BIZ BUZZ: Gary V sings for Grab drivers

Fresh off from his successful three-night concert, Gary Valenciano grabbed the mic and performed one more time during Grab’s thanksgiving concert at Mall of Asia Arena on Tuesday evening.

The two-and-a-half hour “A Night of Pure Energy” concert featured Valenciano’s iconic discography, including “Shout for Joy,” “Di Bale Na Lang,” “Sana Maulit Muli” and “Warrior is a Child.”

But the highlight was him serenading Grab and affiliate Move It’s top-performing riders with feel-good ballad I Will Be Here.

Gary, who is celebrating his 40th year in the music business, brought with him on the stage his daughter Kiana and son Gabriel, along with his niece and nephew. He also performed with OPM mainstays Ebe Dancel and Gloc-9.Before the private show started, Grab Philippines country head Grace Vera Cruz expressed her gratitude to all their partner-drivers, riders and merchants for their service.

“You all inspire us to bring the very best of ourselves to Grab every day,” she said.—Tyrone Jasper C. Piad

2 PH edtech firms among world’s best

Two local firms that deploy Filipino teachers for online education made it to Time Magazine’s inaugural “World’s Top EdTech Companies,” a list of 250 “most innovative and impactful” companies in the global education technology space.

The first is RareJob (ranked 147), which was put up in 2007 to teach English as a second language, hiring tutors from the University of the Philippines as its first staff. It has since become a leading online English school in Japan.

READ: Edukasyon.ph spins off globalizing tutorial service

For more than a decade, it has delivered over 60 million lessons and employed more than 17,000 Filipino tutors. The second edtech firm is Edukasyon.ph, the leading education technology platform in the Philippines founded by Filipino-French technopreneur Henry Motte-Muñoz.

Annually empowering eight million students, Edukasyon.ph provides resources to guide learners in navigating their educational and career journeys.

“The pandemic may no longer have the same grip that it used to on the way that we go about our daily lives—workers have returned to offices and students are back in the classroom.

But a new global ranking by Time and Statista of the 250 top EdTech companies suggests that online learning is here to stay,” Time Magazine said as it unveiled its “World’s Top EdTech Companies 2024.”

To come up with the inaugural roster, about 7,000 companies were evaluated by Time and Statista, a global data and business intelligence platform, utilizing data from annual reports, media monitoring, and various public sources. Criteria such as financial strength, industry impact, and the quality of intellectual property were meticulously assessed to determine the final rankings.
—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla