The Ministry of SMEs and Startups successfully launched this year’s biggest startup festival in South Korea, the COMEUP 2020, from November 19-21. The three-day event aims to connect startups and business ventures under the theme “Meet the Future – Post Pandemic.”
The last day of the event featured the future of industries such as entertainment, especially K-Pop, online education, e-commerce, and retail (offline) post-COVID-19 era.
Online Education: The Post-COVID Future
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly changed how people interact with each other, especially with measures such as lockdowns and social distancing. This created an environment where holding classes and other social activities difficult for many people. However, the crisis led to the realization of technology’s importance in education, such as online learning, virtual classes, and homeschooling.
The third day welcomed Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer of e-learning platform Coursera, to present online education in the post-COVID era. Betty discussed how South Korea incorporated e-learning into its education system and how companies and startups could build and benefit from such platforms.
The online education landscape in South Korea, like every country, must adapt to the unprecedented challenges presented by the fourth industrial revolution, digitization.
She said that government support for initiatives such as K-MOOCS and online degree programs would create strong online education opportunities to help solve some of higher education’s biggest challenges post-COVID.
Bridging the Learning and Education Gap
The pandemic forced learners and educators worldwide to go online to continue their activities, creating a high demand for online learning such as Coursera.
As the pandemic affected most universities worldwide, Coursera, along with its partners, rushed into support. The Coursera campus response initiative helped universities go online quickly amid widespread campus shutdowns. In March, Coursera began offering any college or university impacted by COVID-19 free access to its course catalog.
Since the launch of Coursera for Campus, over 3700 campuses with 2.6 million students and 22 million course enrollments embraced the initiative.
The platform also supports various programs intended for the workforce, companies, governments, and other institutions outside of schools. Coursera has a broad catalog of online courses and credentials spanning 11 domains, including business, technology, data science, health, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Since the urgency of COVID has settled down, the company introduced “Coursera for Campus Basic.” The program provides a long-term free solution for universities and colleges, accelerating digital transformation during and post-pandemic.
Betty concluded her presentation by giving insights into the future of higher education, which included blended classrooms, job-relevant education, online courses and credentials, lifelong learning at work, pressure on tuition, and modular and stackable education.
Panel Discussion: The True Role of EdTech Startups in the Post COVID-19 Era
Young Jun Jang, co-founder and CEO of AI-based edtech startup Riiid, led a panel discussion on the role of education technology (EdTech) startups on the future of education post-COVID-19 era. The panel included startup founders, including Sooinn Lee (co-founder and CEO of Enuma), Seo Jung Chang (CEO of Jaranda), and Dave Cho (CEO of Classting).
The participants shared their insights and experiences of starting their companies and how the pandemic influenced their business. The videoconference also talked about how education could move forward in the post-pandemic era to solve the difficulties brought by the education gap.
Panel Discussion: The Upcoming of a Lifelong Learning Era
Following the topic of online education, Nari Lee headed the panel discussion on how the education industry changed during the pandemic and how it would change after. Nari Lee served as a newspaper critic, editorial writer for the JoongAng Daily, head of the D-Camp Center for the Bankers Youth Startup Foundation, and executive secretary of Cheil Worldwide.
The panelists included co-founder & CEO of EdTech company Codeit Yoon Soo Lee, CEO, and founder of the on-demand running platform Turing Kim Mi-hee, CEO of Fast Campus Kang Min Lee, and CEO of Hunet young Tak Cho.
The panel chatted about the future and advantages of integrating e-learning into the education environment. The leaders also said that online learning would become more interactive with the advancement of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.
Check out other must-read articles from KoreaTechToday:
- COMEUP 2020 Day 2: Remote Work: The Great Reset after COVID-19
- COMEUP 2020 Day 2: Manufacturing: Digitalization, a Strategy for Industry Transformation
- LUXROBO Targets Global AI Edtech market with “hello AI,” “Smart AI”
- Edtech Robotics Firm Probo Expands Probo Connect Curriculum in China and South East Asia
