CloudSwyft: Swiftly Digitalizing the Education Computing Industry

The Philippine education sector continues to lag behind in the digitalization of its learning management systems, information systems, and curricula. This limits cost savings, optimal use of physical space, automation for educational institutions, and students' learning experiences. EduTech startups, like CloudSwyft, provide a solution to this challenge as the country struggles with limited funding and inadequate infrastructure for the education sector.Industry 4.0, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is the latest wave of technological change that is transforming the world of education. With advancements in technology, learning has become more accessible and convenient for students. CloudSwyft's virtual labs aspire to do so by providing hands-on learning, anytime anywhere.

CloudSwyft is a globally recognized leader in virtual lab solutions for the education sector. With a diverse and high-quality customer base spanning the world, CloudSwyft provides virtual lab environments and solutions, off-the-shelf technology skills courses in partnership with top industry players, and virtual and hybrid learning experiences to educational institutions both in and outside the Philippines. By maximizing physical spaces, savings, and IT infrastructures, CloudSwyft is revolutionizing the way educational institutions approach learning. Join us in learning more about CloudSwyft and its vision from its Co-Founder and CEO, Dann Angelo de Guzman.

What motivated you to become an entrepreneur?

I was an Electronics Engineering Major and worked for Accenture as a tech consultant for Cloud Computing Projects. However, I never expected myself to become an entrepreneur. What motivated me was that when I was working in the corporate world, I saw a pain point in Accenture while I was working there. Since I had the opportunity to be exposed to the Cloud Computing Industry, I fell in love with the idea of having cloud-based products back in 2012. When I saw the opportunity with the problem I have experienced while I was in Accenture — there was an internal problem with educating employees and brushing up technicals because it was too manual during that time — to have a solution for this problem made sense. This energized me to be able to work on that problem. From then on, since I didn’t have any experience being an entrepreneur, I just researched about the situation in the Philippines. The fact that the startup ecosystem in the Philippines back then was a startup itself inspired me to go even further. This allowed me to ask the question: “how should I start a technology company in a very challenging environment?”

It’s not just about revenue targets or making profit, but it’s also about how it can really affect the lives of people around the world. The opportunity for grassroots entrepreneurs to thrive and be successful here in the Philippines lies in how they are able to put the Philippines on a pedestal showcasing what product they have built that could be used outside of the country. These kinds of experiences and journeys energizes and motivates me every day.

What inspired you to establish CloudSwyft? And why did you name it as

such?

When I came up with this idea, I was not an educator and knew nothing about the academic world. However, when I was in corporate, I was tasked to upskill the employees of, for instance, Accenture. I was given the opportunity to become a boot camp instructor and lecturer internally within the company in upskilling and educating internal employees and consultants. From there, I enjoyed making sure that everyone would have an effective learning experience in order for you to teach them or present to them new technologies. In the technical skill set or digital upskilling industry, reading books or watching videos will never be enough. One needs to have hands-on and practical experience for learning to become effective. This inspired me to build CloudSwyft.

I came up with the idea for CloudSwyft without any prior experience in the academic world. However, my background in corporate, where I was tasked with upskilling employees at companies like Accenture, gave me valuable insights into the importance of effective learning experiences. As a boot camp instructor and lecturer, I learned that reading books or watching videos alone was not enough to effectively teach and master technical skills. Hands-on and practical experience were crucial for effective learning. This led me to establish CloudSwyft, a company dedicated to providing real-world, hands-on learning experiences in the field of digital upscaling.

The name "CloudSwyft" reflects my passion for cloud computing and my desire to create a high-performing solution. With over a decade of experience in the industry, I wanted the name to reflect the cloud-based nature of the product we were building. The word "Swyft" was chosen to convey speed and agility, qualities that I hoped to embody in both the team and the product. The use of the letter "y" instead of "i" adds a modern and cool touch to the name. The name "CloudSwyft" embodies the mission of our company to provide innovative, high-performing solutions in the field of cloud computing.

What products and services does CloudSwyft offer? What sets CloudSwyft

apart from other online education platforms?

CloudSwyft has two main products: a custom virtual lab solution and a future-ready skills platform. The latter is related to the former. Future-ready skills means that we provide online software-based technology course content that we have customized with virtual lab experiences so that the virtual lab environments would enable learners to learn hands-on. We provide future-ready skills on that part of the product so that they can either incorporate it as their training programs for their employees or their own curriculum programs. What makes us different is that we are not just offering online content, but we also offer virtual labs. Every student would have the opportunity to learn hands on by having a fully functional lab environment. We partnered with the likes of Microsoft so that we can customize technology skills content that are future-ready and modern enough so that whenever a student or learner completes that program, they would be able to be highly employable in the industry. 

On the custom virtual lab side, we offer this to universities and institutions across the world since the pandemic allowed us to grow faster and offer our services outside of the country. The platform that we provide allows the digitization of computer lab facilities. This is cost-efficient, scalable, and automated for universities since they don’t have to manually support the students through lab operations. We take over the entire tedious manual setup of computer lab operations, put it in the cloud through our platform, and automate the process.For instance, a foreign student can enroll in a Philippine university since a lab subject or course can now be accessed in the cloud. That’s what CloudSwyft is all about.

What are the problems in the education industry that you think needs to

be addressed? 

There’s still a lot that needs to be addressed. First are automated assessments. To this day, universities still do a lot of manual checking when it comes to assessments and exams. All of these standard EdTech products such as Learning Management Systems and Information Systems need to be improved, automated, and digitized. Second are Lab operations. Third are the Content Curriculum revamps. These are very important in the education industry. Educational institutions would need to partner with relevant stakeholders to update and revamp their curriculums as necessary. In the Philippines, we need that in order for us to produce more professionals in multiple industries that would be able to fill the skills gap.

What are the milestones that CloudSwyft has accomplished? 

For us, we have really grown and thrived tremendously during the pandemic. We grew over 100%-200% year over year. We reached casual positivity on the platform. We have never raised any further Series A’s or B’s investments since we have been revenue generating since 2018. We have successfully grown and sustained our team by relying on our revenue, and I believe this is a clear measure of our success. Our product has not only been adopted domestically in the Philippines, but also internationally.

What are the next steps for CloudSwyft in the future?

We would like to continue the growth in our current targets in the next 5 years. We want to officially be globally recognized. We’ve kickstarted other markets outside of the APAC region. However, we think it would take 5 more years for us to really establish ourselves in these markets. We also want to become a defacto standard globally in terms of computer lab operations.

Dann Angelo de Guzman is the Co-Founder and CEO of CloudSwyft, a world leader in virtual lab environments for educational sectors across the world. CloudSwyft provides its customers with top tier virtual lab solutions, training skills courses, and hybrid and virtual learning. Its ultimate goal is to help digitize the educational industry through virtual and cloud-based technologies. Dann is committed to continuously improving the educational industry through CloudSwyft.

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with CloudSwyft. 

*Photo Courtesy of CloudSwyft Global Systems, Inc. CloudSwyft 2022 Year-End Party in Tipsy Pig Forbestown, BGC