From relationships to innovation, here’s what matters most in 2025 and beyond
Walking through Columbia University during EdTech Week 2025, surrounded by innovators, educators, investors, and thought leaders, one truth became inescapable: the EdTech landscape has matured. The lessons shared weren’t about shortcuts or growth hacks—they were about building sustainable, impactful companies that genuinely serve learners.
Here are the seven most important takeaways every EdTech developer should carry forward from EdTech Week 2025.
1. Build Relationships That Are People-First, Above Profit or Sales
This wasn’t just mentioned once or twice at EdTech Week 2025—it was the drumbeat that echoed through virtually every session.
Within the EdTech and Education Community
Shayla Cornick, the Deputy Director Digital Promise opened her session with a powerful reminder: “Powerful learning fosters agency, creativity, connection, and purpose.” This principle doesn’t just apply to students—it applies to how we build our businesses and partnerships.
The EdTech community is remarkably collaborative. Innovators share insights, investors make introductions, and educators provide honest feedback. But this generosity is reserved for those who approach relationships authentically.
What this looks like in practice: – Attend conferences like EdTech Week to build genuine connections, not just to pitch – Offer value to your network before asking for anything in return – Share your challenges and learnings openly – Celebrate others’ successes without agenda – Follow up and nurture relationships over months and years, not just during active fundraising
In the Vendor-Purchaser Relationship
Superintendent Neil Gupta of Oakwood Schools and Jose Gonzalez, CTO of Los Angeles County Office of Education, distinguished between “vendors” versus “vendor partners” in their must-attend session.
Vendor partners: – Reach out during emergencies to offer support, not sales – Donate money, skills, and resources when districts face challenges – Maintain regular feedback cycles throughout the year – View pilots as flagship relationships, not just cash-in opportunities – Resist the urge to lead with a hard sell – Build trust through actions, not just promises
As Gupta emphasized: “Superintendents throughout the country are connected with one another. Those conversations matter, and I’m going to be honest with you, reputation can be sunk quickly.”
The takeaway? District leaders talk. Your reputation—good or bad—will follow you. Build it carefully through authentic partnerships, not transactional relationships.
2. Focus on Educational Outcomes and Impact Over Flashy Tech
Ben Kornell’s (CEO The Art of Problem Solving) guidance—“Focus on the Ed and then the Tech”—should be tattooed on every EdTech developer’s vision board.
What Districts Actually Care About
In the session with Gupta and Gonzalez, moderated by Jennifer Womble (FETC chair), the superintendents made their priorities crystal clear:
#1: Impact and Outcomes Bring actual data on student improvement—not the number of districts using your product. Not which prestigious districts have adopted it. Not which celebrities endorse it. Show how students learn better, achieve more, or develop skills they didn’t have before.
Critical Reality: AI is NOT an outcome or impact.
As Gonzalez bluntly stated, he’s “over the AI phase.” It’s not about what the tech can do; it’s about what the tech impacts for kids.
The Evidence Imperative
Districts increasingly demand: – Peer-reviewed research on your product’s effectiveness – Clear articulation of the learning science underpinning your approach – Real-world data from actual implementation, not just lab studies – Transparent methodology for measuring impact
The companies thriving post-COVID are those that invested in rigorous efficacy studies during the funding boom. Those that didn’t are struggling to justify renewal decisions.
Research-Based Design
Show how your product is grounded in research. What pedagogical principles guide your design? Which learning theories inform your approach? How do you incorporate feedback from learning science? This isn’t about academic jargon—it’s about demonstrating that you understand learning at a fundamental level and that your product reflects that understanding.
3. Student Engagement Is the Gateway to Everything
One of the most powerful insights from EdTech Week 2025: If students don’t like the EdTech tool, it won’t get used. Full stop.
Why Engagement Matters
Student engagement leads to: – Higher learning outcomes – Engaged students learn more effectively – Increased attendance – Students show up for experiences they value (a major district priority) – Teacher adoption – Teachers champion tools their students actually use – Contract renewals – Districts keep what works in practice, not just in theory
The AI Preference Challenge
Students are increasingly choosing AI over teachers and human tutors because AI offers: – Easier access – Hyper-personalization – Non-judgmental interaction – Autonomous learning
Your EdTech tool must compete with this. How does your product deliver comparable convenience and personalization while maintaining the irreplaceable human elements of education?
