Major pushes toward enabling ubiquitous, anywhere-anytime education were underway before the current COVID-19-driven lockdown, which has effectively brought education to a halt, closing down schools at all educational levels on a global level. Now the promise - and challenges - of virtual education are top of mind as educators and academic institutions look to the future to ensure that education continues both in the face of crisis and beyond.

Recent years have seen the creation and adoption of completely online university degree programs and free and low-cost e-learning programs, platforms and apps that help people do everything from building a marketing plan to learning a new language. Fueling this growth were investments of almost 19 billion USD in 2019 in the edtech industry, which was projected to increase to 350 billion USD by 2025.