The education industry our industry is facing a major crisis. In the past 25
years the issues in education haven't really changed that much.
There are a billion learners in our global education system today and the
number is growing.
I want to share a couple of personal stories past and present to make this
more clear, to bring this home. I started my career as a K-12 teacher I was the
sixth grade math teacher. One of the second year of my teaching Corps
came into my class she said Mr Bhatt, she said, don't bother with me I'm not very
smart I'm not going to be able to progress in your class I'm fifty math, this is
sixth grade I've never been able to learn, teachers and given up on me. I
spent that year basically personalizing her educational experience
in math in the sixth grade. And that year she progressed not just fifth-grade, not
just six grade, not just seventh grade, she was starting eighth-grade math after sixth
grade. I was really frustrated that year because I saw this child with great
potential and a heroic act would have to progress her in her education career.
Let me tell you another story. I watched this kid grow up he's a spectacular individual,
I watched him in middle school and high school
top of his class, accepted to an elite school, finished at the top of that class
Brandon is working in a coffee shop and he's online taking courses to prepare
himself for the actual job that he wants after four years of education and a
great amount of debt incurred. There are lots of Brandon's in our system today
these learners were not served well by their education experience and we are
simply not ready for these learners. At a very high level today's learners are
digital natives. They know and they use technology with more facility in any of
us and yet our education system is not keeping pace with their capabilities
around technology. We need a revolution and education. The education system needs us
to revolt and we all need to come together and engage as education
professionals because if not us who?
We can do this. This could be scary but it needn't be because with change comes
great progress. There's a world of possibility ahead I felt from the day
I got to Blackboard that we had an obligation to lead, of course in our
area of competency, but we have an obligation to lead. We're the most
experienced education technology company in the world. We have the best most
comprehensive portfolio product in the market and we touch all components of
lifelong learning. Education is a continuum, it is a journey that students
go on throughout their life. To be a champion of change you need to
understand the entire journey at every level and we touch these learners at key
transition points. I'm really proud to stand up here and introduce something
that we're calling the New Learning Experience. We re-engineer our entire
portfolio from the ground up. We have the best most comprehensive portfolio of
products in the market and we touch all components of lifelong learning. We built
on the success of our world class LMS, our Learn 9.1 platform, to create a
new approach to education one that fosters better engagement interaction
and quality learning through the delivery of leading-edge technology,
services and data capabilities. I'm gonna call this the NLE a lot. The NLE
transcends any one single product in our portfolio or any single market that we
serve the NLE serves the entire continuum of learning. I want to introduce
some of the initial heroes of the NLE. The things that we've been working on,
the things that we're so incredibly bullish about today,
things that we're delivering at this conference. Because it's Blackboards
unique set of technology, service and data capabilities that no other company
has that no other company can match and it forms the backbone of the New
Learning Experience. This is the new collaborate you will see it in action
It is phenomenal, it has brought some people to tears so I'll be interesting to see if
anybody breaks down. Next our new rich set of mobile apps for teacher
for faculty and for learners but the bottom line is when you think about the
delivery of the technology to mobile first before PC or laptop before under
form factor you get delightful experiences. We have three options are
and how you can deploy. No companies give you this much choice on how you
implement. We're really excited to be delivering the NLE for the first time in
its SaaS environment we're gonna, you know, by putting it in the cloud, we're enabling
these are things that many of you know, we're enabling
continuous innovation, continues delivery, total transparency to downloads
and downtime. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We had a lot of
parts of Blackboard. We weren't bringing them together as a whole and we are now.
This is not just a lofty strategy here
or a conceptual vision. This is real. It's real and we're delivering high-quality
capabilities today. So if it wasn't obvious before we're a new Blackboard.
We're all about the learner, we're all about elegant design, an always-on
approach, and flexible deployment options and maybe most importantly we're all
about integrated workflows. We can't do it alone we need to come together we
want you to join us in this revolution the time is now, the market, the education
industry needs all of us. Thank you very much.