Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<keyword id="1464841" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="edtech" source="Orion">Edtech</keyword> major <keyword id="2900267" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="byju" source="Orion">BYJU</keyword>'s is planning to wind up the coding platform <keyword id="8080458" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="whitehat-jr" source="Orion">WhiteHat Jr</keyword>, which it acquired for $300 million, as part of restructuring and cut costs. WhiteHat Jr, which at its peak had more than 8,000 employees across the country, now has some hundreds of roles left as it never picked up the pace and brought revenues for the company, informed sources told IANS on Thursday. According to people close to the development, the discussions at the top level at BYJU's have happened to get rid of the WhiteHat Jr brand which has faced severe criticism in the past. BYJU's, however, told IANS that they have no plans of shutting it down. "We are merely optimising it for organic and efficient growth. We remain fully committed to delivering world-class educational experiences and solutions that empower students to achieve their full potential," the company spokesperson said. The company said that it is constantly evaluating and optimising its business operations towards global growth. "As an ongoing activity, we are actively evaluating all our business units to ensure that they are aligned with our path to profitability," BYJU's told IANS. TechCrunch was first to report on the development. BYJU's acquired WhiteHat Jr in July 2020 for nearly $300 million. It reported a massive Rs 1,690 crore loss in the financial year 2021, while its expenses reached Rs 2,175 crore in FY21 -- compared to Rs 69.7 crore in FY20. In the April-May period last year, over 1,000 of its employees, including teachers which are on contractual basis, and hence not full-time employees, resigned. Later, more WhiteHat Jr employees either moved on their own or were asked to go. WhiteHat Jr shut its schools division that targeted to take its flagship coding curriculum to 10 lakh school students by the next academic year. Its foray into teaching music online, offering guitar and piano playing, yielded no fruitful results. According to sources, BYJU's which was last valued at $22 billion, will not be able to meet its March 2023 deadline to achieve group-level profitability, as it envisioned in its earnings in October last year. The company, which has sacked thousands of employees to date and has taken deeper cuts, is still unable to achieve profitability at group level amid mounting losses. The edtech unicorn reported a loss of Rs 4,588 crore for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2021. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/ghosting-is-immature-believe-millennials-says-a-study-by-quackquack/articleshow/98172016.cms">Ghosting is immature believe millennials says a study by QuackQuack</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/entertainment/news/backstreet-boys-are-performing-in-india-after-13-years-here-are-the-tour-details/articleshow/98172144.cms">Backstreet's back, alright! The 90s boy band to perform in India after 13 years</a>

BYJU's likely to shut down beleaguered coding platform WhiteHat Jr

<keyword id="18635" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="amazon" source="Orion">Amazon</keyword> on Thursday said it is shuttering its edtech offering called <keyword id="10228746" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="amazon-academy" source="Orion">Amazon Academy</keyword>'s operations in <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> starting from August 2023, and will refund the full fee to those enrolled in the current academic batch. The e-commerce behemoth officially launched <keyword id="6382289" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="academy" source="Orion">Academy</keyword> (previously called <keyword id="6392660" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="jee" source="Orion">JEE</keyword> Ready), last year. "At Amazon, we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas to delight customers. We also continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products and services to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments," a company spokesperson told IANS. "Following an assessment, we have made the decision to discontinue Amazon Academy. We are winding down this programme in a phased manner to take care of current customers," the spokesperson added. Amazon Academy's operations will discontinue starting August 2023, when the existing batch completes its test preparation module. Customers will have access to full course material online for an extended period of a year, until October 2024. The company said that it remains committed to its customers in the country and the decision will not impact its services. In January last year during the pandemic, the company launched Amazon Academy to help students prepare for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for entrance to engineering colleges. The online preparation offered practice routines required for the JEE, through the curated learning material, live lectures and comprehensive assessments in Math, Physics and Chemistry. The service enables active learning through live lessons, helping students to strengthen their JEE preparation efforts as they can engage with expert faculty, learn concepts, and clarify doubts in real time. Bringing further discipline and rigour to their study methodology, it will offer scheduled lessons, daily practice problems and regular tests, starting with a crash course for the upcoming JEE Main. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/article/unicorns-are-pass-cockroaches-are-the-new-favourites-of-venture-capitalists/articleshow/95734214.cms">Unicorns are passé, cockroaches are the new favourites of venture capitalists</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/tata-consumer-to-acquire-bisleri-for-around-rs-7000-crore-report/articleshow/95734960.cms">Tata Consumer to acquire Bisleri for around Rs 7,000 crore: Report</a>

Amazon to shut operations of its edtech Amazon Academy in India from Aug 2023, to give full refunds

Another <keyword id="1464841" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="edtech" source="Orion">edtech</keyword> startup <keyword id="4248184" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="udayy" source="Orion">Udayy</keyword>, backed by <keyword id="80004" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="info-edge" source="Orion">Info Edge</keyword>, has shut shop, laying off all 100 employees as schools, colleges and physical tuition centres reopen. Udayy's co-founder <keyword id="6553566" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="saumya-yadav" source="Orion">Saumya Yadav</keyword> said that the startup was witnessing the post-pandemic world for the first time as "as the kids went back to school, we faced roadblocks in growing the original model of online, live learning". "After a lot of deliberation, we decided that it's better to shut down the business than to spend more time and capital on it,a Yadav said. The development was first reported by startup news coverage portal Entrackr. The startup has paid employees severance packages and helped them find new jobs. "We are returning the remaining capital, around $8.5 million back to our investors," Yadav was quoted as saying in media reports. The live-learning platform catered to students from Grades 1 to 5. The platform raised $2.5 million in a seed funding round led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI), managed by <keyword id="4675626" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="falcon-edge-capital" source="Orion">Falcon Edge Capital</keyword> and <keyword id="12772224" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="infoedge-ventures" source="Orion">InfoEdge Ventures</keyword>. Udayy is the second edtech startup after Lido Learning to completely shut operations. Led by the edtech platforms, over 8,000 start-up employees have been recently hit by layoffs In India. This includes more than 1,000 employees at WhiteHat Jr, over 600 at Unacademy, over 424 at Vedantu and over 150 at Lido Learning. Another edtech firm FrontRow laid off nearly 150 full-time and contractual employees earlier this week. The Bengaluru-based non-academic upskilling startup fired almost 30 per cent of its workforce, owing to fund crunch and the market downturn. Apart from edtech firms, startups that have laid off employees in the past few months include social commerce platforms Trell (more than 300) and Meesho (150), used cars platform Cars24 (More than 600) and digital health platform Mfine (more than 500), among others.

