SIIA held its 10th Annual Ed Tech Industry Summit last week, themed “Navigating Next,” in San Francisco. Attended by more than 350 educational technology leaders, the Summit featured strategies, cases studies, and success stories about best business practices on topics including game-based learning, going global and mobile, market data and trends, OER and commercial publishers, leveraging social media, and more.

Conference activities, which launched Sunday, May 5, with speed networking, concluded Tuesday, May 7, with a closing reception and happy hour with attendees of the Ed Market 101, a new event co-located with the Summit, and whose attendees include education industry start-ups.

Included below are key highlights from the Summit:

• The Opening Keynote was moderated by Elizabeth (Betsy) Corcoran, Chief Executive Officer, EdSurge, with a panel composed of John Backus, managing partner at New Atlantic Ventures; Kevin Custer, founding partner at Arc Capital Development; Anita Givens, associate commissioner at Texas Education Agency; and Diana Rhoten, CSO at Amlify. See the full list of speakers and their bios.
• On Monday, May 8, SIIA announced the winners of the 2013 CODiE Awards in education technology during an awards reception and dinner. Overall, 28 winners were recognized for their products and services deployed specifically for the education technology market. View the full list of winners.
• On Tuesday, May 8, SIIA recognized four education technology solutions with five key awards for their originality, innovation, and industry promise during a special luncheon. During SIIA’s bi-annual Innovation Incubator Program, simCEO and See.Touch.Learn. were voted by 350 attendees as being the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeed, respectively. Citelighter was voted runner-up for Most Innovative, and scrible was voted runner-up for Most Likely to Succeed. Citelighter also earned the Educator’s Choice Award based on votes from educators across the country. Learn more about all of the Innovators.
• On Tuesday, SIIA also honored two education technology industry veterans with its Lifetime Achievement and Ed Tech Impact Awards at the awards ceremony and luncheon. SIIA honored Dr. Dustin (Dusty) Hull Heuston, chairman of the Waterford Institute, with its prestigious Education Lifetime Achievement Award. SIIA also presented its Ed Tech Impact Award to Lillian Kellogg, vice president of client services for Education Networks of America (ENA). Learn more about the awards winners.

In addition, SIIA launched its inaugural Ed Market 101, a separate event held Tuesday, May 7, in conjunction with the Ed Tech Industry Summit. Attendees included education industry start-ups. The Pearson Foundation and Whitestone Communications were lead sponsors for the daylong event, which featured sessions that will help startups learn more about their customers: who they really are, how to reach them and what it takes to “sell” to them.

For complete Ed Tech Industry Summit, please visit http://www.siia.net/etis.

Upcoming annual SIIA Education events include:

• Ed Tech Business Forum 2013, December 10-11, McGraw-Hill Conference Center, New York City
• Ed Tech Industry Summit 2014, May 12-14, The Palace Hotel, San Francisco

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

This week SIIA recognized four education technology solutions with five key awards for their originality, innovation, and industry promise.
During SIIA’s bi-annual Innovation Incubator Program, held in connection with this week’s SIIA Ed Tech Industry Summit, simCEO and See.Touch.Learn. were voted by 350 attendees as being the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeed, respectively. Citelighter was voted runner-up for Most Innovative, and scrible was voted runner-up for Most Likely to Succeed. Citelighter also earned the Educator’s Choice Award based on votes from educators across the country.

The Innovation Incubator Program supports innovation in the education technology industry by raising the profile of promising new technologies while connecting these innovators with captains of industry for mentorship, expert advice, investment opportunities, and partnerships to support growth.

Applicants were assessed for the Innovation Incubator Program on a broad range of criteria, including the education focus, end-user impact, market need for the innovation, representation of K-12/postsecondary market levels, and the level of originality and innovation. Ten finalists were selected for the program

More about the winners:

Most Innovative:
simCEO, Jetlag Learning
simCEO creates online learning simulations where students compete and interact with one another – instead of a program – to make the environment and the learning more dynamic. Students apply skills in real-world environments without right/wrong answers. Our first solution, simCEO targets entrepreneurship and financial literacy where students create their own company then buy/sell shares in each other’s companies. Teachers keep the simulation dynamic through news articles.

Educator’s Choice and Most Innovative Runner-Up:
Citelighter, Citelighter Inc
Citelighter is an academic research platform that allows students to save, organize, and automatically cite content. Once completed they can open Citelighter in a Google doc to have their research next to their writing. As students undergo a critical thinking process (research, organizing, writing) we capture their behaviors and present it back to their teachers so they can see how and where their students need help. This appears like strands of DNA, but they are strands of thought.

Most Likely to Succeed:
See.Touch.Learn., Brain Parade, LLC
See.Touch.Learn., an iPad visual learning & assessment system, improves the social interaction & communication skills of special needs students. Parents & teachers are turning away from traditional, static picture cards towards See.Touch.Learn.’s easy-to-use & effective personalized picture card learning tool. With stunning images, a community of content created by thousands of users, plus their own personal content, teachers & parents can deliver highly personalized instruction & assessments.

Most Likely to Succeed Runner-Up:
scrible, scrible
scrible makes online reading and research apps for students/instructors and publishers. Our Web app lets you annotate webpages in your browser and then save, share and manage them in the cloud. Our Student Edition adds academic features (citations, reports, etc.). Instructors use scrible for collaborative e-reading exercises. Our Classroom Edition will empower them to teach critical reading skills using online reading/research assignments. Our annotation tools help publishers make content interactive.

The other Innovation Incubator finalists were:

• Globaloria, World Wide Workshop
• mAuthor, Learnetic S.A.
• Naiku, Naiku, Inc.
• ParentSquare, ParentSquare
• Shmoop, Shmoop University, Inc.
• zondle, zondle

Video of all the Incubator presentations will be available soon. For more information about the Innovation Incubator Program, visit http://www.siia.net/etis/2013/incubator.asp.

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation

SIIA is happy to announce its inaugural Ed Market 101, held Tuesday, May 7, adjacent to the Ed Tech Industry Summit at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The Pearson Foundation and Whitestone Communications are lead sponsors for the daylong event, which features sessions that will help startups learn more about their customers: who they really are, how to reach them and what it takes to “sell” to them.

Through Ed Market 101, startups that are new to the industry can explore opportunities the market presents while connecting and collaborating with some of the education market’s leading thinkers. The event is designed to support and nurture the burgeoning contingent of startups in the education space.

In addition to networking activities, sessions at the first-ever Ed Market 101 include:

• How Do You Know if Your Product is Ready for the School Market?
• Who Are Your Customers? What Does Your Customer Base Really Look Like?
• Strategies to Reach Your Customers
• Tips On Getting the Investment Dollars
• Ins and Outs of Building Your Pricing Structure
• One-to-One Business Connections Meetings
• Presidents Panel

Ed Market 101 is co-located with the Ed Tech Industry Summit, which will focus on preparing conference attendees to build the infrastructure, products and services to support the changes that schools want or need in a post-PC world. For more information about Ed Market 101, and to register, visit http://www.siia.net/events/event/default.asp?eID=112. For information about the Ed Tech Industry Summit, visit http://www.siia.net/etis/2013/.

Karen Billings is Vice President for the Education Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA Education Team on Twitter at @SIIAEducation