Parts of a nearly $30 million education program vetoed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be revived and transferredfromthe University of West Florida,Politico reports.

On Tuesday, DeSantis vetoed the Complete Florida Plus Program, which teachers and students relied on when school went virtual, amid budget cuts.

Just before the program was set to be dismantled completely, the State University System Board and Governors and UWF announced that parts of the program would be saved via an emergency rescue.

The program in its current form will no longer exist. Programs deemed essential will be brought back under a new name. The move allows the program to be taken away fromUWF's controland gets around a law that prevents money from being spent on vetoed programs, according to Politico.

The programs include online courses and an online library service that provides 17 million books to 1.3 million users.

Until the transition takes place, DeSantis spokesperson Helen Aguirre Ferr told Politico that leftover rolled over funds will allow the program to continue to operate.

It is unclear what programs will be deemed essential under the transition.

2020 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Read more:
Parts of Vetoed Florida Online Education Program Will Be Revived - Newsmax

By Erica Thomas, managing editor

ASHVILLE The St. Clair County Board of Education met on Tuesday, June 30, to discuss plans for the upcoming school year.

Superintendent Mike Howard said meetings to put plans into place will continue over the next couple of weeks, but the school system has decided to offer students three options: Traditional school, hybrid school and virtual school.

The hybrid option offers students some in-classroom time and some virtual classroom time.

The full-time virtual option will be offered through the countys Virtual Preparatory Academy and that option is available for all St. Clair County students as well as for students in surrounding school districts. Anyone interested in the Virtual Preparatory Academy must apply online.

The start of school is set for Wednesday, Aug. 12. Howard said operations for each school will depend on how many students take part in online education.

It could vary depending on the school but teachers will be required to have a virtual presence and to help any student who is online and not in the school, traditionally, Howard said.

The superintendent said the coronavirus pandemic has caused educators to face ever-changing obstacles.

Its going to be a challenging year for everybody, Howard said. I encourage everybody to remember that the word of the year is flexibility,' said Howard. We all have to be flexible.

Employees will be required to wear a face cover if they are unable to maintain a 6 feet distance from others in the classroom. Employees will also be required to wear a face cover in common areas, including hallways. Students will be strongly encouraged to wear masks, according to Howard.

As more recommendations and guidelines are handed down by Gov. Kay Ivey, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama State Department of Education, Howard said more changes should be expected.

Its basically shooting a plane with a slingshot, explained Howard. From 30,000 feet. Its kind of like the target were hitting right now. You make a plan and it changes 10 times before you make a new plan, so its very challenging right now.

Howard said his goal is to plan ahead and consider all scenarios. He said as long as the school system makes the best decisions day-by-day, the students will benefit, even in a trying time.

Were going to get through it, said Howard. Well survive and were going to provide a great education for our students.

School system leaders have several meetings planned over the next few weeks. After the BOE makes plans based on the ALSDEs Roadmap to Reopening Schools, school system administrators will meet with members of the community. Parents, community leaders and local lawmakers have been invited to voice concerns and to give input.

After hearing from the community, the superintendent will meet with each school administrator to outline specific operations for schools.

You can watch the full St. Clair County Schools June Board meeting below.

View post:
VIDEO: St. Clair County students will have 3 options for education in the fall - Trussvilletribune

(PanitanPhoto / Shutterstock)

Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!

Ivanka Brutus, a fifth-grade student in a Black and low-income county in Miami, Fla., struggled to complete her coursework when school moved online. Her Internet connection is extremely spottythe beginning of Tropical Storm Arthur brought flood levels to the county that havent been seen in 20 years. And as hurricane season continues, its only expected to get worse. I have experienced many tough things while learning online, Brutus told The Nation. I still dont have access to my own computer, and our power can cut off at any time.

Brutus is one of thousands of low-income students of color who struggled to keep up with coursework during the pandemic because of a host of financial and structural barriers. In addition to dealing with an increased health risk and lack of governmental financial aid, these students are also more likely to live in overcrowded or unstable housing, lack access to reliable food that they may have otherwise received at school, and face other obstacles in the way of a fulfilling virtual learning experience.

In anticipation of virtual learning continuing this fall and possibly well into next year, the ACLU is calling on Congress to address inequities among low-income students, students of color, disabled students, and others whose needs are not being addressed through current remote learning strategies. On May 14, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote to Congress demanding that it provide several billion dollars in funding toward equal remote learning access and privacy protections for K-12 students as part of the phase 4 Covid-19 relief package.

According to Senior Advocacy and Policy Counsel Chad Marlow, the ACLU is proposing several strategies to ensure that all students needs are met in distance learning. Representatives from the ACLU argue that students should be provided with hardware such as a laptop or tablet to complete their online coursework if they do not own one, should be able to freely access software such as online applications or programming needed for school, and should have reliable Internet access at home.

We want to make the schools understand what their obligations are in terms of providing equal access to remote education, Marlow said. Students are required under law to provide accommodations to disabled students, poor students, undocumented students, and other students who might have specific needs in this moment, and we want to make sure that everybodys needs are met.

This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check outour archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler atsamantha@thenation.com. The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding fromThe Puffin Foundation.

