I’m heading out to Slovenia today to the Smart / Steljes launch in the Adriatic’s, thanks to my friends at Steljes we are piggy backing on their growth into this territory.

UniServity have been looking at Eastern Europe for some time.  They seem to experiencing the same growth and appetite to education technology investment that the UK enjoyed some ten years back.  Most of it is derived from European Union investment but there is a big appetite to invest at a national government level.

Its giving us a real test to see how Learning platforms are seen in today’s climate and we are getting some interesting feedback which helps understand how we should target new markets.  My findings so far see a tie up with mobile devices and the ability to distribute content, learning activities and tasks to students on mobile / tablet devices. Lots of money is being made available for shiny new devices to replace books but there is also recognition that books cannot be one way any more, they need to be more interactive and community focussed in their new digital format.  Its virgin territory heading east, however the learnings are helping for our emerging market offering and also to test some of our vision before rolling out mainstream back in the UK.

Tablets and digital content are definitely driving growth as they offer the means for digital text books.  Learning platforms are certainly heading to become the infrastructure behind this new world but only if learning platform company’s continue to invest in R&D.  Guess what we are working on behind the scenes.