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Gerald Celente, who had forecast “Interactive U” online learning in his bestselling book, Trends 2000 25 years ago, accurately noted that it would become a significant new learning model of the 21st century.
Relative to India’s online investment, Celente laid out the framework of how he envisioned education would evolve in the next century in a 2017 article titled, “INTERACTIVE-U: THE INDIA MODEL.”
He called the old-school, brick-and-mortar education system that got its footing in Prussia after the Napoleonic Wars—has come to the end of its useful life cycle. The coronavirus outbreak has shown that in-person learning can be replaced, which will only further accelerate the move to all-interactive learning.
“Interactive, online learning will revolutionize education…” he wrote in 2017. Moreover, he forecast that “the growth of the home education and Interactive-U trend will accelerate rapidly once tele-videophony or other comparable multimedia-interface technologies become available and affordable.”
“Trends are born, they grow, reach old age and die. The Industrial Age education model is dying, an Interactive-U has been born. While still in its infancy and online courses have been emerging in higher education for several years, the India Model provides a future of education on all levels—from kindergarten through doctoral studies—that is virtual,” he wrote in a 2017 forecast.
He pointed to Byju, at the time an early-stage Indian technology company that combined videos, game-based VR/AI technology, and similar automated technologies to create effective Interactive-U educational courses.
The industry got even more attention after China’s crackdown on the sector, which has further cemented India’s lead in the industry.
Charles Li, the former CEO of Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing, told CNBC that the Chinese crackdown should be a “wake-up call” for corporate giants. The station reported that Chinese tech companies saw a sell-off due to regulatory oversight. Indian companies saw an opportunity.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese education stocks lost “billions of dollars in market value in the past couple of weeks as Beijing announced regulations that could wipe out much of the after-school sector.”
The Journal reported that Byju, which is backed by Tencent and Sequoia, “is India’s most valuable unicorn at a valuation of $16.5 billion.”
The report said Byju may become public in the next 18 months, and there is clear momentum for these companies when it comes to investments. In 2020, venture capital companies invested about $1.5 billion into these companies, which is about six times the level invested in 2019.
TechCrunch reported, “Scores of young startups have cropped up in recent years to tap the education market in India, where more than 200 million individuals go to schools. Vedantu, Unacademy and Byju’s lead the market, and younger firms including Teachmint and Classplus have reported accelerated growth in recent quarters as more students adopt online learning platforms in light of the pandemic.”
The tech website reported that Byju recently announced that it purchased the reading platform Epic for $500 million. Epic is based out of California and the move increases Byju’s presence in the U.S.
In August 2020, the Trends Journal published an article titled, “INTERACTIVE U IN THE U.S.A.” Celente had forecast an “Interactive U” movement in the country since 1996.
TREND FORECAST: The Trends Research Institute, in making VR-ED a Top Trend for 2017, forecast the explosion of advanced virtual-reality and artificial intelligence technology would expand to educational and training settings, building a foundation for learning that will replace today’s outdated Industrial Age education model with a cost-effective, high-reward, low-risk approach to education.
That foundation has been built. And India has created the future that Celente had envisioned.
At the time that Celente made the prediction, Byju had about 500,000 subscribers and today that number has exploded to more than 100 million.
Byju, and numerous other interactive learning tech companies, are combining videos, game-based VR/AI technology and similar automated technologies to create effective Interactive-U educational courses.
TREND FORECAST: With interactive education, students will be able to access the best and most accomplished experts in selected fields of study rather than the one-size-fits-all, outdated educational programming that is now the norm.
Trends are born, they grow, mature, reach old age, and die. The Industrial Age education model is dying, and the Interactive U. model is still in its infancy.
Thus, the Ontrendpreneur® opportunities that seize upon its growth will provide great rewards.