Podcast Discussion of Engageli, the Latest Video-Based Learning Platform

Author

Phil Hill
October 23, 2020

Late last month Jeanette Wiseman and I recorded a MindWires Musings podcast episode discussing Class for Zoom, a new education-specific product that sits on top of Zoom, from a co-founder of Blackboard. We shared that episode in public 1 given the importance of what could be a new, or extended product category.

Two weeks later there was another highly-funded company announcement, this time for Engageli. A product also designed for education, but in this case meant to replace Zoom. As described by Inside Higher Ed:

Ed-tech innovators and investors haven’t missed faculty members’ widespread frustration with current videoconferencing tools’ limitations — frustration that’s only grown as the global pandemic drags on and many classes continue to be delivered online or in hybrid formats.

Start-up company Engageli announced today that it has raised $14.5 million in seed funding to develop a new platform for remote instruction. It’s an impressive sum for a company that is just a few months old.

Unlike popular videoconferencing tools such as Zoom, the Engageli platform will be built from scratch specifically for higher education use. It will “seamlessly integrate hybrid, synchronous and asynchronous online instruction all in one platform,” said Dan Avida, CEO of Engageli.

Avida’s wife, Daphne Koller, is one of the co-founders of online learning platform Coursera. The couple were inspired to build Engageli after witnessing their daughters’ transition to remote learning in March due to COVID-19.

Additional coverage was provided by EdSurge and TechCrunch. I think that all three articles are worth reading to get a strong overview of the announcement.

Update 10/24: I highly recommend reading Michael Feldstein’s coverage.

Rather than repeat the overview from these articles, we are providing more of a discussion of the new company and product, and of what appears to be very important shifts in an EdTech product category that will have long-term implications beyond the current emergency remote teaching situation of 2020.

Podcast episode discussing Engageli

You can access the podcast episode at this link or by clicking the image above. That episode page has a full transcript available.

You can also listen to the episode by using the player below.

1 Normally MindWires Musings episodes are meant for our EdTech Market Analysis subscribers.