Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top California based Founder operating in the Education space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Austen Allred
Co-Founder & CEO of Lambda School
Austen Allred co-founded Lambda School and serves as its CEO.
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About BloomTech, Lambda School: Lambda School trains people to be software engineers for free in exchange for a share of future income.
Ben Nelson
Co-Founder of Lambda School
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About Lambda School: Lambda School trains people to be software engineers for free in exchange for a share of future income.
Kong Pham
CEO & Founder of Jumpcut
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About Jumpcut: Jumpcut creates captivating online courses.
Eren Bali
Co-Founder of Udemy
Eren Bali is the CEO and Co-Founder of Carbon Health. Eren leads the Carbon team towards his vision to democratize healthcare and make quality care accessible for everyone. Previously, Eren paved the way to make education accessible by founding Udemy, the world’s largest marketplace for online courses, with over 10 million students worldwide. In his youth, Eren was a star mathematician, winning awards in mathematics, physics, computer science and chess including the International Mathematical Olympiads. He still loves chess today and plays to unwind after a long day at the office.
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About Carbon Health, Udemy: Udemy is an online learning platform that helps students, companies, and governments gain the skills they need to reach their goals.
Scott Chacon
Co-Founder and CEO of Chatterbug
Scott Chacon is a Git evangelist and Ruby developer currently as the Cofounder & CEO of Chatterbug. He is the author of the Pro Git book by Apress, the Git Internals Peepcode PDF as well as the maintainer of the Git homepage and the Git Community Book. [Source](http://schacon.github.com/about.html)
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About Chatterbug: Chatterbug building a new way to help you master language skills through adaptive courses.
Russell Belfer
Co-Founder and Engineering of Chatterbug
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About Chatterbug: Chatterbug building a new way to help you master language skills through adaptive courses.
Liz Clinkenbeard
Co-Founder and Chief Communications Officer of Chatterbug
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About Chatterbug: Chatterbug building a new way to help you master language skills through adaptive courses.
David Rogier
Founder and CEO of MasterClass
David Rogier is the founder and CEO of MasterClass, the streaming platform where anyone can learn from the world’s best across a wide range of subjects. As a kid, Rogier loved learning but often struggled in school. In 2015, he created MasterClass to reinvent the traditional model and provide life-long learning opportunities for everyone. MasterClass has since transformed the online learning category providing intimate access to over 90 of the world’s best practitioners. In 2020, David Rogier was named one of the most influential leaders in media and entertainment on Fortune’s “40 under 40” list and as one of Variety’s Hollywood New Leaders.
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About MasterClass: MasterClass is a provider of an online education platform designed to offer video based vocational courses.
Deborah Quazzo
Founder & Managing Partner of GSV Ventures
Deborah is the Managing Partner of GSV AcceleraTE, a venture capital fund investing in exceptional entrepreneurs and their companies in the $75B education and talent technology sector. In addition, she is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of the ASU+GSV Summit and Founder and Senior Advisor of GSV Advisors. Now in its 10th year, the ASU+GSV Summit celebrates innovations and innovators across the global “preK to Gray” learning and talent landscape and attracts over 4,000 attendees. Deborah currently serves on the boards of Ascend Learning (a portfolio company of Blackstone and CCCP), Degreed, The Educational Testing Service (ETS), Lightneer, Remind, and Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW). She is a board observer at CreativeLive and RaiseMe, and an advisory board member of Area9 Lyceum. She is a member of the boards of The Common Ground Foundation, Harvey Mudd College, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, The Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, The Khan Academy Thought Leadership Council and The Board of Dean’s Advisory Council at Princeton University. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Illinois Business Immigration Coalition. She previously served on the board of a number of education organizations including The Chicago Board of Education (CPS) and KIPP: Chicago. Deborah received the 2014 Arnold M. Berlin ’46 Distinguished Service to Princeton Award from the Princeton University Club of Chicago, the 2014 Visionary of the Year Award from CFY PowerMyLearning, the 2016 LEAP Innovator in Education “Champion” Award from LEAP Innovations, the 2016 Inaugural Impact Award from Golden Apple Foundation, and the 2017 Visionary Award from the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Deborah graduated cum laude with a BA in history from Princeton University in 1982 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1987.
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About GSV Ventures: GSV Ventures is a venture firm investing company.
Rafael Garcia
Co-Founder & CTO of Clever
Rafael leads the technical team and is in charge of all product engineering. Prior to co-founding Clever, Rafael worked at Jump Trading, where he specialized in machine learning and working with large volumes of data. Rafael holds a BA degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Harvard. He is a native of Naperville, IL, and lives in San Francisco, CA.
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About Clever: Clever is a digital learning platform designed for K12 schools and used by 22 million students and teachers.
Dan Carroll
Co-Founder, Chief Product Officer of Clever
Running technology for a charter school network, Dan saw first-hand how data obstacles were quickly becoming the biggest barriers to innovation in education. Prior to Clever, Dan led technology for West Denver Prep, where he had also taught middle school science as a Teach for America Corps Member. Now, Dan works with schools around the country to use data to aid innovation. Dan holds a BA in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard and currently resides in San Francisco.
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About Clever: Clever is a digital learning platform designed for K12 schools and used by 22 million students and teachers.
Russel Simmons
Founder and Chief of Learnirvana, Inc.
Russ co-founded Yelp Inc. in July 2004 with former colleague and friend Jeremy Stoppelman. Prior to Yelp, Russ was one of the early employees and the lead software architect at PayPal. He led a team of top engineers on critical projects related to security, scalability, stability, and internationalization as the company scaled rapidly. Following his time at PayPal, Russ joined Max Levchin’s (co-founder of PayPal) incubator, where he teamed up with Jeremy. Russ holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois.
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About Learnirvana, Inc.: Learnirvana, Inc. is a corporation that uses non traditional methodologies to help teach students learn about various subjects.
Zahra Kassam
Founder and CEO of Monti Kids
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About Monti Kids: Monti Kids helps parents use Montessori educational play from birth to age three.
