IBL News

Category: Platforms | Tech

  • Udacity Issues a Two-Month Free Course on AWS Machine Learning Foundation

    Udacity Issues a Two-Month Free Course on AWS Machine Learning Foundation

    IBL News | New York

    Udacity announced last week the launch of a new version of its AWS Machine Learning Foundations course with AWS (Amazon Web Services). It’s two months, free course for beginners with little to no experience in the area. The class is taught by two AWS engineers.

    In addition, 425 students who successfully complete the course will be selected to receive a full scholarship for the entire AWS Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree program.

    “The goal for this program is to remove barriers to skills training in machine learning, and to cultivate the next generation of Machine Learning (ML) leaders from underrepresented backgrounds, including Women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and People of Color,” said LaDavia Drane, Global Head of Inclusion, Diversity & Equity at AWS.

    According to the World Economic Forum, by 2025, 97 million new roles in Machine learning may emerge.

    Launched in 2019, The AWS Machine Learning Foundations course has been updated with several new modules, including an introduction to Reinforcement Learning (RL) with AWS DeepRacer, generative AI with AWS DeepComposer, and computer vision with AWS DeepLens. Students will also have the opportunity to further advance skills with the AWS DeepRacer League.

    In addition, the AWS Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree, one of Udacity’s most popular courses, includes updated content covering advanced machine learning techniques and algorithms, and expert-led tutorials on how to quickly build, train, and deploy ML models in the cloud and at the edge with Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed ML service for data scientists and developers.

     

  • Kahoot Acquires Clever Inc. for $500M to Expand Its Presence in the U.S.

    Kahoot Acquires Clever Inc. for $500M to Expand Its Presence in the U.S.

    IBL News | New York 

    Norwegian EdTech game-based platform Kahoot! announced yesterday the acquisition of Clever Inc, a California-based platform widely used by U.S. K-12 schools. The final pricing will be between $435 and $500 million, depending on Clever’s performance this year.

    By purchasing Clever, which will keep its brand, Kahoot will dramatically increase its presence in the U.S. market.

    Founded in 2012, Clever claims to have served 20 million students monthly, that is, half of all U.S. students in 2020 in 89,000 schools. The company provides a popular single-sign-on network that simplifies accessible learning.

    It has partnered with 600 application developers, including Khan Academy, McGraw Hill, Zoom, and Google Classroom. Its billed revenues are around $44 million.

    Tyler Bosmeny, CEO and co-founder of Clever, said, “being part of the Kahoot! the family will give us the opportunity to continue our mission and accelerate our plans to serve international markets.”

    Eilert Hanoa, CEO at Kahoot!, pointed out, “we are improving our offerings with Kahoot! at Work towards enterprises with Kahoot! Spirit and our acquisitions of Actimo and Motimate, the acquisition of Clever will strengthen our offerings towards schools, districts, and families in Kahoot! at School and Kahoot! at Home.”

  • Degreed Reaches a Valuation of $1.4 Billion After Raising $153 Million

    Degreed Reaches a Valuation of $1.4 Billion After Raising $153 Million

    IBL News | New York

    Training and career development EdTech startup Degreed raised $153 million in Series D funding valuing it at $1.4 billion.

    The investment, which was co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Riverwood Capital, will be used for global expansion and pursue acquisitions — the company said. Existing investors that participated in the round included Signal Peak Ventures, Owl Ventures, GSV Ventures, and AllianceBernstein Holding LP.

    To date, Pleasanton, California–based Degreed has raised $335 million.

    This big fundraising came along with the announcement of a new CEO: Dan Levin, former COO of Box will succeed Chris McCarthy — who steps down as CEO after eight years since the company was founded. He will remain seated on Degreed’s Board of Directors.

    In 2020, Degreed more than doubled its active user base and increased its team by 50%, to 600 employees, across six continents.

     

  • Instructure Launches a Tool that Assesses Students’ Learning Loss During the Pandemic

    Instructure Launches a Tool that Assesses Students’ Learning Loss During the Pandemic

    IBL News | New York

    Instructure — the private company that runs the Canvas LMS platform — announced yesterday a tool that lets teachers evaluate students’ learning loss since the COVID quarantine began.

    The solution, called MasteryView Assessments, consists of a collection of short, pre-built assessments integrated into Canvas LMS. It will be available in August 2021.

    Schools will be able to assess and address what each student learned and what support will need to close gaps.

    “It will help many states who are trying to figure out how to appropriately assess the extent of learning loss over the past year,” said an Instructure manager to IBL News.

