Searching for Unicorns: Understanding EdTech Startups As New Actors in the Field of (Digital) Education

Veranstaltungsreihe des Zentrums Bildung und Digitaler Wandel der PH

Mathias Decuypere (KU Leuven): This paper aims to gain an empirical understanding of recent developments in the edtech startup sector. It conducted a team ethnography in a trade fair exclusively focused on edtech startups. What makes the edtech startup sector distinguishable from the general edtech sector, and how does it extract value from the educational sector?  The study analyses the discursive construction of value through stories, rhetorical constructs (e.g., ‘unicorns’; ‘ecosystems), and sociomaterial artefacts present in the trade fair. The preliminary results indicate different areas of value creation. First, even though the edtech startup sector strives for global reach, we discern a very localized ‘geography of tech production’, in which the hosting city of the fair extracts value for the city itself as ‘innovation complex’. Second, venture capital is made central in the education sector, by projecting future value into the present. Third, ‘meta-organizations’ create value for the edtech startup sector by adopting intermediary positions between startup corporations and schools. Fourth, the fair itself creates expert knowledge for startups, for instance on the specificity of the educational sector.

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