Morgan Mercer
Founder, CEO of Vantage Point
Morgan Mercer is the founder of the VR-based enterprise training company, Vantage Point. Vantage Point’s suite of immersive training tools is initially aiming at tackling Anti-Sexual Harassment and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training. Mercer was recently regarded as one of the Top 10 Female Tech Innovators [in history] by TechRadar and has been featured in 4+ dozen publications including WIRED, NPR, The Economist, Vogue and more. Mercer was regarded by the UN Women chapter as a “Champion of Change” in the ‘Era of Equity’.
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About Vantage Point: We create experiences that change the way you think. Vantage Point is the future of workforce learning.
David Kopf
Co-Founder of Remind
Co-founder of Remind101
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About Remind: Remind is a communication platform that helps every student succeed.
Sam Chaudhary
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of ClassDojo
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About ClassDojo: ClassDojo is a school communication platform that teachers, students, and families use to build close-knit communities.
Weiting Liu
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Codementor
Weiting Liu is the founder & CEO of Codementor, a live help marketplace for developers. Weiting is a serial entrepreneur and an alumnus of both Y Combinator (YC ’07 SocialPicks, ’12) and Techstars (Seattle ’13 Codementor).
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About Arc.Dev, Codementor, Global Social, Peeridea: Codementor is an online marketplace connecting developers with experts for on-demand 1:1 help via screen sharing, video, and text chat.
Adrian Graham
Co-Founder & CEO of Seesaw
Adrian handles a variety of leadership responsibilities within Seesaw, with much of his time spent overseeing new product development, engineering efforts, and the company’s overall workplace culture.
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About Seesaw, Shadow Puppet: Seesaw is a platform for student engagement.
Carl Sjogreen
Co-Founder & CPO of Seesaw
Carl Sjogreen is the Co-founder and CPO of [Seesaw](http://web.seesaw.me). Before founding Seesaw, Carl was the Director of Product Management for Facebook Platform and Facebook mobile. Carl joined Facebook via the acquisition of nextstop.com, a social travel guide he founded in 2008. Before nextstop, Carl was a Group Product Manager at [Google](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/google) where he started [Google Calendar](http://www.crunchbase.com/product/google-calendar) and helped it grow into the #1 online calendar product. Carl holds a bachelors degree in Computer Science from Harvard University.
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About SeeSaw, Seesaw, Shadow Puppet: Seesaw is a platform for student engagement.
Gautam Tambay
Co-Founder & CEO of Springboard
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About Springboard: Springboard is an e-learning platform that prepares people for modern careers through cutting edge curriculum and mentor guidance.
Tess Michaels
Founder & CEO of Stride Funding
Tess Michaels is a serial entrepreneur with experiences from Goldman Sachs and Vista Equity. She is a recipient of the Wharton Deans Award for Innovation and the Penn Alumni Award of Merit. At Harvard Business School she served as a trustee of the Harbus Foundation and as a Senator. Tess was named as a Woman to Watch by the UN Foundation in 2015; she won the Grand Prize at MIT FinTech Competition in 2019, and was honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2020.
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About Stride Funding: Stride Funding is an outcomes-driven company that provides Income Share Agreements to supplement student loans.
Doug Barry
Co-Founder, COO and CFO of PORTL Hologram
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About MSMCi, PopJax, PORTL Hologram: PORTL Hologram offers at-home hologram machines.
David Nussbaum
Founder and CEO of PORTL Hologram
David Nussbaum is the Founder and CEO at PORTL Inc.
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About PORTL Hologram: PORTL Hologram offers at-home hologram machines.
Frank Yeary
Founder of WriteLab
Frank Yeary is executive chairman of CamberView Partners, a leading source of independent, investor-led advice for public companies. He was Vice Chancellor of his alma mater, University of California, Berkeley, from 2008 to 2012 and prior to this appointment was Global Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Citigroup Investment Banking. Until its sale in 2015, he was also Chairman and Co-founder of Level Money, Inc., a financial organization helping the next generation of young adults achieve financial balance. As vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, Yeary led the development of a new sustainable financial strategy, designed and implemented the university’s first comprehensive middle-class financial aid program and initiated and oversaw the implementation of one of the largest re-engineering and cost reduction efforts ever undertaken by a public university. In addition, for nearly two years he acted as chief administrative officer managing a portfolio including finance, human resources, labor relations, internal controls and intercollegiate athletics. Prior to his appointment at UC Berkeley, Yeary held various positions in the investment banking division of Citigroup. During the period 2004 to 2008 he was Global Head of Mergers & Acquisitions where he significantly restructured the department, nearly tripled revenues and led the firm from the fifth to the second largest M&A business, as ranked by global M&A volume. Prior to 2004 he was global head of the Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) investment banking practice at Salomon Smith Barney. Yeary received a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley in history and economics. He is on the boards of directors of eBay, Inc and Intel Corporation.
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About WriteLab: WriteLab is an online writing platform offering immediate, objective, and constructive responses to any writer’s prose.
Donald McQuade
Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer of WriteLab
Donald McQuade is the Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer at WriteLab.
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About WriteLab: WriteLab is an online writing platform offering immediate, objective, and constructive responses to any writer’s prose.
Vikas Gupta
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Wonder Workshop
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About Wonder Workshop: Wonder Workshop provides a platform that makes programming fun and accessible for children while they play.
