“ I ’ m extremely proud of what the Education Foundation and Edtech UK has done in the past five years to accelerate growth and innovation across the education and edtech sector .”
Key achievements include the foundation setting up the first edtech accelerator programme with the government ’ s Tech City UK , and running the UK ’ s first education reform summits , in partnership with the Department for Education .
In 2015 , on the back of that work , Fordham launched Edtech UK as a strategic body to accelerate the growth of the sector in the UK and beyond . Its education and advocacy work in the past year has helped put UK edtech on the global map , through running international trade missions , including to the White House , supporting the fastest-growing edtech startup and scale up companies like Kano , Technology Will Save Us and RefMe .
In November just gone , the organisation ran its first Edtech UK global summit , at London ’ s City Hall , to help UK edtech businesses scale and take a bigger share of a global market set to hit $ 250bn in value . At that summit were two government ministers , international edtech leaders , the UK head of Google for Education , three of the UK ’ s highest-profile tech VCs , a whole range of startup innovators and , of course , teachers .
Fordham said : “ I ’ m extremely proud of what the Education Foundation and Edtech UK have done in the past five years to accelerate growth and innovation across the education and edtech sector .
“ A lot has been achieved but there ’ s much more to do . That ’ s why I ’ m very excited to be joining Microsoft and to be asked to lead the UK education business . Britain is a world leader in education innovation and I look forward to working with education institutions and leaders across the system , to empower every learner to achieve more .”
Goddard said Fordham ’ s Microsoft appointment was “ testimony to his work and passion for education and technology across the sectors .”
He said he was “ delighted ” that Fordham would be joining Edtech UK ’ s advisory group “ and continue his pioneering work supporting education startup businesses and entrepreneurs across Britain and beyond .
“ It ’ s been a pleasure to work with Ian over the past eight years in this and other organisations ,” said Goddard . “ We have achieved a lot ; we both feel that our journey to positively support education in Britain has just started ”.
“ I ’ m extremely proud of what the Education Foundation and Edtech UK has done in the past five years to accelerate growth and innovation across the education and edtech sector .”
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