    The Salt Lake City-based company said that “districts can purchase these MasteryView Assessments with funds designated in the recent federal stimulus packages to help students close learning gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.” These funds were designated in the December 2020 CRRSA/ESSER II federal stimulus package.

    “MasteryView Assessments appear like familiar online quizzes, covering both Math and English Language Arts (ELA) for Grades 3-8, including English I & II and Algebra I,” explained the company.

  • The OpenSAP Micro-Learning Free Platform Reaches Five Million Enrollments

    The OpenSAP Micro-Learning Free Platform Reaches Five Million Enrollments

    IBL News | New York

    openSAP announced this month it attracted five million course enrollments and 1.2 million learners on its platform – a free webspace that offers micro-learning and expert-led courses, as well as podcasts. In the last three years, the number of course enrollments doubled.

    Established in 2013, the openSAP platform mostly provides essential knowledge on SAP, such as SAP S/4HANA, and SAP Business Technology Platform, along with topics such as intelligent integration, digital transformation, and machine learning. It includes approximately 250 courses with an average of 20,000 enrollments per class. Gamification and discussion forums are part of the platform.

    “Our goal is to ensure that everyone in our ecosystem – customers, partners, developers, and employees – all have the right skills to thrive in a digital world,” said Maxwell Wessel, EVP, and Chief Learning Officer, SAP.

    Training through micro-learning is the shiny new trend, although the concept started in the mid-1990s. It is quickly becoming a staple of training programs. For example, Deloitte Australia announced a mobile training system with small digital courses for its 10,500 employees.

    The consultancy firm uses the EdApp micro-learning platform, which offers “bite-size learning” downloaded directly to employees’ smartphones. Jennifer Siu, Deloitte’s Manager for Leadership and Learning, explained it in a series of videos.

    Quick, engaging, and entertaining content provides learners with short pieces of information instead of watching hours of monotonous videos. Learning science probes that digestible pieces of content aligned with spaced repetition increase retention.

    Micro-learning and Nano-learning are effective ways to deliver knowledge not only to Generation Z‘s students — who grew up with smartphones and are used to soundbites on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Snapchat — but increasingly to corporate audiences.

    This is forcing many corporations to rethink their learning, credentialing, and assessment approaches.

  • Coursera Rallies 36% on Its Debut, Giving the Company a Whopping Valuation of $5.8 Billion

    Coursera Rallies 36% on Its Debut, Giving the Company a Whopping Valuation of $5.8 Billion

    IBL News | New York

    Coursera stock rose 36% Wednesday, closing at $45 a share, on its first day of trading on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange).

    This surge gave the online learning platform a whopping market valuation of $5.86 billion, despite the company is still unprofitable.

    On Tuesday, Coursera priced its 15.73 million shares of the IPO at $33 a share, at the high end of Coursera’s expected range of $30 to $33.

    In its offering, the company raised nearly $520 million at an implied $4.3 billion valuation.

    Prior to its debut, Coursera was last valued in the private market at $3.6 billion.

    As shown in the picture above, Coursera’s founders and CEO rang virtually the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange today, as the whole event was online, due to the pandemic.

    Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO at Coursera said to EdSurge that the new influx of money would be used to build more AI-based teaching.

    “We are always building more AI into the teaching experience and the learning experience,” he said. “On the learning side, that means more personalized learning. On the teaching side, [it means] improved student-success dashboards that predict every student’s grade every day and predict the chance that students stop [out of] the degree program.”

    The stock trades under the ticker symbol “COUR.”

     

    [Written by Mikel Amigot]

    • Coursera CEO on IPO: this was a ‘good time’ for public debut

    • News about Coursera at IBL News

     

     

  • Udacity Launches its School of Cybersecurity to Address Market’s Demand

    Udacity Launches its School of Cybersecurity to Address Market’s Demand

    IBL News | New York

    Udacity.com launched this week its School of Cybersecurity noting that there is a growing market need for skilled cybersecurity professionals.

    The School of Cybersecurity is designed to provide learners with practical experience through real-world scenario projects that complement instructor-led sessions.

    This initiative adds up to Udacity’s Ethical Hacker Nanodegree program.

    Around half a million additional cybersecurity professionals are needed in the U.S. alone, according to the ISC association.

    “The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more organizations to embrace remote work and digital workstreams, vulnerability to breaches has grown materially, which in turn increased the demand for hiring hard-to-find cybersecurity professionals,” said Gabe Dalporto, CEO, Udacity.