In its letter to Congress and in letters to state and local leaders from over 25 state chapters, the ACLU is urging members to provide $23 billion per month for the duration of the crisis, and at least 30 days after the crisis ends, which would go toward an emergency benefit to make broadband services available to all eligible low-income households. To help students further, the organization is calling on Congress to provide $4 billion for an Emergency Connectivity Fund, proposed by Representative Grace Meng and Senator Ed Markey, to cover immediate assistance for students and library patrons who need access to technology to engage in remote learning in their homes.

The ACLU argues these measures are necessary to address the digital divide that the pivot to online education has exposed: Poor and rural students across the country are struggling to complete coursework because of lack of technology or Internet access. According to 2019 data from the Pew Research Center, only 63 percent of people living in rural America have a broadband Internet connection at home and 46 percent of people living on less than $30,000 a year do not own a computer.

Online learning has understandably been devastating for these communities, and governmental and school-specific responses have often been inadequate. A school district in Philadelphia advised students without a proper Internet connection to study in parking lots to access free Wifi. Students deprived of Internet service in rural Alaska have been forced to study at McDonalds. While federal funding has been set aside for K-12 education through the CARES Act and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, this funding has not provided comprehensive care to the nations most vulnerable students.

My personal laptop tends to freeze and disconnect from the Internet, and my school laptop is worse, said Angela Muralles, an 11th grader at James Monroe High School in North Hills, Calif. During my AP English language exam, my computer disconnected from the Internet around five times while my time kept counting down. I also live in a home of eight, and our Internet connection isnt the best. When someone among us has a test, my siblings and I take turns disconnecting from our Zoom classes in order to avoid any technical difficulties. The four of us feel powerless when it comes to this form of education.

Muralles is one of many students struggling to complete standardized testing remotely. Recent AP exams administered online in May caused glitches and technical difficulties for many students, and about 1 percent of students were not able to submit their test, according to the College Board. While some schools such as UC Berkeley have dropped standardized testing requirements in light of the pandemic, most colleges continue to require these tests as part of admissions. As both the SAT and ACT are currently planning to potentially move online this summer, the consequences of students facing barriers to complete this standardized testing could be formidable.

In addition to Internet and technology concerns, the ACLUs letter to Congress addressed the need to protect students privacy during online learning. Many have expressed concerns over the surveillance tactics that third-party video applications such as Blackboard and Zoom have employed on users. Zoom in particular has been criticized for privacy violations, including allowing outside websites to join a call without the users consent and allowing the host of a call, usually a teacher, to track whether other participants have separate browsers open. In the context of virtual learning, this means that students are often surveilled without consent.

In the rush to roll out these technologies, there was very little attention paid to protecting student privacy, which is a major problem, Marlow said. Data collection from these third-party applications could have serious implications for students down the line in a number of ways. Students could end up not being able to get home loans, not get into the colleges they apply to, or worse.

According to Marlow, certain data such as a students name, date of birth, and submitted homework assignments are being uniformly collected by third-party providers. Some providers, like Zoom, allow even more access, as hosts are able to capture the screen of a student or remotely turn on microphones or webcams. Different providers have various regulations surrounding what information is collected, how long they retain the information, and whom they share it with. While providers often boast that users information is safe and not to be sold, recent discoveries have indicated that this might not always be the case, meaning a student can potentially put personal information at risk every time they log on for class.

Lets say a student checks a box saying they would prefer to have their provider in Spanish rather than in English, Marlow said. ICE would be very interested in learning more about this student, and if they or someone in their family is undocumented, they have now been put in an immediate, tangible, and truly problematic risk. The ways that private data is collected on students can be used to disadvantage them later in life, and no student should be exposed to risk because they want to learn during a public health crisis.

Many students are unaware of the risk that these third-party platforms expose them to and are unable to give real consent to being surveilledstill, platforms like Zoom are required for most virtual learning. Students as young as preschool age are in online classrooms during the pandemic. I am afraid sometimes because apparently people can hack into Zoom and look at us, Brutus, the fifth-grader, said. Its very scary because we are all only kids and our faces are exposed.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stated recently that most students can expect a mix of in-person and online classes in the fall. New York and Virginia are creating contingency plans for an online school year, once more necessitating that funds be found for adequate technology and that proper privacy restrictions be put in place. While some, including many parents, are looking forward to in-person classes so that they no longer are forced to juggle full-time child care with work, others view this shift to remote education as good news. One in five teachers reported being unlikely to return to campus if schools were to reopen in the fall, according to USA Today.

Linda Jordan, a math teacher at a public high school in Georgia, told The Nation that online learning has been beneficial for many of her students. Every school handled remote learning differently, but we elected to stop holding formal classes and instead just gave the students assignments that they could complete on their own, Jordan said. If students had a question we could schedule time for a one-on-one call, so they would get more personal attention. Online learning also helped with a lot of behavioral issues, and things like bullying went down as well. My view is that we should be moving more virtual in the future.

Jordan continued that her school provided every student a Chromebook before the pandemic began, and noted that many low-income students at the school were able to get free WiFi through a program that Xfinity offered. Marlow argues that this furthers the ACLUs assertion that students can excel in online learning if provided the proper tools.

Education in this country is a right, not a privilege, he said. We have a duty to provide students with a proper education to the best of our ability, even during a pandemic. There are resources available, and where the resources are not adequate, we need to come up with more.

