7 Australian startups in the Education space that intend to revolutionise the learning experience

The Education game is changing rapidly. People love learning about what they are passionate about; and on the flip side, people love teaching what they are passionate about. In particular online learning has matured as an industry, and is currently valued at $35 billion. More and more students – as well as people looking to diversify their skill sets – are finding new ways to educate themselves online. The space is becoming an area where both founders and investors are flocking to. In June this year, Australia even held it's first EduHack, that bought together representatives from the business, education and technology communities, and encouraged them to share ideas and team up to create innovative solutions that tackle real education challenges in Australia. Some of our Australian grown EduTech startups are now beginning to look globally at how they expand their companies into the United States and Asia. Some are focused within a particular niche, others have a braoder approach to the educational material. Here are 7 startups in the education space looking to change the learning experience for their customers.   1. Photzy Originally founders Rob Wood and Brett Fox launched Photzy as a deals site for photography buffs. As the daily deal culture died out in Australia, the pair decided to pivot their business based on what they learnt from the data around the types of deals that were popular and selling well during the early days of operation. Photzy soon became a member site that photographers of all levels could come and learn by way of courses, guides, tutorials, videos etc. The educational content is updated each week on the site. 2. Smart Sparrow There are about a dozen companies worldwide providing adaptive eLearning solutions – one being a Sydney-based startup Smart Sparrow. The startup has rapidly climbed up the EdTech ranks since launching in 2011. In fact, Smart Sparrow’s adaptive eLearning platform is being used as far from home as Arizona State University; and is currently in the process of expanding into the US markets with the help of a recent capital injection of $10 million.   3. Fun Academy Australian software development company, 2and2, which specialises in educational games, has taken on the ambitious task to disrupt China’s education system through its newest offering, Fun Academy – a social mobile platform with a suite of learning games. The idea for Fun Academy spawned from the frustration that Leon Young, 2and2’s Managing Director, witnessed when he visited China. Shortly before that, the company noticed a pattern where certain types of game mechanics were very effective for any type of memorisation, categorisation and rote-styles of learning. This got Young thinking about the potential to create a mobile social platform, where users could play games to master any subject matter that involved these types of learning.   4. OpenLearning A recent Muru-D graduate, this learning platform is based around the principles of student autonomy, diversity of learning materials, openness of resources and social interactivity. OpenLearning’s key point-of-difference is that it has a student-centred view of learning while other learning platforms – like Blackboard, Moodle and Coursera – focus more on the management and administration of education. The business is licensed on a software-as-a-service model similar to GitHub.   5. Nexus Notes Nexus Notes was originally launched in Adelaide in 2011 by a team of four graduating university students. Three left the business, but Richard Hordern-Gibbings stayed. In 2012, along came Hugh Minson as Co-Founder and CEO, and Xavier Collins as Community Manager. For the uninitiated, Nexus Notes works as follows: Note-takers simply drag their typed notes from their hard drive onto the site. The team at Nexus Notes then vets the notes – assessing not only its quality, but also the academic achievements of the student. A pass or credit student probably won’t get approved to sell their notes. And for the sake of academic honesty, assignments aren’t allowed to be sold either.   6. ChattyKidz A Sydney-based startup (and another recent Muru-D graduate) bringing families closer together in a new way. To the untrained eye, the application may just look like a Skype hybrid, but when you look past the fact that you are having a conversation via webcam with another party, you see the platform in a totally different light – it becomes a cutting edge entertaining education platform for young children. The platform is very simple and easy to use and right now the team are working on building the content – that will be available via the application. There will be a mix of books that children are sent home to read as part of the country’s education curriculum; and Taggart says they will be looking into adding many of our childhood favourites to build out an entertaining library and get kids engaged with reading from a young age.   7. MELT (Couples Massage Courses) An idea popped into the minds of relationships expert Emma Merkas and her husband Denis, a remedial massage therapist with 13 years of experience. The idea was pretty simple: teach couples how to massage each other sensually in the privacy of their own homes. They’ve managed to hack the massage industry and turn what is traditionally a service-based business into a product with a tech twist, and it’s working for them on a global scale. In March this year, they officially launched the digital version of their venture Melt: Massage for Couples, which combines cinematography with expert instructions to teach couples how to massage. Customers receive instant lifetime access to the tutorials and can stream the videos directly to their smart TV, laptop, tablet or smartphone. MELT runs on a subscription model, and now has a growing customer base globally.