Docebo’s SEC filings page didn’t reflect this partnership this week.

    “Our integration with EdCast’s XP creates one universal learning platform, combining the benefits of LXP and LMS into one system,” said Federica Melis, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Docebo.

    The declared goal of Toronto-based Docebo and Mountain View, California-based EdCast — which uses Open edX software in its tech stack — is to offer an end-to-end learning system with one place for centralized reporting for auditing compliance, and upskilling.

    “EdCast and Docebo are the leading platforms in our respective segments that, combined, form an end-to-end ecosystem for enhancing the employee experience via learning and upskilling,” explained Karl Mehta, CEO of EdCast.

     

  • The New Open edX Organization Sets a Technical Committee to Govern the Project

    The New Open edX Organization Sets a Technical Committee to Govern the Project

    IBL News | New York

    The Open edX project — which moved from U2’s edX to Massachusetts nonprofit corporation called Center for Reimagining Learning (tCRIL) — announced this month the creation of a Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) that will provide the overall technical governance and stewardship of the initiative.

    This committee will have nine members: three appointed by The Center for Reimagining Learning’s Board of Trustees, three by 2U Inc., and three representatives from the Open edX community.

    tCRIL and 2U have already appointed their members, but their names have not been disclosed yet.

    For the first time, the community will have direct input into project governance. “We will be moving to identify and select the community members of the TOC as quickly as practical,” said MIT and Havard University’s led nonprofit organization.

    Appointed members will serve a one-year term and won’t receive any compensation.

    The nonprofit “will follow the consensus-seeking decision-making model and will only resolve issues by a vote in cases where consensus cannot be reached,” said the document, which set the general rules and operations.