See the original post here:
Online Learning Isnt Even Remotely Equal - The Nation

Over the next three months, the company doubled subscription sales. Students now spend 90 minutes every day on the platform, up from an hour earlier. Selling has become easier for its 200-strong sales force. Instead of explaining the concept of online education to customers, all the company needs to do now is to convince them how were better than others," Lido Learning CEO Sahil Sheth said.

Another startup, Vedantu, which is the market leader for live classes within K-12 (kindergarten to XII grade), was overwhelmed by the flood of new customers in early April, triggering an acute shortage of teaching assistants. Instead of 300-400 students in every class, the companys teachers were now instructing 1,000 students. In May, 1 million students took live classes on Vedantu, up from 200,000 in normal times.

Only a small fraction of these were paid users, but monthly revenues still jumped by more than three times from January, CEO Vamsi Krishna said. What was happening in a years time in terms of growth happened in three months time," he said.

The pandemic-driven expansion in online education has been so broad that its hard to find an education startup that hasnt followed a similar trajectory. From market leaders to smaller startups, entrepreneurs are certain that this is the defining moment for the sector.

Education has always had a quasi-religious importance in India, as a degree is seen as the only means to prosperity. With schools and colleges shut, entrance exam schedules in disarray, offline classes inaccessible, parents and students are fretting about the future even more than usual, prompting them to try out online tuitions like never before.

Usually, when a new category is being created, companies have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising over 8-10 years to get customers to shift from offline to online. In the case of edtech, this is happening super-fast because of the lockdown and because all the schools have gone online," Lido Learnings Sheth said.

Entrepreneurs and investors tend to divide the online education market into two segments: K-12 and post K-12. Both segments, which in turn have many specialized verticals, were anyway growing rapidly. The pandemic has greatly accelerated this expansion. By 2022, the K-12 market will expand by six times to about $1.7 billion, while the post K-12 market will increase by about four times to $1.8 billion, according to estimates by RedSeer Consulting.

On cue, investors are lining up to pick up stakes in education startups. Byjus, Unacademy and Vedantu, three prominent education startups, are all raising large quantities of capital at soaring valuations. More than a dozen smaller startups, including Lido Learning and WhiteHat Jr, are in talks to raise anywhere between $5-50 million.

The most exciting feature of this sectoral boom is the hope that apart from rapid growth it could yield something that has eluded other sunrise sectors: profitability. If education firms avoid destroying their fat margins in the race for users, they could leapfrog their bigger and older internet peers in generating shareholder returns.

However, it is far from certain if the education startups can continue unimpeded towards realizing their promise. The flood of new capital is already prompting companies to rush into new categories, binge on marketing and hire freelybehaviour that tends to lead to value destruction. And while the pandemic has brought millions of news users online, its impossible to predict how many of them will stick over time.

View Full Image

The landscape

Online education is a far more varied sector compared with other internet businesses, but the biggest categories are naturally those linked to better job prospects. Hence, within K-12, the most popular categories are math, science and English. There are firms that teach coding to children, provide doubt-solving services, and have platforms for extracurricular activities.

The post K-12 category is even more diverse although it has two large segments: higher education and test-preparation, which includes tests for engineering colleges, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the Common Admission Test (CAT). Separately, there are B2B startups that sell software to coaching institutes and schools to enable their digital operations.

According to data with Tracxn, more than 500 education startups have received angel or institutional funding in the past decade in the K-12 and post K-12 categories. Dozens more are expected to crop up this year. To be sure, most education startups arent trying to replace schools and colleges; they are trying to shift the offline tuition market online.

Since India has an acute shortage of qualified teachers, especially in smaller cities and towns, a majority of online customers come from tier II cities and below. For instance, non-metro cities account for more than 70% of the paying subscribers at Vedantu. In metros, standardized content and the convenience of being able to learn from homes draw users.

Though customers are spread out geographically, a majority of them are upper or middle-income families, as subscriptions tend to be pricey, ranging typically between 12,000-30,000 annually in K-12; fees are even higher in post K-12.

Now, some startups are finally trying to sell to lower-income families. (This segment) will require a completely different product, completely different pedagogy, and a very simplified UI (user interface) like WhatsApp and TikTok," said Aditya Singhal, co-founder of Instasolv, a new startup that plans to cater primarily to lower-income students in tier III cities and below. And the product will have to be delivered in vernacular languages rather than English."

View Full Image

The likely winners

In the crowded field, some clear market leaders have emerged: Byjus and Vedantu in the K-12 category and Unacademy in the exam preparation market for older students. Already, there are clear signs that the three companies are seeing a sharp acceleration in growth, further pulling away from the rest of the market in K-12 and test-preparation.

In March, Byjus saw a dip in revenues, as many of the companys salespeople were unable to meet potential customers in person. But after an advertising blitz, monthly revenues jumped to 375 crore in May and will be close to 500 crore in June, more than double the pre-covid levels, chief strategy officer Anita Kishore said. From introducing courses in vernacular languages to launching more subjects, we will continue to strengthen our offerings and penetrate further into India to address learning needs of all students. Given the current demand, we plan on accelerating several launches this year," Kishore said.

Last week, Byjus, the only edtech unicorn at present, raised capital at a valuation of $10.5 billion, up from $8 billion just four months ago. If the company, which is also expanding in the US and other international markets, keeps up its momentum, it will surpass Paytm, valued at $16 billion, as Indias most valuable internet startup. Unacademy and Vedantu, valued at $500 million and $300 million, respectively, are expected to join Byjus in the unicorn club soon. All the top players are getting enormous inbound interest from investors," Vedantus Krishna said.

