Shareholders of Longhorn Publishers Plc have approved the registration and set up of Longhorn Digital Ventures Studio Kenya Ltd; a subsidiary through which it plans to expand its digital education content.
The approval, among other resolutions, was done at the firm’s Annual General Meeting on Friday last week.
The studio will act as an incubator for educational ideas and once the product is fit for the market, it will be launched under the subsidiary.
The Longhorn Digital Ventures Studio's first successful pilot was LOHO learning, which was selected for the Mastercard Foundation accelerator programme and received a grant to build its product.
"During the year, we created the Longhorn Digital Ventures which is our corporate venture studio that incubates education technology ideas and spins out the business once a product-market fit has been achieved," the firm revealed in its annual report for the year ended June 30, 2023.
Other businesses that the publisher is incubating are My-bidhaa; an online market store that will enable parents to purchase textbooks, as well as an online platform targeting tertiary-level content through Law Africa.
The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) firm operates in nine markets— Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Ghana.
"We are firmly on course to achieving our digital business goals. Our focus is building the largest education technology business, having a strong base of content for various markets and wide penetration across Africa," read the Longhorn 2023 annual report in part.
The firm is looking to integrate Artificial Intelligence into the delivery of its goals with adaptive content remaining a key driver for its success.
"We believe that this radical shift in approach will provide a foundation for an entirely new Longhorn business that builds on our key asset, intellectual property and the teacher and student ecosystem," the publisher added.
