Lack of interaction major challenge for edtech industry

Southeast Asia: Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of SmartStudy, Ryan Lee believes interaction is posing one of the biggest challenges when it comes to online education.

Lee was speaking about the obstacles faced by many internet education programme producers ahead of his appearance at this year’s Techsauce Global Summit, which takes place at Centara Grand @CentralWorld, Bangkok from the 19th to the 20th of June.

Southeast Asia’s leading tech conference (which is now in its 3rd year) will be bigger than ever with over 15,000 attendees, 400 speakers and 1,900 start-ups across 50 countries.

Speaker for this year’s event include:

• Martin Ford, Futurist, Author and keynote speaker
• Jemma Green, Power Ledger’s Chair
• Marvin Liao, Partner at 500 Startups among others.

SmartStudy is the global entertainment company behind leading children’s brand, Pinkfong. Pinkfong is the brainchild of over 4,000 songs and stories, including the famous viral sensation, the ‘Baby Shark‘ song.

Speaking about the challenges posed by the online education industry, Lee said:

“One of the biggest challenges in online education is the lack of interaction. Some people just learn on their own, but others may learn better by interacting with others, especially when you’re a toddler. To overcome this challenge, Pinkfong strives to produce content that helps children interact with family members and friends, creating lyric-to-world connections, such as family structures or friendship.”

Lee also spoke about security threats to children online, and advised parents to be more watchful of their kids’ online usage patterns:

“Taking a deep interest and being aware of what children are watching on mobile devices would be a good move. Guiding children to channels where they can watch videos in a safe environment, instead of random videos is another step you can take. Parents need to be sure to check if the content is uploaded by the original creator. There are several apps which offer safe zones for kids, such as Pinkfong’s ‘Baby Shark TV’ app, where children can watch Pinkfong’s content without ads or random pop-up videos.”  

Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of SmartStudy, Ryan Lee will speak at this year’s Techsauce Global Summit.