In addition to raising large amounts of capital, Byjus, Unacademy and Vedantu are buying up smaller edtech firms. And though the edtech market has two distinct categories, Byjus and Unacademy are trying to straddle both. New capital will not only intensify competition between the top players but also see a bunch of smaller verticals create niches.

What helps the cause of the verticals is that edtech is unlike e-commerce or transportation or food delivery where duopolies have emerged on the back of disproportionate capital, leaving very little room for others to build even mid-size businesses. That ed tech already has a proliferation of mid-size companies is proof of this. Under-the-radar companies like Great Learning, a technology learning platform that hasnt raised venture funding, can boast of annual revenues of hundreds of crore of rupees.

Students learn in different waysapart from learning categories, even learning formats vary. For instance, some startups offer live classes, some recorded, and some both. Live learning can be one teacher per student or one teacher for many students, and so on. This inherent variety in the way lessons are imparted and learnt means that one or two platforms cannot build dominant positions to the extent that their peers in other internet niches have, entrepreneurs and investors said.

There are two distinct student profiles based on the seriousness of students, according to Lido Learnings Sheth. One, from classes I-IX, where students are not dead serious about education. The other category comprises students in XI-XII and beyond, a phase in which they get increasingly serious about their careers. These two categories necessarily require different treatment.

Its just not possible" for any single firm to take up more than 15-20% of the market in edtech, unless they keep buying companies, said Akshay Chaturvedi, CEO of Leverage Edu, a higher education startup. Within a single category like K-12 or post K-12, a single student tends to use multiple platforms at the same time. The variety is too much for one company to offer everything," he said.

Karthik Reddy, managing partner at Blume Ventures, an early-stage investment firm, added that over the next two years, there could be as many as 15 mid-sized and large education platforms backed by venture capital. Beyond the next two years, its impossible to predict how the sector will evolve because itll depend on whether all these companies are able to show real profits," Reddy said.

Post-pandemic scenario

While Indias consumer internet startups have raised tens of billions of dollars over the past six years, most of them are nowhere near profitabilityapart from Byjus. In the year ended 31 March 2019, the company reported a standalone net profit of 20 crore on revenues of 1,341 crore (it still reported a net loss on a consolidated basis). The next year, Byjus revenues doubled to 2,800 crore (its latest bottom-line figure is not yet available).

That Byjus achieved profitability just four years after becoming an online platform (it had started out as an offline tuition centre) shows that edtech is potentially a profit mine. Gross margins in education range between 50-70%, many times higher than spaces like e-commerce or food delivery, where logistics operations and spending on discounts eat up cash.

Education is not a discounting play. Despite the increase in competition, theres been no need to lower price points as people are more than willing to pay for quality," Lido Learnings Sheth said. The entrepreneur profile in the sector is different too. Many founders have spent close to a decade or more in the space, establishing a collective expertise that few of their internet peers can boast of.

To be sure, edtech startups wont have it so easy forever.

Once the pandemic passes, many users may simply go back to offline coaching, preferring the in-person interactions that are thought to be crucial for holistic learning. Plus, offline coaching classes are scrambling to go digital, and a few of them are bound to find success.

Startups may also soon face competition from international firms like ByteDances TikTok as well as Reliance Jio, which has been expanding in the sector in both K-12 and post K-12, mostly through its acquisition of Embibe. Jio has also bought two other edtech startups, OnlineTyari and Funtoot, and plans to continue buying more companies in the space.

For now, investors remain confident that edtech will buck the trend of other internet booms and produce profitable companies, provided that most entrepreneurs limit their ambitions.

Big companies like Byjus and Unacademy can afford to take risks and splurge cash because they have unlimited capital, but the others will need to show more discipline," an edtech investor said, on condition of anonymity.

Subscribe to newsletters

* Enter a valid email

* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

See the article here:
The hope and hype driving online education - Livemint

BEIJING, July 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Color Star Technology Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq CM: HHT) (the "Company", "we" or "HHT") is pleased to announce that Color China Entertainment Limited ("Color China"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Color Star Technology, has just signed a cooperation agreement with a renowned guitarist, Zhengyan You (a.k.a. Masa). Masa will take on the role of a Star Teacher of the "Color World" online education platform, created by Color Star.

Masa, who is widely known as a "Guitar Guru" in Asian pop music, has participated in the production of thousands of albums since he entered the entertainment industry in 1974. His albums include top pop music stars in Chinese music, such as Wenzheng Liu, Dayou Luo, Qin Cai, Rui Su, Qin Qi, Xiang Fei, Jie Wang and so on. Multiple record labels and fellow artists have also been known to reach out to Masa for cooperation. His music has influenced musicians throughout the ages, solidifying Masa as a representative of guitar performance in Asian pop music.

No matter the genre, classical, pop or rock, Masa's performances were widely praised. Many producers, guitarists and entertainers of Chinese pop music are honored to be able to learn from Masa.

