The 10 Most Innovative EdTech Solution Providers 2019

Volume 08 | Issue 08 | 2019

10 The

Most Innovative

EdTech

Solution Providers 2019

FEATURING Matthew Buscher CEO

LAPTOPS ANYTIME

E Learners in Progress

T

he significance of education in one’s life cannot be neglected. It cannot be denied that education is the groundwork to most of the developments taking place in the human mankind and across the globe. Until the last few years, the education system was unchanged for decades. Even after getting done with schooling, learners were found to be struggling to read and write and thus, were lacking the skills too. But this is not the case anymore.

With the confluence of emerging technologies in education sector, a new form of learning architecture has seen to be occurred in the educational arena. Not only the fundamental issues of learning and teaching have been improved and resulted in increased efficiency, but also the level of education has been ascended among the global population. This learning architecture is been able to deliver personalized learning experiences, which can be adjusted according to individual’s competence.

EdTech is shaping the future of learning and is changing the way one learns, teaches, and connects. The access of digital technology through a laptop, tablet, or other internet-connected device to learners has enabled them to learn as per their level of understanding, learn at their own place, connect with subject matter experts from around the world, collaborate with their peers using shared online platforms, and create and publish original works.

After recognizing the need to provide a quality education to learners regardless of where they live or study, their financial background, many businesses have undertaken a range of efforts to integrate EdTech into the contemporary education systems, schools, and classrooms. Insights Success has curated a list of "The 10 Most Innovative EdTech Solution Providers 2019" with an intent to acknowledge and admire the novel approaches of these businesses.

“

“

Innovate education today to create the better tomorrow.

Hitesh Dhamani

A North-Texas based company, LaptopsAnytime features as the cover story of this edition. The company was founded in 2008 with the vision of giving back to the community via convenient on-demand access to full-function laptop computers (which has now been extended to tablets as well). Piggybacking on already present Broadband, the company dispenses devices per ATM-style technology plus employ security protocols (ID card and/or badge / phone home software) and custom software integration with ILS, Student and Other Database Systems to minimize liabilities and make things as easy as possible for facility administrators to do their jobs right.

Alongside, this magazine also features BocaVox, a company that provides academic institutions with a superior software solution to support school administrators and other stakeholders while empowering students to succeed; codeSpark, the creator of educational software and games for children ages 4-12; dominKnow Learning Systems, the creator of dominKnow | ONE, a web-based platform for authoring eLearning and all kinds of other learning content; Microsoft, the organization that is using evolutionary methods to educate and empower both students and teachers; TechSmith, a company that is helping individuals and businesses create and share engaging visuals that simplify knowledge sharing; Unit4, the company that specializes in software products for services organizations, where people make the difference, since the early 1980s.

Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.

Happy reading!

Contents Cover Story

18

EduTalks

Leveraging the Potential of Gaming into Education

40 Learn & Grow

Integrating Technology into the Educational Environment

24

LAPTOPS 08 ANYTIME

Articles

Infrastructure Transformation AI Moving Towards Transformation of Industries

34

Virtual Future Virtual Assistants (VA): Professional Assistance, Virtual Guidance

14

codeSpark Turning Programming into Play!

28

Microsoft Empowering Every Student to Achieve More

38

Unit4 Highly Customizable and ConďŹ gurable Software

BocaVox LLC Providing Academic Institutions with a Superior Software Solution

20

dominKnow Learning Systems All-In-One eLearning Authoring Platform

32

TechSmith Enabling Effective Communication through Visuals

42

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Hitesh Dhmani

Jenny Fernandes Rohit Chaturvedi

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Iresh Mathapati

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Karan Gaikwad

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Manish

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Vishal

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com August, 2019

Follow us on :

www.facebook.com/insightssuccess/

www.twitter.com/insightssuccess

We are also available on : Copyright Š 2019 Insights Success, All rights reserved. The content and images used in this magazine should not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from Insights Success.

Reprint rights remain solely with Insights Success.

Cover Story

08 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

www.insightssuccess.com

August 2019

| 09

10 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

www.insightssuccess.com

August 2019

| 11

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Global Subscription 1 Year..........

(12 Issues) .... $250.00

3 Months ... (03 Issues) ....

$70.00

6 Months ..... (06 Issues) ..... $130.00 1 Month ......

(01 Issue) .....

$25.00

Date :

Name : Address :

Telephone : Email :

City :

State :

Zip :

Cheque should be drawn in favor of: INSIGHTS

Country :

SUCCESS MEDIA TECH LLC

10

The

Most Innovative

Solution Providers 2019

BocaVox LLC

Providing Academic Institutions with a Superior Software Solution

T

oday, the present system of education focuses on the implementation of learning platforms that are driven by the latest technologies. BocaVox provides academic institutions with a superior software solution to support school administrators and other stakeholders while empowering students to succeed.

BocaVox CEO, Sue Diseker, is a former educator dedicated to creating technology to reduce the bureaucratic tasks which burden educators and administrators.

Maestro as the Central Software BocaVox is the developer of Maestro Student Information System, a software (SIS) that consolidates the many moving parts to managing an educational institution into a single, centralized platform to manage the student lifecycle, from registration to alumni. Maestro has an API to connect to other third party systems such as Learning Management Systems (LMS), payment gateways, or HR platforms, etc. Maestro SIS gives educators and administrations the data they need to help students succeed.

Everyone who works at BocaVox is passionate about Maestro SIS. As one customer put it, Maestro SIS runs schools! It serves as the central repository, or backbone of a school’s infrastructure, automating management of a students’ entire academic journey from lead and registration, communications, demographics, and academic history, including grades, attendance, disciplinary actions, and

14 | August 2019

progress toward graduation to final transcript. Maestro SIS provides hundreds of reports and a custom report builder, as well an easy way to query the grids for data. Reports can be viewed as analytics, on role-based dashboards.

Maestro’s high notes are the vast reporting capabilities, the various communication options, and the Plan of Study, or Graduation Plan feature, which tremendously facilitates the job of the registrar, as well as encouraging students and parents to keep track of their progress toward graduation.

When an institution chooses Maestro as the central software that runs their school, they are not only purchasing a software tool, but they are entering into a partnership with a company that they can depend on to be available when they need assistance. With BocaVox, clients get far more than what they pay for.

