Innovate Ottawa: Kivuto

Kivuto has been transforming the way schools distribute digital resources to students and faculty for over 20 years. Today, Kivuto streamlines the management and delivery of academic software, eTextbooks, cloud licenses, and all other types of digital resource for educational institutions.

Our Past

Kivuto evolved from the vision of its founder, Ram Raju. While running the University of Dalhousie’s computer store, Ram saw a need for a less manual, more efficient way to provide students with course software. So he created one.

In 1997, Ram founded PowerKnowledge Technologies (later renamed e-Academy). He began as his only employee, with software distributed on burnt discs using elaborate vending machines. From this modest start, the company evolved fast. Digital downloads replaced delivery by disc. Partnerships with software publishers like Minitab, VMware, and Microsoft allowed the company to provide more value to its rapidly expanding client base of academic institutions.

By the time the company relocated to Ottawa and rebranded to Kivuto Solutions, it had international reach and partnerships with some of the world’s top schools and software publishers. The goal, according to Ram, was: “To build a global company that reduces and eliminates barriers for distributing digital learning tools to students.”

Our Present

Today, Kivuto streamlines the management and delivery of digital resources for thousands of schools around the world with their new flagship product – Kivuto Cloud.

Kivuto Cloud is an online platform through which schools distribute digital resources to their students, staff, and faculty. One of the platform’s top strengths is its ability to automate the management and provisioning of cloud licenses – an otherwise complex and costly burden on school IT teams. However, Kivuto Cloud can also be used to distribute software, eTextbooks, and any other type of digital product. And with on-demand reporting, advanced security features, and an intuitive user interface, Kivuto Cloud’s a big step up from the CD vending machines it evolved from.

And Kivuto Cloud is just one way that Kivuto helps schools and students. The company’s OnTheHub eStore — a website through which any student can access free or discounted software —was identified as a top source of student savings in 2019 by Global News. Since 2014, the company has also operated Texidium, an end-to-end solution for schools that want to go digital by introducing eTextbooks into their curricula.

Through all this change, plus an acquisition by Legado Capital in 2018, the company’s core goal hasn’t strayed far from Ram’s initial vision. “The way students learn is transforming as technology becomes more integral in education,” says Carlos Meza, Kivuto’s current CEO. “Though the tools used in classrooms are changing, Kivuto’s mission remains basically the same – to make it as easy as possible for schools to distribute those tools and for students to access them.”

Our Future

Higher education is changing. Students need practical skills and certifications to complement their degrees in order to be competitive in the workforce. These needs will only grow along with technology’s role in education, and managing the necessary tools will become more complex as more software moves to the cloud. To support this, curricula will need to evolve to incorporate a broadened set of teaching and learning materials, including digital assets like cloud services and software.

As this evolution in education continues, Kivuto will continue to facilitate all aspects of the academic digital resource environment – bringing vendors, schools, educators, and learners together, while reducing costs for all and contributing to student success.