ASU-GSV 2023: Collaborative Energy

It was great to see ASU-GSV back at pre-pandemic levels. It was the most energetic conference we’ve seen since 2020, and in typical ASU-GSV fashion, even random conversations were interesting and shed light on new, different, or evolving parts of the market.

A couple of topics stood out. AI, of course, was on everyone’s radar. Chat GPT was the catalyst for many conversations, but I was equally impressed at how other types of AI had already become baked into some very sophisticated products. One of the more notable instances of this is AlgebraKit, a Dutch Math B2B company that Westchester partners with to create math items with dynamic and relevant help features. Ann Education, an Israeli ed-tech we also partner with, has been using AI for several years to transform readers into eBooks and worksheets into interactives seamlessly. Finally, we were excited to attend the launch of DAISY, the new generative AI that pairs with human editing from one of our video partners, CreatorUp.

The other big takeaway was that of collaboration. ASU-GSV is always a conference focused on how companies can help one another, but this year we saw that in overdrive. We had great conversations with partners like Learnosity and C2C, discussing ways to continue to grow and evolve our certified partnerships to benefit students and teachers. We met with partners like IEI, Classlink, Clarity Consulting, EdGate, and Ed-Tech Leadership Collective, fellow B2B companies that provide complementary skills to what Westchester offers the educational market. And we kicked off some new partnerships that we’re excited to announce in the coming months.

It took a full week to recover from the frenetic pace of the conference, but I’m already looking forward to next year’s iteration.