Hardeep ‘Harry’ Jawanda, a former England hockey player, has secured a £2 million deal with a global education technology firm that will see his software spread across the UK and Australasia.
Jawanda, CEO and co-founder of the Wambiz private social network, did his BSc in information technology management for business at Birmingham City University, graduating with first-class honours in 2009.
His company’s intellectual property rights and distribution network have been acquired by the Tribal Group, which provides services and software to the higher education sector. The deal includes distribution in education markets across the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Established in 2013 by Jawanda (30) and business partner Andrew West, Wambiz provides a safe means for students to connect, communicate and collaborate with peers, teachers and institutions in an engaging yet controlled manner.
The university said in a release that with young people increasingly unresponsive to traditional communications such as texts and emails, Wambiz has the same look and feel as the social media platforms students are using every day in their personal lives.
This results in greatly increased student engagement outside of the classroom, but at the same time does not blur the line between social and school life, safeguarding the professional integrity of teachers and student welfare.
{{/usCountry}}This results in greatly increased student engagement outside of the classroom, but at the same time does not blur the line between social and school life, safeguarding the professional integrity of teachers and student welfare.
{{/usCountry}}Jawanda said: “The deal with Tribal is our largest to date and it was important for us to find a partner that understands education and could take our solution deeper into that market…Tribal has the resources to extend and grow this functionality in the education markets within their territories whilst allowing Wambiz to focus on the rest of the world.”