Edtech startup 'Udayy' lays off all 100 employees as schools, and colleges physically reopen

<ul><li>Just over a third of students in India say that their schools extend online learning options, says a recent survey <keyword id="7467244" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Brainly">Brainly</keyword>. </li><li>The unexpected closures and suspension of classes directly impacted the academic calendar. </li><li>Indian government has closed down all educational institutions till March 31, 2020 in the wake of <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="coronavirus">Coronavirus</keyword>.</li></ul>Just over a third of students in India say that their schools extend online learning options, says a recent survey conducted by the online learning community Brainly. However, as Coronavirus continues to spread, more schools are expected to go online. This year, many unexpected closures and suspension of classes have impacted the academic calendar. But it may not harm the learning process as much, given that it is almost the time for a summer break. The survey of 2,000 students shows that 63% students are not attending school in India right now. However, only 36% of them are learning via online media. While a few children are happy to be spending time at home, others are bored of the break already. This is as the Indian government closed down all the educational institutions till March 31, 2020 in the wake of Coronavirus. Even the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/education/news/un-proposes-distance-learning-as-290-million-children-in-22-countries-are-kept-away-from-school-due-to-coronavirus/articleshow/74504216.cms">board examinations</a> conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) have been postponed. “While maintenance of academic calendar and exam schedule is important, equally important is the safety and security of the students who are appearing in various examinations, as also that of their teachers and parents,” MHRD <a href="https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1240312126998110208?s=20">said</a>. As a result, one in five students also worry about their learning. “While numerous schools in the country have tied up with ed-tech platforms to offer online learning to students, our survey findings indicate that a major chunk of them have not made such associations yet. We expect more schools and teachers to follow this path and introduce online learning in the upcoming days,” said Michał Borkowski, Co-founder, and CEO of Brainly. Brainly operates on a ‘community learning’ business model, roping in students, parents, teachers, and experts for a blended learning experience. This reiterates the suggestions from the United Nations, that says that the schools should opt for inclusive <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/education/news/un-proposes-distance-learning-as-290-million-children-in-22-countries-are-kept-away-from-school-due-to-coronavirus/articleshow/74504216.cms">distance learning programmes</a>. It is in fact, considering open educational applications and platforms for schools and teachers to reach learners remotely. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/coronavirus-updates-in-india-and-steps-taken-by-narendra-modi-government/articleshow/74723667.cms">A look at Indian government response to coronavirus, so far, shows some quick reactions but not enough foresight</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/coronavirus-infections-cases-news-and-updates-of-india/articleshow/74724804.cms">Indian Coronavirus infections cross 200 mark with 219 infected, 20 cured and five dead</a>

More than 60% students are not attending schools — and merely a third of them are learning online

<ul><li>LEAD pays a rich tribute to School Owners for their Herculean effort over the lockdown</li><li>The campaign is conceptualised by <keyword id="1557667" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tbwa-india" source="Orion">TBWA India</keyword>.</li></ul>LEAD's latest digital film Out of Syllabus celebrates the unsung efforts of 'Future Line Workers' - school owners who acted as a mentor to teachers and an educator to students. On the occasion of Teacher's Day, it turns the spotlight on the challenges faced by school owners in these testing times as they continue to empower teachers, reassure parents and find innovative ways to help students adjust to their new learning environment. School owners often miss out on the reverence reserved for teachers. This film underlines the valiant work of school owners who placed the academic future of our children above everything, ensuring uninterrupted learning as far as possible. They have put the issues of others above their own - parents questioning school fees, teachers worried about their next salaries, students dealing with the glitches of online education. And managed to hold the entire ecosystem together to ensure uninterrupted online learning for millions of children, despite the changed circumstances caused due to the pandemic. They helped teachers resolve transitioning issues and managed the financial challenges of running a school. All this in the face of life's toughest exam where everything was out of syllabus, school owners have shouldered the burden of their new responsibilities with a smile and emerged as real heroes worthy of applause. LEAD's film thanks these Future Line Workers for all that they have done and in doing so disrupts the communication category just as it has disrupted ed tech. The film gives us a peek into the emotional journey of someone fighting an uphill battle during the lockdown of 18 months. The film also addresses the issue of over 15 lakh schools all over India shutting down due to the pandemic, affecting the academic future of millions of students. <div type="Youtube" id="JGiMnXcXUcQ" title="An Ode to The Future Line Workers | LEAD" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/JGiMnXcXUcQ/mqdefault.jpg"></div> Commenting on bringing alive a disruptive initiative, <keyword id="1398302" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="govind-pandey" source="Orion">Govind Pandey</keyword>, CEO of TBWA\India said, “During the pandemic, we have had so many unexpected and unsung heroes who went out of their way to help others. Passionate school owners who understand that education is important and that every child deserves a good one are also such heroes. They did what they could despite all the odds because they know that education makes a huge difference to the kids futures and we couldn’t let the pandemic impact that. We call these school owners Future-Line Workers.” Talking about the initiative, Managing Partner of TBWA\India - Parixit Bhattacharya said, “School Owners are the wind behind the sails of the academic infrastructure of our country. And they needed to be celebrated. This is an effort to tip our proverbial hats to their massive efforts in ensuring the education of our children is never compromised. Out Of Syllabus plays into a never before cultural moment of our country when schools cautiously consider opening their gates to welcome back students after a hiatus of more than 18 months. Who better to bring home this message of hope other than LEAD - the organisation that is providing propulsive learning to thousands of children all over the country no matter which strata they belong to.” Chief Marketing Officer of LEAD, Anupam Gurani said, “We partner with 2,000+ schools across India and we have seen first-hand the commitment of these school owners in educating their students during the pandemic. Our new campaign, Out of Syllabus, is a salute to the indomitable spirit of all these future line warriors who have managed to create a seamless online learning environment by acting as an educator to students &amp; a mentor to teachers.”