Sylvain Kalache
Co-Founder of Holberton School
I am an Entrepreneur and a Software Engineer who has worked in the Tech industry for more than a decade. I love building communities and products that scale. I am currently the Co-Founder of Holberton School, a two-year program training highly skilled full-stack software engineers. Inspired by Progressive Education, our curriculum is based on a peer-learning and project-based approach. What regular schools call cheating, we call it collaboration. The school is free until students find a job, and our application is only selection students based on their motivation. Our diverse group of students (40% women, 50% POC as of today) are becoming highly skilled Software Engineers. The type of Software Engineer who work for prestigious companies such as Google, Tesla, Dropbox, NASA, LinkedIn, Apple… Through my work, I had the chance to partner with leaders in technology including LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Yahoo! Founder Jerry Yang, Docker founder Solomon Hykes, and Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel. But also sports and entertainment leaders like Grammy-Award winner NE-YO, actress Priyanka Chopra and New York Jets NFL player Kelvin Beachum. Prior to Holberton School, I joined SlideShare in 2011 as a DevOps Engineer to support the infrastructure that served 3 billion slides every month. I was part of the team who contributed to the acquisition by LinkedIn in 2012, where I worked for 3 years. I have a Master in Computer Science from the school SUPINFO, I studied in France, China (Hebei University of Technology) and the US (Dominican University). I moved 13 times for the first 21 years of my life, I am since then living in San Francisco.
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About Forbes San Francisco Business Council, Holberton School, While42: Holberton School is a project-based alternative to college for the next generation of software engineers.
Candice O’Denver
Founder and President of Balanced View
Candice O’Denver is an innovator in the practical application of philosophy as a means to benefit all. She is the inventor and founder of Balanced View, a standardized education in the nature of mind used throughout the world. Balanced View’s unique methodology applies algorithms to reach the consistent result of the beneficial empowerment of mind, speech, body, qualities and activities. Comprehensive order becomes spontaneously obvious through recognizing intelligence as inexhaustibly open in a vast space that is not restricted by the body. When Candice O’Denver was 7, a Bermuda neighbor read her “Awareness Nakedly Seeing” from the Oxford University translation of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.” The clear perspective of mind as an inexhaustible open intelligence was newly invigorated in within her upon hearing this important text. It gave Candice O’Denver the courage to continue in her firmly held belief that everything is beneficial by nature. Candice found no distinction between Tibetan timeless awareness and the Christian God that was so important to her family. She learned that each culture has its own system for bringing out the best in people, and that each system is a perfect fit for that particular culture. Candice O’Denver felt a strong urgency to bring unity to the people of the world through a standardized means of bringing out the best in people which is Balanced View In Bermuda, European Catholic pageantry and British royals were blended with celebratory Caribbean Christianity and early steel drum music — the roots of reggae, rapped out on large discarded oil cans. Every night, the sound filled the air from nightfall to 2am, becoming the vibration of the Caribbean countries and their people, including Candice. Although the 50s occured after World War II, Jewish people were not permitted entry to the country or its lodging through a variety of devious means. Candice O’Denver’s parents gave refuge to visitors and immigrants who were not allowed in Bermuda, giving all 6 of their children a rich background in international community and friendship. Candice O’Denver studied in a Yale mathematics program for gifted children. At the age of 18, she attended a UCLA international program for young philosophers where she focused on the pragmatic application of philosophy to be of immediate, permanent benefit. Bypassing undergraduate school, Candice was accepted into and completed graduate school, studying both critical theory and fine arts with a variety of professors at California College of the Arts, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. Early in childhood, Candice O’Denver was introduced to computer science and the use of original algorithms to reach consistent results. In the seminal years of computer history, her father began the high level design of the first international computer network for food distribution. He later led the team that developed and implemented this system when technological innovations matched his aspirations. Inspired by her father’s drawings of bar codes and stories about a future of food distribution to everyone in the world based on the bar code, reducibility became Candice O’Denver’s innate way of problem-solving. Candice O’Denver is particularly interested in utilizing the philosophy and mathematics of computer science as the basis for a revolution in social science, particularly philosophy of mind, which always has been left to vague levels of abstraction with no result of permanent benefit. Candice applies precise levels of organization and explanation used in computer science to arrive at specific results in the philosophy of mind. Advancing theories of information, reducibility, organization, and explanation, Candice has developed a comparative analysis and then a comprehensive map of all known systems of education in the nature of mind and in human nature. Candice O’Denver is very involved in the Massive Vibe Project. The lyrics that we’re putting out there in the Massive Vibe project are very special lyrics and will the very core of people. We want these lyrics always to be very, very special direct communications of open intelligence. Nature’s vast, open intelligence speaking to everyone everywhere so that everyone everywhere is very simply, yet radically, developing a universal revolutionary language that has never existed before between beings of all kinds.
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About Balanced View: A global grassroots movement empowering people to use their innate power for the benefit of all.
Michael Choi
Founder, CEO of Coding Dojo
Michael Choi is the Founder and CEO of Data Compass. He is an entrepreneurial engineer with deep experience training and managing talented teams, founding and building new companies.
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About Coding Dojo, Data Compass: Coding Dojo is a bootcamp that helps students transform their lives through programming literacy.
Nick Grandy
Co-Founder of Outschool
Nick Grandy is the Co-Founder of Outschool. He leads product and support. He was previously product manager at Clever, first engineer at Airbnb and worked as a high school physics teacher in Brooklyn. Nick holds an AB in Astronomy from Harvard and an MSc in Computer Science from Oxford.
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About Outschool: Outschool is a marketplace of live online classes for kids that connects learners, parents, and teachers together.
Mikhail Seregine
Co-Founder of Outschool
Mikhail Seregine is the Co-Founder of Outschool. He leads engineering and design. He’s previously worked to design and build Google Consumer Surveys, Social Gold payment services, and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Mikhail holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford.
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About Outschool: Outschool is a marketplace of live online classes for kids that connects learners, parents, and teachers together.
Amir Nathoo
CEO and Co-Founder of Outschool
Amir Nathoo is a Co-Founder and CEO at Outschool.
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About Outschool: Outschool is a marketplace of live online classes for kids that connects learners, parents, and teachers together.
Bhavin Parikh
Co-Founder & CEO of Magoosh
Bhavin is co-founder and CEO at Magoosh, a company that creates web and mobile apps to help students prepare for standardized tests such as the GRE, GMAT, SAT, and TOEFL. He received his BS in Economics and Computer Science from Duke University and his MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Bhavin loves advising startups on growing their ideas and teams. He used to play ultimate frisbee; now he eats gelato.
