About Nordic Ed Tech

What is Nordic EdTech and how does Future Learning Lab relate?

Oddgeir Tveiten
Founder, Future Learning Lab

In 2012 and again in 2014, Future Learning Lab (FLL) set up projects to develop a Nordic Ed Tech network. Our original invitation is available on this link. Nordic Innovation Center reported on the last of these projects, here. Our conclusion: Based on talks with a wide range of stakeholders, our initial idea that the Nordics would be better served with a concerted alliance, was well supported.

We believed then and now that a joint Nordic community would serve Ed Tech entrepreneurs well. We made it the cornerstone of our annual conference three years in a row. We invited all the Nordic countries to participate in setting up our 2015 conference at Stanford University. Conferences have been held in Silicon Valley on this Nordic EdTech topic since, but they lack toe linkage between entrepreneurs and research institutions. We followed this up at our World Learning Summits in 2016 and in 2017. In 2017 we published a list of contemporary Nordic Ed tech start-ups: That overview is here.

Since then a number of other stakeholders have engaged in the same endeavor. FLL was out there first, with financing twice from the Nordic Innovation Center. Our concern is still the same: Globally, the “Nordics” are commonly understood as a “bloc” rather than distinct nation-state actors.

One program at Nordic Innovation to watch is the NORDIC SCALERS PROGRAM. Check it out here.

It would serve the Nordics well to pay much more attention to collaboration instead of “Nordic championships” based on national competition. Nordic Innovation currently does not have any active Ed Tech program. the organization has since changed. The plethora of Nordic stakeholders is now much more complex.

This is why we will try to update and keep an account of Nordic Ed Tech as part of the ongoing FLL updates. Stay tuned for these updates.

Meanwhile, here are some links to pursue:

– www.nordicedtech.org
– www.nordicedtechforum.org
– https://www.nordicinnovation.org/news/nordic-edtech-where-are-we-heading
– https://nordicedtech.substack.com/