Helping Partner Institutions Expand BocaVox rebuilt Maestro as a SAAS solution in 2010 so it could scale – giving it the ability to adapt quickly to governmental compliance, and pass along new features and patches to all its clients. Over the years, BocaVox developed various tools for its customers such as dashboard analytics; an individualized graduation plan; a reportable forms manager for surveys, registration forms, individualized learning plans (ILP), or state reporting documents; and a number of other features to support large, multi-faceted

EMO’s (Education Management Organizations). These features have enabled many of its partner institutions to expand their organizations exponentially. The last Maestro SIS release included a rebuild of the user interface to be ADA compliant and mobile ready. The upcoming release includes support of competency grading for a statewide virtual school that communicates with the competency features in the Canvas LMS platform.

The BocaVox team built an engine that can generate the core code base in a few hours, and a number of tools and processes that enable it to add new features and configurations within minutes, in lieu of days, saving its time and its customers’ money. BocaVox provides tremendous support and step by step requirements during implementation to guide new partner institutions through the process of documenting their specifications in detail, for seamless onboarding.

Maestro has tremendous flexibility, with over 350 optional parameters that can be set depending on the institution’s needs, and for large institutions that manage hundreds or thousands of schools or colleges in over 100 countries, Maestro SIS enables them to manage different schools and/or programs with different business rules. One of the clients of BocaVox manages over 2000 affiliate programs – including both public & private schools, and a prison education initiative - all in a single Maestro SIS database. www.insightssuccess.com

“

Maestro SIS: the Hub of the Learning Universe.

“

Sue Diseker CEO

Software Serving All Learning Models BocaVox has partner institutions in a number of different markets – from large K12 charter groups to colleges, universities, and state virtual schools, etc.

The company was founded in 2003 by CTO Jose Sabat, PhD. BocaVox’s CTO and CEO are actively involved in the company, and are committed to mentoring the rest of the team.

BocaVox’s CEO, Sue Diseker, a former educator, spearheaded the effort of rebuilding Maestro SIS from a standalone to a SAAS solution, and ultimately a comprehensive, enterprise management system to serve all learning models - online, classroom and blended learning - noting the trend of every institution to offer at least a part-time virtual option. Dr. Sabat and Ms. Diseker are the sole owners of BocaVox. Team Committed to Innovation BocaVox communicates often with its partners, who give it great insights about their needs, and make frequent enhancements to existing features or build new ones based on their input. BocaVox team is committed to innovation.

Two members of the team works full time to update the knowledge base to keep it current for its users, while others spends the first hour of their day reading industry news, to stay in the know about education and make sure Maestro SIS has the tools to stay on the cutting edge of industry trends. BocaVox’s model works so that it is incentivized to do all it can to enable its partners to grow.

www.insightssuccess.com

Future Aspirations In the future, BocaVox envisions merging with a strategic partner - perhaps a very large school or group of schools trying to get free of the cost and responsibilities of maintaining an in-house dev team. Its goal is to build the most powerful and intuitive SIS available, going above and beyond to serve its administrators, teachers and students - to help increase learning outcomes. As the organization expands, it is gradually branching its development team into a new features team, and a team dedicated to existing client needs.

BocaVox sees Maestro SIS as the product of the future, which will outlive and surpass all others. Its future goal is to continue on our upward trend of sustainable growth.

Grateful Clients “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of you for helping us out tonight. You guys are a Rockstar team and a great partner! Thank you a million times over!”

– Amy Junge, Edmentum “At some point soon, I will reach out as I always enjoy chatting and ensuring we are all on the same page. Sue, thanks for your support and working so closely with our team (Maria); we truly appreciate it.”

– Kip Pygman, Director, Illinois Virtual School

August 2019

| 15

EduTalks

“

G

o outside!” “Read a book!” “Go to bed!” These were some of the common phrases from my childhood, because I had discovered video games, a portal into an amazing dimension where I could explore and use magical powers! As an adult game designer, I thought to myself -- how can I leverage this natural tendency for play to actually teach something useful?

We started with mathematics, because it felt easy to turn elementary math concepts like addition and fractions into game mechanics. Many kids will tell you that they HATE math, but, when looked at from the right angle, mathematics is downright beautiful and fun to learn.

Edward Frenkel, a famous mathematician from UC Berkeley, is known for saying that if art was taught like math, we’d be told to paint a fence red 1000 times until we got it right. Would it be any surprise if people thought they hated art because it was taught this way?

But, this is exactly how math is taught! It doesn’t have to be this way. Leveraging my many years of gaming--ahem, market research--as a child, I worked with my co-founders

18 | August 2019

to build a game that measured up to the experiences I was used to. You don’t play Starcraft, Half-Life, and Diablo without learning a thing or two about fun engagement. And so, Mathbreakers.com, and later SuperMathWorld.com was born. The idea behind these games is simple: Starting from solid, fun mechanics, build a game on top of a solid foundation of math, so that the emergent gameplay is naturally mathematical in nature, while retaining a playfulness that allows you to jump right in without feeling like you’re being tested.

In this, we were extremely successful. We actually have many of our customers (parents and teachers) telling us their kids play the game for fun; one parent even commented that their kids would rush through morning chores in order to get more time on the game. Now that’s product success! If you have a kid aged 8 - 12, I encourage you to check out Mathbreakers.com and SuperMathWorld.com -- there are free trials and you may see their attitude change from “math sucks/is boring” to “this is amazing and fun” in a matter of minutes (it’s happened many times before).

www.insightssuccess.com

However, that’s not the end of the story. It turns out that making a successful business is more than just making an awesome product that your end users love. The remainder of this article will focus on the extreme challenges facing the ed-tech market today.

1. Schools are slow. You won’t see hockeystick style growth with a product in schools, because the sales cycle can be up to a year.

Furthermore, they’re slow to adopt -- in the curve of user adoption, schools tend to lump towards the “late adopters” side. Not good for startup sales.

2. Schools are SLOW. Even after multiple playtests on site that had kids literally screaming about how awesome the experience was, and even after clearly learning fractions from our game, it wasn’t enough. At one playtest an 8-year old boy was using a sword to chop numbers. Half, Fourth -easy! Just chop the numbers up until you get the right amount. Until he got to 7/8ths -- that was a tricky one. He thinks aloud to himself -- what’s 7/8? It’s.....3 and a half 4ths! Yes, Billy, it is, and congratulations, you’ve achieved a solid understanding of fraction composition. Jo Boaler would be proud.

It didn’t matter. Communicating these kinds of results to schools is like trying to talk to a whale about global warming. It’s critical information, but whales are huge and don’t speak your language.

3. Parents are difficult to reach. Every other math app out there -- and there are *thousands* -- claims to be as fun and engaging as ours. I’ve seen enough side-by-side playtests to tell you they’re flat out wrong, and can’t hold a candle to our game. I don’t mind saying it, because it’s really true.