Ahead of Teacher's Day, LEAD turns the spotlight on the challenges faced by school owners in these testing times

<ul><li>Amid the outbreak of <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword>, the only way ahead for every kind of business — including education — is online. </li><li>In an interview with Business Insider, <keyword id="25725" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ronnie-Screwvala">Ronnie Screwvala</keyword>, co-founder of <keyword id="23248" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Online-learning">online learning</keyword> platform <keyword id="2008319" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Upgrad">upGrad</keyword> explained how the pandemic will spark an online learning roar. </li><li>Screwvala also agrees that the completion rate for online courses is high at 80% — and is set to grow.</li></ul>The outbreak of Coronavirus has declared a health emergency across the globe. If pandemic continues to spread, the only way ahead for every kind of business — including education — is online. In an interview with Business Insider, Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairman of online learning platform upGrad explained how the pandemic will spark an online learning roar. “From school closures to indefinitely postponed exams, the first thing that is affected when any kind of riots, climate change, pandemic hits a country is education,” he said. In a world like that, the future of learning has gone online with the technology and innovation taking the centre stage. “That is going to be more in the future than ever,” he said. Disruption in the education space Screwvala says that disruption in learning can be detrimental. “If we don’t go to work for two days, it's one part. But in learning, there has to be a certain sense of discipline. If the access to faculty and learning is not there and the exams that students are preparing to get postponed by three months — that’s a major setback,” he said. 
 
 <div type="image" title="Vijayawada: Students wear masks to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, at a scho..." msid="74550486" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Students wear masks to mitigate the spread of coronavirus, at a school in Vijayawada.Photo)(&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>





 This is where upGrad is trying to bridge the gap. He said that the edtech platforms are collaborating with universities to roll-out degree level courses. “It's not replacing universities, but the infrastructure of universities is still very limited with a certain number of seats available. Any university starts courses around June. On the other hand, edtech platforms like upGrad offer courses four different times a year and nothing gets disrupted,” he said. This has given edtech a major push. Screwvala also agrees that the completion rate for such courses has also witnessed a growth. upGrad offers online degree in undergraduate and postgraduate courses and all fields of management. “upGrad has an 80% completion rate — and it is going to be higher. It's not a choice factor, it is a part of the degree course. Today, you can get a degree from university of Mumbai without coming to Mumbai. You can be in a small town and aspire to have a degree from top notch universities,” he said. From the employer’s point of view The pandemic has gone so deep that many companies asked employees to work from home and restrict travel. The virus has already affected people in over 75 countries and is showing few signs of slowing down. “More companies are asking their employees to work from home, believing that productivity won’t get affected — which means that this is the future of work and interaction where the companies no longer need to assemble people in places,” Screwvala said. Given the concerns around coronavirus, the shares of video conferencing platforms — Zoom video and Skype also soared while the stocks of those mandating face to face interaction for business are plummeting, including automobiles and airlines. This explains how offices are leveraging online platforms. According to Screwvala, the companies can also trade off the flexi work opportunity with office training. For instance, “Now that I have allowed you flexi hours, I need you to complete this online course. So work will get more demanding over time — and that is where efficiency will go up,” he explained. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/education/news/un-proposes-distance-learning-as-290-million-children-in-22-countries-are-kept-away-from-school-due-to-coronavirus/articleshow/74504216.cms">UN proposes distance learning as 290 million children in 22 countries are kept away from school due to Coronavirus</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/upgrad-eyes-rs-1000-cr-revenue-in-2020-21/articleshow/74444519.cms">Ronnie Screwvala syncs with Finance Minister’s plan⁠— upGrad will roll out online degree courses this year</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/upgrad-has-almost-half-of-its-online-learner-base-in-tier-2-and-tier-3-cities/articleshow/72036958.cms">This Indian startup gains as students from Tier 2 and 3 cities opt for online digital courses</a>

Media mogul turned education entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala says coronavirus might have ushered a new era of online learning

