Regular readers of Ethos will know how important the work being done in Europe’s Nordic states is, highlighted each year by Oslo Innovation Week of which we were lucky enough to attend this year.
To celebrate the regions burgeoning edtech scene, this year saw the launch of the Nordic Edtech Award, which was recently won by Lexplore from Sweden at the first ever Nordic Edtech Award ceremony in Helsinki on November 30th.
“An Edtech product with medical precision representing the Nordic values of equality, trust and happiness in learning. Lexplore now brings these values to a global market” was the jury’s feedback. Lexplore allows for schools to discover the risk of dyslexia earlier and with more accuracy so that students can get the learning resources they need to succeed as soon as possible, and as winners of the award, Lexplore will receive a €10,000 investment to help further develop their product and research.
“We have already screened more than 6,000 young schoolchildren in Sweden in the last two years,” says Fredrik Wetterhall, CEO of Lexplore “Over the past 12 months we were able to screen an additional 1,800 children in grades 1-4 in six different American elementary schools.”
Five finalists, one from each of the Nordic countries, pitched for The Nordic Edtech Award 2017 at the XcitEd event, in collaboration with Slush, Helsinki on 30 November. All finalists represent the Nordic Edtech core values: Equality, Democracy, Quality, Motivational Learning and Efficiency.
The Other Finalists:
Mightifier – Mightifier teaches social & emotional skills by positive peer feedback.
EduLab – Matematikfessor – Mathematics and adaptivity.
Kara Connect – It connects special education and teachers to students that need special one-to-one help and gives access to the right help through on-line therapy.
EdTech Foundry/Differ – Differ is a messaging app that creates active learning communities for your courses, so students can collaborate and help each other. And it uses chatbot teaching assistants to automate student follow-up, so no student is left behind.
The Nordic Edtech Startup Award is the first initiative from Nordic Edtech Alliance, a partnership launched at the event in Helsinki. The Award had an incredible response when launched in September 2017, with over 60 applications from all over the Nordic regions.
A jury consisting of David Helgason, Founder of Unity Technologies, Johan Brand, Co-Founder of Kahoot!, Linda Liukas, Creator of Hello Ruby, Marie Claire Maxwell, Head of Tech and Start-Up Lead, Asia Pacific, Business Sweden and Salóme Guðmundsdóttir CEO of Icelandic Startups, had the very difficult job picking one winner out of the five shortlisted finalists.
Nordic Edtech Alliance is a partnership between Nordic Edtech communities and actors. The aims of Nordic Edtech Alliance are to support and profile Nordic Edtech internationally, where the Nordic Values of Equality, Democracy, Quality, Motivational Learning and Efficiancy are core values. The goal is to attract Nordic and International investors to invest in Nordic Edtech companies and to build bridges to international markets for Nordic Edtech companies and suppliers. The Nordic Edtech Startup Award is NEAs first cooperative initiative.
