#172 – Investment in Lifelong Learning

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Welcome to the next episode of The Voctech Podcast: learning continued series, a new series from The Edtech Podcast, supported by the Ufi Voctech Trust and Ufi Ventures. You can follow the conversation using #voctechpodcast and #voctech. 

What’s in this episode?

This week we are looking at investment in lifelong learning and workforce development. We chat with Marissa Lowman about Village Capital’s Future of Work and Learning accelerator program and Marissa’s background in early edtech ecosystem building. We then hear from Owen Henkel at Pearson Ventures, on the importance of venture capitalists having expertise in their investment areas. We also find out about Marissa’s and Owen’s past formative experiences in education. 

Check back for our forthcoming chat with Joe Ludlow of Ufi Ventures on the consumerisation of vocational learning technologies.

People

Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast

Sophie is the founder of the iTunes new and noteworthy, The Edtech Podcast. The mission of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ for better innovation, through storytelling. The podcast is downloaded 2000+ times a week, from over 145 countries with the UK, US & Aus in the top 3. Sophie is a mentor and advisor within the edtech community. If she’s not interviewing a University Lecturer, School Leader, Ex-Angry Bird, NGO, or Investor about education innovation, she’s chasing her son around the park or binge-reading Homo Deus.   Twitter: @podcastedtech

Marissa Lowman, Head of Future of Work Practice, Village Capital

Marissa Lowman leads the Education Practice at Village Capital. Most recently she was a Senior Fellow at Learn Capital, where she focused on product development and investment due diligence. Marissa was also a co-founder of LearnLaunch, an edtech accelerator, community, and co-working space in Boston. While there, she served as the Executive Director of LearnLaunch Institute, LearnLaunch’s non-profit arm, where she grew the edtech community across New England, developed and scaled the Across Boundaries conference, and helped select incoming cohorts for the LearnLaunch Accelerator. She began her career as a Fulbright Teaching Fellow in Germany and has worked at leading educational non-profits. Marissa graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins University and received her MBA from Cornell Tech. Twitter: @marissalowman

Owen Henkel, Investment Director, Pearson

With over a decade of experience in education innovation, venture investing and advanced analytics, as Investment Director at Pearson Ventures, Owen leads the investment process and oversees portfolio performance. He also serves on the board of directors of 5 investees. Previously he worked as Portfolio Director and Efficacy Director where he worked across the portfolio to measure, report and improve financial performance and student learning outcomes. Prior to Pearson, Owen worked as a consultant to ed-tech startups in Latin America, an associate at McKinsey & Co., and as Teach for America corps member in post-Katrina New Orleans. Owen holds a dual MBA/MA at the University of Michigan where he focused on impact investing and education technology respectively. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Oxford, focusing on Artificial Intelligence in Education, while continuing his role at Pearson. Twitter: @owen_henkel 

 Quotes from this episode

References from this week’s episode

• UFI Voctech Trust
• Marissa Lowman
• Village Capital
• Startup New York
• Startup Boston
• Learn Launch
• Noodle
• John Katzman
• Teach for America
• TEDEX
• Cornall Tech
• Handshake
• Parker Dewey
• The Gig Economy
• Gen Z
• Digital Nomad
• Nurse Dash
• Bernie Sanders article – wiping out student debt
• Hannah Nyren
• Edtech Times
• BillCap.com
• Owen Henkel
• Pearson
• McKinsey & Company
• University of Michigan
• University of Oxford
• Teach For America
• Post Katrina (Hurricane Katrina)
• Teach First
• 4.0 Schools
• SXSW EDU
• Pearson Affordable Learning Fund
• Pedagogy
• Theranos
• Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
• Amara’s Law (Roy Amara)
• Cloud computing
• Learning Management System (LMS)
• Pearson Ventures
• Tertiary education
• Venture investors
• Community colleges
• Starbucks and Arizona State University (The Starbucks College Achievement Plan)
• Netflix
• Natural Language Processing
• Chatbots
• Unicorn
• Fintech
• Speakpipe.com/theedtechpodcast

Thank you to the Ufi Voctech Trust & Ufi Ventures

The Voctech Podcast Series is produced by The Edtech Podcast and supported by Ufi Voctech Trust and Ufi Ventures.

Ufi Voctech Trust Our aim is to help improve vocational skills in the UK’s workforce by funding digital solutions for vocational learning. We only fund activity that is ‘scalable’ through technology, ie projects that use digital methods to widen access to vocational learning. While digital learning solutions are potentially open to all, we are especially keen to assist digital projects which involve post school age vocational learners that have failed to be engaged by the education system. https://www.ufi.co.uk/ Contact; kate.atha@ufi.co.uk, Head of Communications, Ufi Voctech Trust | Ufi Ventures offers early stage ventures finance and support that draws on the depth of Ufi’s experience in developing digital technologies for skills needed for work. We can invest from £150,000 up to £1m as equity or debt into early stage companies who share our mission and meet our investment criteria. We are keen to collaborate and co-invest with other value-aligned investors interested in the opportunity presented by the changing nature of work and skills. https://www.ufi.co.uk/ufi-ventures Contact; richard.male@ufi.co.uk

Tell us where you are listening in from

We’d love to hear about innovative technology or approaches you are developing or using in adult education. Leave your stories in the comments below. Alternately, record a quick free voicemail via speakpipe for inclusion in the next episode. Finally, you can post your thoughts or follow-on links via twitter @podcastedtech or via The Edtech Podcast Facebook page.