The DNA of EdTech Evolves in Denmark
What is EdTech?
Who are the actors within educational technology?
How will it develop?
A new Danish EdTech community will attempt to answer these, and many more similar questions in the years to come.
The 15th of January 2019 was a significant day for the EdTech scene in Denmark. The country’s EdTech community finally has its own registered EdTech association: EdTech Denmark.
As usual, the Danes want to do it in their own unique way. And it’s already looking promising. The community has been on the scene for a couple of years gaining momentum to change the Danish EdTech scene.
Triple Helix codes the future of EdTech
The main aim of the organisation is to create better EdTech. They want to achieve this by:
1. Popularising the term and spreading a better understanding of the industry.
2. Combining education with the latest technology.
3. Facilitating innovation by connecting EdTech actors across different categories of interest.
EdTech Denmark is still working on the specific goals. So anyone who joins can still affect the direction the movement will head to.
The so-called triple helix model places EdTech Denmark as a hub connecting businesses, educational institutions and the government.
“We work with a philanthropic approach. We are a non-profit organisation and everyone is welcome, as long as they’re professionally part of EdTech.” — Morten Amstrup, the founder of EdTech Denmark.
The professional involvement is not to exclude, but rather include anyone who can make a difference. Nikolaj Plagborg-Møller, board member of EdTech Denmark explains:
No one is excluded from our community. EdTech has so many touch-points, that it’s open to everyone. Starting with educational institutions & associations, state and local government, teachers, EdTech companies, schools, to less obvious actors, such as software & hardware companies providing solutions to EdTech. Corporate learning companies and EdTech enthusiasts also contribute to EdTech. Going to the extremes, we can say that everything in this world has to do with education and continuous learning.”
What’s next?
EdTech Denmark is currently looking for new members and a full-time manager, who will be responsible for organising the organization’s activities on a daily basis.
At the same time, the management is gathering input from current and future members. You can also make an impact by getting involved in activity planning.
The initial focus is going to be put on domestic EdTech affairs in Denmark. Later the association is looking forward to tightening its already established international cooperation with EdTech organisations in the Nordics and other parts of the world.
At the moment EdTech Denmark comes into the global perspective as a local non-profit hub for EdTech in Denmark and is cooperating with amongst many, Oslo EdTech Cluster from Norway, the Swedish EdTech Industry, EdTech Southeast Sweden and multiple actors in Finland, the rest of Europe, and in the Middle and the Far East.
“The most successful unicorns within EdTech are to be found in China. Denmark is a small player compared to the US and China, but in the Nordic cooperation, the entire region becomes a decent player,” says Morten Amstrup
In the long run, EdTech Denmark may be divided into sections by the type of organisations represented within it, but the goal is to connect everyone in diversity to boost innovation.
The Community is Already There
EdTech Denmark has succeeded in gathering between 60–75% of the Danish EdTech companies informally in their network. Other organisations come on top of that so that the overall size of the organisation can easily reach more than 150 organizational members.
This didn’t happen in one day. The founders are building the organisation based on their personal and professional networks. The concept of both the association and Nordic cooperation goes back to the Nordic Edtech Conference held in Copenhagen in 2016.
The Danes, in general, are masters at getting organized across industries and fields of interests and it is no different in the case of EdTech. The founders aim at aggregating a larger movement, that will advocate for better EdTech and will attract more know-how, investments and startups to the region.
“The problem is that EdTech is still an isolated industry, and it is challenging to reach out to universities, schools and teachers, as that user group can make a great impact on the entire EdTech industry. All these actors are to be included in the Danish Edtech triple helix model”, says Morten Amstrup.
Final thought
The EdTech World is excited to follow the growth of EdTech Denmark. There are many promising things to come up in the Nordics this year. If you would like to get engaged with EdTech Denmark you can get in touch with one of the board members — we’ve provided links to their LinkedIn accounts below the group photo in the article.
If you would like to read more about the Edtech scene in the Nordics you might want to read our previous series on the topic:
The Nordic EdTech Scene: Part I- What makes EdTech in the Nordics click?
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