Practice, Partnership, and Purpose: What Global Education Entrepreneurship Actually Looks Like

Hosted by Dr. Elisabeth Rees-Johnstone, Executive Director of OISE Continuing and Professional Learning and co-founder of InnovED, the conversation brought together two leaders with deep experience doing exactly that. Sunil Sudhakar, Chief Operating Officer of Maple Bear Global Schools, and Yann Bidan, General Manager for Maple Bear Central and Eastern Europe, offered an honest and grounded look at what global education entrepreneurship requires in practice.

Maple Bear is no small undertaking. With 496 schools across 38 countries and 70,000 students, it is the world’s largest network of Canadian schools, built on the premise that Canadian pedagogy can be adapted to serve learners in vastly different cultural and regulatory contexts. Yann’s work in Central and Eastern Europe, including a 100 million Euro investment partnership to develop 50 Maple Bear schools across Poland and the Czech Republic, makes that challenge concrete.

What emerged from the conversation was a clear and useful picture of what education entrepreneurship actually demands. It is not primarily a story of product-market fit or rapid scaling. It is a story of trust built slowly, partnerships developed carefully, and pedagogy adapted thoughtfully. Education enterprises must perform in real classrooms, earn the confidence of families and governments, and maintain quality while growing, all at the same time.

As Elisabeth noted, the time horizon and emotional capital required to build these kinds of partnerships is significant. Education innovation is not just about having a good idea. It is about understanding the systems you are working within and earning the right to change them.

That takeaway landed clearly. For students, founders, and education leaders tuning in from across the University of Toronto’s innovation ecosystem, the conversation offered something rare: an authentic account of education entrepreneurship as it is actually practiced, complex, contextual, and deeply human.

InnovED is proud to have brought this conversation to the University of Toronto entrepreneurship community, and grateful to Sunil, Yann, and Elisabeth for sharing their experience so openly.