But it doesn’t matter. To a parent looking at marketing material, it all seems the same. Standing out is an expensive proposition, one that requires investor backing (or possibly some luck and skill that we missed). But even if you get that part right, there’s even more bad news.

www.insightssuccess.com

Charlie Van Norman Co-founder Mathbreakers

4. The market is tiny. Math apps in the US are valued at about $1.2 billion for parents and teachers. If you don’t know anything about market sizes, I’ll give you two comparisons. Painting residential interiors is upwards of $50 billion. A single metal-scrapping company can be worth $1.2 billion alone -- the industry is worth $500 billion globally. In other words, a $1.2 billion market size simply isn’t big enough for most investors to care.

So what’s the future of games in education?

There will continue to be innovative and powerful solutions in ed-tech, but they will be small and you’ll have to hunt for them. The market will continue to be saturated by giants fueled by government grants and philanthropy, which makes the gems that startups create harder to find. So the future of games in education is fuzzy, but if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find the pearls that will make a world of difference to the young learners that find them.

August 2019

| 19

10

The

Most Innovative

Solution Providers 2019

codeSpark Turning Programming into Play

I

n today’s technology driven era, education companies are developing increasingly user friendly tools for creating a positive impact in classroom. These digital initiatives deliver a significant impact on kids by offering them highly accessible learning platforms. As more educational programs turn digital, teachers are finding that blending technology into the learning experience provides a unique and innovative classroom experience.

One of the companies leading this new movement is codeSpark, the creator of educational software and games for children ages 4-12.

Give a brief overview of your company. codeSpark is the venture backed edtech company behind codeSpark Academy, the world’s #1 coding platform for kids ages 4-10. Using a proprietary “no words” interface, codeSpark has introduced more than 30 million kids ages 4 to 10 to coding in just four years. codeSpark was inspired by co-founder Grant Hosford’s young daughters, who wanted to know how computers work. Kids use codeSpark Academy to design and code over 27,000 video games and interactive stories every day!

In an interview with Insights Success, Grant Hosford, CEO and Co-Founder of codeSpark, sheds light on the company’s cutting-edge solutions which are enriching the education sector. Considering these innovative and inspiring aspects, Insights Success recognizes codeSpark as one of the 10 Most Innovative EdTech Solution Providers 2019.

Tell us about your company’s products and services. codeSpark Academy is the #1 kids coding platform in the world and the top grossing coding platform of any kind on iOS. Kids ages 4-10 use codeSpark academy to learn fundamental computer science concepts. They put those concepts to work designing and programming their own video games and interactive stories. codeSpark is used at home and in schools. Over 55,000 K-5 teachers use codeSpark Academy in their classroom to teach computer science. The platform is

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Grant and Insights Success:

20 | August 2019

free for public schools and libraries while home users can purchase full access via a subscription. Our product team adds new content and features to codeSpark Academy every 3-4 weeks. Our app has been downloaded over 12 million times and has been used by 30 million kids around the world. We are very proud that 53% of codeSpark’s users are girls, the highest percentage on any coding platform we know of.

How services offered by your company are designed to give access to right technology at right time?

Teachers, parents and kids can access codeSpark Academy at any time on iOS, Android, Amazon Devices and the Web. The product has been tested with thousands of kids in the 4-10 age group and has 4.6 stars out of 5 on iOS. What are the innovative approaches are adapted by the company to improve the quality of solutions?

Our proprietary “no words” interface makes our app highly accessible for many different types of learners. In addition our focus on creativity has allowed a generation to understand www.insightssuccess.com

“

We teach young kids about computer science and give them the power to create remarkable video games

“

and interactive stories.

Grant Hosford CEO & Co-Founder

the power of computer science for problem solving. Kids learn from and, are inspired by, other kid creators.

Where does company name see itself in the long run and/or what are its future goals? codeSpark wants to introduce every child in the world to the power of digital creation. We intend to be the digital version of LEGO for this generation.

About the Leader Grant Hosford is the Co-founder and had the original idea for codeSpark. He is an experienced entrepreneur who has spent the last 20 years building successful digital businesses in Seattle and Los Angeles. Grant has deep expertise in new product launches, has lived on 4 continents and comes from a family of educators. He’s a husband, father of three kids, coaches girls soccer and rides bikes often. He thought computer science should be taught throughout a child’s K-12 career, just like English and Math. He and Co-founder Joe Shochet have also focused on letting kids be creative with code. They believe deeply that computer science is a tool for problem solving and creative expression and wanted to allow young kids to experience the thrill of creating something from your imagination. Grant speaks regularly about closing access gaps in STEM education for girls.

www.insightssuccess.com

Testimonials from codeSpark Clients “I love CodeSpark! I’ve used it for two years now, and it has definitely helped my students think about problems chronologically, and has helped them visualize much more than before. They understand trial and error and can plan ahead. Thank you, CodeSpark!.” - Becky M., K-5 STEM Teacher, Illinois “My students absolutely love Codespark. This year after using Codespark I could see a huge improvement in my students’ understanding of basic programming skills, problem solving skills and their use of computer science vocabulary.”- Amanda Cox, First Grade Teacher, KY “I’m 8 years old and I’ve been using this app for 8 months. This is the best game ever!! I like to make games!! I think you will too!!” - Dana H, kid “My 6 year old absolutely LOVES The Foos and as a programmer, I am impressed with how well it’s showing her the rudiments of procedural problem solving in the most fun possible way!.” - Justin, parent

August 2019

| 21

Infrastructure Transformation

AI

Moving Towards Transformation of Industries

I

n the recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed various industries and helped to perform better and achieve success in their respective arena. An ideal amalgamation of human intelligence and machines has proven that it can create wonders in the businesses. This attachment of human intellect with the machine assists businesses, to automate their day-to-day activities, to understand customer behaviors, to decrease work expenditures and to create occurrences on an individual level.

Therefore, business individuals need to keep a close eye on the latest developments occurring in AI industry. This information can be vital as they can utilize AI in areas where it can create profit for them.

There are various industries that are already utilizing AI in their respective business functions and are getting benefited.

Following are some of the leading industries that have utilized AI as an instrument to optimize their operations: 1. Healthcare Healthcare sector has shown a positive response to assimilate AI in its field. That is the reason; Healthcare has received enormous funding to develop and execute AI. The modern day machine intelligence is assisting healthcare sector to examine medical data extracted from X-rays, CT scans and various other tests.

Segregation of this information is important as doctors go through the patient’s history to check and diagnose illness.