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About Magoosh: Magoosh provides online test prep that makes studying for standardized tests accessible, effective, and enjoyable.
Ryan Delk
CEO & Co-Founder of Primer
Ryan Delk is the CEO and Co-Founder at Primer. He was the COO of Omni before that.
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About Primer: Primer is an online community where 7-14-year-olds spend their time coding video games.
John Freddy Vega
Co-Founder & CEO of Platzi
John Freddy Vega is the Co-Founder and CEO of Platzi.
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About Platzi: Platzi is an effective online education platform that offers classes on marketing, programming, business, and design.
Christian Van Der Henst
Co-Founder of Platzi
Christian Van Der Henst is the Co-Founder at Platzi.
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About Platzi: Platzi is an effective online education platform that offers classes on marketing, programming, business, and design.
Andrew Lockhart
Co-Founder, Board Member & Chief Executive Officer of Fathom
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About Fathom: Fathom develops a coding automation platform designed to expedite medical coding practice.
Salman Khan
Founder & CEO of Khan Academy
Sal started Khan Academy in 2005 to help his cousins (and soon other people’s cousins). In addition to setting the vision and direction for Khan Academy, he still makes a lot of videos (although he’s not the only one anymore). Sal holds three degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard.
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About Khan Academy, Khan Lab School: Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization that provides a free world class education for anyone, anywhere.
Andrew Clapham
Co-Founder of QPay
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About QPay: QuicklyPayit is a payments platform for students and societies in Australia.
Sepideh Nasiri
Founder & CEO of Persian Women In Tech
Sepideh (“Sepi”) Nasiri is an award winning serial Entrepreneur with 16 years of experience working in the Tech Industry, the Founder of Persian Women In Tech, the former Vice President at Women 2.0 and a life-time advocate for women, diversity and inclusion. Mrs. Nasiri started her career as a Co-founder and Managing Editor of a digital and print Los Angeles Magazine and later joined a number of successful startups in Silicon Valley. In 2014, she was recognized by San Francisco Business Times/Journal “40under40” and Diversity Journal’s 2014 “Women Worth Watching”. Currently, Mrs. Nasiri advises early stage startups including at global initiatives such as WeMENA (a program by the World Bank) and mentors globally many female entrepreneurs and founders in technology serving as an advisor to initiatives such as TechWomen, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
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About Persian Women In Tech: Persian Women In Tech supports Iranian women in Tech/STEM from all across the Globe’s landscape.
Kirill Makharinsky
Co-Founder, CEO, President & Board Member of Enki
Kirill is the CEO and Founder of Enki, a tech-enabled skills training company. Previously, Kirill cofounded Emerging Travel, a leading online travel agency; and Quid, an intelligence tool for strategy teams. Both companies have over $40M annual net revenue each. Kirill is an Oxford University alum where he graduated with a double first in Mathematics and as the #1 UK Graduate of the Year.
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About Emerging Travel Group, Enki: Enki is maximizing employee potential through modern, tech-enabled skills training.
Jack Herrick
Founder and CEO of wikiHow
Jack Herrick is a serial entrepreneur and current CEO and Founder of wikiHow. Jack founded wikiHow, which is like Wikipedia for how-to. Jack started and self financed wikiHow from inception to it’s current position as one of the most popular sites on the web receiving over 25 million unique visitors per month. Prior to wikiHow, Jack was co-CEO of eHow. With Josh Hannah, Jack purchased eHow in 2004. Between 2004 and 2006 eHow grew 30x in traffic and revenue and became the largest pure play how-to site on the web. Demand Media acquired eHow in 2006. In 2002 Jack co-founded Luminescent Technologies with Dan Abrams, Eli Yablonovitch, and Stan Osher. Luminescent is a computational semiconductor lithography company that has raised over $25 MM in venture capital. From 1999-2001 Jack was CEO and co-founder at BigTray, a Sequoia funded e-commerce company. BigTray was sold in 2001 and remains the largest online vendor of restaurant equipment and supplies.
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About Signpost, wikiHow, wikiHow: wikiHow is a web- and wiki-based community that provides its users with a database of how-to guides.
Suren Markosian
Co-Founder & CEO of Epic
Suren is the CEO and co-founder of Epic!, the first all-you-can-read e-book service built specifically for school-aged readers. He is a successful, serial entrepreneur and founder of several consumer tech startups, including CrowdStar, which rose to become one of the largest social gaming companies with over 200M users, second only to Zynga. Having created and successfully scaled large entertainment and e-commerce businesses to serve hundreds of millions of customers, Markosian is an expert in product design, gamification, technology, scalability, consumer growth and marketing.
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About Epic: Epic is an internet company that specializes in books, eBooks learning, and educational technology.
Kevin Donahue
Co-Founder of Epic
Currently, he is the co-founder of Epic!, the first all-you-can-read e-book service built specifically for school-aged readers.
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About Epic: Epic is an internet company that specializes in books, eBooks learning, and educational technology.
Jordana Stein
Founder & CEO of Enrich
Jordana Stein is an expert on financial aid and student debt for GoGirl Finance. She founded SpareSugar, which explains the ins and outs of student loans in no-nonsense terms. She’s also got a strong command of economic and financial policy as she is a speechwriter for the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). She’s got a Masters from London School of Economics and Sciences Po.
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About Enrich: enrich is a private professional network for senior leaders share knowledge offline with trusted peers.
Deepak Sekar
Co-Founder and CEO of Prof Jim
An inventor with 125 patents and the creator of Sally the Robot, Deepak is responsible for technology, products, and strategic partnerships as President of Chowbotics. Deepak founded Chowbotics in 2014 to make fresh food more accessible to all through the application of advanced robotics. Prior to Chowbotics, he was a Director at Rambus and Chief Scientist at MonolithIC 3D Inc. He received his B. Tech from IIT Madras in 2003 and PhD from Georgia Tech in 2007.