On June 26, 2020, we have invited Masa to join Color World as a teacher, as we believe that there will be a great demand for his teachings in the Asian market. The addition of Masa allows our students, regardless of whether they are ordinary music lovers or professional practitioners, to be able to learn and improve with the best, as is the original intention of Color World. We hope that more entertainment enthusiasts will be able to learn what they are truly interested in, and that they can also improve their skills professionally. The signing of this contract with Masa also marks the beginning of Color World's development of its reach into the Asian market. Sean Liu, the CEO of Color Star, said, "In the future, we will cooperate with more top artists and producers in Asia, including music, film, television, animation, dance and other industries. We believe that Color World has the potential to bring richer content to our students." In the future, Color China will continue to sign contracts with top artists from China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and other countries. We believe that their additions will greatly improve Color World's competitiveness in facing the Asian market of over 2 billion consumers.

About Color Star Technology Co., Ltd.

Color Star Technology, is a holding company whose primary business is offering both online and offline innovative education services. Its business operations are conducted through its wholly-owned subsidiaries Color China Entertainment Ltd. and CACM Group NY, Inc. The Company also anticipates providing an after-school tutoring program in New York via its joint venture entity Baytao LLC, and providing online music education via a platform branded "Color World."

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made herein are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "estimate", "plan", "outlook", and "project" and other similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. Such forward-looking statements include the business plans, objectives, expectations and intentions of the parties following the completion of the acquisition, and HHT's estimated and future results of operations, business strategies, competitive position, industry environment and potential growth opportunities. These forward-looking statements reflect the current analysis of existing information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. As a result, caution must be exercised in relying on forward-looking statements. Due to known and unknown risks, our actual results may differ materially from our expectations or projections. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: there is uncertainty about the spread of the COVID-19 virus and the impact it will have on HHT's operations, the demand for the HHT's products and services, global supply chains and economic activity in general. These and other risks and uncertainties are detailed in the other public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") by HHT. Additional information concerning these and other factors that may impact our expectations and projections will be found in our periodic filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. HHT's SEC filings are available publicly on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.HHT disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

Color Star Technology Co., Ltd. Contact: Investor Relations FinancialBuzzIR [emailprotected] Tele: +1-877-601-1879

SOURCE Color Star Technology Co., Ltd.

Read more:
Color Star Technology Announces that Masa, Asia's "Guitar Guru," has Joined its Education Platform - PRNewswire

by Kirk Kardashian Jul 02, 2020

Each spring, the entire first-year class at Tuck takes a significant step in their MBA journey, going from pure learners to learner-practitioners.

This development happens within the challenging-yet-safe environment of the First-Year Project (FYP), where teams of students work directly with a wide range of organizationsmultinational corporations, early-stage startups, and non-profit and governmental organizations, among otherson a host of real-world business issues of strategic importance.

This year, against the backdrop of a global public health crisis, 56 FYP teams forged ahead through video-conferencing and email communication, showing the resolve, creativity and flexibility of the students and their clients, half of whom are Tuck or Dartmouth alumni.

We could not be more proud of our teams, or more thankful to our client partners, says Becky Rice, the director of the FYP course. Clients stayed with us, even though many were experiencing significant disruption this spring. And teams excelledproviding significant and important insights and solutions. The 2020 FYP was challenging, but will better prepare Tuck students to be global business leaders, managing their organizations through times of ambiguity and adversity.

As usual, the FYPs in 2020 consulted with businesses across the spectrum of the economy. The largest percentage of clients were in the technology sector (18 percent), followed by food and beverage (16 percent), and a three-way tie between apparel/retail, athletics/sports/recreation, and nonprofit (11 percent). Clients also worked in biotech/health care, education, energy, finance, environment, and manufacturing.

Heres a closer look at three 2020 FYPs.

Just as Uber revolutionized the taxicab business by connecting passengers with independent drivers, NEXT is a startup doing something similar for the freight and drayage (trucking) industry. The company, which is based in California, has a digital platform and mobile app that allows truckers to connect with shippers, so the truckers can choose when and where to do deliveries, and also efficiently plan routes and the return of truck chassis. Theyre optimizing their platform so truckers spend less time waiting and can quickly go pickup their containers and do a couple of different runs in a day, explains Matt Ginsberg T21, a member of the NEXT FYP team at Tuck that included Haylle Reidy, Ned Scadden, Hugo Naulot, and Jocelyn Teece.

Currently, NEXT operates out of the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, with pilot programs at the Port of New York and New Jersey, but the company is looking to expand. Thats where the FYP came in. AJ Lee T13, the vice president of marketing at NEXT this spring, worked with the Tuck team to develop the key question: which ports should the company pursue next?

I knew, going to Tuck, that I wanted to pivot to more of a strategy-focused role. Taking my previous skillset and applying it to this strategic question was something I had really been looking forward to.

In the first phase of the work, the team examined a range of ports and ranked them based on various factors. With that aggregated scorecard for each port and its components, the team decided on a list that represented the best opportunities. In phase two, the team spoke with a number of third-party port personnel, to fine-tune the analysis and make sure that the situation on the ground lined up with the teams research. That helped the team establish strategies for sequencing and how to go-to-market.

As a legacy industry dealing with logistics, the freight and drayage market is extremely complicated. The team, therefore, had to learn it quickly from the ground up, understand the key challenges, and then shift to a problem-solving mindset. For Ginsberg, who had experience as an economic consultant in the IP field before Tuck, the NEXT project was the perfect opportunity to gain experience at a large startup and hone new skills.

I knew, going to Tuck, that I wanted to pivot to more of a strategy-focused role, he says. Taking my previous skillset and applying it to this strategic question was something I had really been looking forward to.