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The rapid shift to virtual learning this spring has blurred the line between students' homes and schools, immediately sparking privacy scandals like "Zoom bombing."</li><li>But the new school year has brought new and unexpected side effects, like parents <a href="https://www.insider.com/elementary-school-teacher-asks-parents-to-behave-appropriately-2020-9">appearing on screen intoxicated or nude</a> and school officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/08/black-student-suspended-police-toy-gun/">calling the police on a Black student</a> for playing with a toy gun.</li><li>Privacy advocates and education experts worry the increased reliance on edtech tools has forced parents to choose between keeping their kids' schooling on track and protecting their civil liberties.</li><li>Citing tech companies' shaky track record on privacy, they're seeking to empower schools, parents, and students to make smart choices about the tools they use and exercise their rights.</li></ul>The COVID-19 pandemic hit fast and hard this spring, and just as quickly, schools across the US were forced to switch to virtual learning.While Zoom classes and other online tools provided a valuable lifeline to keep students connected and provide some relief for parents, they also immediately sparked privacy concerns, like "<a href="https://www.insider.com/what-is-zoom-bombing-illegal-2020-4">Zoom bombing</a>" (a trend where people join video classes uninvited, sometimes <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/03/zoombombing-isn%E2%80%99t-going-away-and-it-could-get-worse">bombarding them with pornography or slurs</a>), <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-sued-allegedly-sharing-data-with-facebook-2020-3">unwitting data sharing</a>, and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/29/21232777/examity-remote-test-proctoring-online-class-education">creepy digital test proctoring</a>."When schools were shut down in March when the pandemic and the lockdown started, I think we were in survival mode," Cheri Kiesecker, the cochair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, told Business Insider."Unless school districts really had privacy on their radar ahead of time, it was: 'How do we keep students connected?' And, 'We'll worry about the privacy issues later,'" she said.With the new school year in full swing, many schools still haven't dealt with those issues. Now they're mutating in unexpected and even more serious ways.Last month, Colorado <a href="https://www.insider.com/colorado-school-called-sheriff-black-boy-toy-gun-zoom-class-2020-9">school officials called the police</a> on — and then suspended — a 12-year-old Black student after he showed a toy gun during his Zoom class. A Florida teacher also pleaded with parents to "have on proper clothing" and avoid "appearing with big joints" after she and other teachers in her district said they observed parents <a href="https://www.insider.com/elementary-school-teacher-asks-parents-to-behave-appropriately-2020-9">partially nude and using drugs and alcohol</a> in the background of virtual lessons.As more side effects arise, privacy and edtech experts are scrambling to help administrators, teachers, and parents keep students engaged and learning without completely clicking away their civil liberties.<h2>Redrawing the boundaries</h2>"We've gone from the separation between home and school to a complete breakdown of the boundaries between the two without really training teachers or parents and guardians or students for what that means for their own privacy and learning," Dr. Torrey Trust, an associate professor of learning technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Business Insider.Trust said teachers were hardly given any advice on how to talk to students about setting up their space at home to ensure they aren't accidentally sharing private information — details, she said, that could subject students to bullying or require a teacher to report them to school administrators or even law enforcement."For many children, this can be uncomfortable. The inequities that exist in education are even more visible in this format," Heather Johnson, an associate professor of science education at Vanderbilt University, told Business Insider.Even though the distractions may look different through a computer screen, teachers still fundamentally face the same challenge of whether, when, and how to respond to incidents and still cover the material, according to Johnson."Sometimes, if you stop instruction to respond to it in the moment, it can make the situation worse. So calling out a parent who's drinking a beer is really calling out the student, which isn't fair to the student who's not engaging in the behavior," she said, adding that while teachers should intervene if they're concerned about a child's safety, "it's not the teacher's responsibility, though, to manage the parent's behavior."Situations like the one in Colorado also raise new and concerning legal questions because of how they blur the line between public and private places, according to Kiesecker."Is that actually a Fourth Amendment violation of warrantless search and seizure because you didn't invite them in your home, yet your kid is getting suspended or police are being called because of something that was seen on Zoom," she said."Parents and students are upset enough that they're seeking attorneys and actually saying: 'You know what? You are violating my civil rights by requiring me to have my camera on and have the background of my home,'" she added.<h2>The edtech calculus</h2>Beyond the challenges teachers, students, and parents face as they learn how to use new technologies effectively, safely, and legally, there's also the more basic question of whether they should use a specific tool in the first place — or what the trade-off is for doing so.Free edtech offerings, from startups and tech giants alike, have exploded since March, with a list compiled by <a href="https://thejournal.com/Articles/2020/03/13/Free-Resources-Ed-Tech-Companies-Step-Up-During-Coronavirus-Outbreak.aspx?Page=67">THE Journal</a> now totaling more than 400. Zoom, Google, and Microsoft have made their videoconferencing features <a href="https://blog.zoom.us/how-to-use-zoom-for-online-learning/">free or highly discounted</a> for educators, helping them acquire <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemontgomery/2020/06/04/the-pandemic-should-have-been-edtechs-moment-to-shine-so-far-it-hasnt-been/#254cec4949f3">millions of new users</a> in the process, and the pandemic has <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-06-11-the-post-pandemic-outlook-for-edtech">minted several edtech unicorns</a> this year, including Udemy, ApplyBoard, Course Hero, and Quizlet.But those tools still come at a price."My biggest worry is anytime something's free, they're getting money somehow, and almost always it's from collecting student data," Trust said.Her concerns are already being validated: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-sued-allegedly-sharing-data-with-facebook-2020-3">Zoom was sued in April</a> over accusations that it was sharing data with Facebook without telling users. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/two-children-sue-google-for-allegedly-collecting-students-biometric-data/">Two children sued Google</a> over suspicions that it collected their biometric data. And tens of thousands of students across the US have filed petitions demanding schools abandon their use of intrusive proctoring tools like <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/students-are-pushing-back-against-proctoring-surveillance-apps">Proctorio, ProctorU, and Honorlock</a>."When all of these companies that seem to be doing the right thing and sharing free access to their tools, teachers were jumping on it, and they weren't really reading the terms of service or privacy policy in depth enough," she said.Despite the privacy concerns, many of these tools have proved invaluable for schools and parents trying to minimize disruptions to students' education during the pandemic, such as recorded class sessions."Protections are important, but I do think it is important to have these videos of classes, especially in some of our districts where the students just, for whatever reason, cannot connect at the time of class, and they're able to catch up later," Johnson said, alluding to the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/16/as-schools-close-due-to-the-coronavirus-some-u-s-students-face-a-digital-homework-gap/">digital "homework gap"</a> that has disproportionately affected Black, Latinx, and lower-income students.A <a href="https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/CDT-Parent-Student-Data-Privacy-Report-Slides.pdf">survey of 1,200 parents</a> conducted by the Center for Democracy and Technology in May and June found that "solid majorities believe technology is 'worth the risk' to deliver key education benefits" such as clear and timely communication, engaging learning environments, individualized instruction, and "learning continuity during man-made or natural emergencies."Yet that same CDT survey, which showed that "student data privacy and information security are mid- to low-level concerns of parents, outranked by concerns about overall well-being of the student" also said "concern increases as parents are exposed to more information about student data privacy and security."When the survey asked about scenarios where law enforcement might gain access to student records or schools might collect biometric data, Black and Hispanic parents' levels of concern were especially high.Kiesecker said students and parents shouldn't have to sacrifice their privacy rights for a quality education in the first place, however."It feels to me like it's a choice of your civil liberties or attending school. And students shouldn't be put in that position," she said. "The price of attending public education shouldn't be giving up your privacy, especially for a child; children's privacy should be the most sensitive and the most protected."<h2>It takes a village — and stronger laws</h2>Trust and Kiesecker agreed students, parents, and educators could take advantage of the benefits of certain edtech tools without giving up their privacy rights but that the burden shouldn't fall entirely on individual teachers, parents, or even schools.Trust said teachers should run new digital tools by their school's IT department, which may be more knowledgeable about privacy issues, while school districts and administrators need to take a proactive role in developing policies around technologies that "support teachers and learning how to find and evaluate and use technology in their classrooms."She also worked with her students to develop a <a href="https://edtechbooks.org/digitaltoolsapps">free guide for teachers</a> on how to evaluate digital tools, including <a href="https://edtechbooks.org/digitaltoolsapps/evaluatingcostprivacydata">a chapter devoted to understanding privacy</a>, adding to a growing list of resources meant to empower teachers and parents, such as:<ul><li>Common Sense's privacy evaluations for <a href="https://privacy.commonsense.org/evaluations/1">more than 900 popular edtech apps</a>.</li><li>The University of California at Berkeley's <a href="https://search.appcensus.io/">AppCensus</a>, which scores Android apps.</li><li>A <a href="https://themarkup.org/blacklight">real-time website-privacy inspector</a> from The Markup, an investigative-journalism outlet.</li><li>Forms created by the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy (which Kiesecker helps run) to help <a href="https://www.studentprivacymatters.org/excerise_your_rights/">parents exercise their privacy rights</a>.</li><li>The Future of Privacy Forum's <a href="https://studentprivacycompass.org/resources/educatortraining/">crash course for educators</a> on how to navigate student privacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.</li></ul>Ultimately, however, Kiesecker and other privacy advocates say there needs to be stronger legal protections and incentives for both schools and companies to look out for students' privacy.<a href="https://tech.ed.gov/privacy/#:~:text=Family%20Educational%20Rights%20and%20Privacy,to%20their%20children's%20education%20records.">At the federal level</a>, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, Children's Internet Protection Act, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment give parents some degree of control over their kids' education records, which data companies or schools can collect about them, and what digital information schools can show them. Individual states have also adopted a <a href="https://studentprivacycompass.org/state-laws/">patchwork of additional laws</a>, <a href="https://epic.org/state-policy/student-privacy/">some stronger than others</a>.But tech companies' report card on following those laws isn't perfect. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-google-ftc-settlement-child-privacy-law-coppa-2019-9">Google paid $170 million</a> last year to settle a lawsuit over allegations that YouTube collected kids' data without their parents' consent, and a 2017 study from the <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/school-issued-devices-and-student-privacy">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a> said "meaningful improvements in student data protection will require changes in state and federal law, in school and district priorities, and in edtech company policies and practices.""We really need to fix FERPA," Kiesecker said. "It's a 40-year-old law and it needs to be updated. And it needs to be strengthened so that the onus isn't on the school district to try to vet and read word for word all these contracts that legal teams for these big edtech companies have put together and each school is on their own."She added: "Teachers and schools need to have data to be able to assess where the students are and if they're learning, but when you have edtech companies with algorithms that we cannot see the efficacy of, that haven't been vetted … there's a problem."