The Engagement-Authenticity Balance
Creating engaging tools doesn’t mean gamifying everything or adding superficial rewards. Students can distinguish between meaningful engagement and digital busywork.
Focus on: – Authentic challenges that connect to students’ lives and interests – Progressive complexity that builds confidence through appropriate challenge – Meaningful feedback that helps students understand their growth – Student agency in how they engage with content
4. There’s a Lot of Innovation—Be Bold and Try New Approaches
EdTech Week 2025 showcased an incredible diversity of innovative solutions. From Lumi Story AI’s creative approach to storytelling to Time Enforcers which combines the gameplay of a role-playing experience with the storytelling of a digital comic book.
What This Means for You
The competition is fierce.
But here’s the good news: the EdTech community is remarkably supportive. The abundance of innovation doesn’t mean there’s no room for your idea—it means you have a responsibility to bring something genuinely new or meaningfully better to the table.
Innovation Beyond the Obvious
The most impressive innovations at EdTech Week 2025 weren’t the ones with the most sophisticated AI models or the slickest user interfaces. They were the ones addressing problems from unexpected angles: – Using sports to teach STEM concepts – Leveraging AI to help special education teachers navigate compliance while personalizing instruction – Creating datasets that will benefit the entire field – Building tools specifically for under-resourced contexts
The Permission to Experiment
Don’t wait for permission to try new approaches. The EdTech field rewards thoughtful experimentation. Build, test, iterate, and learn. Share your findings—even failures—with the community. Innovation happens at the edges, where established practices meet creative thinking.
5. Don’t Silo Yourself: Cross-Sector Learning Is Essential
This lesson emerged from a deeply personal reflection at the conference. Coming from a public health background focused on behavior change, certain perspectives felt novel at an EdTech conference that would be standard at a public health gathering.
The Power of Different Perspectives
Consider what your unique background brings to EdTech: – Healthcare professionals understand systems thinking and evidence standards – Corporate trainers know adult learning and performance support – Game designers understand motivation and feedback loops – Cognitive scientists bring deep expertise in how learning actually works – Community organizers understand engagement and relationship building
Breaking Down Silos
How other sectors approach similar challenges can transform your thinking: – Corporate L&D’s focus on measurable behavior change and ROI – Healthcare’s emphasis on evidence-based practice and safety – Entertainment’s understanding of engagement and storytelling – Nonprofit’s commitment to mission over margin
Practical Cross-Sector Learning
- Attend conferences outside pure EdTech
- Read research from adjacent fields
- Invite advisors from different sectors
- Collaborate with organizations that approach education from different angles
- Join interdisciplinary working groups and communities
As the health education example demonstrates, perspectives that seem unusual in EdTech might be exactly what the field needs to address persistent challenges like behavior change, motivation, and engagement.
6. Interoperability and Integration Are Non-Negotiable
This point deserves its own emphasis because it came up repeatedly as a dealbreaker.
The Interoperability Crisis
Superintendent Neil Gupta revealed: “We’ve identified about 110 different systems across our organization that are not interoperable at all.”
This isn’t unusual. Districts everywhere struggle with technology ecosystems that don’t communicate, creating: – Data silos that prevent comprehensive understanding of student progress – Security vulnerabilities from inconsistent authentication – Teacher frustration from multiple logins and redundant data entry – Administrative burden from manual data reconciliation – Reduced usage of even excellent tools due to friction
The Los Angeles Standard
Jose Gonzalez’s statement should be a wake-up call: “LA is cutting all programs that are not interoperable.”
This isn’t an empty threat. Major districts are making interoperability a requirement, not a nice-to-have.
What Your Product Needs
Minimum requirements: – Single sign-on (SSO) integration with major identity providers – Rostering integration with major SIS platforms (PowerSchool, Infinite Campus, Skyward, etc.) – Standard data formats that allow export and analysis – API access for custom integrations when needed
Gold standard: – Automated data sharing with district data warehouses – Real-time sync with gradebooks and LMS platforms – Compatibility with accessibility tools without third-party intermediaries – Thoughtful data governance that gives districts control over their data
The Business Case for Interoperability
Beyond being the right thing to do, interoperability: – Accelerates adoption – Less IT work means faster deployment – Increases usage – Lower friction means higher engagement – Improves retention – Integrated tools are harder to remove – Enables upselling – Deep integration creates stickiness for expanded services – Builds reputation – Districts share positive experiences about truly integrated tools
7. Equity Must Be Designed In, Not Added On
Equity considerations emerged as fundamental, not supplemental, in multiple sessions at EdTech Week 2025.
