EdTech World Tour comes to an end: 'NZ has been a great inspiration'

The EdTech World Tour run by Svenia Busson and Audrey Jarre has come to an end this month, after nearly half a year on the road and a range of countries visited, from South Africa to New Zealand.

The Franco-German researchers have been assessing global edtech trends and ecosystems which support edtech adoption and innovation, and will present their findings to the EdTechXEurope conference in June.

EdTechXEurope is an event that brings together executive level investors, innovators and industry influencers from European and international education companies. Now in its fourth year, in 2016 EdTechXEurope aims to host 800+ global attendees and invite over 150 speakers to showcase edtech innovations and perspectives from around the world.

While the US dominates the edtech sector, Busson and Jarre were curious to find out and report on what is happening in other parts of the world. Their Edtech World Tour started in France in October 2015 and as well as New Zealand, included the United States, Chile, Australia, Korea, India and South Africa.

Adele Bryant, Education New Zealand business development manager, hosted Busson and Jarre's visit to New Zealand from 7-14 December 2015 between the Chilean and Australian leg of the tour. During their time here, they visited education institutions, edtech companies and government agencies in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, recording what they saw and heard on their social media platforms.

Among their stops in the country, the pair visited a Point England School in Auckland, a Wellington edtech community meetup, and Dunedin's ADInstruments where they gained insight into the organisation's high quality life sciences educational products. Busson and Jarre say at each stage of the New Zealand leg, they were welcomed and impressed by this country's approach to using and developing edtech.

The duo made the following observations from their time in New Zealand: "New Zealand has been of great inspiration to us as we feel the country has understood the way edtech has to be implemented. No need to roll out devices and new edtech tools if neither the infrastructure nor the teacher training is there.

"The combination of the government's efforts - together with Network for Learning - to bring high speed internet connection to all New Zealand schools and the work of MindLab in training New Zealand teachers in new technology has a huge potential to make New Zealand the next model for successful edtech use in schools.

At each call they asked the same question "What does edtech mean to you?"  The resulting videos have been uploaded to their website, providing insights into the different perspectives of teachers and developers.  View a compilation of the New Zealand videos and go to the tour's Twitter feed to see more about the whole tour.

In the New Zealand newsletter they compiled after their visit, Busson and Jarre noted that, "New Zealand's high quality and innovative education system has proven a perfect ecosystem for Edtech when combined with its entrepreneurial and creative culture."  You can read about their time in New Zealand here.