As Zoom classes take over during the pandemic, edtech companies provide a lifeline, but only for schools and parents willing to surrender their students' privacy

Mumbai, <keyword id="74229" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Franklin-Templeton">Franklin Templeton</keyword>'s six shut schemes have received ₹13,120 crore from maturities, pre-payments, and coupons since their closure in April. Over the latest fortnight, December 16-31, 2020, these schemes received ₹1,213 crore. Further, five out of the six schemes have already turned and have close to ₹8,527 crore available to return to unit holders, subject to fund running expenses. <keyword id="251037" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Franklin">Franklin</keyword> India Short Term Income Plan (FISTIP) is the latest scheme to turn cash positive, the fund house said in a statement. Individually, <keyword id="6567569" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Franklin-India-Low-Duration-Fund">Franklin India Low Duration Fund</keyword>, Ultra Short Bond Fund, Dynamic Accrual Fund, <keyword id="6702676" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="credit-risk-fund">Credit Risk Fund</keyword> and Short Term Income Plan have 52%, 49%, 41 %, 23% and 8% of their respective asset under management in cash. Borrowing levels in <keyword id="6961990" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Franklin-India-Income-Opportunities-Fund">Franklin India Income Opportunities Fund</keyword> continue to come down steadily and currently stands at 6% of its AUM. The <keyword id="6354977" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Supreme-Court">Supreme Court</keyword> had directed the Trustee of <keyword id="518434" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Franklin-Templeton-Mutual-Fund">Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund</keyword> to seek consent of the unitholders for the winding up of the six schemes. Accordingly, the Trustee conducted the e-voting for the same from December 26-28, 2020 followed by a unitholder meet on December 29, 2020. The fund house said that as directed by the top court, redemptions in these schemes will continue to be suspended till the date of the next hearing scheduled in the third week of January 2021. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/kia-motors-11-electric-vehicles-in-2021-but-india-may-have-to-wait-longer-to-buy/articleshow/80056447.cms">INTERVIEW: Kia Motors’ 2021 plan includes 11 electric vehicle launches ⁠— but India may have to wait longer</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/ten-of-the-most-outrageous-predictions-for-2021-according-to-saxo-bank/slidelist/80040045.cms">From Amazon buying Cyprus to Germany bailing out France — here are ten of the most ‘outrageous’ predictions for 2021</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/india-edtech-in-charts-how-the-shi[%E2%80%A6]es-of-byjus-unacademy-and-others/articleshow/80040270.cms">India’s edtech in charts – How the shift to online learning meant money, valuation and users for the likes of BYJU’S, Unacademy, and others</a>

Franklin Templeton's shut funds receive ₹13,120 crore from maturities, pre-payments and coupons

