MONTREAL, May 27, 2015. Henry Ryan, CEO of Montreal-based Learning Bird, an award-winning education technology company, has been promoting the important role of social ventures in education. Today, Ryan and Learning Bird are part of the launch group for Social Venture Connexion (SVX) Québec, a new full-service, non-profit platform for social enterprises and impact investors, held at the Montreal (Stock) Exchange.
SVX connects impact ventures and funds with investors looking to make investments that can demonstrate impact and provide financial return, including key education projects such as Learning Bird. The SVX-Learning Bird connection gives Ryan's company the opportunity to connect with accredited investors looking to make investments with demonstrable social and/or environmental impact and the potential for financial return.Over the past year, SVX has supported more than 28 ventures, helping them to raise $3.5 million.
On Tuesday (May 26), Ryan presented Learning Bird as part of the social business stream at the prestigious three-day C2 Montréal Conference's "Big Top." The conference, which continues through Thursday, takes place within a custom-designed "Innovation Village" built exclusively for the event by C2 (Commerce + Creativity) Montreal. The conference features international business leaders gathering to help bring creative and visionary thinking to commercial problems.
Ryan returns to the C2 Conference on Thursday (May 28) to participate on a panel focusing on catalyzing impact in social ventures.
Ryan started his busy week in Toronto on Monday (May 25) to attend the second annual ImpactOntario conference, hosted by the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing, which focused on several industries including education. Ryan presented on behalf of Learning Bird to impact investors.
While Ryan has been busy this week focused on social ventures, his expertise in the education industry runs deep. At the Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of SIIA in early May in San Francisco, Ryan was invited to sit on a panel titled, "Overarching Trends in K-20 LMS Markets." The discussion explored how the LMS market is changing — from the terminology to the features to the how the products are being used and sold – as well as the type of opportunities the new market trends create.
Ryan founded Learning Bird in 2011. A differentiated learning application, Learning Bird empowers students to solve their own homework problems by using a proprietary algorithm that recommends crowd-sourced, teacher-generated lessons specific to students' individual needs and aligned to their local curriculum standards. Learning Bird's library of digital lessons features resources in a broad range of subjects, spanning grades kindergarten to 12.
For more information, visit www.learningbird.com.
About Learning Bird
Learning Bird is an innovative online learning tool for K-12 student success, powered by multiple perspectives. Its proprietary learning algorithm matches digital lessons from teachers to the local curriculum, textbooks and personalized recommendations for each student. Learning Bird's new cross-curriculum alignment engine allows students grades K-12 to access a wider range of lesson perspectives in order to find that "a-ha" moment. When a lesson helps students understand, Learning Bird's algorithm learns more about how they learn and also shares revenue directly with the teachers who added the lesson.
