#106 – Investment, Procurement & Innovation
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Big thanks to Cool Initiatives for sponsoring this week’s episode! Find out how you can access up to £10,000 by putting forward a project that helps schools operate more efficiently and drives new ways of teaching and learning by checking out the info below. A big shout out also to SXSWEDU. If you haven’t registered already you can do so here.
This week I am one year older and I’ve just released details of my fundraiser for Homerton Hospital. I’ll be cycling 720km from coast to coast across France using the so-called Pyrenean Raid route in May. That means multiple tour de france climbs with no stomach muscles to my name.
If that sounds like a challenge you’d like to support you can text NELL47 then the amount – say £10 or £1000 pounds (!) – to 70070. It’s all for an amazing cause and to support Homerton Hospital’s maternity team and neurological, paediatric and child health research. More here.
What else is happening this week? Well, I’m excited to welcome three students from the amazing School21 in Newham, East London to the team. Malika, Sungna and Edil will be joining The Edtech Podcast as part of their real world learning programme. Over ten weeks they will be research, editing, producing and promoting a podcast taking on the question, “Is Self Directed Learning a Fallacy?” I’m hoping that this uncovers gems in psychology, learning science and 21c skills programmes around the world. They will be presenting back at The Edtech Podcast Festival in September – can’t wait!
This week, I also welcome Vanessa Gaie to The Edtech Podcast. Vanessa is a communications undergraduate from the University of Temple and has experience in radio broadcast. Look out for more from Vanessa across our podcast channels and social communities.
What’s in this episode?
Investment, procurement and innovation are the themes of this week’s podcast episode – the first of many recorded at Bett 2018. The first person you heard from today is Houtan from Cool Initiatives. The Cool Initiatives Education Challenge are looking for innovative and creative education technology ideas that are still in the early stages of development, and there is £10,000 up for grabs. If you’re listening to this shortly after publication, the deadline is the 28th Feb so get your skates on. There is still time and your idea could make all the difference.
In the rest of this week’s episode you will hear from Ms. Ellinor Wallin and Gabrielle Ericsson from IMAILE talking about European Commission procurement innovation tools for educational technology and how Sweden, Finland, Spain and Germany are forming a buyers group to get more focused edtech developed for their classroom teacher and student needs.
Aside from IMAILE, you’ll also hear from Dr Melody Lang, the CEO of new company Edvinca, who are looking to support international edtech companies with global ambition. You’ll hear which are the three areas Edvinca are looking to invest in, plus how long Melody Lang would survive a Zombie apocalypse.
Feedback
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People
- Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast | Twitter: @podcastedtech
- Houtan Froushan, Director, Cool Initiatives | Twitter: @CoolInitiatives
- Ms. Ellinor Wallin, Project Manager, IMAILE | Twitter: @imaileproject
- Gabrielle Ericsson, IMAILE | Twitter: @erikssongaby
- Dr Melody Lang, CEO, Edvinca | Twitter: @DrMelodyLang
Quotes from this episode
It’s called the Cool Initiatives Education Challenge, and it’s a prize giving competition where the winner will receive £10,000, the runner-up will get £5,000 and all other finalists will get £500.
We have a test bed situation in real classrooms in Europe, including over 600 students
We can actually see that we have some groundbreaking innovations to support the teachers and students
The needs have been identified in Sweden, in Finland, in Spain and in Germany. We are the buyers group.
We are very active investors and we are very hands on. So we had better get on.
We have a global vision. We are looking at companies in Africa, in Asia.