EdTechX Awards Spotlight: Kognity
Kognity has continued to successfully grow since they started in 2015 and this year are one of the runner-ups of the EdTechX Scale-Up Awards. We spoke with Carl Emillson, COO of Kognity to learn more about how they successfully grew the business to where it is today and what is next in store…
What was the inspiration behind starting Kognity?
Kognity has been founded on the bold vision to radically improve learning for the world’s students. The way teaching and learning is done has essentially been the same for hundreds of years, and technology has not delivered on any of its promises in education. There are so many tools focusing on admin or very specific tasks, but very little targeting pedagogy. Kognity sits at the centre of pedagogy and we aim to be the central learning tool at schools, accelerating the learning process dramatically across the world.
What would you like everyone to know about Kognity?
That we’re a truly vision-driven company that is committed to improving learning globally. We want to make learning more effective and fun and support teachers in a way that allows them to focus on what they do best, namely teach and inspire students. We are looking to scale our platform in a way that makes it more accessible to students globally, not least in developing countries where the majority of student growth will take place. Also, we’re continuously growing the team, always looking for the best and brightest individuals, so if you read this and are excited about what we do, please reach out!
What are you looking to achieve next?
We’re currently working with schools across more than 100 countries, and are so far serving international curricula. A clear next goal for us is to successfully enter a national market, which will be an important step towards scaling Kognity across national curricula on a global scale.
Looking back to the day you started, what would you have done differently?
Steve Jobs once said that making mistakes is good because that means that decisions have been made. So, with the benefit of hindsight, you can certainly conclude that a lot of things should have been done differently, but I think it’s important to recognize that making mistakes is part of the process of pursuing something bold. The important thing is not to not make mistakes, but to have an environment and a framework that allows you to learn from those mistakes.
What piece of advice would you give to other entrepreneurs?
To pursue something that you are deeply passionate about and combine that with a deep understanding of the problems you’re trying to solve, so solving problems from a customer-first perspective rather than inside out. Having a clear north star and iterating on ways for reaching that north star in collaboration with customers will give you a good shot at succeeding.
How do you think the support and ecosystem in your country have helped you to launch and grow Kognity?
We’re based in Stockholm, Sweden, which has grown to be a strong tech hub with success stories like Klarna and Spotify. This obviously makes it a good environment for a start-up where great people see it as a primary career step to join young companies like Kognity and where there’s a strong investor community around start-ups. Also, with Stockholm being on the radar internationally, being based here has helped in attracting international talent.
What’s been the biggest challenge you have seen with Kognity amidst the COVID-19 pandemic?
As an EdTech product we’re fortunate to be in a position where we can support schools in moving from a physical to a completely remote or blended learning environment, so we have seen interest in Kognity increasing on the back of COVID-19 with challenges having been relatively limited. The main challenge has been working with schools amid the short-term uncertainty caused by COVID-19 with decision making being delayed and student numbers being uncertain.
How to envisage the EdTech landscape to change as we go into the ‘New Normal’?
The main trend we will see is that the digitisation of schools will accelerate on the back of COVID-19. Schools will increasingly need to have preparedness for remote or blended teaching and learning. This short-term effect will also trigger more teachers to see the benefits of EdTech, so we will see that acceleration continuing beyond the pandemic. Still, even though we will see strong growth of EdTech in the coming years, the digitisation of schools will only be in its infancy with reports saying that it will be at no more than some 5% of the global education market by 2025. So, things will move faster and that trend will continue for a long time.
Finally, is there anything else you would like to add?
Just that we’re truly honoured to receive this recognition and that we hope to inspire others to work with passion to solve problems they believe need solving.
You can follow Kognity’s story on Twitter, LinkedIn and on their website kognity.com/
