#239 – Female-Led EdTech Innovation

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What’s in this episode?
Happy International Women’s Day!!
What better way to celebrate than to release this first episode from our new series with the Female Edtech Fellowship, a collaboration between the European Edtech Alliance and Supercharger Ventures to support the growth of the most promising female founders in Europe.
In this first episode, I’m in conversation with Beth Havinga and Svenia Busson of the European Edtech Alliance about female-led edtech innovation. We talk about the hopes of the fellowship, and a new investment fund that Svenia will be leading on.
Plus, come and see the latest LIVE podcast recording at Bett! IN-PERSON!!!
I’ll be in conversation with David Price OBE, author of Power of Us and Valerie Hannon, author of Thrive on employability and skills. Come along and watch the recording LIVE if you’re around on Friday 25th March at the teaching and learning theatre.
Follow along @EuropeanEdtech #femaleedtechfellowship
People
Beth Havinga, Managing Director, European EdTech Alliance @bethmhavinga
Originally a high school teacher from Australia, Beth Havinga has managed education publishing houses and education software companies in Europe, founded her own EdTech startups in Germany and the USA, and, for the last six years, has supported a wide variety of education organisations through her company, Connect EdTech. Beth works with large tech corporations, education publishers, governments, ministries of education and education startups globally, supporting them in education policy, digital implementation strategies, market analyses, and the internationalisation and expansion of digital products. She currently serves on the practical advisory board of Kids.digilab.Berlin.
As a specialist in the digitisation and interoperability of education systems, Beth has previously served on the expert committee of the Austrian Ministry of Economy, Research and Science, and was an invited member of the expert Platform, “Digital Future: Learning. Researching. Knowledge” of the German Digital Summit under the Chairmanship of the Education Minister, Anja Karliczek and Ms. Catharina van Delden. Additionally Beth has most recently been the executive director of the German Alliance for Education, an NGO acting as the interface between the German state and federal education ministries and the education industry, and served on the board of DXtera Institute.
As a cofounder of the European Edtech Alliance, Beth is excited about making the digital education landscape within Europe more accessible, interconnected and open for innovation. “There’s a lot of bias around female founders not being perceived as strong.” “For me that becomes really problematic around primary school and STEM products. “For me there are no safeguards. The best support I ever had was through the women in tech networks.”
Contact: Beth (@) edtecheurope.org
Svenia Busson, First Chair, European EdTech Alliance @svenibus
Svenia Busson is an Edtech & Learning Innovations explorer, she travelled 19 countries to find the most innovative teaching and learning practices. She is the author of ‘Exploring the Future of Education’ a book about education innovations from Europe and is now running LearnSpace, a Learning Innovation Hub which helps organizations provide learning experiences that are engaging, effective and relevant. She is a co-founder and board member at Edtech France. the German state and federal education ministries and the education industry, and served on the board of DXtera Institute.
“I think that’s very important, the peer to peer aspect of it.”
What’s your big idea? Getting more female to start and scale businesses in edtech
What’s the biggest myth or foe in education or technology you would like to see corrected? That there’s no gender equity in edtech. We have to talk about it.
Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast | Twitter: @podcastedtech
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 from over 145 countries with the UK, US & Aus in the top 3. Sophie has spoken and moderated at a variety of events including SXSW EDU, Yidan Education Prize, ASU GSV Summit, and the Next Billion Edtech Summit. She is an industry mentor and advisor, a Reimagine Education, GESA Awards, Bett Awards and XPrize Adult Literacy judge, and previous Edtech50 and Edtech Digest winner.
Sophie is passionate about lifelong and everyday learning. If she’s not interviewing a University Vice-Chancellor, Edtech Investor, School Leader, or StartUp about education innovation, she’s engrossed in Teach Your Monster to Read or wrestling her lockdown baby. A keen cyclist, she has recently relocated to West Devon which she considers the English version of the Pyrenees. She is very lucky to work with a distributed team on The Edtech Podcast.
References from this week’s episode
- Some links on how to try and support Ukraine here and here.
- Female Edtech Fellowship
- Come and see The Edtech Podcast LIVE at Bett. Register for free here. (It’s been a while!)
- WorkTripp – need to book a team offsite? Join our marketplace
- Rachel Carlson, Founder, Guild Education
- Rose Review
- Edtech France
- Jenny Fielding
- Cindy Gallop
- Rovio Ventures
- Educapital
- New School Fund
- HolonIQ
- SuperChargerVentures
- Emerge Education
- Claudia Rademaker, PhD · VP, Co-founder & CMO at Dugga
- Madeleine Wolf, Founder & CEO at visionYOU
- Brotopia
- Kadri Tuisk, Founder and CEO @Clanbeat
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