Class Futures: Education Alliance Finland CEO Olli Vallo on why certification is important for learning solutions, tips on how edtech companies can become brands and his digital learning predictions

Ollie Vallo is CEO of Education Alliance Finland (EAF), a company which specialises in evaluating and certifying learning solutions against different teaching methods and curricula around the world. EAF works globally and has customers from over 25 countries. With an MSc in Education and a PhD, he is an expert in the education technology sector. He used to work as a teacher before moving into edtech and has spoken at many international education events. Through the work of EAF he has had the opportunity to evaluate hundreds of education solutions globally and report on their pedagogical design and learning efficacy.

In this episode with Olli Vallo you will learn:

1. About Olli’s background and how he became CEO of EAF. Why his favourite subject was PE at school and how he got into teaching and then moved into edtech.

2. How and why certification is important for learning solutions, especially if you are an edtech company or an educational institution. How EAF evaluate the quality of edtech tools and what report is produced.

3. Why EAF is vital for edtech companies and how edtech companies can innovate and build their brand. There are over 300 products in the primary and secondary edcuation (K-12) sector.

4. Why there is room for innovation and how digital is replacing print media in the sector. Why there are also few success stories in the edtech space and how this will increase.

5. Tips on launching and growing a product for edtech companies. What companies need to do to simplify their marketing lanaguage and how to start with standard language.

6. His predications for the future and digital learning. These include changes taking place slower than expected and the role of artificial intelligence (AI). He explains why AI will jump ahead compared to other areas of education technology and the impact of AI on the learning processes. Finally he predicts the trend towards more personalised and adaptive learning.

7. The 5 minute Analysis: Tune to 27 minutes 08 seconds for a round-up and analysis of my conversation with Olli.