<ul class="summary-list"><li>There are more than 50,000 US VC-backed startups, and many will be looking for capital soon. </li><li>Many startups raised money in early 2022, and the average time between fundraising is 1.5 years.</li></ul>Don't let the sudden reopening of the IPO market distract you – <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/startup-mass-extinction-event-has-begun-venture-capital-2023-6">startups are still dying left and right.</a>They're shutting down, looking for buyers, or begging for an investor to write them a check to get to the end of the year, if that.My colleagues Melia Russell and Rob Price recently wrote about one of the latest victims — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lending-startup-captain-winds-down-seeks-buyer-layoffs-2023-8">lending company Captain.</a> The startup has followed the typical survival strategy of a desperate startup this year by first cutting costs with layoffs. Then searching for more capital with fundraising or some kind of financing or debt. And when that failed, looking for a buyer. Captain, however, has not decided to shut down – yet.Recur, an NFT startup once valued at more than $300 million, decided <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/RecurForever/status/1692633345753002406?s=20">to shut down recently</a>. And a <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=95924a7addba4031192eb27d168a08633f4bd4a368d3ca7dfb8695cfa43283a9&amp;postID=64e7fcf1065a66ec8f77fe2d&amp;postSlug=startup-wave-shutdowns-late-2023-vc-2023-8&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fposts%2Fitstimconnors_weve-decided-to-shut-down-our-company-101-activity-7100150741830414336-L1MW%2F%3Futm_source%3Dshare%26utm_medium%3Dmember_desktop">tiny edtech Web3 startup called 101 also called it quits</a>.There's no need to get into why this is the case for so many startups trying to stay afloat. We all know venture capital funding is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pre-empting-vc-funding-dip-prompts-uptick-capital-2023-7">tough to come by</a> these days. It's cratered to levels not seen since before 2020. And there are now more than 50,000 venture-backed companies in the US – a figure that's doubled since 2016 – that are at risk of "high capital shortage," PitchBook notes in its second-quarter "Venture Monitor" report."The US VC market is now operating through five consecutive quarters of less capital making it to the market than is estimated to be demanded," wrote PitchBook analyst Kyle Stanford in a recent note titled "Accounting for the Overcapitalization of VC." "The past two quarters of this deficit were more severe than the most overcapitalized quarter in 2021."So let's peel back the curtain a bit.Venture capital funding was overly abundant in the latter half of 2020 and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/total-global-us-venture-capital-funding-in-2021-broke-records-2022-1#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20Global%20VC%20funding,area%20with%20the%20greatest%20gains.">all of 2021.</a> There were nearly 19,000 deals done that year, according to PitchBook, until things started to taper off in 2022.Stanford points out that the average time between funding rounds is now around 1.5 years. – basically what it was before the pandemic boom times. So, hypothetically, if a company last raised capital in the first quarter of 2022 (one of the most active in terms of deal count, PitchBook data shows), many startups will be on the hunt for new capital in the fourth quarter of 2023.Every company's situation is a little different based on their operating expenses and whether they've gotten fresh funding already. Though, unless you're an AI startup, the chance of a VC check has been slim to none. So what are their options? Likely a sale or shutting down.But it's not just VCs who are being stingy. All those <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiger-global-coatues-venture-capital-plans-backfired-vcs-say-2022-11">crossover firms that wanted to get in on the action like Tiger Global</a> (which by the way, did 335 deals in 2021, according to Crunchbase) and Coatue, aren't doing the kind of deals <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiger-global-changed-venture-capital-startups-funding">that they used to</a>. Participation has dropped from more than 550 deals and a quarterly peak of nearly $50 billion in 2021 to fewer than 200 deals and a quarterly peak of around $15 billion in 2023, Stanford wrote."We believe that a large portion of the supply-side deficit is derived from the crossover and other nontraditional investors that have pulled back from VC to more traditional strategies," he wrote.Startups are likely going to clamor for VCs attention in the coming months as those cash runways continue to dwindle. As IVP's <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/tomloverro/status/1620466827519496194?s=20">Tom Loverro so presciently pointed out</a> back in January: Late 2023 and 2024 for startups will make the 2008 financial crisis "look quaint for startups."

Startup extinction season is going to kick into high gear — and there's likely going to be a bloodbath soon for some of the 50,000 VC-backed startups  