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About Prof Jim: Prof Jim is an educational platform that revolutionizes the education sector by using artificial intelligence.
Cameron Teitelman
Founder, Chairman, and head of admissions and oversee investment vehicles of StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund)
Cameron Teitelman is the Founder and Chairman of StartX, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit that runs an accelerator for Stanford affiliated entrepreneurs. Under his management, StartX has supported more than 1,100+ founders building 500+ companies. StartX companies have raised over $3.3B to date. In 2013, the Stanford-StartX Fund was launched. To date, SSF has invested in 250 StartX companies across 400+ rounds, investing $130 million in capital.
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About StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund): StartX is an educational non-profit that helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs.
Dan Ha
Co-Founder, Sr. Managing Director of StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund)
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About StartX (Stanford-StartX Fund): StartX is an educational non-profit that helps Stanford’s top entrepreneurs.
Kimberly Bryant
Founder & CEO of Black Girls CODE
Kimberly Bryant is the Founder and Executive Director of Black Girls CODE, a non-profit organization dedicated to “changing the face of technology” by introducing girls of color (ages 7-17) to the field of technology and computer science with a concentration on entrepreneurial concepts. Kimberly has enjoyed a successful 25+ year professional career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as an Engineering Manager in a series of technical leadership roles for various Fortune 100 companies such as Genentech, Merck, and Pfizer. Since 2011 Kimberly has helped Black Girls CODE grow from a local organization serving only the Bay Area, to an international organization with seven chapters across the U.S. and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Black Girls CODE has currently reached over 3000 students and continues to grow and thrive. Kimberly serves on the National Champions Board for the National Girls Collaborative Project, and the National Board of the NCWIT K-12 Alliance. Kimberly and Black Girls CODE have been nationally recognized as a social innovator and for her work to increase opportunities for women and girls in the tech industry. In August 2012 Kimberly was given the prestigious Jefferson Award for Community Service for her work to support communities in the Bay Area. In 2013 Kimberly was highlighted by Business Insider on its list of “The 25 Most Influential African- Americans in Technology” and was named to The Root 100 and the Ebony Power 100 lists. A highlight of 2013 for Kimberly was being invited to the White House as a Champion of Change for her work in tech inclusion and for her focus on bridging the digital divide for girls of color. In 2014 Kimberly received an American Ingenuity Award in Social Progress from the Smithsonian along with being given the Inaugural Women Who Rule Award in Technology via Politico. She has been identified as a thought leader in the area of tech inclusion and has spoken on the topic at events such as Personal Democracy Forum, TedX Kansas City, Platform Summit, Big Ideas Festival, SXSW, and many others.
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About Black Girls CODE: Black Girls CODE is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching girls aged 7 to 17 about computer programming and digital technology.
Elena Masolova
Founder & CEO of Eduson
Founder & CEO at Eduson. Investor at TokenStars, the first celebrity management platform on the blockchain.
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About Eduson: Eduson is a corporate eLearning platform.
Jude Gomila
Founder and CEO of Golden
Jude Gomila is currently CEO and Founder of the startup Golden.
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About Golden: Golden is a developer of a self-constructing knowledge database used to accelerate discovery and education.
Lisa Falzone
CEO & Co-Founder of Athena Security
Lisa Falzone is the Co-Founder & CEO of Athena Security, an award-winning Gun Detection solution enterprises. Since starting the company from the ground up in 2017, Falzone has been a trailblazer in technology. She is spearheading her last company Revel Systems which rasied over 100m in funding and a evalution over 500m. Revel’s mission was to help entrepreneurs around the world build their dream business.
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About Athena Security: Athena’s mission is to save lives by preventing crimes like active shooter situations with AI Gun Detection Software and detecting a fever.
Livia Stone
Co-Founder of Biz & Livia Stone Foundation
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About Biz & Livia Stone Foundation: The Biz & Livia Stone Foundation was founded by Biz Stone (Twitter Founder) & Livia Stone.
Jeff Harris
Co-Founder of Parchment
Jeff Harris is the Co-Founder of Parchment.
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About Parchment: Parchment enables learners, educators, associations, and employers to securely send and receive academic credentials online.
Tim O’Reilly
Founder, Chairman & CEO of O’Reilly
Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media Inc. Considered by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world, O’Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, Strata: The Business of Data, the Velocity Conference on Web Performance and Operations, and many others. Tim’s blog, the O’Reilly Radar “watches the alpha geeks” to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is also a partner at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, O’Reilly’s early stage venture firm, and is on the board of Safari Books Online, PeerJ, Code for America, and Maker Media, which was recently spun out from O’Reilly Media. Maker Media’s Maker Faire has been compared to the West Coast Computer Faire, which launched the personal computer revolution.
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About O’Reilly, Oreilly AlphaTech Ventures, Oreilly AlphaTech Ventures, POPVOX: O’Reilly provides technology and business training, knowledge, and insight to help companies succeed.
Michelle Sun
CEO & Founder of First Code Academy
Michelle is the CEO and founder of First Code Academy, a leading coding and STEM education institute that teaches coding to kids from 4 to 18 with hands on workshops, camps and regular programs. She founded AppJamming Summit, the largest app development competition that attracts thousands of submissions from students (8-15 years old). She is a visiting instructor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), on the Mobile Computing Master Trainer program. Prior to starting First Code, she graduated from the inaugural class of Hackbright Academy, a leading coding bootcamp in San Francisco, and held various technical roles in high growth startups in Silicon Valley, including as the first growth hacker at Buffer and Bump Technologies (acquired by Google in 2013). Born and raised in Hong Kong, she graduated from University of Chicago and began her career at Goldman Sachs as an equity analyst. In addition to running First Code Academy, she is also passionate about women entrepreneurship and empowerment, cofounded a community for women in technology, Women Who Code (Hong Kong chapter). In her free time, she loves to train for long distance running, vinyasa yoga and travel. She contributes to Forbes and Womany (top blog in Taiwan). Her work has received international and regional accolades including the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Asia List in 2016, BBC 100 Women Entrepreneurs in 2015, Women of Hope Award (Entrepreneur Category 2015) and (Tech Category 2014) and American Chambers Women of Influence Awards (Young Entrepreneur Category 2015).
