New York EdTech Week, the global education innovation festival in NYC taking place December 18-20, 2017, attracts over a thousand tech innovators, investors, policymakers, and others, with the goal of making new advancements in education technology. Jonathan Harber, Co-Founder of StartEd and Producer of the event, was with us to discuss the upcoming event.
NYC-based EdTech firms have received $1 billion in venture capital investment between 2008 and 2017, making up 12.5% of VC investment in the industry across the country. Forty-seven companies have been acquired since 2000, the most of any city in the country. San Francisco/Silicon Valley had the second-most acquisitions in that time with twenty-nine. Harber breaks down how NYC has been able to position itself ahead of Silicon Valley as a hub for EdTech.
Harber points to the extensive ecosystem that has built the foundation for New York to be a hub for EdTech innovation. He emphasizes that the city is home to the most significant learning infrastructure in the world, including 55 public and private colleges and universities, 2,666 K-12 schools, and nearly 2 million students.
Amid a backdrop of ongoing tariff uncertainty, more and more gamers are facing price hikes. Microsoft raised recommended retailer pricing for its Xbox consoles and controllers around the world this week. Its Xbox Series S, for example, now starts at $379.99 in the U.S. — up $80 from the $299.99 price tag that debuted in 2020. And its more powerful Xbox Series X will be $599.99 going forward, a $100 jump from its previous $499.99 listing. The tech giant didn’t mention tariffs specifically, but cited wider “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” Beyond the U.S., Microsoft also laid out Xbox price adjustments for Europe, the U.K. and Australia. The company said all other countries would also receive updates locally.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. in the current fiscal quarter will be sourced from India, while iPads and other devices will come from Vietnam as the company works to avoid the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its business. Apple’s earnings for the first three months of the year topped Wall Street’s expectations thanks to high demand for its iPhones, and the company said tariffs had a limited effect on the fiscal second quarter’s results. Cook added that for the current quarter, assuming things don’t change, Apple expects to see $900 million added to its costs as a result of the tariffs.
Visa is hoping to hand your credit card to an artificial intelligence “agent” that can find and buy clothes, groceries, airplane tickets and other items on your behalf.
Shares of Deliveroo, the food delivery service based in London, are hitting three-year highs on Monday after it received a $3.6 billion proposed takeover offer from DoorDash.
X, the social media platform owned by Trump adviser Elon Musk, is challenging the constitutionality of a Minnesota ban on using deepfakes to influence elections and harm candidates.