Healthcare experts are dependent on their years of experience and prefabricated algorithms to acknowledge the symptoms of an illness. However, sometimes they overlook and make mistakes unconsciously. A BBC report titled ‘AI Early Diagnosis Could Save Heart and Cancer Patient’ stated that

24 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

nearly 20% of experienced doctors make mistakes while diagnosing patient's illness. Therefore, this arduous as well as daunting task is certainly made easier by AI. There are famous examples of utilization of AI in healthcare sector. The Babylon AI doctor app avails speech recognition to interact with patients cross-examines carefully against its database and provides necessary treatment. Another interesting healthcare AI, Molly by Sense.ly -virtual nurse app- links patients to scientific recommendations and help, with the assistance of proprietary categorization engine pays attention to the patients and replies appropriate response to them. Microsoft’s Hanover project utilizes machine comprehension with natural language processing to forecast productive cancer drug compatible to the patient.

2. Automobile and Logistics Automobile industry is witnessing crucial shifts such as autonomous driving, connectivity, electrification and divided mobility. It is anticipated that the automobile industry will experience rise in economic growth by shifting from conventional to disruptive technologies and unconventional business models.

On October 14 2015, Tesla announced that it is going to launch an autopilot car i.e. a car with self-driving capability.

The car is expected to drive itself from coast-to-coast with the help of autonomous navigation. Other car makers are aiming to implant AI services like Amazon’s Alexa. This will authorize passengers to self-command car technologies with the help of natural language voice orders.

German premium car maker Mercedes-Benz has deployed voice command personal assistant in CES show 2018 held in Las Vegas. Its arch business rival BMW followed the footsteps and decided to adopt Alexa and its assimilation into its handpicked BMW and mini automobiles. KIA Motors has also proclaimed that it is thinking about assimilating Google assistant in its cars.

It is the need of the hour for any business to perform better in its services and increase profit as much as possible. It is expected that machine learning (ML) will empower systems to an extent that they will comprehend the data and utilize it to increase their performance. This is where AI comes into the picture. The association between AI and ML can create wonders in logistics, where time is a paramount entity.

The logistics sector gathers extensive data from diverse sources such as websites, smartphones and various telematics tools. Predictive analytics not only rearranges delivery schedule but also predicts subsequent orders which gives logistics sector an advantage to utilize its resources effectively.

www.insightssuccess.com

August 2019

| 25

Interestingly, AI does not stop there. It assists in semiautonomous driver assistance, autonomous fleets for ride sharing, engine overseer and forecasting maintenance for automobiles.

Also, AI has been assisting logistics sector to construct supply chains beforehand with the help of advanced systems. This computer assistance in automobiles delivers goods in the efficient manner which is essential for the success of a logistics company. The forecasting helps logistics to avoid disastrous calamities such as difficult weather situations, traffic delays and many unexpected occurrences.

3. Marketing and Advertising Marketing sector has changed drastically over the years.

Customers anticipate for a personal experience and it is the need of the hour for marketing sector to change itself and adjust accordingly. They are required to leave the conventional methods of marketing and concentrate on enhancing their communication, execute demands as well as aspiration. This adaptation of AI is vital for marketing sector as reluctance to implement this new technology can lead to loss of business for the company.

Virtual Assistants such as Amazon Echo as well as Google Home incorporates ‘Routines'’ attributes which allow these Virtual Assistants to carry out many tasks on a single command given by the user. This means a user can create a 'Routine' command which will instruct the Virtual Assistant to start multiple tasks it supposed to execute.

Industries are constantly trying to update themselves by adapting new technologies. AI is transforming industries and helping them to grow their businesses. It is going to advance into more sectors. It will help human beings to operate risky tasks, decode universal issues and take care of various human tasks. We can definitely anticipate a future where AI will be the new normal.

AI assists marketers to find and forecast customer attitudes.

This precious information allows marketers to carry out impactful keywords and communicate with consumers on a more personal level. Moreover, chatbots also help to execute this communication in a less expensive, effective and in a persistent way.

On top of it, AI generates ideas which are subdivided into many sub ideas. This way the risk of catering a sole idea is eliminated and various ideas can be catered according to customers and their preferences. Brands have started to acclimatize on this useful technology and are focusing on selected customers. Startups have also begun to apply AI with the help of AI automated personalization and compelling video content.

4. Virtual Assistant A Virtual Assistant can help you to handle smart home devices. This feature will allow you to administer door locks, lights, appliances and many smart home devices. There are Virtual Assistants available in the market, which show the capacity to function as an intercom. A user needs to place Virtual Assistants in every room to communicate with others.

Amazon Echo’s ‘Drop In’ feature enables users to interact with each other from different rooms.

Users can also utilize Virtual Assistants to shut down and start TV sets on compatible television models. In addition, a Virtual Assistant in the kitchen can also be utilized to handle kitchen machines.

26 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

10

The

Most Innovative

Solution Providers 2019

dominKnow Learning Systems All-In-One eLearning Authoring Platform

I

n an Interview with Insights Success, Luke Hickey, CEO of dominKnow Learning Systems shares the journey of the organization and its contribution in the education and training sectors. For more than a decade dominKnow has been creating eLearning authoring tools and software for large teams. dominKnow offers a web-based, collaborative authoring and content management solution designed for creating, managing, and delivering high-impact, multi-device learning.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Luke Hickey and Insights Success.

Give a brief overview of your company. dominKnow Learning Systems is the creator of dominKnow | ONE, a web-based platform for authoring eLearning and all kinds of other learning content. dominKnow is one of the longestserving providers of authoring tools for eLearning, reaching back to our first commercial product release in 2002.

And our company history actually reaches back to our founding in 1997.

We have clients using dominKnow | ONE across the globe, from enterpriselevel organizations with content teams on multiple continents to specialized, custom content teams making some the most innovative eLearning projects imaginable for their own clients.

28 | August 2019

Tell us about your company’s products and services. dominKnow | ONE is our flagship product. It’s a web-based authoring platform for creating learning content.

An organization’s authors log in to the ONE site and create eLearning courses as well as a wide range of other webbased learning content like searchable knowledge bases, job aids, infographics and product manuals. And they can re-use content across any of these types of projects, so one authoring effort can help create content for both formal learning as well as informal, on-the-job learning. dominKnow | ONE has two authoring options. Claro is the “traditional” eLearning option – it’s similar to working in PowerPoint is and is great for making slides-based eLearning courses. Flow is our true responsive option. Responsive design is the basis of pretty much all web sites these days, and Flow helps authors create modern web design content for eLearning courses as well as other learning experiences like infographics or a knowledge base. Both options publish HTML5-based content, so both work on mobile devices as well as laptops and desktop computers. And in either option you can use our Capture feature to create software lessons to use as Show Me, Try Me or Guided Steps lessons.

