EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
PRnewswire | April 06, 2023
Learneo, Inc., an ambitious new platform of productivity and learning businesses and technologies, today announced its acquisition of German-founded LanguageTool, a multilingual writing platform for English, Spanish, and 30 other languages. This acquisition adds to Learneo's robust suite of writing solutions, while also advancing the company's larger international expansion strategy.
"We are committed to supporting builder-driven businesses that help people learn and do more, faster, better, and more affordably—wherever learning occurs," said Andrew Grauer, CEO of Learneo. "The LanguageTool business fits squarely in our investment thesis and accelerates our mission thanks to their values-aligned and ambitious co-founders, their broad customer reach of B2C and B2B clients across the globe, and their unique language and AI expertise."
Globally, most people communicate in more than one language today. Employers are increasingly expecting their employees to engage with colleagues, partners, and customers in multiple languages. In the U.S., for example, 9 out of 10 U.S. employers have reported that they rely on U.S.-based employees with language skills other than English.
Born out of an interest in helping professionals communicate in an increasingly global world, Daniel Naber started LanguageTool as a part of his diploma thesis while studying computational linguistics in 2003. Naber spent many years building LanguageTool in his free time, initially as an open-source project and later as a business when he joined forces with Christopher Blum. Blum had previously founded the spell checking platform, Spellboy, and the two decided to collaborate and unify their experience by co-founding LanguageTool as a business. Today, LanguageTool boasts over 60,000 paying subscribers, including professionals and enterprise clients, and millions more free users across Europe and Latin America.
"Having built LanguageTool over the course of the last 20 years, it has been exciting for us to find a partner so clearly aligned with our mission who also understands our advanced technology and can support our continued innovation in a moment of rapid technological evolution," said Naber. "Joining the Learneo team and having the ability to work alongside talent with phenomenal writing and AI expertise to accelerate our vision is a dream come true. We are deeply motivated by the possibilities that lie ahead!"
With this acquisition, Learneo now comprises seven distinct business lines: CliffsNotes, Course Hero, LanguageTool, LitCharts, QuillBot, Scribbr, and Symbolab. Individually, and together, Learneo's platform of businesses is pioneering advances in a wide range of applications for emergent technologies, including the use of AI to improve people's written communications, reading, and math skills, whether they are in school, a professional work environment, or simply navigating everyday life. Most recently, QuillBot announced the addition of an AI-augmented translator to its platform, allowing users to translate complex texts and better understand the nuances of sentence structure, word choice, and verb conjugation.
"In an ever-more-globalized, asynchronous work environment, accessible multilingual expertise for written communication is in high demand," said Rohan Gupta, CEO of QuillBot and head of Learneo's writing vertical. "Daniel, Christopher and the LanguageTool team have built something truly unique, and I am excited for us to build together, to evolve each of our product lines across Learneo's writing vertical, and to advance the international writing industry at large."
About Learneo
Learneo is pioneering a platform of productivity and learning businesses. The platform of businesses includes CliffsNotes, the original and iconic study guide company; Course Hero, an online learning platform of academic resources; LitCharts, a creator of literature resources; QuillBot, an AI-powered writing companion; Scribbr, a multilingual academic proofreading service, and Symbolab, an AI-based mathematics resource.
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ONLINE EDUCATION
Businesswire | May 26, 2023
PowerSchool the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America, today announced a partnership with EDU Inc. and PowerSchool Naviance. This exclusive partnership will connect students using Naviance with the Common Black College Application, better enabling students to apply to many Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) at once starting with the 2023-2024 school year.
The comprehensive college, career, and life readiness solutions available in Naviance are used by millions of students. Naviance college research tools utilize over ninety search criteria to help students find institutions that are the right fit for their aspirations and needs. As part of their exploration process in Naviance, students view college profiles over 25 million times each year.
“Our data over the last few years has shown a clear increase in students looking for HBCUs,” said Amy Reitz, Group Vice President of Product at PowerSchool. “A key part of the Naviance philosophy is ensuring each student is empowered to find their best fit, and we value the tremendous role HBCUs play in our country’s higher education landscape. We are excited to partner with the Common Black College Application to benefit students, school counselors, and colleges.”
The Common Black College Application is a network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities committed to supporting equity and access for students. Students apply to all member institutions with one application fee, reducing friction in the application process.
