ISTELive 2022: 7 Sustainability Planning Tips for K–12 Technology Leaders

The coming years are set to see a slowdown — if not an outright stop — in the emergency government funding that supported many K–12 school districts throughout the pandemic and beyond. The technology solutions districts purchased and relied on during that time, notably subscription-based software applications, now present a problem: The money will stop, but subscription fees won’t.
The result is that K–12 district leaders are facing a funding cliff. “Come the 2024-2025 school year, a combination of declining enrollments, stimulus funding running out and an economic downturn could lead to a…

The COVID-19 pandemic essentially ended the conversation about whether school districts should embrace one-to-one programs that put a computing device into the hands of every student.
“During COVID, a large number of individual devices were deployed,” says Amy McLaughlin, Cybersecurity Initiative director at the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). “We exited the conversation of, ‘Should we do one-to-one?’ and entered the conversation of, ‘How do we maintain one-to-one?’”
Historically, many school districts have struggled to build device refresh cycles into their operating budgets. Often…

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Versa Networks, which helps companies unify network and security tools into a single console, raised $120M in equity and debt, bringing its funding to $316M  —  Networking and cybersecurity firm Versa today announced that it raised $120 million in a mix of equity and debt led by BlackRock, with participation from Silicon Valley Bank.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
PolyAI, which uses AI to handle call center calls, raised a $40M Series B led by Georgian at a $300M post-money valuation, bringing its total funding to $70M  —  Is it possible to build a voice assistant for the call center that can pick up on indirect questions to figure out the best time to hand calls over to a human?