Education systems around the world are navigating a real dilemma about technology. Some are under pressure to adopt the latest solutions fast (AI, especially), while others are pushing back, questioning whether EdTech delivers on its promises at all. And most are somewhere in between, trying to figure out what actually works, for which learners, in which contexts.
The problem isn't a shortage of EdTech products. There are thousands—according to the latest estimate, between 40-50,000 are active in the global market. The challenge is that getting teachers, faculty and administrators the most rigorous, up-to-date, reliable and quality resources seems to be genuinely difficult. Procurement is slow. Evidence is thin. School systems and startups rarely speak the same language. Capital doesn't always flow where the need is greatest.
EdTech Ecosystem Hubs exist to work on that gap.They are organisations and initiatives, sometimes university-based, sometimes independent, sometimes government-backed, that sit between the people building education technology and the institutions trying to use it. They run pilots. They connect startups with schools. They broker relationships between researchers, funders, and policymakers. They are the connective tissue of an ecosystem that helps build resilient and useful solutions for teaching and learning.
What does this look like in practice? Tec de Monterrey's IFE EdTech Hub was created to strengthen connection, collaboration, and innovation across Latin America's education technology ecosystem, sitting inside one of the region's most influential universities, running pilots and convening the market. USC's Rossier School of Education runs an EdTech Accelerator aimed at tech-enabled solutions with high potential to improve the quality and equity of education, working with startups from K-12 through workforce learning. In Africa, Injini, founded in 2017, is an EdTech-specialised accelerator, combining startup support with original research on what works in African contexts. At University College London, the Knowledge Lab led a Jacobs Foundation–funded research project that produced the first framework for systemic EdTech testbed models, which led to the formation of a Global EdTech Testbed
Network convening practitioners across regions. In Ukraine, even under the pressures of war, EdTech Ukraine Association was formed to give the country's fragmented EdTech sector a unified voice, and within a year it had grown to more than 40 member organisations, signed a memorandum with the Ministry of Education and Science, joined the European EdTech Alliance, and begun organising delegations to peers in Estonia and Poland. And the recently formed Alliance of Alliances brings together EdTech membership associations from around the world to support each other's work.
There are many hubs operating globally, across every region. Some are well-resourced and institutionally embedded. Others are operating on thin margins in challenging environments. What they share is a conviction that innovation doesn't support education systems on its own, it needs infrastructure, relationships, and coordination to do so responsibly.
Figure 1. EdTech Ecosystem Hubs represent 7 distinct regions, with Europe & Central Asia representing almost one third.