Received wisdom in the tech world is that big, legacy companies are bound by inertia. The more established they are, the more they get set in their ways — and the more vulnerable they are to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-how-big-tech-will-win-again-2023-5">disruption by a nimble startup</a>. Silicon Valley was founded on the principle that newcomers can move fast and break things — leading to world-transforming innovations.For the most part, though, that's not how it works anymore. Last year, a couple of economists found that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-funding-crunch-will-continue-2024-2023-12">venture-capital-backed startups</a> almost never lead to a new company listing on a <a target="_blank" href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=4322834">public stock exchange</a>. They don't replace the tech giants — they just get bought by the tech giants. That's been true in Silicon Valley for at least a decade. And the vast majority of startups have been acquired by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29642/w29642.pdf">the same five companies</a>: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.Ever since Joe Biden was elected, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have been <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-merger-deals-harder-adobe-figma-antitrust-startups-exit-options-2023-3">looking into tech mergers and acquisitions</a> for evidence of antitrust behavior. Have the tech giants been illegally short-circuiting competition by buying up their rivals? It's a really good question — but it may be the wrong one to ask. A new paper by two leading scholars suggests that these days, Big Tech doesn't have to resort to buyouts to crush aspiring startups. Instead, they're using their considerable cash and soft power to defang potential rivals from within — a process the scholars call "<a target="_blank" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4713845">co-opting disruption</a>."According to the new paper — by longtime tech observers Mark Lemley at Stanford University and Matt Wansley at Cardozo School of Law — the tech giants are deploying a bunch of sneaky corporate judo moves to undercut their competitors. When an innovative threat to their business model comes along — everything from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/missy-cummings-robot-taxis-tesla-elon-musk-autonomous-cruise-waymo-2023-10">self-driving cars</a> to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-vision-pro-experiment-brain-virtual-reality-side-effect-2024-2">virtual reality</a> to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ted-underwood-ai-optimist-humanities-language-literature-research-bill-gates-2023-12">artificial intelligence</a> — they make a point of helping the promising little startups. They take a seat on their board of directors. They give them huge infusions of cash and access to selected data. They even lobby the government on their behalf. But all the while, the scholars found, Big Tech is actually using its seemingly benevolent show of support to protect its own interests — subtly steering the startups away from innovation, and into projects that reinforce the status quo. By working from within, they're turning the baying wolves of ambitious startups into harmless, well-trained lap dogs.This problem isn't academic. Co-opting startups not only quashes competition — it kills off meaningful innovation. Nearly all of the self-driving-car companies have shifted away from their big-vision plans for robot taxis to small-bore stuff like adaptive cruise control. Virtual-reality companies are working on virtual meeting software for the metaverse. AI companies that might have revolutionized drug discovery or engineering optimization are instead fiddling around with search, or customer service, or college-essay writing. With fewer rivals rising to challenge the incumbents, the pace of innovation slows. Some economists even think other startups in the same lanes as the co-opted ones stop trying as hard, for fear of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-broken-out-of-truly-transformative-tech-ideas-2021-7">getting bought up and killed off</a> by Big Tech.This new theory of anticompetitive behavior could be a game changer when it comes to curbing the unprecedented power of the tech giants. It offers regulators a way to crack down on monopoly-minded companies before they try to buy up innovative young guns. "The traditional way of thinking about the threat to innovation from reduced competition has to do with market concentration," Wansley says. "Now we're taking it a little further. We're saying, by the time you get to an acquisition stage, that might be too late."Lemley and Wansley start their inquiry with a question: Why have two decades elapsed since the rise of the last massive, world-dominating <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rise-of-ai-artificial-intelligence-how-to-prepare-history-productivity-2023-7">disruptive company</a> in tech? Apple and Microsoft were founded in the mid-1970s; Amazon and Google in the 1990s. Facebook, the baby of the bunch, was founded in 2004. The iPhone came out in 2007. What do we have to show for the past 20 years of venture capital?The answer appears to be: just another industry that's terrified of competition. At this point, Big Tech looks at promising startups the way evil alien empires in science fiction look at helpless planets. Sometimes they act like the Borg from Star Trek, assimilating the "biological and technological distinctiveness" of competitors to make themselves more badass. Here on Earth, <a target="_blank" href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol63/iss2/1/">buying up little guys to gain access to their technology or personnel</a> is called an "acqui-hire," like when <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-meta-rebrand-kills-oculus-brand-vr-headset-quest-2021-10">Facebook bought Oculus and turned it into Quest</a>. And if the smaller company doesn't want to be acqui-hired? Well, resistance is futile.Or sometimes, like the genocidal, xenophobic Daleks from "Doctor Who," powerful companies just straight-up exterminate their competition. In 2021 a team of researchers from Yale and the London Business School found that somewhere between 5.3% and 7.4% of mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical industry were "<a target="_blank" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3241707">killer acquisitions</a>." The smaller company had a drug that might have someday threatened the big guy's category-busting pill, and: pew pew. No more little guy.In a sense, a dominant company has no choice but to act this way. It can't really innovate anymore — not with thousands of middle managers defending fiefdoms, clients and customers bought into a product and marketing cycle, and hundreds of millions of dollars invested in technical infrastructure. Real disruption would be, well, disruptive. "This is not something that people write about or talk about, not something that surfaces regularly," Lemley says. "But it's in the air if you're in Silicon Valley and talking to venture capitalists. It's a problem."And the bigger the company, the greater the financial risk of any disruption, no matter how small. Like an evil king facing a prophecy that he will one day be overthrown by a firstborn child from the forest realm, the company has to kill all the children, just to be sure.<div type="image" title="Two men on a stage — Sam Altman of OpenAI and Satya Nadella of Microsoft — with their corporate logos in the background, the OpenAI knott and MSFT's quad-colored squares" height="2400" width="3600" msid="108942652" hostid="261"></div>The thing is, mass murders of forest-realm firstborns tend to attract the attention of regulators. So what if the evil king just adopted all the babies? Raise them rich and spoiled in the castle, distract them with nubile romantic prospects, teach them to exploit the peasants? Between assimilation or assassination lies "a third possibility," Wansley says. "It's not that the acquirer is going to take the startup and totally shut the technology down. It's that they will redirect the assets to something more profitable."That's what the tech giants are doing. How? First, by relying on Silicon Valley's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/venture-capital-big-tech-antitrust-predatory-pricing-uber-wework-bird-2023-7">network of venture capitalists</a> as an early-warning system for would-be disruptors. VCs see trends and startups that might someday pose a threat to the established order — so-called <a target="_blank" href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/penn_law_review/vol168/iss7/1/">nascent competitors</a> — before anyone else. And there's nothing stopping them. As Lemley observes, it's part of Silicon Valley's "natural information flow" for an investor to tell a Google or a Microsoft about the promising newcomers they're backing. "If I'm a VC, how am I going to get the best deal for my client in this space?" Lemley says. "The best deal might be, sell out to the incumbent."Once a tech giant gets a tip-off about a startup that might threaten their bottom line, they're able to strategically invest their vast cash reserves in the fledgling firm. That's precisely what's taking place with artificial intelligence: Microsoft owns 48% of OpenAI, the emerging field's undisputed leader. Alphabet and Amazon have put billions of dollars into the AI startup Anthropic. When the two AI companies were founded, Wansley says, both were "worried about what would happen if one of the tech giants started looking in their direction." Now, both are directly influenced by the very companies they set out to disrupt. And since investments from Big Tech often come with a seat on a startup's board of directors, Wansley adds, the tech giants are in an ideal position to "start nudging the company in a direction that's going to be less competitive."Money isn't the only weapon that Big Tech can deploy to co-opt a potential competitor. Because the tech giants have amassed huge repositories of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-ford-gm-volvo-supercharger-electric-cars-charger-network-data-2023-7">data on user behavior</a>, they can choose with whom they share that data, and how much. Documents leaked from the discovery phase of a lawsuit against Facebook in 2015 showed that the company <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/mark-zuckerberg-leveraged-facebook-user-%20data-fight-rivals-help-friends-n994706">doled out data access preferentially</a>, allowing its allies more access than its potential competitors. The data that Big Tech shares — or doesn't share — can play an instrumental role in shaping a startup's work.Finally, the big companies use their clout on Capitol Hill in an effort to impose stricter regulations on the startups they're ostensibly trying to help. That's why tech giants like Meta testify before congressional hearings and ask for more government oversight for emerging threats like robot cars, or AI. They want to ensure that the rules favor them — and disfavor startups outside their zone of protection. Big Tech may hate regulation, but it doesn't mind using it to regulate any startups that might wind up threatening its dominance in the marketplace.Co-opting startups is a clever strategy. It's way easier — and less obvious — than buying up a competitor and shutting it down. And if it doesn't work, the nuclear option is always available. "If all those other strategies fail — investments, taking a seat on the board, playing hardball with data networks, and regulation — if none of them prevents a competitor from growing, then the tech companies can buy it off," Wansley says. "It's a little subtle, right?" It is — but that's what makes it so effective. Straight-up killer acquisitions are relatively easy to prove, says Florian Ederer, an economist at Boston University. "It's much, much harder to prove that a company got taken over and its focus got slightly shifted to not competing quite so intensely." It's even harder to prove that consumers suffered any ill effects. The co-opted companies don't get killed off, and they stay nominally independent. The founders and investors get rich either way.So how do we know startups are getting co-opted by Big Tech? One proof is that some of Silicon Valley's most powerful players are starting to grouse about it. Elon Musk is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/technology/elon-musk-openai-lawsuit-paradox.html">suing OpenAI</a> to keep the company from sharing its tech with Microsoft. The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted last month that Big Tech and the "New Incumbents" in AI are "<a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/pmarca/status/1762532979317043515">lobbying as a group with great intensity to establish a government protected cartel</a>." You know things are bad when the biggest kids on the block start whining about being victims.Wansley and Lemley argue that regulators need to step in — not to restrain competition, but to unleash it. For starters, they say, the feds should strengthen and enforce existing rules against "interlocking directorates," which are supposed to prevent executives from sitting on the boards of their competitors. In the 2000s, the CEO of Google was on Apple's board! These days that kind of thing gives the feds a frowny face; in 2022, the Justice Department pushed seven directors representing venture firms to resign from the boards of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-says-seven-board-directors-resigned-under-antitrust-pressure-2022-10-19/">five of their direct competitors</a> in space, edtech, and green energy. Microsoft currently enjoys a seat on OpenAI's board of directors. Technically it's only an observer role, without a vote. But, come on.The primary goal of the scholars I spoke with is broader than any specific regulation: They just want to get government watchdogs to recognize the new and subtle ways that tech giants are shutting down competition and innovation. Sure, people are still founding tech companies, and their startups are still getting funded. But more and more, they're basically serving as farm teams for the majors. "The incumbents have gotten much more attuned to competitive pressures from nascent competitors, and address them more aggressively and earlier," Ederer says.Regulators, for their part, appear to be catching on. In late January, the Federal Trade Commission ordered three titans of tech — Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet — to open the books on their investments in artificial intelligence. OpenAI and Anthropic received the same letter: Send over <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/ftc-to-look-into-tech-giants-ai-partnerships-1033002313">every scrap of documentation</a> on the financial ties between them and the massive incumbents that are funding them. That's a promising start. If technology is going to do what it always has — solve big problems, build value, create jobs and opportunity — Silicon Valley needs as much competition as possible. "We used to have these cycles of competitive disruption," Lemley says. "Microsoft runs the world, and the internet comes up, and they missed it. IBM runs the world, and the Dells of the world come up, and they're no longer in charge. That's what we'd like to get back." Startups once unlocked a golden age of tech innovation. Perhaps, if we can find a way to keep them from being co-opted, they can do it again.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/adam-rogers">Adam Rogers</a> is a senior correspondent at Business Insider.