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About First Code Academy: First Code Academy is the leading K-12 coding education institute with presence in greater china and southeast asia.
Richard Lin
CEO & Co Founder of Ombre
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About Ombre: Ombre is a provider of a microbiome testing kit designed to incorporate personalized probiotics and microbiome testing.
Jun Kim
CSO & Co Founder of Ombre
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About Ombre: Ombre is a provider of a microbiome testing kit designed to incorporate personalized probiotics and microbiome testing.
Taylor Freeman
Founder & CEO of Axon Park
Taylor Freeman is the Founder & CEO of Axon Park, a virtual campus where students from around the world can learn together in VR. He has been working at the intersection of VR and education over the last five years during which time he established two incubation spaces in LA and San Francisco housing over 150 AR and AI startups, hosted over 500 events focused around VR and AR, oversaw the training of nearly 1,000 students in-person on VR development, consulted with companies like NASA, Stanford Medical, Google, and IDEO and built a news media platform focused on VR that reaches millions of people per month. Taylor was awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 for his work building the industry and he taught the first remote in-VR class with at MIT in 2018. He is deeply passionate about using VR to unlock new levels of human cognition and overcome the challenges many students face in the classroom around geographical limitations, student and teacher bias, and overall accessibility.
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About Axon Park: Welcome to your new virtual campus. Empowering organizations and individuals to harness the power of XR + AI for learning.
Sara Mauskopf
Co-Founder and CEO of Winnie
Sara Mauskopf is the CEO and Co-founder of Winnie, a marketplace for daycare and preschool helping over 4M parents across the United States. Sara has a background in consumer technology and product management. Prior to founding Winnie she was the Director of Product at Postmates, and prior to that held product leadership roles at Twitter, YouTube, and Google. She graduated with a Computer Science and Engineering degree from MIT. She’s also a mom of 2, soon to be 3, young children.
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About Winnie: Winnie is a marketplace for child care built on powerful data systems and backed by a trusted community of parents and providers.
Lawrence Kosick
Co-Founder of GetSetUp
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About GetSetUp: GetSetup is a social learning platform that offers classes and social opportunities to help older adults.
Brian Gerkey
Chief Executive Officer, Founder of Open Robotics
Brian Gerkey is CEO of Open Robotics. Prior to joining Open Robotics, Brian was Director of Open Source Development at Willow Garage. Previously, Brian was a Computer Scientist in the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI, and before that, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University. Brian received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2003, his M.S. in Computer Science from USC in 2000, and his B.S.E. in Computer Engineering, with a secondary major in Mathematics and a minor in Robotics and Automation, from Tulane University in 1998. Among other accolades, Brian was recognized by MIT Technology Review with the TR35 award and by Silicon Valley Business Journal with their 40 Under 40 award.
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About Open Robotics: Open Robotics support the development, distribution, and adoption of open software and hardware for use in robotics.
Mark Dempster
Partner, Founder & Chief People Officer of Founders Circle Capital
Before becoming a Partner at Founders Circle Capital, Mark Dempster was the Marketing Partner at [Sequoia Capital](/financial-organization/sequoia-capital). Mark’s role is to provide portfolio companies with an an “entrepreneur start-up kit” in marketing, sales and services. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2000, Mark led the brand strategy practice for CKS Partners. Previously, Mark was a Brand Strategist for Landor Associates. Mark received a BS in Economics and Communications from UC Davis. (Source: [Sequoia Capital](http://www.sequoiacap.com/people/mark-dempster/))
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About Founders Circle Capital: Founders Circle Capital is a growth-stage investment firm that focuses on investing in people.
Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia
Founder and CEO of Product School
I’m an entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience building global companies and digital products. I founded Product School in 2014, which is the global leader in Product Management training with a community of over one million product professionals. All of our instructors are real-world Product Leaders working at top Silicon Valley companies including Google, Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb, PayPal, Uber, and Amazon. Prior to Product School, I founded Floqq, the largest online education marketplace in Spanish and Portuguese at the time. Floqq joined the 500 Startups and Startup Chile accelerator programs. I hold a Certificate in Global Business Management and Marketing from the University of California, Berkeley, a BS in Computer Science from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and a BS in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. Throughout my career, I’ve participated as a speaker in more than 1,000 events, conferences and classes around the world. Outside of work, I love playing soccer, tennis and skiing.
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About Product School: Global leader in product management training
Nina Church
Founder & Head Coach of Prismaticco
Nina Church is the founder & head executive coach at Pirsmaticco, previous cofounder at Nomva, Nika & RevvEd.
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About Nomva, Prismaticco: Executive coaching for scaling startup founders under 30.
Cristobal Viedma
Founder & CEO of Lingokids
Viedma Cristobal is the Software Engineer: Head of platform at Viki Inc.
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About Lingokids, Viki: Helping families around the world raise amazing kids.
Jeff Scheur
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of NoRedInk
Jeff Scheur After teaching high school English for 8 years and grading 15,000 papers, Jeff created NoRedInk to help his students improve their grammar and writing skills. A National Board Certified Teacher, former debate director, and speaker on education innovation, he is intent on improving the feedback loop in classrooms and empowering students to become skilled, creative, and confident writers. He holds an MA in Education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a BA from Oberlin College.
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About NoRedInk: NoRedInk is a web-based learning platform supporting students to improve their grammar and writing skills.
Taylor Nieman
Co-Founder and CEO of Toucan
Co-Founder and CEO of Toucan (JoinToucan.com)
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About Toucan: Learn a new language while browsing the web. Download the browser extension for free today! JoinToucan.com
Raymond Murthi
Co-Founder & CTO of Going Merry
Raymond Murthi is the Co-Founder & CTO at Going Merry.
