👩‍🏫 Digital Skills Training in Africa + 3 Weeks to the Back to School Summit

Happy Monday 👋

This week, a number of new initiatives launched to upskill the African workforce and boost education with digital skills, particularly targeting youth. In Lagos, the Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative (KLCI) unveiled Skill2Rural.Org, aiming to train 1 million youth. In South Africa, Zoho announced a collaboration with BabesGotBytes and CodeTelligence to provide digital upskilling opportunities for young people. Meanwhile, the Liberian government introduced a program to provide digital skills training to 10,000 people. Additionally, PowerSchool, a leading education software provider in North America, announced its continued expansion of AI-powered education solutions in the Middle East and Africa. These efforts build on last week’s momentum, where Amazon’s AWS Skills Centre partnered with Cape Town for cloud learning, and Infinix teamed up with UNESCO, Google, and the University of Nairobi for AI and Robotics Education.

In line with these developments, HolonIQ’s annual list of the 50 most promising EdTech startups in sub-Saharan Africa highlights the region’s rapid growth and innovation in education technology, including a number of STEAM solutions supporting technology skills development.

⏰ 3 Weeks to Go. Register Now ‘Back to School’ Summit. NYC 10-11 September

The summit will include a main innovation track for institutions and companies powering the future of education, a special foundation track for philanthropic, foundation, and impact investors funding and advancing innovation in learning and teaching, and a boardroom track for special topic deep dives such as Generative AI, Labor Analytics, Green Jobs and Green Economy, Healthcare, Regulatory Updates and more.

Tickets will sell out in the coming weeks for the HolonIQ Back to School Summit in New York on September 10–11 in New York City. The Summit will bring together 500 influential leaders from Pre-K to Higher Education and Workforce, Philanthropic foundations, leading education companies and policymakers, major institutional investors, and technology leaders for roundtables, presentations, and networking. Register here before tickets sell out.

💪 Power Moves

💰 Fei-Fei Li's AI Startup World Labs Raises $100M at $1B+ Valuation. World Labs, an enterprise workforce AI startup founded by Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li, raised $100M in a round led by NEA, valuing the company at over $1B.

🤖 Nvidia Partners with California to Offer Free AI Training. Nvidia, a global GPU manufacturer, has announced a new partnership with the state of California to provide free AI training to 100,000 residents and give academic institutions better access to its hardware.

📚 PowerSchool Expands AI in Education Across Middle East and Africa. PowerSchool, a leading education software provider in North America, announced its continued expansion of AI-powered education solutions in the Middle East and Africa regions.

💰 Deals of the Week

💸 Roper Technologies, a diversified industry firm, is set to acquire Transact Campus, a payment solution provider for universities, for $1.6B.

💻 Grinds 360, an Irish K12 online learning platform, raised $3.5M in seed funding to support their platform launch in September 2024.

🎓 TEDU, a US-based academic support provider, raised $2M in seed funding to expand its operations and development efforts.

🤖 Synapse Analytics, an Eygptian AI training platform, raised $2M in a Series A funding round to increase its reach within GCC and Africa.

📚 IXL, a US-based K12 curriculum management firm, acquired Dellosa Education, a classroom furnishing and supplies provider. 

🎲 Yield Guild Games, a Web3 game developer, acquired 10XME, an AI education platform.

Thank you for reading. Have a great week ahead!
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