GET IT WHILE IT'S HOT: Announcement! Tired of videos getting blocked in class? Good news, educators. Securly has decided to make its cloud-based web-filtering platform--capable of delivering Safe Search and Safe YouTube to computers--available to school computers at no cost. One caveat: this “lite” version of the product will have caps on usage, but should prove sufficient to smaller schools (think 400 students or less per school). According to co-founder Vinay Mahadik, “The fact that web-filters are usually hardware appliances has meant that there is no question of giving one out for free. But Securly's cloud-based approach opens up room for this model.”
Why the change? Mahadik details conversations with school IT directors and their frustrations with budgeting:
"We've had IT admins in these schools tell us that more than half of their meager edtech budget was often allocated to acquiring a web-filter. In these situations, Securly was often a solution that addressed a mandated requirement with a disruptively low price-point. But, we have always asked ourselves if we could do better. We've decided to introduce a free version of our product in the coming weeks.. [and] will continue to bring to these schools the full range of innovations we pioneer."