Everything made in dominKnow | ONE can be published many ways,

including SCORM, AICC, and xAPI packages as well as standalone web packages that don’t need to be launched from an LMS. And because dominKnow | ONE is web-based, it offers a lot of content collaboration and content sharing options that a typical desktop tool can’t support. Authors can work together in real time in the same project, and the review process helps you easily get feedback from SMEs at any point in the development process. It really shines as a tool to help teams work together, better – as we like to say.

How services offered by your company are designed to give access to right technology at right time?

One of the core ideas behind dominKnow | ONE is the ability to reuse content, and not just for formal eLearning courses housed in an LMS. We feel it’s critical to make sure learners have access to content whenever they need it, to help them solve problems and complete tasks without having to leave the flow of their work. That’s why dominKnow | ONE doesn’t just focus on SCORM packages alone.

There will always be a need for formal learning delivered by the LMS, but so often companies aren’t able to then leverage their content to help learners as they begin to apply their learning on the job. dominKnow | ONE makes it easy to meet both sets of needs.

www.insightssuccess.com

“

Work together, better.

Luke Hickey CEO

“

And we’re strong supporters of the xAPI standard, which provides a great framework or tracking the use and application of content in informal learning, so organizations can get insight and data to help them make better decisions about content creation.

What are the innovative approaches are adapted by the company to improve the quality of solutions?

We use our own products to create all the training content and support material for our product.

If you’re looking up information in our product guide – it was made in our tool. If you’re working through the activities in our training guides – it was made in our tool.

If you’re searching for lessons in our community site – it was made in our tool.

We do this to make sure dominKnow | ONE meets the realworld needs of creating learning content. If it doesn’t work for our content team, how can we expect it to work for our customers?

It also helps ensure we keep instructional design at the core of what we do in dominKnow | ONE, helping us proof out new features and options by meeting actual needs on real projects well before we release the features to our clients.

Where does company name see itself in the long run and/or what are its future goals?

After 21 years in the elearning space and 16 years providing authoring tools, dominKnow has already been in this space for the long run. www.insightssuccess.com

We don’t see that changing – we’re still excited by the possibilities technology can bring to the power of learning.

As for what’s in store for our future – well, we can’t give away all the secrets, can we?

About the Leader I’m not only President and CEO, but also the key founding member of dominKnow.

I was there for the first lines of code in our original authoring product, so I know our products’ history intimately. I’m passionate about the possibilities of using technology to help make a difference in how people learn, and I share that passion with everyone at dominKnow.

Both myself and our senior management team maintain close relationships with many people in the eLearning industry, listening and learning as well as sharing. Our senior team works hard to chare what we’ve learned with others in the field, speaking at industry conferences and even hosting our own weekly industry-focused podcast, Instructional Designers in Offices Drinking Coffee. With over 20 years’ experience in the field, we have lots of “war stories” to share!

August 2019

| 29

10

The

Most Innovative

Solution Providers 2019

Microsoft

Empowering Every Student to Achieve More

W

ith the evolvement of technology ways of learning are changing. So both students and teachers should be able to tap the potential of technology in learning. Microsoft is using evolutionary methods to educate and empower both students and teachers and it is playing great role in improving the learning experience and improving the outcomes. Mike Tholfsen, Principal Product Manager of Microsoft shares the journey of Microsoft through its contribution to the education sector.

Below are the highlights of the interview between Mike Tholfsen and Insights Success: Tell us a bit about your company.

Microsoft Corporation is a company that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. On the education side, Microsoft creates specific products designed specifically for education, in addition to the existing productivity and cloud software we develop.

Is education technology poised for a new wave of innovation and how?

The area I’m most excited about is inclusive technology and accessibility.

We now have advances in areas such as speech, reading, translation, and natural language processing that enable students to engage in ways like never before. Microsoft’s education mission

32 | August 2019

is to empower every student on the planet to achieve more, and with our focus on accessibility and inclusive technology, we believe some of the most impactful advances will benefit the students most in need.

What is the role of the technology in creating the product that will improve the learning experience?

Microsoft Education believes that EdTech products should help improve student outcomes, and contribute to a positive learning experience. On the educator side, our goal is to help educators save time, be more organized, and collaborate more effectively, whether that is educator to student, or educator to educator.

Technology should help facilitate the learning process and student centered learning, and enable educators to teach students in new ways that weren’t previously possible. Otherwise, in the words of Alan November, a device is just "A $1000 pencil".

What’s your plan to get your product to your customer base?

We have a set of education products that Microsoft builds, as well as mainstream productivity products that are used widely in the world. We are able to deliver our products in the web, but also on PC, Mac, iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s platforms work on every device, and both online or offline in most cases. You can visit http://www.microsoft.com/education to see the full list of education experiences we offer.

How do you train the teachers to use the product in the classroom? How long does it take for a teacher to become proficient?

There are many ways for a teacher to learn about our products. We have the online Microsoft Educator Community, which is a great source of online classes, community learning, and engagement. We also offer "Teacher Training Packs" to download and use in the district. Other avenues include Microsoft Innovative Expert Trainers, who are located all over the world.

Finally, many teachers learn from each other, including conferences, social media, Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and Professional Learning Networks (PLN).

How students benefits from product of your company? What is your hook to get students to use the tool? Can students use this product at home?

I think the biggest "hook" for using our tools is that they can help you succeed and improve outcomes. We have software that not only helps with reading, writing, and math, but also 21st century skills such as collaboration, communication, and creativity. Our tools are available at school or home, and free. The other key aspect is that when our products are often used in the world beyond school. Students that move in the workforce are prepared to use modern productivity tools, such as Microsoft Office or Teams.

www.insightssuccess.com

“

Microsoft is dedicated to empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.

“

Mike Tholfsen

Principal Product Manager

There are a ton of edtech products being created, why would this be a good one for schools to invest in? How do you differentiate yourself from your main competitors?

All of our core education offerings are free for schools worldwide so at a base level, there isn’t cost. More importantly, our products have been designed to help improve student outcomes, but also make teacher’s lives easier by saving time, and improving collaboration and efficiency. Our inclusive technologies help empower students of all abilities, and it is built-in, mainstream, and non-stigmatizing. We recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to do a Total Economic Impact study on Microsoft 365 Assistive Technology. The report showed that not only did student outcomes improve dramatically, but teachers saved an average of 97 hours per year, and IT costs were reduced $50 per student per year. Those are significant numbers. In addition, our products often translate well into the world beyond school, and helping prepare students for the future world of work. At an education system level, our platforms are safe, secure, and compliant, which helps education leaders have peace of mind with student data.

How do you substantiate the learning gains?

