Zynga.org and NewSchools launch ed tech accelerator

Zynga.org, the non-profit arm of the popular social gaming company, has entered into a new partnership with NewSchools Venture Fund in order to form a new accelerator focused on ed tech, it was announced  Wednesday. 

The accelerator, which will be focused on “enhancing the quality and reach of learning games and apps designed to improve education outcomes,” will be hosted at Zynga’s headquarters in San Francisco, where the company will also be providing the companies that participate with work space at its office.

Zynga will also be encouraging its employees to volunteer and collaborate with the companies participating in the accelerator’s first cohort, which will officially kick off this summer. They will be urged share their knowledge when it comes to game design, testing, analytics, product marketing and distribution.

In addition, Zynga.org has also agreed to donate $1 million in funding for the accelerator’s first year.

“We’re excited about the learning potential of games,” Ken Weber, Executive Director of Zynga.org, said in a statement. “Through the efforts of Zynga.org, we’ve shown that social games can impact peoples’ lives for the better, and we’re honored to collaborate with NewSchools, a proven leader in the education technology space, on this accelerator. We want to help entrepreneurs create high quality, scalable learning games that will enhance learning experiences for all 21 century students.”

Three companies have already been chosen to participate in the accelerator: Kidaptive, LocoMotiveLabs and Motion Math. Edmodo, a social learning platform for education, will also be joining as a charter partner.

Zynga.org should not be confused with Zynga the gaming company. While the two do work closely together, Zynga.org is a nonprofit organization that  works with other game developers to leverage games to raise awareness and funds for nonprofits.

To date, Zynga.org has developed more than 100 in-game campaigns, raising more than $15 million for nonprofit organizations worldwide.

The ed-tech space

 Ed tech is a hot space right now, with a number of companies raising funds in the last year or so.

In April of 2012, StraighterLine raised $10 million, 2tor raised $26 million, while Schoology and Piazza raised $6 million each. Memrise raised $1.05 million in February, while Schoolfeed received $1.75 million the same month. Desire2Learn raised a $80 million in September, followed new that Educational app creator Duck Duck Moose raised $7 million in Series A funding the same month.

Ed-tech startup Coursera, which partners with universities to provide courses online for free, announced  that is launching in 29 new universities from 13 different countries from around the world, including China, the Netherlands and France,

Coursera has raised over $22 million in funding, including $16 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in April 2012.

Most recently, a new online education startup called Thinkful, which is focused on making online education a more personal experience, raised a total of $1 million in seed funding from RRE Ventures, Quotidian Ventures, Peter Thiel’s FF Angel, and others, while Treehouse, an online learning site for anyone looking to gain technology skills that are becoming increasingly crucial to the new economy, announced that it had raised $7 million in a Series B round led by Kaplan Ventures, with help from The Social+Capital Partnership. 

For a great series on the changing education landscape, check out Faith Merino’s Resetting Education series.

(Image source: http://connectedprincipals.com)