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About Going Merry: Going Merry makes it easy for students to find and apply for financial aid. We are used by students & counselors at 1 in 3 US high schools.
Charlie Maynard
Co-Founder & CEO of Going Merry
Charlie Maynard is the Co-Founder & CEO at Going Merry.
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About Going Merry: Going Merry makes it easy for students to find and apply for financial aid. We are used by students & counselors at 1 in 3 US high schools.
Cameron Yarbrough
Co-Founder and CEO of Torch
Cameron is the Co-founder and CEO of Torch Leadership Labs. He brings 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to his role as CEO, along with a deep background in mindfulness and psychotherapy. After the successful sale of a “click and mortar” retail company in 2005, Cameron spent 30 days on a silent meditation retreat. Insight from that period of silence and subsequent meditation retreats were foundational to his development as a leader, and lead him to study the roots of Freudian and Humanistic psychology at the California Institute of Integral studies, after which he co-found Well Clinic: a mental health company in San Francisco. Under Cameron’s leadership, The Well became the Bay Area’s leading provider of private pay psychotherapy services. Torch is the natural next step in Cameron’s leadership journey, as it aims to democratize coaching by making it available to leaders at every level of an organization. Cameron has also served as an interpersonal dynamics facilitator at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Torch: Torch is a leadership development platform that provides coaching, software, and feedback to raise performers to the next level.
Philip Smolen
Co-Founder, CTO of Trade Ideas
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About Trade Ideas: Trade Ideas provides idea generation technology and real-time risk management analytics to investors.
Max Deutsch
Co-Founder of Monthly
Max Deutsch is a Co-Founder at Monthly.
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About Monthly, Openmind: Monthly provides hands-on, one-month classes for everyone to experience the creativity and fulfillment of learning new things with others.
Valentin Perez
Co-Founder of Monthly
Valentin Perez is a Co-Founder at Monthly.
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About Monthly, Openmind: Monthly provides hands-on, one-month classes for everyone to experience the creativity and fulfillment of learning new things with others.
Co-Founder of The Knowledge Society
Nav Nathoo is a thought leader in developing innovation through disruptive technology. He is currently the Director of Alchemist X, an internationally recognized accelerator program delivered within large enterprises to catalyze innovation internally. Previous to this role, he was the founder and CEO of Airpost, which was acquired by Box (NYSE:BOX), the world’s leading enterprise platform for content collaboration. He is an alumnus of leading startup organizations including TechStars, The Alchemist Accelerator, AngelHack and The Accelerator Centre.
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About The Knowledge Society: Training “olympic level” CEOs, innovators, thought leaders, and researchers to solve important problems using exponential technologies
Brock Luker
Co-Founder/CEO of Creator Arcade
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About Creator Arcade: Learn Electronic Dance Music alongside the world’s most popular DJ’s
Chris Murphy
Co-Founder/CTO of Creator Arcade
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About Creator Arcade: Learn Electronic Dance Music alongside the world’s most popular DJ’s
Deepak Chopra
Chairman, Founder & Director of The Chopra Foundation
Founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a whole health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization.
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About Chopra Global, Osi Systems, The Chopra Foundation: The mission of the Chopra Foundation is to advance the cause of mind/body spiritual healing, education, and research.
Adam Pisoni
Founder & Executive Chairman of Abl Schools
Adam started Abl to help all schools move beyond the 20th century model of education. Two and a half decades after dropping out of high school, he returned to the field of education to rethink the structure of school as we know it. His career has been focused on helping organizations become more agile and responsive, and now he brings this expertise to schools. Prior to Abl, Adam co-founded Yammer in 2008, ultimately creating one of the fastest growing SaaS companies of all time. He oversaw product, analytics, and engineering, scaling the company to 500 employees until Yammer sold to Microsoft in 2012 for $1.2 Billion. To clear his head, Adam also enjoys long bike rides, backpacking, and rock climbing.
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About Abl Schools: Abl Schools is building a new kind of school operations software that helps school leaders better manage their time and resources.
Karlie Kloss
Founder of Kode with Klossy
Karlie Elizabeth Kloss is an American fashion model. Models.com ranks Kloss as a supermodel. Vogue Paris declared her one of the top 30 models of the 2000s. She was a Victoria’s Secret Angel from 2013-2015. In 2016, Kloss started Kode with Klossy, a summer camp that provides scholarships to teach young girls how to code.
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About Kode with Klossy: Kode With Klossy Summer Camp is a free two week program for girls 13-18 years old.
Jim Steyer
Founder and CEO of Common Sense Media
Jim has spent more than 20 years as one of the most respected experts and entrepreneurs on issues related to children’s policy and media in the United States. As CEO, he is responsible for the overall leadership of Common Sense Media, the nation’s leading nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the media lives of kids and families. Prior to founding Common Sense, Jim was Chairman and CEO of JP Kids, a respected family media company. Before that, he served as President of Children Now, a leading national advocacy and media organization for children, which he founded in 1988. Jim began his career as an elementary school teacher and then became a public interest lawyer. He served as a law clerk for the California Supreme Court, as a deputy district attorney, and as a civil rights attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In addition to his duties at Common Sense, Jim teaches popular courses on civil rights, civil liberties, and children’s issues at Stanford University, where he has taught for the past 22 years in the School of Education and Department of Political Science. During that period, he has received a number of Stanford’s highest teaching honors. Jim is also the author of the widely acclaimed book The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media’s Effect on Our Children, which draws upon his extensive experience as a leading child advocate, educational media expert, and dad. Over the past decade, Jim has appeared regularly on a variety of national television and radio programs, including The Today Show, Good Morning America, Oprah, CNN, The O’Reilly Factor, and Larry King. He hosts a regular weekly segment, “Kids and the Media,” on CBS-5 TV in San Francisco, and his work has been featured in many publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. Jim grew up in New York City and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford. He received his JD from Stanford Law School, where he founded the East Palo Alto Community Law Project. Jim is the father of four children and lives with his family in the Bay Area.
