How women created some of the world's biggest education tech companies | Online learning - The Guardian

The tech industry is dominated by men, but some of the world’s biggest education tech brands have women at the helm.

The Department for Education has unveiled plans to build “the best edtech ecosystem in the world”.
 Photo: Alamy Stock

What do these women have in common? They’re all former teachers.

Everything’s going digital, and that includes education. From homework management apps to virtual reality geometry lessons, there’s plenty on offer from companies competing for a slice of the sizeable global market for online learning.

Education technology (edtech) exports are worth £170m to the UK economy and the Department for Education (DfE) has unveiled plans to build “the best edtech ecosystem in the world”, with a new edtech strategy. It’s hoped powerful technologies will improve student learning and relieve teacher workload in the face of shrinking education budgets.

Yet, despite a majority female teaching workforce at school level, women are missing from senior edtech roles: a problem highlighted when the DfE recently announced an edtech leadership advisory group in which women from the edtech industry were equalled by men named Chris. That’s not even including group chair, Chris Holmes, and universities minister, Chris Skidmore, who works with the panel...

Leading the way for female edtech representation globally is Daphne Koller, a Stanford University professor and creator of online learning platform, Coursera.
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Source: The Guardian