One of the main highlights of the summit other than the guest speakers was the "Top 30 China Education Innovation Enterpises" list released by iyiou.com
ZHANG Fan (张帆) , vice president of EO company and co-founder of EqualOcean – the sister publication of iyiou.com – released the list of "Top 30 China Education innovation enterprises" compiled by iyou.com on May 15, 2019 at the Grand Millennium Beijing Hotel.
The summit was held under the auspices of iyiou.com with the theme of "GIIS2019 China Education Industry Innovation Summit." It saw an attendance of 1,000 and consisted of 16 keynote speeches and 2 roundtable forums.
Based on the theme of "New Innovation," the summit features the agenda to analyze future trends and seeks to better integrate/align the aspects of policy, idea, science, technology and capital in education industry.
Members from representative companies, investors, scholars and officials working in fields including K12, STEAM education, early childhood education and vocational training were present among the attendees. They shared their experience, thoughts and suggestions regarding the industry.
In light of the market situation, the list highlighted six major trends in early childhood education, STEAM education, K12, foreign language training, vocational training and education service provision.
The list also selected five innovative and representative companies for each of the six trends. They are as follows:
EO Education evaluated enterprises on the following five dimensions:
• New developments in the past year, innovations in technology, product iteration, business model development and so on.
• Growth rate in all dimensions (from the time of its establishment until now), such as the number of employees, user growth rate, performance growth rate, revenue growth and so on.
• Brand influence in the form of Baidu search index, WeChat search index and other media dimensions for grading.
• Number of financing rounds. Basically Series A round of financing and above plus the amount of financing, and investors.
• Founders' backgrounds. Recognized by the industry, with ability to lead industry development, professional background (Internet+Education), educational background and so on
Importance of the five dimensions mentioned above is indicated by percentage: 35% for new developments, 30% for growth rate, 20% for brand influence, 10% for financing and 5% for the founders' backgrounds. Iyiou.com has compiled this list over the course of two months by taking into account organization applications, multi-dimensional examinations, expert ratings and assessments and various other criteria..
It was decided at the summit that innovation can drive the development of the industry, from "Internet+ Education" to "AI+ Education." Technology innovation is constantly challenging the traditional teaching methods, promoting more even distribution of educational resources and improving the personalization of education resources. Through innovation can we continue to identify and solve educational problems, promote positive development of education and help education keep up with the pace of social changes in the world.
Whenever new technologies leave their mark on the industry, we can see that most leading education institutions and investors would pounce at the opportunity. This shows educational enterprises' thirst, said Fred Zhang.
He added that the change that technology brings to education is only one aspect of educational innovation.
Innovation is one of the core competencies of educational institutions of this era. It is not a chase of some quick bucks, but a bet on the future, namely, on the next decade.
China’s education industry has long been a favorite for capital investment. Companies with viable business models, stable cash flows and strong margins generated by tech-powered, high valued-added new products have turned the industry into a magnet for the capital market.
Since 2014, education companies have been on the receiving end of investments to the tune of hundreds of billions. As far as the number of deals is concerned, STEAM education, vocational education and early childhood education were the top three recipients of funding in the first six months of 2018.