Galvin Lee Innovation Lab Wins Most Innovative EdTech Solutions Provider 2026 at Acquisition International Global Excellence Awards
Galvin Lee Innovation Lab has been named Most Innovative EdTech Solutions Provider 2026 – Malaysia at the Acquisition International Global Excellence Awards 2026, marking another international recognition for its work in AI-powered, experiential, and student-centred education innovation.
The award, presented by Acquisition International, recognises the Lab’s contribution to transforming real classroom challenges into practical and future-ready learning solutions. The official winner listing describes Galvin Lee Innovation Lab, led by educator-innovator Galvin Kuan Sian Lee, as redefining education through AI-powered, experiential, and student-centred innovation, with work spanning lecturer support systems and immersive learning simulations.
For Galvin, the award represents a significant milestone in the Lab’s mission to build education technology that is not only innovative, but useful, scalable, and grounded in actual teaching and learning needs.
“This recognition is meaningful because it validates the purpose behind Galvin Lee Innovation Lab,” said Galvin. “The goal has never been to build technology for display. The goal is to solve real problems in education: passive learning, low engagement, uneven participation, and the gap between classroom theory and real-world application.”
Founded as an innovation platform for teaching, learning, and education technology development, Galvin Lee Innovation Lab focuses on designing tools, simulations, AI systems, and learning experiences that help educators teach more effectively and students learn more actively. Its projects are built around a central belief: education innovation should improve the actual learning experience, not merely add another layer of technology.
The Lab’s work includes AI-powered persona learning, business simulations, immersive learning environments, microlearning tools, and lecturer-support systems. These initiatives are designed to help students move beyond memorisation and passive content consumption towards decision-making, critical thinking, reflection, and applied learning.
Among the Lab’s flagship innovations is Global Voices: AI Persona Lab, an AI-powered learning environment that allows students to interact with simulated consumer personas. Instead of learning consumer behaviour only through textbook explanations, students engage directly with AI personas, ask questions, interpret responses, and connect theoretical concepts with realistic human behaviour.
Another major project is Cafe Conquest: Beach Breeze, a virtual business simulation that places learners in decision-making situations similar to real business environments. Students are required to analyse trade-offs, make strategic choices, respond to changing conditions, and reflect on the consequences of their decisions. This supports a more applied and experiential approach to business education.
The Lab has also developed ShopQuest Mall, a virtual shopping simulation designed to help students understand consumer behaviour, product choice, segmentation, and purchasing decisions through interactive scenarios. By situating theory inside a simulated marketplace, the project allows students to experience how consumers evaluate products, brands, prices, and personal preferences.
Beyond student-facing tools, Galvin Lee Innovation Lab also develops educator-support systems such as IntelLect, an AI-powered suite designed to assist lecturers with curriculum planning, assessment design, constructive alignment, rubrics, quality assurance, lesson planning, and feedback generation. This reflects the Lab’s broader commitment to supporting not only learners, but also the educators responsible for designing meaningful learning experiences.
The recognition from Acquisition International is especially significant because it positions the Lab within a wider international business and innovation audience. Acquisition International is an international monthly digital business magazine that publishes news, comment, and analysis, and it is a flagship brand of AI Global Media.
“This award strengthens the message that Malaysian education innovation can be globally relevant,” Galvin said. “There is strong innovation happening in our classrooms, especially when educators understand student needs deeply and are willing to design practical tools around those needs. We do not always need to wait for large systems to change first. We can build, test, improve, and scale from the ground up.”
A key strength of Galvin Lee Innovation Lab is that its work is developed from direct classroom experience. The Lab’s innovations are not abstract technology concepts detached from teaching realities. They emerge from real educational pain points, including disengaged learners, theory-heavy lessons, lack of application, limited classroom interaction, and the increasing need for students to develop future-ready competencies.
This classroom-grounded approach allows the Lab to design tools that are practical and transferable. Its solutions are built not only to impress at the concept level, but to work in actual educational settings where time, curriculum requirements, student diversity, and assessment demands must be considered.
The award also reflects the growing importance of AI and experiential learning in higher education. As generative AI, immersive technologies, and digital simulations reshape how students access and apply knowledge, educators face a crucial challenge: how to use these tools meaningfully without weakening academic rigour. Galvin Lee Innovation Lab addresses this challenge by combining technology with pedagogy, ensuring that innovation supports learning outcomes, critical thinking, and real-world relevance.
For Galvin, the Lab’s future direction will continue to focus on building scalable education tools that can be adapted across subjects, cohorts, and institutions. This includes expanding AI-supported teaching systems, developing more immersive simulations, strengthening student engagement analytics, and creating resources that other educators can learn from and adapt.
“At its best, education technology should make learning more human, not less human,” Galvin said. “It should help students participate more actively, help educators design more effectively, and help institutions respond more intelligently to the changing needs of learners.”
The Most Innovative EdTech Solutions Provider 2026 – Malaysia award marks another step in Galvin Lee Innovation Lab’s development as a Malaysian education innovation platform with international recognition. More importantly, it reinforces the Lab’s core mission: to build practical, meaningful, and future-ready learning solutions that improve how students learn and how educators teach.
As education continues to evolve, Galvin Lee Innovation Lab stands as an example of how innovation can begin from the classroom and grow into a broader ecosystem of tools, methods, and ideas with relevance beyond a single institution. The recognition by Acquisition International affirms the Lab’s role in advancing Malaysian education innovation on a global stage.
Visit the Official Award Page here.