Koulu.me campaign raised the awareness of Finnish edtech
The global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus closed schools worldwide and forced educators to discover distance learning solutions to keep up with the school curriculums. In March, a Finnish innovation consulting company Spinverse sponsored Koulu.me website to showcase Finnish edtech companies that offer free access to their solutions for the duration of the crisis. The campaign has been warmly welcomed by the participating companies, educators and educational organisations around the globe.
The world went to a standstill with lockdown regulations, but we did not want to stop innovation. In fact, innovation and new ways of thinking were needed more than ever. Finnish education system is well known for its success and Finnish edtech companies follow the pedagogical targets of the Finnish system in their R&D for digital learning solutions. With the Koulu.me campaign, the Finnish edtech companies gained much needed global awareness with their distance learning tools to support traditional classroom learning.
The schools are slowly and cautiously opening doors for example in Finland. The crisis has been a wakeup call on the importance of distance learning tools. These new digital skills acquired during the lockdown will in fact be valuable asset for the future, both for the teachers and the students.
Teaching a new Finnish word to the world
Koulu.me campaign was initiated by the managing director Laura Koponen from Spinverse. Laura says: “We have received encouraging and interesting messages and queries through the Koulu.me website from all over the world. We have also been contacted by Business Finland in Peru, Mexico and South Korea to provide more information on specific educational solutions and possible partnering opportunities.”
Laura Koponen is delighted for all the traction her brainchild has received and foresees new business opportunities and markets unfolding to the companies who joined the Koulu.me campaign. She hopes a new Finnish word has also been introduced to the world, as koulu means school in Finnish.
New markets and users for the Finnish edtech tools
Since its launch in mid-March, Koulu.me webpage has attracted over 44,000 page views with 10 % of the page visitors coming back. The wide contact network in social media and elsewhere of the Koulu.me companies enabled the website gaining awareness especially among the Finnish educators. In addition to Finland, there has been hundreds of visitors from all over the world, reaching all the way to Japan, Brazil, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Canada and the US, for example.
Indeed, new markets have discovered what the Finnish edtech solutions have to offer. One of the Koulu.me companies is Language Clubhouse which offers distance learning solutions for several languages. "Language Clubhouse services were launched in January 2020. For us, the koulu.me campaign has opened up doors for many new markets. At the moment, we have users in more than 30 countries and ongoing partner negotiations in 8 countries, including Peru, South Korea and Mexico. This proves the fact how strong we can be when we work together as a group and also make it easier for the customers to find our solutions," says Becky Luoma, CEO of Language Clubhouse.
Koulu.me and another pan-Nordic website, teachmillions.com, will continue to showcase Nordic and Baltic edtech expertise and digital tools for distance learning, also after the schools are opening.
Read the press release in Finnish here.