The International Center of Photography (ICP), based in New York City, is dedicated to the idea of concerned photography: using photographs to educate and change the world. It advances that mission through its museum and archive, exhibitions, education, and programming. Kate Duff D02 joined the organization as chief operating officer in the summer of 2019, and soon after heard from a Tuck alumnus about the FYP course. It immediately made sense to her. I knew that working with Tuck wouldintroduce fresh thinking into the organization and provide a nontraditional way to obtain strategy advice, she says.Plus, as a school ourselves, there is tremendous appeal in encouraging student work from all disciplines, from the creative to the more business-oriented.

During the fall, Duff and the Executive Director of ICP discussed two possible projects: developing a marketing and recruitment strategy for itsin-person,one-year certificate program, or researching whether to expand its online education offerings. They ultimately decided to pitch the second one. By early March, when the project began, that choice proved prescient. The coronavirus pandemic had changed the way people worked and learned, and it was clear than online education would be more appropriate than ever. Still, Duff wasnt assuming it would be a good fit for ICP, so the key question for the Tuck FYP team was this: Should ICP expand its online education program in the next two years? We wanted to explore how to expand our online program, and do it in a way that would allow ICP to preserve its sense of community and brand, Duff says.

The Tuck ICP team consisted of T21s Kate Balderston, Ethan Dobbs, Dylan Guss, Kwabena (KB) Nimo, and Elisabeth Sum. Balderston, an art history major in college, joined the project because she had been a part of the New York City art world and it was a community she wanted to support. The team members came from a variety of backgrounds, but they coalesced under the goal of making this project a learning experience, rather than a chance to polish skills they already had.

Every meeting was structuredand theyserved as trueconsultants for us, framing the problem,distilling therightquestions, and delivering a useful report with competitorbenchmarksand recommendations.

The students established workstreams for surveys, stakeholder interviews, and market research, dividing up the tasks according to the team members interests and experience. Balderston worked on the survey workstream, pairing up with a team member who had done survey analysis before Tuck. She was also the client manager, acting as the liaison between the team and ICP to set up and run meetings and make sure the team-client relationship was strong. For this, Balderston drew on her business development experience at a branding firm prior to Tuck.

During the course of the project, it was clear to Duff that the students work would be extremely helpful to ICP. They were very professional and productive, she says. Every meeting was structuredand theyserved as trueconsultants for us, framing the problem,distilling therightquestions, and delivering a useful report with competitorbenchmarksand recommendations.

Balderston and Dobbs enjoyed the project so much, they decided to keep working for ICP after it ended. Balderston is doing some volunteer work for the organization before her official summer internship begins at another employer, and Dobbs is doing his internship for ICP. This project reminded me how much I do love the art world, Balderston says. It definitely opened my eyes to the business challenges in the arts and non-profits.

Ecolab is a global leader in water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services. Part of its business provides chemicals to oil refineries so their equipment doesnt get contaminated by the various types of crude oil they process. Over the decades in this business, Ecolab has collected data that can predict the stability and risk of mixing crude oils from different locations. The company has baked this data into its proprietary software platform CrudeFlex Digital. The key question for the Tuck FYP was how to best position this platform in the next 12 months.

This project is about one of our most important new products launched last year in our division, says Flora Tian T19, a financial analysis manager at Ecolab who worked with the Tuck team this spring. The team was composed of T21s Travis Fei, Soichiro Ochiai, Tiago Lemos Franciscone da Rosa, Louis Liu, and Henry Zuo.

The team collaborated with Tian and others at Ecolab to divide the main question into four sub-questions: which monetization models to use, how to prepare the organization to operate on this model, how to measure and track the success of the innovation, and what are the potential risks.

Fei chose this project because of its complexity and challenge, and to have a chance to apply lessons from courses such as Management Communications, Client Project Management, and Advanced Management Communications. In those courses Fei learned how to execute a project from end to end, how to present a slide deck, and how to facilitate a meeting with an agenda, among other things. I didnt realize how important those skills are until we put them into practice in the FYP, he says.

He also learned the power of the Tuck network. This project concerned a very technical product in an industry he and his team were not familiar with. But we had a large expertise pool we could draw on, so we interviewed a lot of Tuck alumni who are experts in oil and gas, and digital platforms. They were all very nice and helped us a lot, he says.

Luke Wegner, the vice president of finance for Ecolab Downstream, came away impressed by the teams work. The students only worked on this project for a short two months between their other courses, he says, but they produced so many great insights with many case studies and best practices that our organization can learn from.

See more here:
First-Year Projects Provide Expert-Level Consulting to a Range of Organizations - Tuck School

With schools, preschool centers, and family childcare programs across the state closed in response to COVID-19, public media outlet WGBH in Boston is partnering with theMassachusetts Department of Early Education and Careto launch theFamily Activity Initiative, a series of weekly activity resources featuring a carefully curated collection of videos to watch, free online educational games and apps to play, and non-digital hands-on activities for young children.

Public media outlets across the country are playing an integral role in supporting educators, parents and caregivers with educational resources during these challenging times, said Jon Abbott, president and CEO of WGBH. As parents and caregivers of young children take the lead in supporting their childs learning, we are partnering with the state to make trusted educational resources available for every family across the Commonwealth.