Silicon Valley used to reward innovation. Now it strives to sabotage it.

After a report claimed that edtech major <keyword id="6630114" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="unacademy" source="Orion">Unacademy</keyword> has laid off employees from its job hiring platform <keyword id="12215842" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="relevel" source="Orion">Relevel</keyword>, the company's Founder and CEO <keyword id="1727930" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="gaurav-munjal" source="Orion">Gaurav Munjal</keyword> said on Wednesday that there were no layoffs. "No layoffs. We have moved some team members to other Businesses of the Group though. Team worked really really hard to ensure that we find a role for everyone," <keyword id="6320" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="munjal" source="Orion">Munjal</keyword> tweeted. A user replied: "That's nice Gaurav. Nice to read this. Compassion towards employees and fitting them in other divisions". MoneyControl first reported that Relevel "halved its team to 700 employees" amid the economic meltdown. Relevel was launched in 2021 by <keyword id="3886063" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="shashank-murali" source="Orion">Shashank Murali</keyword>, Saksham Keshri and Prakash Kumar, on the back of strong traction witnessed in user growth, hiring company partnerships, and placement rate. Last year, Relevel raised $20 million from its parent edtech company Unacademy. In April, Unacademy laid off nearly 600 employees, contractual workers and educators, about 10 per cent of its 6,000-strong workforce across the group. As the funding winter hit edtech startups and unicorns in India, Unacademy founders and management took pay cuts. In an internal email last month, Munjal said that even though the company has more than Rs 2,800 crore in the bank, "we are not efficient at all". "We spend crores on travel for employees and educators. Sometimes it's needed, sometimes it's not. "There are a lot of unnecessary expenses that we do. We must cut all these expenses. We have a strong core business. We must turn profitable asap," the email read. "We will be shutting down certain businesses that have failed to find the product market fit (PMF) like the <keyword id="14425744" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="global-test-prep" source="Orion">Global Test Prep</keyword>," he told the employees. Unacademy last month said that a small fraction of its workforce (2.6 per cent) has been asked to go as part of a performance improvement programme (PIP). Nearly 150 employees (2.6 per cent) from Unacademy's PrepLadder team were laid off. SEE ALSO : <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/syrma-sgs-technology-ipo-last-day-to-subscribe-grey-market-premiums-at-25/articleshow/93625416.cms">Syrma SGS Technology IPO: Last day to subscribe, grey market premiums at ₹25</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/markets-to-open-slightly-lower-on-us-fed-signals-of-more-rates-hikes/articleshow/93628803.cms">Markets to open slightly lower on US Fed signals of more rates hikes</a>

You Searched For "edtech shut down" and got 11 results

BYJU's likely to shut down beleaguered coding platform WhiteHat Jr

IANS

Amazon to shut operations of its edtech Amazon Academy in India from Aug 2023, to give full refunds

IANS

Edtech startup 'Udayy' lays off all 100 employees as schools, and colleges physically reopen

IANS

More than 60% students are not attending schools — and merely a third of them are learning online

Prerna Sindwani

Ahead of Teacher's Day, LEAD turns the spotlight on the challenges faced by school owners in these testing times

BI India Partner

Media mogul turned education entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala says coronavirus might have ushered a new era of online learning

Prerna Sindwani

As Zoom classes take over during the pandemic, edtech companies provide a lifeline, but only for schools and parents willing to surrender their students' privacy

Tyler Sonnemaker

Franklin Templeton's shut funds receive ₹13,120 crore from maturities, pre-payments and coupons

IANS

Startup extinction season is going to kick into high gear — and there's likely going to be a bloodbath soon for some of the 50,000 VC-backed startups

Vishal Persaud

Silicon Valley used to reward innovation. Now it strives to sabotage it.

Adam Rogers

Unacademy founder Gaurav Munjal says its job hiring platform will see no layoffs

IANS

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides