NZ EdTech’s taking a diversified and leading message to the Australian digital education market

 WHO: Who is your target audience or audiences? Who will care about your story and why?  

The whole of Aotearoa NZ’s education sector should care as digital transformation in education is here and happening in significant and transformative ways around the world including in the Australian education ecosystem to build a nation of digitally enabled and capable citizens to meet the future skills demanded head on.  

Background

Australia accounts for approximately 24% of all NZ EdTech exports. As our closest trading partner, Australia is both a test market and a gateway market for the rest of the world for NZ EdTech products and services. 

Why we did this and what it achieved.

In 2022, an NZTE and ENZ collaboration saw NZTE host six NZ EdTech Focused Customers on an NZTE pavilion at EduTech Melbourne with ENZ bring a delegation of ‘other’ NZ EdTech’s who were not customers of NZTE, but interest in exploring the

Australian market. EduTech Melbourne Conference and Expo brings together some 10,000 attendees from across the Australian education sector and offers concurrent 10 conference tracks including : Higher Education, Vocational Education, Schools leaders, school teachers, School ICT Management, Work place learning, Digital Tech, Curriculum break out session, partnerships. The goal: discuss, debate and evaluate the future of education.

The goal for ENZ in participating was to:

• provide signposts and opportunities for a wider EdTech community to explore and understand the export opportunity in Australia in a low risk, low-cost way.
• provide a collective and collegial environment to allow EdTech’s to learn from and support each other.
• provide access to an addressable, pilot and gateway market, close to NZ.
• create collective visibility and amplify the voice of where NZ is leading in developing diversified, transformative education experiences, outcomes and tools by NZ EdTech’s and our education sector.
• explore how NZTE and ENZ could collectively support the NZ EdTech community for export.
• support NZTE bring additional NZ EdTech’s into their customer base funnel.

Based on the success of the NZTE and ENZ collaboration in 2022, which brought together 18 NZ EdTech, NZTE and ENZ saw value for NZ and the Edtech community by collaborating  again at EduTech Melbourne 2023.

Feedback from ENZ’s 2022 delegation on the value of attending EduTech in 2022, was overwhelmingly positive. The collaboration between NZ Govt agencies NZTE/ENZ, and being under a Govt banner was viewed as most significant.

EduTech Melbourne 2023

NZTE again provided a pavilion to host 6 of their focused customers EdTech’s and ENZ also took a stand on the pavilion to host 6 other ‘non’ NZTE EdTech customers. Having an ENZ stand on the pavilion give ENZ’s delegation a profile and some visibility during the expo which included: time on ENZ’s stand to promote their product, a presentation shot to pitch their product, the opportunity to engaged with expo attendees (teachers, partners, decision makers) and visibility of their collateral over the two days.

Companies included in the ENZ delegation:  Pacific Kids’ Learning  Nutriblocks ,  PipiLearning, Jix Reality, PolyMath and MoneyTime, a diverse group of technology providers from K-12 to VET and HE providing digital education solutions in numeracy, literacy, financial literacy, STEM, programmes for neuro diverse learners, Pacific based and culturally responsive digital tools, immersive digital education experiences and health and wellbeing educational games.

Code Avengers  who host code camps for ENZ across NZ and Asia  and Student Volunteer Army  were also included as part of the wider ENZ delegation looking to further explore and expand in Australia.

ENZ also sponsored the NZTE networking dinner for the combined 13 EdTech businesses with invited guests from the Department of Education & Training, Victoria, Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals, NSW Department of Education, Matterworks/Board Director and the NSW Department of Education who set the scene for the education technlogy landscape in NSW and Victoria and the journey both states are on in digital adapting and adopting specifically in K-12.

ENZ also wanted to pilot giving broader visibility of NZ’s expertise in digital education and secured two speaker sessions for the EduTech Vocational Education and Training (VET) conference stream. 

Norie Ape Digital Product Manager for Te Pūkenga presented on the topic, Collaborative Innovation: Transforming Vocational Education through Technology and Work Based Learning.

(An aside: Norie was selected as the non-governmental delegate to join the official NZ Government delegation to the sixty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) from 6 – 17 March 2023 held at the UN in New York. You can read more about this on the Ministry of Women website see here. )

Elizabeth Asbury Director of Pipi Learning  and ENZ  EdTech delegate, also spoke at the VET conference stream on Cultural responsive and designed for neurodiversity in the Vocational Education and Training sector.

All 6 NZ EdTech’s who participated on the ENZ stand under the NZTE pavilion generated prospective customer and partner leads (80 overall).  All meet with decisions makers, education Govt officials, explored opportunities to partner with other NZ EdTech’s and refined their thinking and business planning on the opportunities presented by the Australian market. All referencing the value of being ‘in market.’

‘I hope you know how much we appreciate your (ENZ and NZTE) dedicated efforts in making the connections and insights needed to help our team prepare for the Australian market” Evo Leota-Tupou Pacific Kids’ Learning

‘What an amazing trip! So fortunate to be able to promote Nutriblocks’ nutrition education video game for kids Nutri-islands at EduTECH Australia the past week! Met schoolteachers, principals, and other amazing #edtech companies. Being there and talking to the people, we gained insights about the Australian market. ……Next up to do lots of follow-ups!’

Claudia Leong NutriBlocks

‘Two days of connecting, learning & collaboration in person with awesome humans using Tech 4 Good at EduTECH Australia in Melbourne.  What a privilege to spend time together connecting on our shared passion for better outcomes for our learners, employers and our colleagues. Time to recover and setup all those post conference connections to further the new relationships forged and consider how to embed new ways of collaboration in Aotearoa and beyond.’’

Norie Ape, Digital Product Manager Te Pūkenga

Takeaways from EduTech Melbourne 2023:

1. Nothing bets being on the ground in market, to understand the needs of educators and the opportunity that exists,

2. There is power in the collective ‘we’ when NZ turns up on mass in market,

3. Collaboration and deep relationships with other NZInc agencies to support the sector and provide one door to Govt truly puts the customer at the centre.4. Australian education ecosystem is embracing all that technology offers without throwing learners or indeed educators to the kerb. We could learn more from our Australian education colleagues and how they are using digital to create competitive advantage that supports their international education success alongside building their domestic market citizens ‘fit for future’ capability.