So, I started work back at 2002, after I had come back from London, where I had worked as an au-pair.
The beginning
But, before that. I had gone to university to Szeged, where I had studied communication, within the famous (?) Havas-institute, with Henrik Havas & co. After three years we had to specialize in two subjects and I chose Public relations and Media. When I finished, I did not know what I wanted to do, and I didn’t have the language exam necessary for the graduation, so I went to London for one and a half years.
The first couple of months weren’t easy as I found a company called Rádió Hírszolgálat, where I was something like a marketing assistant. But luckily soon enough, education found me.
A friend of mine called and offered me a job with Sulinet, the biggest educational portal of Hungary. Well, back then it wasn’t, but this was the beginning of it, the foundation for my next couple of years or so.
I met lots of friends and colleagues there who remained with me until now. Although there were several changes in the name of the organization or in the owners, the most important thing was always in the center: education. Digital education.
How it unfolded
First it was simply the website, sulinet.hu, with educational content and several topics curriculum related. Also, events for students and teachers, trainings, and other activities. Then came the so-called Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base (Sulinet Digitális Tudásbázis), where it became strict educational website, subject defined following the curriculum properly.
I slowly but surely made my way up the ranks, starting as an editor, then deputy and editor-in-chief, then leader of the department and just like that, it came to an end. By that time it was 2017, well into the Fidesz-regime, the department (and the organisation) was merged into the Educational Authority (Oktatási Hivatal), and as you can imagine, I had enough of the system and working for them.
So, I decided to leave for the market and try myself among those circumstances.
Except there was no real market for the education and there’s still no here in Hungary.
The publishing house experience
So, the next step was a publishing house with textbooks, trainings, after school supplemental products, professional content for teachers and headmasters and self-learning books for language learners. Three different brands. Well, the textbook market was non-existent by that time, with the regulations only allowing one textbook per year per language. Still, this is the biggest part of the annual revenue of the firm, so it is important, but there is no real competition.
Trainings & professional content. As the budget moved from the schools to the districts, it became harder and harder to sell things. So schools were off the map. Kindergartens and nurseries are still available (yet, in September, 2025), but don’t expect it last very long.
(Of course it is not that simple, but this post is just a short reminder of how I found myself in the EdTech sector – I will talk more about these topics in detail later.)
What we tried there: e-learning trainings, online language courses, applications with supplemental content for the books, e-books, audio books.
Side projects
As I was the digital guy there, and the company being a small one with 20+ employees, someone figured that I surely knew everything about websites, webshops, Google, SEO, SEM, Search Console and everything else. So I blinked once and realized that I am moving the pons.hu webshop from the WordPress environment to another, a Hungarian webshop engine. At Christmas, by the way or 2 or 3 days before, I think in 2021 or so.
Hallelujah!
And then the print products of the company. More about it later, because it is the freshest of them all.
So, it is EdTech, then
So, by that time it was so many different things, so many different area, that I decided to choose one, turn to something where I can concentrate my efforts and my energy.
There it is, that’s the explanation behind.
Tamas Simon 