LearnTech will take off in 2021. These are the companies to watch.
While you may be familiar with MarTech (the blending of marketing and technology), AdTech (the tools that help agencies and brands target, deliver, and analyze their advertising efforts), and FinTech (technology used to improve activities in finance), the rise and buzz around LearnTech is fairly new. Like its counterparts, it elevates an industry with technology. Last year greatly accelerated digital transformation and much of it changed the landscape. We saw this across the board but perhaps no place more than with education and learning. Beyond the Zoom usage for formal schooling, I believe 2021 will be poised to be the year where learning and education in all its forms will take off.
Here is who I (and other keen investors and users) have their eye on in the LearnTech space.
Lingopie
While streaming platforms like HBO Max and Disney+ struggle with retention, one hot tech start-up in the learning space has them all beat with their edutainment. It is a name you are sure to hear more of in the coming years - Lingopie. When you ask many ESL learners how they learned English, they will say from watching American TV shows and movies.
Lingopie adds a language-learning element to already binge-worthy content, contrary to other language-learning platforms. Specifically, it harnesses the power of story-driven TV and film content to provide people all over the world a game-changing method to learn other languages- whether it’s to make themselves more hirable or to accomplish a life-long goal. Through streaming video, users can watch thousands of shows, movies, telenovelas, comedies and more. Interactive subtitles accompany each program, so viewers can click on any word to view a translation. Then, users can test their own knowledge with custom digital flashcards.
Kamua
I spoke at the Search Engine Journal conference earlier this month and was asked what the number one skill content marketers can acquire to help them grow in their careers? My answer was to become more adept at multimedia content. Especially video creation, optimization and editing.
Data from Cisco reveals that video marketing will make up about 82 percent of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. As learning multimedia skills becomes key, high-performers must invest in video production in 2021. Luckily, this process doesn’t require a significant resource commitment. Kamua, for example, offers users the ability to edit videos for any platform automatically. AutoCrop, their exclusive technology, uses AI to track people and objects within each frame. The video can then be edited with only two clicks and then formatted for channels such as IGTV, Snapchat, Facebook and more. Even better: Kamua is browser-based, so users don’t have to download software or access a complex editing bay.
ExpertusONE
While not exactly a start-up, ExpertusONE has been an early pioneer in the LearnTech industry. One of the most unsung heroes of 2020 was learning and development software.
While the pandemic upended nearly every part of our lives, there were countless jobs that we continued to rely on - jobs in transportation and logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, industrials, and a lot more - where the lack of proper training could mean life or death. Many of these companies had to immediately find new channels to train their employees on - which was often a tall order.
ExpertusONE was one of the companies behind the scenes making this happen. Their Learning Management System (LMS) is completely digital and was built with the ability for enterprises to quickly and efficiently get important training information to their employees, and through different channels. When in-person training became unfeasible, corporations around the world were using ExpertusONE to offer their training programs on mobile devices, through workplace communication tools like Slack, and even through social media.
This is the kind of innovation that allowed some of the most fundamental parts of our economy to keep moving forward, during times of crisis. Our world looks much different as we enter 2021 than it did one year ago, and corporations looking to provide vital certifications or even just upskill their employees, are going to need to provide training that is easily configurable, flexible, and available to employees when and where they need it.