The resources in theFamily Activity Initiativewill be drawn from popular WGBH and PBS KIDS brands, such asArthur(health and emotions),Curious George,PEEP and the Big Wide World, Gracie and Friends,andtheRuff Ruffman Show(STEM) for preschoolers, andMolly of Denali(English Language Arts), andPlum Landing(environmental science). The activities will be highly accessible, require low/no cost, minimal materials or preparation, and will give families reasons to learn and explore indoors and out, offer strategies for talking through fears and anxieties, provide fun games that build math skills and much more. The resources will be offered in both English and Spanish and will be geared toward children from birth to age 8. Both WGBH and partner station WGBY, part of New England Public Media serving western Massachusetts, will help raise awareness about this initiative among families via a variety of social media platforms.

The Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care is proud to partner with WGBH to support parents in continuing early learning during this time, said Early Education and Care Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy. Families with young children face a particular set of challenges right now. Our goal is to support them with easy-to-use, age-appropriate tools to ensure that our youngest citizens are still learning during this critical period of their lives.

Major funding for theFamily Activity Initiativeis being provided by a generous grant from the PNC Foundation.

TheFamily Activity Initiativeis a shining example of how our state comes together to provide essential support to our communities, in innovative ways, said Jon Bernstein, PNC Bank regional president in Boston. While children and families are home together, it is critical that families have resources and support to create a rich learning environment for their children. We are committed to ensuring all children develop a love oflearning that lasts a lifetime.

Each week, families will be invited to visit the WGBH Distance Learning Center where they can access that weeks activities. Families will be encouraged to complete as many activities as possible during a weeks time and then be eligible to enter a weekly random drawing for prizes that include books as well as gift cards for essential items donated by Walmart and Stop & Shop. The Distance Learning Center will also offer a collection of resources for parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers, including short-form videos, tips and strategies, and developmentally appropriate, easy-to-do activities, drawn from materials developed by WGBH and The Basics.

To reach families that do not have internet access, WGBH will work with theCoordinated Family and Community Engagement (CFCE) grantees, a network of close to 90 programs providing services to some 350 cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth.Each CFCE will distribute theFamily Activitypackets in their community in collaboration with their local community-based partners, such as food pantries, Head Start, drop and go food distribution sites, and shelters.

While there is no shortage of information or online resources, many families are struggling to determine what resources best meet the needs of their child. For families with limited access to the internet, this challenge can be overwhelming, said Seeta Pai, executive director of education at WGBH. TheFamily Activity Initiativeis designed to offer high-quality, turnkey educational activities parents can feel good about and children will enjoy doing.

Earlier this spring, WGBH announced a partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to provide students in grades 6-12 distance learning opportunities on broadcast television (WGBHs WORLD Channel), to complement programming for young children available on the WGBH Kids 24/7 channel. This ensures students learning at home continue to have access to educational programs, regardless of their access to broadband internet.The broadcast programming is in addition to other resources from WGBH Education, includingPBS LearningMedia, a free online service of thousands of compelling educational resources, aligned to state standards and contextualized for educational use in grades PreK-12, and theWGBH Distance Learning Centerwhich makes these PBS LearningMedia resources more accessible to families, as well as educators, to support students PreK-12.

Read this article:
WGBH Partners With Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care to Launch Family Activity Initiative - Lynn Journal

The restrictions imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing people to rely on technology to go about their business while staying indoors.

Be it education, healthcare or other services, technology-driven solutions are coming handy to beat the lockdown blues.

The use of technology is catching up fast among the educational institutions. Considered as an education hub, Tirupati has many institutions of national repute such as the IIT and the IISER, apart from half a dozen of universities.

The trend face-to-face lessons is losing ground as all educational institutions have been closed since months, and the online education has taken it place. No only the big institutions, even schools have taken to the technology route to continue classes.

Many schools are using digital platforms in both offline and online modelive classes or recorded lessons which help the students to learn from the comforts of their homes. The schools are opting for online or offline modes, depending on various factors such as mobility of teachers and internet bandwidth at students location.

However, the online education has its own challenges. Even as online education is inevitable amid the pandemic, concentrating on lessons in this format is difficult for primary level students. The methodology needs to be reinvented to suit the need of the students, says N. Satyanarayana Raju, Director of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavans Sri Venkateswara Vidyalaya.

Parental support, he says, would go a long way in retaining childrens attention on classes in online mode. Even some organisations offering private tuitions have started online classes. The colleges and universities are preferring webinars to seminars.

The healthcare sector is also relying on technology more than before. As the denizens are hesitant to see doctors in the out-patient wings owing to the fears of contracting the infection, doctors are reaching out to patients in the virtual mode.

The technology is playing a vital role in creating awareness on various ailments and preacautionary measures.

Senior physician P. Krishna Prasanthi, who regularly conducts diabetes awareness programmes, has now started live sessions.

Our recent webinar on diabetes self-care evoked a good response. I am now inspired to conduct more such programmes online, says Dr. Prasanthi, who is the former president of IMA, Tirupati.

As a religious centre, Tirupati is also witnessing social and religious organisations conducting online sessions on Bhagavad Gita, Divya Prabandham and slokas.

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

To get full access, please subscribe.

Already have an account ? Sign in

Show Less Plan

Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list.

Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.

Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.

A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.

A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.

We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.

*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.

