--
Behind the extraordinary rise of Cape Town s GetSmarter --
Mon, 22 May 2017 13:16
--
The world of higher and professional education is changing rapidly. Digitally-enabled learning, in all its forms, is here to stay. In the past five years, massive open online courses have allowed universities to share their expertise with millions across the world. This shows how rapidly developing digital technologies can make learning accessible.
These new technologies are shaking up traditional classrooms, too. And as the nature of work changes professionals are turning to high level, online courses to keep pace with new demands.
But much of this new technology is the preserve of private sector companies. This means that universities must work with them. Yet partnerships with for-profit companies still don t feel right for many in the higher education sphere. Knowledge has long been seen as a public good, and education as a basic right. Many of today s universities were shaped by the principles of public funding.
This world was changing well before the disruptive impact of digital technologies, with tuition fees rising above the rate of inflation and the emergence of private universities as part of the higher education landscape. But there s still unease about technology and its role. The reality, though, is that higher education institutions will have to get over their queasiness if they re to survive in this brave new world.
Universities may not have the know-how or the money to match the innovations coming onto the market through private tech companies. The decision by Nasdaq-listed technology education (edtech) company 2U to acquire Cape Town-based start-up GetSmarter for R1,4bn (US$103m) is the largest price tag yet for a South African company working in digital education.
This is an indication of what it would cost a university to set up a full online division. Few institutions will have this money, or the ability to raise it. The alternative is to reconsider the advantages of public-private partnerships, taking care to retain authority over quality. For many universities, this could be the only way of keeping pace with the changing world of education.
The story of a start-up
The story of how GetSmarter got off the ground is a textbook case of how a simple idea, combined with guts and luck, can reap huge rewards.
GetSmarter was launched in 2008 with a tiny budget and offered just one online course, in wine evaluation. By 2016, its annual revenues had grown to about R227m. The foundation for this expansion has been a wide range of courses developed and offered in partnership with the University of Cape Town and, more recently, the University of the Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University.
GetSmarter s key breakthrough into the international realm came with professional programmes in association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cambridge University. GetSmarter s first course with HarvardX will soon be presented.
After its acquisition was announced, I talked to the company s CEO, Sam Paddock, co-founded with brother Rob. We discussed the lessons for other small digital companies and for universities that are mulling the value of digital learning.
The Paddock brothers leveraged the cash flow from their father s niche law firm to launch their first online course. They then used upfront payments for that course and the courses that followed to keep financing their next offerings. In the nine years that followed, edtech has become a crowded and complex field.
GetSmarter s purchase price has garnered a lot of media attention: it s high, in US dollar terms, and is a vote of confidence in the company. The price represents a valuation of a company s assets, intellectual property and know-how, and strategic positioning for the future.
But what does it say about the kinds of investments and partnerships that conventional universities will have to make as they adapt to the full disruption from new digital technologies? The key aspect of GetSmarter s success is how its partnership with universities has played out. As Paddock points out: We are starting to realise the potential of public-private partnerships, where the credibility and resources of great universities can be combined with the skills of nimble private operators.
This acquisition is also good news for South Africa s digital economy. Paddock says GetSmarter will employ more South African graduates and give them international experience and expertise.
And, he says, ecosystems often develop from one significant investment in an individual company. This was how Silicon Valley started, as well as London s silicon roundabout . Cape Town, GetSmarter s home city, has been trumpeted as South Africa s own Silicon Valley: Silicon Cape .
The opportunity to lead in digital innovation and application has been widely recognised, for example through the work of Accelerate Cape Town. The Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CiTi) has a range of initiatives underway, including a three-year partnership with Telkom intended to build the digital workforce.
Last year, Vodacom announced an investment of R600m to assist in developing South Africa s digital skills.
GetSmarter s big win is good news and proof if universities needed it that such initiatives can bolster higher education s offering in a rapidly changing world. Universities in Africa know that they need to keep up with the relentless march of digitally enabled learning. GetSmarter s journey from bootstrapped start-up to a billion-rand enterprise is a case study worthy of attention.The Conversation
- Martin Hall is emeritus professor, MTN Solution Space, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
- This article was originally published on The Conversation
Related Articles
-- --
-- --
-- Please enable JavaScript to v
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
-- 