The Microsoft Education team’s goal is to help improve student outcomes, and we help fund research to measure how our products are able to help. Two examples are included below: Ÿ Moving the needle on student achievement: Fresno Unified School District’s personalized learning initiative Ÿ Leveling the Playing Field with Microsoft Learning Tools

www.insightssuccess.com

In both of these cases, student outcomes improved through the use of our technology.

Where does company name see itself in the long run and/or what are its future goals?

Microsoft sees itself in the long run for education.

Education is a core part of our mission statement of empowerment and achievement, and our CEO, Satya Nadella fully supports our mission in education. Future goals are continuing to help improve student outcomes at scale, and increasing accessibility and fostering inclusive classrooms.

Client Testimonials Learning Tools are a game changer for my special education students.

– Lauren Pittman, special education teacher at Holly Springs Elementary School in Georgia.

OneNote and Learning Tools helped us out of a setback and into a transformed classroom.

– Merlyne Graves, 4th Grade Teacher, Garfield Prep Academy, DC Public Schools

August 2019

| 33

Expert’s Outlook

Assistants (VA) Professional Assistance, Virtual Guidance

34 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

N

owadays, we all are becoming more engage and busy in our day-to-day life due to professional commitments or personal life. In such a situation, we always find ways to make our life simple and easy. Every human on this planet feels lazy at certain situations where he/she wants to make his/her work or task easier.

Thus, there are various innovations which are carried out with these technologies. Those are intensively working upon such tools which can execute to minimize human efficiency and saves time.

According to the well-known French author Jules Renard, “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.”

To reduce this, there are some virtual inventions that create an easy way to implement our work. One such major device which is widely used is known as Virtual Assistant generally abbreviated as VA or Virtual Office Assistant. It is a unique self-employed device which provides assistance to clients remotely. It is a highly skilled device that recreates overall verbal communication stronger. VA helps its users to access data and information through voice assistance with its unique approach to signify various fundamental activities.

Hence, VA exclusively synchronizes human voice instructions to manage various human actions such as music playback via voice, emails, to-do lists, and calendars with verbal commands. Its invention has created a reforming approach for doing our day to day task easier. The qualities

www.insightssuccess.com

that make virtual assistant a power tool is its exceptional programming and strong process execution.

Various Forms of Virtual Assistants In the global market, there are many technology giants that have introduced their own virtual assistant (VA) devices are as follows, Amazon Alexa majorly known as Alexa is a virtual assistant device developed by Amazon. It has two devices which reflect its VA properties such as Amazon Echo and Amazon Echo Dot Smart Speakers.

Alexa helps you to check the weather, latest news, connect to music and listen to your favorite song on command as its special features. Siri by Apple is one of the unique virtual assistant devices introduced in 2011. Siri answers all the questions and updates you with sports news as well. Siri also uses to set alarm, timer, and scheduling daily task manually. With voice request, Siri can help you to send text or place call just by voice. Siri is exclusively available on Apple devices like iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple watches etc.

Cortana is a Microsoft device, known as its digital assistant who is designed to learn from your command and respond to the queries.

It is very similar to Apple and other VA device which can track tasks, manage your calendar or follow your commands etc. Cortana works on following Microsoft devices, including Windows phones and operating systems. Google Assistant a product by Google which is highly

known for its accessibility. It is easily available on various devices like your phone, speaker, watch, TV, or in your car. It connects smoothly with any device and gives an active response. Google Assistant is available on Google Play Store and iTunes App store.

Last but not the least; we have Bixby a smart virtual assistant by Samsung.

It is one of the most featured and unique virtual assistant device used globally. It has a unique feature that represents your music choices and voice commands to identify landmarks and other visuals by taking a photo. Bixby can translate many foreign languages and transform them in an easy manner. It also recommends you about businesses, restaurants to create reminders and manage your schedule. Bixby is exclusively available on Samsung devices like Galaxy S series and Note 9.

Role of Virtual Assistants Followed with its overall introduction and functionalities, the core part that highly approachable about virtual assistant is its features and roles like, 1. Responsiveness: A virtual assistant is mainly known for its extreme responsive nature and fundamental structure. The ultimate role of any virtual assistant is to follow the commands and execute the process accordingly. In any organization, the basic role is to follow the commands and provide suitable information at the earliest like, quick response to the e-mails, requests, and voice commands.

August 2019

| 35

2. Discretion: Discretion is nothing but the quality of behaving or speaking in such a way as to avoid causing offense or revealing confidential information. Hence, the virtual assistant helps individuals and organization to avoid conflict between confidential information and relieving information.

Planning and Organizing: Finally, planning and organizing is another topmost virtual assistant feature. It prominently works to track and analysis top-level view of daily tasks and helps to create effective plans and methods to meet business goals.

Promising Future

3.Accuracy: Accuracy is very important and essential.

Human make mistakes and it will happen but to avoid mistakes and false we need perfect and accurate work.

Hence, virtual assistant provides accuracy that plays a crucial role when commands are given to it for execution.

4. Multi-tasking: Probably one of the important feature of virtual assistant it its capability to do multiple jobs at the same time. A virtual assistant can hold many commands and actions with respect to multiple users and keep them moving correctly. It benefits organization with efficiency, good scheduling, and perfect duty.

As we mentioned earlier, how virtual assistant is important in our day-to-day life or in an organization process. In businesses, the virtual assistant helps organizations to grow fast and efficiently. Virtual Assistants are independent experts, who work for its users from a remote location. With specific skills, a virtual assistant can perform multiple tasks at the same time and work on various projects simultaneously.

Hence, a virtual assistant is becoming one of the major parts of organizations overall process and structure for opting better growth and their future endeavors. In addition, it signifies importance it in our day-to-day lives and helps us to make our daily task easier.

How Virtual Assistant aids Organizations Today, almost every organization is working on its core competencies to grow rapidly in the market with effective speed and market response. Hence, they are building its capabilities with the help of a virtual assistant which are as follows, Email Management: A good virtual assistant will always offer email or inbox management services.

Virtual assistant organizes various email skills such as managing emails into manageable folders, incoming emails notifications, prioritizing a list of senders etc.

Better virtual assistant supports organization for superior productivity.

Marketing Responsibilities: One of the top feature of virtual assistant, in which it handles various marketing tasks easily, timely and precisely. There are some of the respective tasks on which virtual assistant works such as, website landing page, blog posts, graphic design, and social media marketing etc. It also helps the organization more effectively and precisely.