The Equity Imperatives
Technology Access: Your tool must work on low-speed internet. Students may lack high-speed at home, and many schools still have inadequate bandwidth. If your product requires high-speed connectivity, you’re excluding large segments of students.
Design considerations: – Offline functionality for core features – Progressive loading that prioritizes essential content – Lightweight assets and efficient data transfer – Clear system requirements that set realistic expectations
Language Equity: Built-in translation without poorly-functioning third-party apps is essential. Students and families speak hundreds of languages. Your tool should support them natively.
Questions to ask: – How does our product work with Google Translate? – Have we tested with non-English speakers? – Does our interface work with right-to-left languages? – Are our translations culturally appropriate, not just technically accurate?
Disability Equity: Compatibility with screen readers and other accessibility features isn’t optional—it’s legally required and morally essential.
Testing requirements: – WCAG 2.1 AA compliance (minimum) – Keyboard navigation for all features – Screen reader testing with actual users – Color contrast and font size options – Alternative text for all images and media – Captions for all audio and video content
The Equity-Innovation Connection
The most innovative solutions at EdTech Week 2025 were often those specifically designed for under-resourced contexts or students with learning differences. Tools Competition winners increasingly demonstrate that designing for equity often leads to innovations that benefit all students.
When you design for students who face the greatest barriers, you often create solutions that work better for everyone.
Practical Equity Audit
Regularly ask: – Which students are excluded by our current design? – What additional barriers does our product create? – How do we test with diverse populations? – Who is missing from our team and design process? – What assumptions are we making about students and contexts?
The Path Forward: Integration, Not Isolation
These seven lessons aren’t separate—they’re deeply interconnected:Relationships enable learning about what educators and students actually need Focus on outcomes builds the reputation that sustains relationships Student engagement drives the outcomes that matter to districts Bold innovation creates the engagement that students crave Cross-sector perspectives fuel the innovation that breaks through noise Interoperability removes the friction that kills even engaging tools Equity ensures your innovation reaches all students who could benefit
Conclusion: The EdTech Week 2025 Imperative
EdTech Week 2025 at Columbia University wasn’t just another conference. It was a moment of reckoning and recommitment for the field.
The days of funding abundance without accountability are over. The tolerance for tools that don’t demonstrably improve learning has ended. The willingness to accept technology that works for some students but not others is gone.
What remains—and what is more powerful than ever—is a community committed to genuinely transforming education through thoughtful, evidence-based, equitable innovation.
The question isn’t whether there’s opportunity in EdTech. The question is whether you’re willing to do the hard work of: – Building authentic relationships over transactional connections – Demonstrating impact over promoting features – Ensuring all students can benefit over serving only the privileged – Collaborating with the field over competing in isolation – Learning from diverse perspectives over staying in comfortable silos
If you are, the community that gathered at Columbia University this October is waiting to support you.
EdTech Week 2025 reminded us that education technology isn’t about technology at all—it’s about learning, equity, and human potential. The innovators who embrace this truth will shape the next generation of educational experiences.
Connect and Learn More: – EdTech Week – Annual conference information – EdTech Insiders – Podcast and community led by Ben Kornell and Alex Sarlin – Tools Competition – Funding and community for learning engineering innovations – IMS Global – Interoperability standards and resources – CAST – Universal Design for Learning resources – Project Tomorrow – Student and educator voice research
Thank you to all the speakers, presenters, and attendees who made EdTech Week 2025 such a transformative experience. Special recognition to: – Ben Kornell (EdTech Insiders) – Shayla Cornick – Jose Gonzalez (LA County Office of Education) – Neil Gupta (Oakwood Schools) – Jennifer Womble (FETC) – Miriam Altman-Reyes (Brass Ring Ventures) – Melissa Corto – Colin Kaepernick (Lumi Story AI) – And the hundreds of other innovators, educators, and thought leaders who generously shared their insights
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