See original here:
Technology comes in handy to beat lockdown blues - The Hindu

With the social inequity in online education coming to the fore due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centre has proposed long-term measures to bridge the divide, including plans to distribute laptops or tablets to 40% of all college and university students over the next five years, and to equip all government schools with information and communication technology.

In a presentation to the Finance Commission on Monday, the School Education department also estimated it would need to spend upto 1 lakh per school for sanitisation and quarantine measures in preparation for the safe reopening of schools that have been shut due to the pandemic. The measures would include ensuring basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities, safe drinking water, availability of alcohol rub/sanitiser, disinfectant, cleaning material and equipment for temperature checking.

Opinion | Can online learning replace the school classroom?

Funds for these measures are being provided under the composite grant for schools, ranging between 25,000 for small schools with less than 100 students and 1 lakh for schools with over a thousand students, according to the presentation to the Commision. In order for government schools to be reopened, funds will also be provided for awareness and community mobilisation to sensitise parents, students and local leaders, as well as a sum of 1,000 per teacher to encourage them to function as first-level counsellors, disseminate basic information about COVID-19 and provide digital/online/mobile education.

For the 3.1 lakh government schools above upper primary level who do not have ICT facilities, the Centre proposes a budget of 55,840 crore to equip them with such facilities.

For college and university students, the promotion of online education, which has become more urgent due to the pandemic, will be two-fold. On the one hand, the Human Resource Development Ministry proposes to spend 2,306 crore on developing and translating digital course content and resources over the next five years.

On the other, it intends to provide laptops and tablets to 4.06 crore students that is, 40% of the projected student population by 2026, at a total cost of 60,900 crore. The largest chunk of 1.5 crore students are to receive devices in the next financial year 2021-22. An average cost of 15,000 has been assumed per device. The Centre and States are to share the cost of making devices available, in a 60:40 ratio, according to the presentation to the Finance Commission.

You have reached your limit for free articles this month.

To get full access, please subscribe.

Already have an account ? Sign in

Show Less Plan

Find mobile-friendly version of articles from the day's newspaper in one easy-to-read list.

Move smoothly between articles as our pages load instantly.

Enjoy reading as many articles as you wish without any limitations.

A one-stop-shop for seeing the latest updates, and managing your preferences.

A select list of articles that match your interests and tastes.

We brief you on the latest and most important developments, three times a day.

*Our Digital Subscription plans do not currently include the e-paper ,crossword, iPhone, iPad mobile applications and print. Our plans enhance your reading experience.

Read more here:
Centre to focus on online education - The Hindu

Illustration: Rahul Awasthi Education technology companies are seeing unprecedented investor interest as a direct result of the increased digitisation of education amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Online live tutoring platform Vedantu has held talks to close a $100 million financing round, led by US investor Coatue Management, valuing the live online tutoring service at $600 million, multiple people in the know said.

This comes close on the heels of Silicon Valley investor and analyst Mary Meekers Bond Capital backing Byjus at a $10.5 billion valuation. If the investment in Vedantu goes through, its valuation will double from the previous funding round, which was led by Tiger Global and WestBridge Capital last year.

New York-based Coatue is a known technology investor, having backed Uber, Meituan Dianping and Doordash globally, along with bets on Swiggy and Rebel Foods in India.

Illustration: Rahul Awasthi The heightened interest shown by risk investors to pump in fresh funds at steep valuations contrasts with demand cratering at many cash-guzzling Indian consumer internet businesses as their revenues slumped amid the virus outbreak.

A crush of startups have laid off staff and cut salaries as they anticipate funding to dry up due to the wider uncertainty in the economy. The online education space, though, has become a relatively secure bet, investors said.

Finally, Indian VCs have found a sector that has real revenues and high gross margins. The excitement around it is justified, said an investor who has reviewed multiple companies in the segment. However, the valuations are way ahead of reality and are likely to cause some real concerns in future. VCs who manage to sell secondary shares along the way will see good returns, the investor, who did not wish to be named, said.

Though valuations remain high, the fear of missing out has made investors back ed-tech platforms, even as there are expected corrections in later funding rounds.

These businesses are real and will be ok...the valuations will get to a certain level and then stagnate as the next set of investors will demand real Ebitda, the investor added.

Sensing huge opportunity

Vedantu, which recently invested $2 million in online doubt solving platform Instasolv, said the number of subscribers on its platform grew to 1.1 million, with revenues increasing by 80%. The company is hoping Instasolv will help it push further into Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities.

We have seen a 5X growth on our platform every month," a spokesperson for Vedantu said in a statement, without commenting on any likely investment from Coatue. Coatue did not respond to ETs email till press-time Monday.

Illustration: Rahul Awasthi The high subscriber base of companies such as Vedantu is what is attracting a slug of capital into the sector.

Covid-19 has accelerated an already ongoing shift to digital education. The number of ed-tech users has doubled in the last four months and the sector has at least gained a year in its evolution. Eager investors looking for green shoots in an otherwise battered economy are being drawn to ed-tech, which is counter-cyclical in the current climate," said another venture investor, who did not want to be quoted by name as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The overall K12 segment, or Kindergarten to Class 12, is worth $13 billion and is growing at 10% each year, with ed-tech capturing just 4% of that market with $500 million in revenues, indicating the potential opportunity, Sequoia Capital's Tejeshwi Sharma tweeted recently.

See the original post:
Coatue in talks to invest around $100M in Vedantu, valuation likely to double to $600M - ETtech.com