Welcome

I am an educational entrepreneur, edtech specialist and investor. The views expressed here are my own and are often blunt and irreverent.

 

The voyage from POP to POPEYE

When I started investing in early stage edtech I didn’t have a specific model, financial or otherwise, to judge who received my small investments. I have spoken and written about what I subsequently developed, although my models and their underpinning are neither scientific, mathematical or grounded in any accepted business thinking. I started out by […]

25 days ago Education More
 

Child labour and edtech

We should always ask how the use of any particular edtech helps the learner and educator. Sadly, most of the edtech I have seen over the last 25 years appears to do little for either, one reason so many educators are cynical about the promises of edtech creators and vendors. Having been involved in the […]

3 months ago Education More
 

Is BESA stuck in a Jam?

BESA (British Educational Suppliers Association) are likely to seek a Judicial Review of the government’s decision to fund Oak National Academy (Oak), but only if their members fund it. This may play well with their edtech and publisher members, but is a non-issue for the many companies who supply things like furniture, pens and paper, […]

4 months ago Education More
 

researchED 2022

For the second time, I shelled out some of my own hard-earned cash to attend researchED 2022. Instead of last year’s schlep to Stratford, this year was an 88 bus from Westminster straight to Parliament Hills Schools in Hampstead. Arriving early allowed me the luxury of breakfast and coffee at a local independent deli, something […]

6 months ago Education More
 

Don’t waste your time reading the DfE’s latest edtech report

Making sense of the business of edtech has always been a challenge. It’s why I set up the Assignment Report in 2005 and why I read the DfE’s most recent edtech report, published in June, with interest. Business Intelligence (BI) is weak in most education and edtech companies and is too rarely integrated effectively into […]

7 months ago Education More
 

1520 600gm Mangos (what it means in China)

For governments worldwide, education is a major policy and spending area, so it’s inevitable they try to influence it as much as their remit allows. In most Western countries, scope is often limited by the structural and segmented nature of learning, e.g. Pre-school, K12, HE, FE, corporate learning, etc.  In China, however, the government (the […]

8 months ago Education More
 

An existential threat to Chinese edu companies?

The other 261 Chinese companies listed in the US (those on the NYSE alone have a market cap of about £1.1tn) are facing another existential threat – expulsion from US capital markets in 2024 unless they comply with the US Security and Exchange Commission’s new auditing standards. In May the SEC announced 80 NYSE-listed Chinese […]

9 months ago Education More
 

Edtech as crypto?

Late last year (2021) Menten Holding Group Ltd (previously called EdtechX and then Menten EdtechX) was IBIS Capital’s first NASDAQ education SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), announced the launch of a “new business initiative” around blockchain and cryptocurrency. The EdtechX SPAC listed in Jan 2020 at 435 cents and now trades at about 1.48c, so […]

9 months ago Education More
 

BETT(er)?

BETT 2022 was great. Despite interminable Covid and controversy over the Russian business of owner Hyve, I think exhibitors and attendees were overjoyed to feel life was returning to normal. It was the feeling I saw in Feb 2021 when a virtual attendee at the Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit, watching people in a normal […]

11 months ago Education More
 

Make edtech love not war

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), founded almost 50 years ago, is the UK’s main education business membership association. Today BESA plays a significant role in education and increasingly edu politics, but is it overreaching its remit? Aside from promoting members’ direct commercial interests, BESA’s Articles of Association (updated 2018) note that it will, “promulgate […]

1 year ago Education More