We've identified four of the most transformational technology companies in the world – each one disrupting one of these exploding arenas: education, mobile, video and big data.
1. Education: Udemy
In a digital world where brick-and-mortar classrooms make less sense everyday, Udemy is “the world's largest destination for online courses,” according to the company’s website. Udemy – founded in San Francisco in 2010 – has democratized teaching and learning by creating a platform that allows anyone to create or enroll in online courses. Over 6,000 classes have been created to date – by experts, instructors, CEOs, celebrities and even Ivy League professors – on topics ranging from photography and computer programming to yoga.
What sets Udemy apart from the slew of education startups like Udacity and Coursera is that its courses are skill-oriented and can be created and taught by anyone. With over 500,000 students to date, Udemy is putting education in the hands of the masses. With $16 million in venture funding and a growth rate of 20 percent per month, Udemy is at the forefront of an education revolution.
2. Mobile: StartApp
With 5 billion mobile phone users in the world – and a million smartphone users – the mobile industry, and specifically the app marketplace, is on the verge of tremendous growth. But plaguing small and big apps – including the likes of Facebook – is the question of how to monetize.
With the advent of StartApp, developers can monetize their apps with minimal disruption to the user experience. While most popular monetization platforms include in-app advertising or freemium options, apps that utilize StartApp’s software instead feature an integrated mobile search engine add-on. Developers then collect revenue for each download and for subsequent searches using the engine.
With over 500 million downloads and 15,000 app embeds to date, StartApp has become a hit among developers and according to comScore is the fifth most widely used mobile search engine in the U.S., surpassing Yahoo and Bing.
3. Video: Kaltura
According to AdAge, branded videos were watched over 4.7 billion times last year. Simultaneously, Pew Research Center predicts nearly 20 percent of undergrads will receive the majority of their education through online courses by the end of 2013. Video is becoming unquestionably, increasingly central to the enterprise, the school and the consumer.
With that in mind, Kaltura has built a robust yet highly flexible open-source video platform for enterprises, educational institutions and media companies to spread their messages, connect with audiences and organize their operations. By providing the tools for organizations to adopt video as a primary form of communication with employees, customers, students, alumni and other stakeholders, Kaltura – with its hundreds of thousands of customers and $68 million in venture funding – is helping transform the way society consumes content.
4. Big Data: Kaggle
The power of crowdsourcing has been tried and proved in many arenas from graphic design (think 99designs) to lodging (Airbnb booked more rooms last year than all Hilton hotels combined). But Kaggle has packed crowdsourcing with a creative punch by applying the collaborative method to, of all things: data-science.
The company has created a community of over 85,000 data scientists that compete with one another to create algorithms that solve complex life science, financial service, energy, information technology, retail and other issues. Top participants are then offered the opportunity to consult on projects from some of the world’s biggest companies and organizations – with major monetary prizes at stake. For example, GE, in partnership with some other organizations, recently offered $600,000 to winners of two competitions.
Kaggle’s method of collaborative, competitive algorithm creation is bringing innovation to data science that may very well inspire other scientists to collaborate in similar ways.
Udemy, StartApp, Kaltura and Kaggle were all founded as small startups and in several short years grew into global technology leaders. These companies seem to prove that an innovative idea with proper execution can truly impact the world.