“The partnership between Naviance and the Common Black College Application will have a profound impact in the lives of millions of students, interested in attending HBCUs, in the coming years,” said Robert Mason, Founder of EDU, Inc. “Equally as important, our work with Naviance will aid HBCUs in the achievement of their enrollment objectives. The partnership between Naviance and the CBCA represents the very essence of educational access and equality – goals that so many others seek to achieve and fall woefully short.”
Starting in the fall, Naviance will identify colleges that are members of the Common Black College Application on their Naviance college profiles. PowerSchool and EDU, Inc. will also work together to integrate the Common Black College Application with Naviance eDocs for the following year, making it easy for counselors to submit supporting documentation for student applications.
About PowerSchool
PowerSchool is the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America. Its mission is to power the education ecosystem with unified technology that helps educators and students realize their full potential, in their way. PowerSchool connects students, teachers, administrators, and parents, with the shared goal of improving student outcomes. From the office to the classroom to the home, it helps schools and districts efficiently manage state reporting and related compliance, special education, finance, human resources, talent, registration, attendance, funding, learning, instruction, grading, assessments and analytics in one unified platform. PowerSchool supports over 50 million students globally and more than 15,000 customers, including more than 90 of the top 100 districts by student enrollment in the United States, and sells solutions in more than 90 countries.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
PRnewswire | May 02, 2023
edX, a leading global online learning platform from 2U, Inc., today announced a new partnership with global data and AI leader Databricks to launch a Large Language Models (LLMs) Professional Certificate program, the first of its kind on edX.org. This program is designed to equip developers, data scientists, and engineers with the applied knowledge and skills needed to understand the foundational technology behind recent advancements in artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Databricks' Dolly. Through dynamic lectures, demos, and hands-on labs taught by industry leaders and renowned researchers—such as Matei Zaharia, co-founder and chief technologist at Databricks and computer science professor at Stanford University—students will learn how to develop and productionize LLM applications.
Comprising two courses, LLMs: Application through Production and LLMs: Foundation Models from the Ground Up, this Professional Certificate program provides a comprehensive overview of the latest frameworks, techniques, and foundation models used in the field of LLMs. By the end of the program, learners will have built their own end-to-end LLM workflows that are ready for production. These courses add to edX's catalog of more than 4,200 online learning experiences developed in partnership with the world's top universities and corporations, from free courses to full degrees.
"With the recent advancements in generative AI, there is an urgency for organizations to leverage LLMs in their own products and applications. This has led to an increased demand for professionals with necessary knowledge and skills related to language models," said Patrick Wendell, co-founder and VP of engineering at Databricks. "Our LLM-focused program taught by leading experts on the edX platform is an important step in meeting that demand while broadening access to the critical skills that professionals need to thrive in a rapidly changing environment."
According to Esmi Burning Glass, the number of U.S. job postings requiring AI skills will increase nearly 300% between 2022 and 2024, and a survey by Gartner found that over 50% of corporate leaders see AI as a priority to help them stay ahead of competitors. The new LLM Professional Certificate program from Databricks on edX will enable professionals around the world to build and productionize innovative solutions to natural language processing problems and help elevate their careers.
"The demand for professionals skilled in machine learning and AI will continue to grow as automation technology continues to advance at breakneck speed," said Andrew Hermalyn, president of partnerships at 2U, the parent company of edX. "edX is thrilled to partner with Databricks to help address the current market gap by equipping more learners around the world with the necessary skills to succeed in this fast-growing field."
Professional Certificate programs on edX are designed to build and enhance critical professional skills needed to succeed in today's most in-demand fields. Learners who complete the Databricks LLM Professional Certificate program will earn a program certificate that showcases their knowledge and skills, which they can include on their resumes.
The program is open for enrollment now for courses set to begin in Summer 2023. The Databricks LLM Professional Certificate program is free to try for all learners. Like edX, Databricks is committed to expanding access to education, especially in the highly relevant, in-demand field of AI.
About edX
edX is the global online learning platform that exists to help learners everywhere unlock their potential. edX was founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 to make the world's best education available to everyone. Today, as a 2U, Inc. company (Nasdaq: TWOU), edX connects 76 million people worldwide with the skills, knowledge, and support to achieve their goals. Together with the world's leading universities and companies, edX offers thousands of free and open courses, professional certificates, boot camps, credit-bearing micro credentials, and undergraduate and graduate degrees.
About Databricks
Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 9,000 organizations worldwide—including Comcast, Condé Nast, and over 50% of the Fortune 500—rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics, and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco with offices around the globe. Founded by the original creators of Apache Spark™, Delta Lake, and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world's toughest problems.
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