I love to learn new things and I’m extremely glad that knowledge and the greatest wisdom of this world are more and more accessible. It’s no longer locked in books in old academic libraries but literally next to us and we just need to raise our hands to get it.
This is unbelievable nowadays! You can feel like sitting in the Harvard classroom and listening to the worldwide known professor about law, mathematics, or global business. You can have an online tutor, mentor or sports coach. You can learn how to exercise, what to eat and how to build a robot sitting on your couch and sipping your favourite tea.
Long-life learning has never been so easy and accessible. You just need to open your browser, or even an app on your mobile phone, and dive into the topic you are passionate about and as from now on being guided by the best specialists and mentors you could ever hire. On top of that, most of the resources are, absolutely for free.
Online studying platforms have recently grown a lot and become very popular not only in the society which cannot afford to pay for education but also among other, average class students who have regular university study but simultaneously develop their knowledge at home on their own adding extra classes to the daily curriculum. It’s somehow not enough yet. It’s not that you have access to the worldwide knowledge, it’s now about delivering it in a more and more attractive and engaging way. There are founders working on some interesting Edu&Learning solutions to help you not only access the resources but stay entertained while studying. It’s becoming more and more personalised and efficient!
Below you can find a few of my most frequently used platforms listed in random order. Feel free to comment below and add your findings to help others choose from the wider range of the selection.
Beagle is a platform that helps teams work together through a simple process. When users ask questions, Beagle gathers them, rate them, and the AI measures the quality of their content. It also tracks everyone’s thought process, creating a foundation for future work.
Riipen brings real projects from organizations in the classroom. Students graduate ready to work. Immersing students in industry projects equips them with work-ready skills. Riipen brings industry and academia together, with real company projects that are facilitated by instructors and embedded directly into the curriculum.
Masterclass is an online education platform on which students can access tutorials and lectures pre-recorded by well-known experts in various fields.
Gnowbe is helping world-class organizations obtain higher business performance — by empowering people to perform better. It is a pioneering mobile micro-learning and engagement solution to help the modern workforce learn faster and better. Based on the latest science of adult learning, gamification and behaviour design, Gnowbe’s approach is bite-sized, collaborative and drives ‘on-the-job application’ for greater performance.
World of Insights creates engaging corporate learning games, designed to increase engagement, dialogue and the impact of learning. If you like learning using cards (like having foreign language vocabulary in your pocket and repeat it every now and then) you need to try this out!
World of Insights works already with quite well-ranked universities like HEC Paris and Henley Business School so it’s already validated product by the greatest specialist on the Edu&Learning market. Moreover, the gaming style will always find its’ fans that like learning by using an interactive board or electronic games.
LessonApp is a mini Teacher Academy in a Pocket. It helps teachers worldwide to design lessons the Finnish way — pedagogically wise and simple. LessonApp has Finnish pedagogy packed in a compact form. It includes activating teaching methods that promote learning. Use ready-to-teach lessons or plan your own with the help of lesson blocks. They are also participants of xEdu Accelerating Education.
Additionally, below you can find quite well known already, developed companies providing free or paid classes about hundreds of different topic. They mainly cooperate with worldwide known universities and create together a package of courses. It’s video lectures recorded by the university professors supported by text materials you can use to dig deeper. I bet you know at least half of them as they are already on the market for quite a while. They do not really represent startup initiatives anymore but I couldn’t miss to mention them here.
FinTechCircle Institute– Empowers the Global FinTech Community to Learn, Innovate and Invest as it’s never too late to become a FinTech professional. Network platform focused on Fin&Tech and providing courses in the following categories: FinTech General, WealthTech, InsurTech, RegTech, Blockchain&Crypto Currencies, Enterprise Innovation, Artificial Intelligence, Startups.
edX – Flexible learning on your schedule. You can access more than 1900 online courses from 100+ leading institutions including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Microsoft, and many more.
Alison Courses – Alison has over 1000 high quality courses available across 9 distinct categories, all absolutely free to complete. All courses are self-paced and have been designed by subject matter experts, to give you an interactive and enriched learning experience.
Udacity – Online Courses for the Digital Economy. Here you can learn particular skills like coding, AI, web development etc. in case you want to change your career, need to advance in your current job or just think of switching to another market that is completely new for you. I completed Google Frontend Web Development course and it was a really amazing learning experience. Having really basic or no knowledge you can really learn step by step completely new technology!
Coursera– Build in-demand skills and earn valuable credentials.
Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from the world’s best universities and educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums. When you complete a course, you’ll receive a sharable electronic Course Certificate.
FutureLearn – Learn new skills, pursue your interests, advance your career. Whether you want to develop as a professional or discover a new hobby, there’s an online course for that. You can even take your learning further with online programs and degrees.
StanfordEdu – From free online courses to advanced degrees and executive education, Stanford can help you meet your goals for life and professional advancement. It’s a great quality resource and serious, advanced knowledge about the business. Stanford is a great brand itself so if you decide to take on one of the courses be ready for proper studying and spending hours on learning and understanding new concepts.
WallStreetMojo – is a personal blog that helps students and professionals to become experts in Financial Analysis. You can find here secrets about the best ways to learn Investment Banking, Financial Modeling, Equity Research, Private Equity, Accounting, analyze Stocks and buzzing IPOs, M&As, Valuations and more.
Open Learning – OpenLearning is an online learning platform that goes beyond content delivery to focus on community, connectedness, and student engagement. OpenLearning uses a social media workflow to enable and encourage commenting and liking, meaning each course will foster a community of collaborative learners instead of individuals feeling lost in a sea of information. You can find there built-in galleries, wikis and blog pages to feature work and encourage collaboration and peer feedback, while always maintaining room for individuality.
The Startup Station – particularly recommended to future VC-To-Be candidates 🙂 as well as startup founders. The Startup Station provides a comprehensive, rigorous financial training program for startup founders with little to no prior financial experience. The content is targeted specifically to early-stage startups and is based on real case studies. It includes financial statements and analysis, valuation models, a financial modelling guide for seven business models, along with a case study, and financing vehicles.
The above initiatives, free worldwide education concept has triggered another interesting movement of learning out of school while travelling.
Lastly, I’ve found a truly brilliant idea of leaving your school for 3 months (or taking your 3 months of the holiday) to travel the world with other people yet spending daily some time studying on your own, the topic you are interested in, using online learning platforms. You move from one place on the globe to the other every few weeks but also progress with your education. I truly recommend checking the edumadic (for students) and Remote Year (for people working already but willing to do that from different parts of the world) and get familiar with their amazing itineraries.
The last but not least, here you can find 450 free Ivy League university courses you can take online.