36 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

10

The

Most Innovative

Solution Providers 2019

TechSmith

Enabling Effective Communication through Visuals

M

ost people struggle to communicate precisely and effectively. TechSmith helps individuals and businesses create and share engaging visuals that simplify knowledge sharing. Best known for screen capture, TechSmith has spent the last 30 years developing industry-leading software that helps millions of people easily create highquality images and videos for better communication.

Growing Ideas and Pushing Boundaries Initially, TechSmith set out to make software to use internally. As it turned out, the ability to capture a computer screen and share it with others had a wide appeal, and TechSmith continued to grow that idea ever since. Listening to customers, designing new concepts, and pushing the boundaries of what screen capture software can do has led TechSmith to create tools that are wellloved around the world. Significant investments in R&D, matched with the company’s curious nature and customer interactions provided TechSmith with a wealth of insights and innovation around building tools that help others clearly inform, train, and educate. Its overall success can be attributed to being an ever-learning organization. TechSmith has an engaged user base to have conversations with, which helps TechSmith develop exciting ways to bring this technology into the next

38 | August 2019

iteration of what screen capture and recording can do.

Proven Leadership Today, TechSmith is the world’s number one source for visual communication software. This is the result of efforts of its elite team — including Tony Dunckel. Before joining TechSmith, Tony gained experience through software development and product management roles for Fortune 500 companies EDS and Fidelity National Financial. Since joining TechSmith in 2002, Tony has helped drive growth and direction of the organization in several key areas, including senior product management and P&L roles. Currently, as the VP of Product Strategy and Market Solutions, he develops TechSmith’s enterprise education business and helps push the organization to take a broader, more holistic view on how TechSmith can add value for their customers.

Enabling Anyone to Create Impactful Videos & Images TechSmith makes it simple for anyone to record what’s on their devices. Its award-winning screen recording software includes Snagit, Camtasia, and Relay. Snagit captures screenshots of all types — including specific regions, scrolling, and panoramic captures — and includes image editing features and screen recording capability to show and explain exactly what’s on screen. Camtasia provides

powerful screen recording and video editing, including quizzing and captions functionality to create engaging video lessons. Relay is a video creation and sharing platform that helps maximize student engagement in online and blended learning courses. With its easy to use web-based recorder, Relay lets faculty, staff, and students record and watch ADA-accessible videos right within the LMS, with no additional login.

Powerful analytics and quizzing enable instructors to measure engagement and send results automatically to the LMS gradebook. Students can watch any time, from any computer or mobile device for personalized and secure elearning.

In addition, TechSmith offers two mobile applications, TechSmith Fuse and TechSmith Capture, which let anyone capture real-time footage and device screens for flexible teaching and learning.

A Simplified Approach TechSmith believes that the best software must be easy to use. Snagit and Camtasia are well-known for being the go-to programs that everyone loves to keep on their desktop to easily capture images of their screens and make instructional videos. Relay has the same founding premise — a simple yet powerful way to create, organize, and share educational videos. Since it integrates with learning management systems (LMS) and records easily from www.insightssuccess.com

“

TechSmith helps anyone create professional, engaging videos and images to share their knowledge for teaching and learning.

“

Tony Dunckel

VP of Product Strategy & Market Solutions

a web browser, it fits in with existing faculty workflows.

Relay is also quick to learn, so instructors can use it right away, without all the sit-down training typically needed to learn complicated systems.

With accessibility a top concern in higher education, more institutions are making it a priority to ensure online programs meet ADA guidelines. Relay provides multiple ways to make sure course videos are accessible. Human captioning options with 3Play Media, in-house human captioning workflows, and a highly-accurate autocaptioning engine help ensure compliance. A WCAG 2.0 AA compliant video player makes sure the student experience is accessible, and audio description track support ensures instructors can reach all learners.

Always Listen to Your Customers TechSmith listens to its customers to find out how it can best proactively solve their ever-evolving challenges.

Especially in higher education, the company puts these considerations first when building its products, so that the resulting solution truly fits their needs.

TechSmith approaches its customer and user engagement in several ways, including customer advisory boards which help create two-way communication channels. These interactions allow TechSmith to share ideas and plans with customers and get feedback. More importantly, they allow TechSmith to listen to the challenges customers face, often revealing key opportunities to help them achieve their educational ambitions. www.insightssuccess.com

TechSmith also listens to customers through its strong investment and belief in its customer success model. This aligns TechSmith product experts who typically have educational backgrounds with its customers. These product experts are dedicated to sharing how to use the technology, how best to apply the technology, and simultaneously listen throughout that process for issues and gaps they recognize.

In the end, these types of interactions create the two-way relationships which TechSmith views as mission critical to stay true partners with its customers.

Outcome-driven Approach TechSmith is making significant new investments in both its products and services for the education market. In staying true to its core values, Relay will continue to offer the most user-friendly and effective video platform for increasing student engagement. Ultimately, the company is evolving in terms of how it understands success for its customers by taking a more outcomes-driven approach, and in doing so, aiming to help them achieve their most important educational goals.

August 2019

| 39

Learn & Grow

D

ecoding the Future of Education.

connection. Next, technology can free students from being stuck in one room or building and take blackboard working method into 21st century possibilities of learning.

We are in the verge of an exciting change within the field of learning and teaching. Rising acceptance of the usage of technology as a tool for educational purposes is emerging and will eventually lead towards the disruption of education in a very fundamental level. The previously well-sealed doors of education governance are finally opening up to the real life challenges from the classroom. This adds to the worldwide connection capability and reachability of devices, creating an equation that sets the learning free.

Little by little companies and startups have taken baby steps to create platforms and content for digital education. Still, Education Technology remains “in the womb of its mother.”

Luckily, the change has begun and now it relies on our actions to give the future of education the chance and the direction it is looking for. Once that snowball gets rolling, within the next few years, we will witness the hockey stick effect in the amount of different digital learning solutions available the market.

Our world has changed a lot within the past hundred years.

The only thing that still remains true to its traditional practises is education. Some marginal change within the pedagogies used is happening, yet the essence of how teaching and learning is constructed lies its base to days when we were raising people into doers in industrialised workforce. The current day and the future behold so much more for its habitants than working in a certain cubicle from 9-5. Technology is already liberating people from the offices to work anywhere with reasonable network

One very fundamental tone I personally wish to see in this field of change is the rise of open source material available for everyone. When we are able to free ourselves from the restrictions of sharing knowledge, it is only then when we can truly talk about the freedom of learning. The value of some material interfering with the reality of spoken word, new data and knowledge arising from human experience, violates the academic rights of any student, anywhere in the world to learn, teach and participate in the evolution of education.

40 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

About the Author My truth on some topic can be very different than yours.

Yet if we can create a bridge of understanding between our perceptions in the same topic, we can learn from each other.

