In Business News: Firestorm: there's still plenty of fuel for this blaze!

In a world where start-ups don't normally translate into long-lived companies, here is the exception. Suzanne X and David Y started their business in 2017, and now in 2032, it is one of the most influential in the world.
I asked them if it was all about having a catchy name?
"Yes, the name Firestorm was important - we wanted to have a metaphor - the fire symbolises  the abilities of our clients to operate (learn) individually, but to draw on Dave's and my expertise and commitment so they can operate (using a qualification) powerfully when linked together. We believe our clients dictate their terms to the world."

At this point, a little history is needed for our younger readers (feel free to skip this part if you are over 30).
"Other articles have said that we were cheeky or lucky, and I guess there was a bit of both, but we feel our firm's history illustrates  the development of society and learning over the last 15 years", says Suze. She is referring to the way that she and Dave saw the increasing empowerment of individual learners, and the increasing democratisation of learning with the resources available to them outside their formal classroom setting. They also knew from their own university experience that collaboration (via social media and face to face), and peer learning had vastly enhanced their learning experiences.Dave and Suzy were passionate about that combination of individual and collaborative learning and saw a niche opportunity to form an online service with an edge. 
Their company receives, processes, assesses and authenticates individual independent learning and, having assessed it against the learning of other clients, awards formal qualifications on behalf of recognised institutions worldwide.
They are quick to point out that they started small, with partnerships with a few significant players, and clients amongst their own previous classmates who were out pursuing independent dreams of success, continuing their learning in a DIY manner, reacting against the increased commercialisation and bundling of knowledge packages.

The cheeky kea, like Firestorm, it has attitude

So why did they succeed? Well, they could have fallen at a number of hurdles - what if formal qualifications had ceased to exist and been replaced with informal certification of learning? That didn't happen, so their provider contracts remained safe and grew. Companies could have locked up the entire teaching and learning process online and face to face, meaning that Dave and Suzy's client base would have dropped to nothing. But instead, the provisioning companies have remained in the particular areas of success, unable to overcome that resistance from independent knowledge creators and teachers. Changes in copyright law haven't hurt the duo, either. The ability to share, mashup and reuse content that was given when the entire world signed up to Berne 2 and returned the copyright holder's rights to ten years from date of first publication has further inspired their independent clients create new knowledge themselves.
Suzy and Dave's extensive network has now allowed them to gain contracts with educational providers in both government and private enterprise in countries all around the world. Their own skills with technology (particularly around data security, mining and storage) has done the rest. Suzy expresses regret that they have not penetrated the lucrative postgraduate market, but Dave reminds her that the majority of their clients are aged between 13 and 33, and will continue their DIY, subversive approach to learning; valuing breadth, contextual appropriateness, and energetic interest over the need for research qualifications. He also adds "Our clients  appreciate the connectivity of Firestorm, and still chat and exchange insights with each other regardless of whether they have another learning experience to be assessed right at that minute. The sheer number of people that we have connected means that we do not have to charge much, and we feel good about that."
Watch this space for future developments from Firestorm, and link in again tomorrow to our Education and Business series part 2 - when we talk about the Charter school movement.