The bid of the consortium to which the company belongs was declared the winner and the value of the contract for Ascendia S.A. exceeds €3.5 million.
Ascendia has been producing educational software for over 14 years: online courses, interactive digital lessons and e-learning platforms, for various ages and in various languages, for corporate (B2B) and individual (B2C) customers.
The company is locally recognized for its online digital educational content creation platform LIVRESQ, its e-learning platform for companies/institutions Coffee LMS (Learning Management System), its e-learning courses dedicated to adult education eJourneys and for the development of tailor-made e-learning courses according to the needs of the beneficiaries.
"Edulib will bring modern online learning tools to children and teachers in Romania. Through this project we will have a real chance to bring about a system-wide change. Ascendia has the experience of many edtech products developed for various customers and various age groups, and our contribution in Edulib will be both in the area of e-learning lesson development and the software infrastructure of the system. We know what is needed for this project to succeed and together with the consortium partners we will work hard for its successful implementation."
Cosmin Mălureanu, CEO & Co-founder Ascendia
The LIVRESQ platform, an important element for the execution of the Edulib contract, is currently used by more than 23,400 teachers in over 6,100 educational institutions in Romania and the Republic of Moldova.
Teachers have so far developed 13,200 interactive lessons using LIVRESQ. Of these, over 3,600 are public. The online lessons are offered free of charge to all students and interested teachers in the platform's library.
How Edulib will help digitize Romanian education
The main results officially foreseen through the implementation of the Edulib project are the creation of a digital platform with open educational resources and the integration and exploitation of digital open educational resources. At the same time, the project includes equipping 5,400 secondary schools with multimedia kits and indirect training (train-the-trainers type) for 5,400 teachers across the country.
The contracting authority for the Edulib project is the Agency for the Administration of the National Informatics Network for Education and Research (AARNIEC). Procedurally, after the announcement of the winner, the project will be awarded and then implemented.
At the end of the implementation period, from Ascendia's perspective, there will be several software elements of Edulib that will generate real impact in education. One example is the component for building educational content in digital format, which will enable teachers to create adaptive, modern digital educational materials. This will allow interactive lessons to be built for any smart device, from computers to smartphones. What's more, these lessons will be able to run on the most popular browsers and operating systems.
There will also be a virtual library component, which will be a true content and learning management system. This component will ensure the traceability of digital educational content. The large number of lessons in digital format developed by the project will give teachers accessing the system a good starting point for using it, and children a reason to enjoy the material. Another technology that incorporates current industry trends is the adaptive learning component. This will allow content to be adapted to the needs of the learner accessing that content. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will be used for this component.