Most of the conflicts in this uniting world spring from fear or misunderstandings. We as human are very keen to stick into our inner visions of life, and when that understanding is confronted with something different we tend to feel even threatened or scared as we don’t feel familiar with the topic.

The very root of learning demands something that brave children are very good at, facing new things every day and growing to know them. So the first change that you can or rather need to do is to begin within yourself. No matter what the topic or issue is, think of it as something which you can achieve. You can learn and you can understand, if not at that very moment, but later for sure. Thus, let go of your fears and have faith both in people and in your own capabilities to learn and grow.

www.insightssuccess.com

Kirsi Ekberg, Founder of ViLiKe, is one of the pioneers in the education sector. Boasting years of experience as a startup entrepreneur, Kirsi strives to harness the potential of technology to bring-forward a digital evolution beneficial for the people and the world. e ICT Management and So ware Development graduate, follows a simple mantra in life of being brave and embracing the change.

August 2019

| 41

10

The

Unit4

Most Innovative

Solution Providers 2019

Highly Customizable and Configurable Software

I

n an interview with Insights Success, Yujin Evered Lee, Regional President APAC of Unit4 shares the contribution of Unit4 to the people through its software products. Unit4 is present in 26 countries. It is headquartered in The Netherlands with a regional APAC headquarters in Singapore. In Asia Pacific, we have offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Sydney and Indonesia. We work with partners in other regions and have customers in almost any countries in APAC. Below are the highlights of the interview between Yujin Evered Lee with Insights Success.

Give a brief overview of your company.

Unit4 is in business for people. We’ve specialized in software products for services organizations, where people make the difference, since the early 1980s.

Today, we build the smartest enterprise applications on the planet. Our technology is central to the organizations we serve – it improves efficiency and productivity and allows people to spend more time on meaningful work. Using the latest AI, machine learning and digital technologies, our customers can make more sense of business-critical data than ever before.

Our cloud ERP, financial management, corporate performance management and localized HRMS software with industry-focused solutions, generate rapid value in the strategic processes of organizations from sectors including professional services, higher education,

42 | August 2019

public services, not-for-profit and others – helping each person to create better value for themselves, their organization and their customers.

Some of our Key Products in APAC: Unit4 Business World, our flagship ERP suite for mid-sized and large services-intensive organizations; Ÿ Unit4 Prosoft HRMS, our awardwinning human resource management and payroll software. Ÿ Unit4 Prevero, our powerful corporate performance management solution Ÿ Unit4 PSA Suite, our professional services platform Ÿ

Tell us about your company’s products and services.

Unit4 Business World is a uniquely people-centered ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software solution.

It delivers a fully integrated suite of enterprise applications and technologies that improve people’s daily work lives by reducing or even removing lower-value admin tasks.

Business World boosts institutional effectiveness and promotes financial transparency. It is easy to deploy, highly adaptable when business-needs change, and less expensive to maintain than traditional “production-centered” ERP systems.

Unit4 Prosoft HRMS is a seamless human resource management solution.

From hiring to retiring including functionalities to enable, reward, develop and retain employees, Unit4 Prosoft helps HR departments to track, manage and analyze their talent through the entire employee life-cycle.

Unit4 Prevero is an integrated

corporate performance management software (CPM) transforms complex financial data into clear real-time insights for clarity of reporting and planning. It allows business teams and decision-makers the ability to make better, faster business decisions with total confidence and clarity.

Unit4 PSA Suite offers a full end-to-end solution for Professional Services Organizations or service divisions in other sectors. Built on the powerful Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, it is pre-tailored for a range of key industries and enables efficient joined-up working across the frontand back-office, so your people can focus on what really matters to your organization and deliver superior project management and service to your clients.

How services offered by your company are designed to give access to right technology at right time?

Unit4 Software is built in the “People Platform” this means it is designed for people and to be easy to use and highly customizable and configurable. Most of the Unit4 software functionality can be configured without complicated coding and internal configurations can be easily setup and changed by the admin users themselves. This helps our customers to consistently reduce the TCO and minimize changes post implementation.

What are the innovative approaches are adapted by the company to improve the quality of solutions?

Unit4 Digital Assistant: Wanda is the world’s first true Enterprise Digital Assistant. Wanda works for finance www.insightssuccess.com

“

Unit4 Business World is a uniquely peoplecentered ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software solution.

“

Yujin Evered Lee

Regional President APAC

decision makers by keeping all their data and indicators at their fingertips, and for consultants through intuitive and visual tools including status monitoring and mixed planning approaches, gap analysis and strategic initiatives Micro-services architecture: The Unit4 Architecture is more foundation than platform. It is extensible through offering the customer micro-services rather than customising the software application itself or even extending the platform.

This allows Unit4 greater control. It also enables Unit4 customers and partners to add functionality cleanly without the risk of issues during future upgrades of the core software.

Where does company name see itself in the long run and/or what are its future goals?

Having built its foundation architecture, Unit4 is now delivering the extensibility tools for its customers to build apps on top of it. We hope to build a compelling marketing message that tells more customers of the value that Unit4 can offer including scalability and flexibility underpinned by our strong enterprise solutions.

This year we’re more committed to customer success than ever before, and we’ll continue our mission to help more customers generate strategic value through our solutions.

We continue to invest in our People Platform microservices architecture, and at the same time deliver new self-driving user experiences with simpler user access to our solutions through innovations like Wanda. We have also recently extended our HCM offering through the strategic acquisition of Intuo. Together our state-of-the-art performance management with Unit4 Prevero, we offer a

www.insightssuccess.com

strong proposition for services and people-centric organizations Client Testimonials Ÿ Farrer Park Hospital: “Unit4 Prosoft has a user-friendly portal…I appreciate the prompt system Ÿ updates - especially those on the automatic application of (Singapore’s) legislation. Unit4 has proven to be a valuable partner and is responsive to our needs.” Ÿ Go-Ahead Singapore: “Prosoft HRMS has been a fantastic choice. Our HR and finance teams have experienced an increase in efficiency and productivity.”

About the Leader Yujin Evered was appointed to lead Unit4’s Asia Pacific regional operations in 2018. Based in Singapore, she is responsible for the company’s regional growth and customer success.

Yujin has spent all of her career in enterprise software, including 12 years with Oracle in Korea, Singapore, and Australia. During her time with Oracle she worked on many transformational and strategic projects and held various leadership roles before deciding to permanently relocate to Singapore. Since moving back, Yujin held several senior positions including at Hewlett-Packard, Dell Software, and Software AG. Born in Korea and educated in Canada, Yujin speaks English and Korean.

August 2019

| 43