Blackboard, a U.S. company that develops and markets software for education, recently bought Colombia-based open source software company Nivel Siete as part of plans to speed up its expansion in Latin America.
“Nivel Siete really accelerated its growth in the last years,” Phill Miller, Blackboard´s vice president of services open source, told Latin Business Daily during a phone interview. “Its rate of growth was about 40 percent year over year. We are going to try to accelerate that growth.”
Miller said that Nivel Siete has had a small sales team, but it is expected to grow much faster once it has the support of Blackboard’s staff. Blackboard also plans to set up a Center of Excellence in Latin America.
“It is important to have a presence in Latin America,” Miller said. “It is one of our fastest growing regions.”
Jose Diaz, CEO of Nivel Siete, told Latin Business Daily that management at the company will remain despite Blackboard’s purchase of all the company shares.
Founded 13 years ago, Nivel Siete has offices in Colombia, Mexico and Peru. It currently has clients in more than 230 Latin American organizations, which in turn have more than a million users. Clients range from universities to government to companies in 10 Latin American, Diaz said.
The software platforms that Nivel Siete has developed allows end-users, or those being trained, to access education material online through telephones, tablets or home computers.
Most of the services offered by Nivel Siete are based on Moodle. Also known as Modular Objected Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, Moodle is a free open source software for learning that requires the services of companies such as Nivel Siete to properly use and maintain it.
Latin America accounts for approximately 25 percent of the world installations on Moodle, Diaz said.
Diaz said by using open source software, there are significant savings as there is no need to purchase licenses.
“What we achieve this way is to increase inclusion,” Diaz said.
Miller added that e-learning and education software tools enable people to access education and this in turn helps the economy.
“What we found in Colombia is a great place to have a technology company,” Miller said. “They (Nivel Siete) were able to grow and find the resources.”