     

  • Udemy Launches LenovoEDU Community for Learners in Australia, U.K, and U.S.

    Udemy Launches LenovoEDU Community for Learners in Australia, U.K, and U.S.

    IBL News | New York

    Udemy announced this week the launch of a learning community for Lenovo.

    LenovoEDU offers content, resources, and pathways to build “your own curriculum”. It includes Udemy’s library of 155,000 courses taught by 70,000 instructors.

    The initiative is mostly based on the curation of Udemy’s courses, featured with better pricing.

    The advertised goal is to support college and career students, parents, and guardians of K-12 students in Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.

    San Francisco, California-based Udemy explained that this community “offers learners and educators a one-stop-shop to connect with peers”.

    Llibert Argerich, SVP of Marketing at Udemy, said, “members get access to curated educational video and expert blog content offering advice on teaching, learning, and professional development.”

    Ajit Sivadasan, Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo.com, explained, “we’re collaborating with Udemy to offer smarter online education for all through the LenovoEDU community.”

  • Google Issues New Certificate Courses Oriented to Entry-Level Jobs on IT

    Google Issues New Certificate Courses Oriented to Entry-Level Jobs on IT

    IBL News | New York

    Sundar Pichai, CEO at Google and Alphabet, announced in a blog post three new online, self-paced, certificate courses in Data Analytics, Project Management, and User Experience (UX) Design.

    These courses—currently developed on Coursera.org at $39 per month—prepare learners for an entry-level, well-paid job in under six months. The certificates don’t have any prerequisites.

    • Data Analytics Professional Certificate – This seven-course certificate explores analytical skills, concepts, and tools used in many introductory data analytics roles – including SQL, Tableau, RStudio, and Kaggle.
    • Project Management Professional Certificate – This six-course certificate prepares learners to launch a project management career. It covers industry-standard tools and methods, including the agile project management system, and key soft skills, such as stakeholder management, problem-solving, and influencing.
    • User Experience (UX) Design Professional Certificate – This seven-course certificate explores UX principles, UX terms, and industry-standard tools, including Figma and Adobe XD. By the time they complete the program, learners will have three portfolio projects to use in their job applications.

    Each certificate includes resources to help learners enhance their resumes and prepare for interviews.

    Upon completion, learners can share their information with 100+ partners committed to sourcing talent from Google certificate programs, including Deloitte, Anthem, Verizon, SAP, Accenture, Walmart, Infosys, and Google. The employers are “eager to hire people who have earned these certificates,” according to Pichai.

    Google is also launching apprenticeships in the certificate fields of data analytics, project management, and UX design, with applications opening in April.

    To make its Career Certificates more accessible, Google is offering 200,000 scholarships to learners across the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Africa. They will be distributed through organizations such as Merit America, Per Scholas, NPower, Goodwill, Futuro Health, and Generation USA.

    Additionally, Sundar Pichai announced a new Associate Android Developer Certification.

    The search giant said that since launching Grow with Google program in 2017, it has already helped 6 million Americans get training in digital skills and nearly 170,000 Americans get a new job and increase their income.

    With more businesses embracing digital ways of working, it’s estimated that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025.

     

     

  • Coursera Files for IPO. It will be listed on the NYSE as “COUR”

    Coursera Files for IPO. It will be listed on the NYSE as “COUR”

    IBL News | New York

    Coursera.org filed its IPO (Initial Publica Offering) prospectus with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) yesterday. The Mountain View, California-based company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “COUR” likely sometime next month.

    The number of shares and price range have yet to be determined. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup will be the lead underwriters.

    Coursera was valued at $2.4 billion by private markets in October 2020. Other sources valued it at $5 billion. The start-up raised $443.1 million in venture funding since it was founded in 2012.

    The learning platform—which offers access to online courses and degrees from top universities—reported on its filing $293.5 million in revenue in 2020, a 59% growth rate from 2019. Net losses widened by roughly 20 million year over year, reaching $66.8 million in 2020. The net loss was $46.7 million loss in 2019.

    Registered users grew 65% in 2020. The company added 12,000 new degrees, at an average acquisition cost of under $2,000.

    “Our revenue significantly increased due primarily to an increase in the number of enrollments during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the company’s IPO prospectus stated.

    “Likewise, we have experienced a significant increase in our operating costs associated with our services, primarily driven by our freemium offerings and marketing efforts. As the pandemic made remote work and online learning more widespread, it is uncertain what impact the tapering of the Covid-19  pandemic could have on our operating results.”

    • Prospectus S-1