India’s Byju’s has created a new innovation hub, dubbed Byju’s lab, where it hopes to bringing together AI and machine-learning experts with educational technology researchers to create new edtech solutions.
The Bengaluru, India-based company has grown to more than 100 million students (and 6.5 million paid subscriptions) with its kids educational games platform, and it has been on a buying spree as it expands well beyond India’s borders.
Byjus’s bought U.S.-based AR game maker Osmo for $120 million in 2019. It also raised $150 million (following a $540 million round) for its global expansion that year. This year, Byju’s launched its Disney-based learning app for U.S. children, and it bought the kids online reading platform Epic for $500 million. And it bought Tynker’s for an estimated $200 million. The acquisitions map back to Byju’s goal of investing $1 billion in the U.S. edtech market over the next three years.
The new hub will redefine the role of tech in learning and transform powerful ideas into solutions. It will hire AI and ML specialists in the United Kingdom, the U.S., and India.
With a vision to propel and shape the future of education, the new venture will incubate new ideas, provide cutting-edge technologies and deliver breakthrough solutions across Byju’s ecosystem of learning products.
The company said that technology in education is not just about automation, but also about harnessing it in the best way possible to empower students into becoming lifelong learners. It believes that by innovating for the future we will sustain the present, and Byju’s Lab stems out of this philosophy to aid in redefining the role of technology in learning and transforming powerful ideas into solutions.
Byju’s Lab is yet another step in the company’s efforts to continue innovating with the aim to transform learning experiences for children around the world. It is doing so by leveraging cutting edge technologies such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision capabilities, gamification and more.
Dev Roy, chief innovation and learning officer at Byju’s said in a statement, “The role of online learning is not just to replicate offline classes in digital space but to make it more interactive, engaging, and personalized. By combining the ability of computing, technology, and data, we at Byju’s Lab, want to explore the power of information and technology to create a more personalized, enhanced, and democratized learning. As a global company, we are looking to harness a global talent pool to build innovative tools and leverage new technologies to positively impact the learning experiences of children across the world. As we continue to grow and experiment, we will operate at the intersection of business and technology to make innovation real and relevant for our end customers. We are looking at strengthening our team and look forward to working with bright and curious minds to transform the way children learn.”