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About Common Sense Media: Common Sense Media provides information and education to help kids and families thrive in a world of media and technology.
Priscilla Chan
Co-Founder of Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Priscilla Chan is co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization she started with her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, in December 2015. As a pediatrician and former teacher, her work with patients and students in communities across the Bay Area has informed her desire to make learning more personalized and find a path to cure disease. She is also the founder of The Primary School, which integrates health and education and serves children and families in East Palo Alto and the Belle Haven neighborhood in Menlo Park, California. Priscilla earned her BA in Biology at Harvard University and her MD at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed her pediatrics training in the UCSF/PLUS Pediatrics Residency.
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About Breakthrough Energy Coalition, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Startup:Education: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative supports community-driven solutions to accelerate progress in science, education, and justice.
Nitesh Goel
Founder & CEO of Padlet
Founder of Padlet
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About Padlet: Building software for a good education.
Azhar Khan
Founder and CEO of Agnitus
CEO at PhotoGAUGE.
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About Agnitus, Cornell University, PhotoGAUGE: Agnitus is a developer of touch-enabled learning applications.
Mike Mahlkow
Co-Founder of Blair
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About Blair: Blair provides a platform that allows schools to finance students through Income-Share Agreements.
Shaan Hathiramani
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flockjay
Shaan Hathiramani is a Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Flockjay. He is a former CXO at Thistle and Portfolio Manager at Balyasny Asset Management L.P. and Alyeska Investment Group. Mr. Hathiramani graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts in Applied Mathematics.
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About Flockjay: Flockjay is an online academy that empowers job seekers with the tools and training they need to break into tech.
Michael Ellison
Founder and CEO of CodePath
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About CodePath: CodePath is a nonprofit increasing diversity in tech by transforming CS college education.
Chris Haroun
Founder of Haroun Education Ventures
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About Accenture, Haroun Education Ventures: Haroun Education Ventures They think that all problems in the world can be solved using education and technology.
Marco Marinucci
Founder and CEO of Mind The Bridge
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About Mind The Bridge, Mind the Seed – MTS Fund: Mind The Bridge provides innovation advisory services for corporations and startups.
Stephen Forte
Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Fresco Capital
Stephen Forte is a Managing Partner of Fresco Capital. Prior to Fresco, Stephen was Chief Strategy Officer of Telerik, a leading vendor of developer and team productivity tools and acquired by Progress Software in 2014. At Telerik Stephen oversaw international expansion, partnerships, and corporate development. Previously, he founded and operated the Mach5 accelerator in Silicon Valley, AcceleratorHK, Hong Kong’s first startup accelerator, and the Laudato Si’ Challenge Accelerator, the Vatican’s first accelerator. Stephen was the co-founder of several startups, including Chassis Finder (acquired in 2012), Triton Works (acquired in 2010) and Corzen (acquired in 2007). Prior to Corzen, Stephen served as the first CTO of venture backed Zagat Survey in New York City (acquired in 2011) and also was co-founder of the New York-based software consulting firm The Aurora Development Group. Stephen has an MBA from the City University of New York, did post grad work at LSE and has written several books on application and database development. An avid mountain climber, he leads an annual charity fundraising trek in the Mt. Everest region.
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About CircleLink Health, Fresco Capital, iQuantile, Swivl: Fresco Capital is a global early stage VC firm with the Managing Partners based in San Francisco, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
Pradeep Gaddam
CTO and Co-Founder of WeAdmit
Pradeep Gaddam is the CTO and Co-Founder at WeAdmit.
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About WeAdmit: WeAdmit guides high school students through the complexity of college admissions, help them discover their passion, and achieve their goals.
Kevin Wu
CEO and Founder of Pathrise
Kevin Wu is a Founder and CEO at Pathrise.
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About Pathrise: Pathrise is an online mentorship program for tech professionals that provides training, and advice to help in landing the next job.
Derrick Mar
CTO and Founder of Pathrise
Derrick Mar is a Founder and CTO at Pathrise. He is a former Software Engineer at Facebook. Mr. Mar received a bachelor of business administration in Business Administration and Management at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
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About Pathrise: Pathrise is an online mentorship program for tech professionals that provides training, and advice to help in landing the next job.
Vivian Shen
Co-Founder and CEO of Juni Learning
Vivian Shen is the Co-Founder and CEO at Juni Learning
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About Juni Learning: A learning platform helping every student achieve their best future.
Alan Paller
Founder & Director of Research of SANS Institute
Alan Paller founded SANS, a college and training school that has trained more than 145,000 cybersecurity technologists in 72 countries. Paller oversees a global program that celebrates people responsible for remarkable improvement in cyber-risk reduction. He has testified before the Senate and House and was a charter member of the President’s National Infrastructure Assurance Council. In 2010, the Washington Post named Paller as one of seven people “worth knowing in cyber security.” He serves on the NASA Advisory Council, chaired the DHS 2012 Task Force on Cyber Skills and headed the FCC Task Force on Best Practices in Cybersecurity. Earlier, Paller helped build one of the first large software companies, took it public and merged it into a larger company listed on the NY Stock Exchange.
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About SANS Institute: SANS Institute is a research and education organization that provides education related to information security.
Juan Pablo Mejia
Co-Founder and CTO of BabySparks
Juan Pablo Mejia is the founder of Intellecting, a company that specializes in creating and implementing web-enabled IT solutions. Juan Pablo worked for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) where he was the creator of UN’s most visited portal. Juan Pablo has a degree in Industrial Engineering, with a concentration in Information Technology (IT) from The University of Los Andes in Colombia. He has an advanced degree from ICN Business School (France) where he specialized in International Management, again focusing on IT.
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About BabySparks: BabySparks is a developer of tools and programs to help parents engage their babies and toddlers in the critical areas of early development.
Elise Smith
Co-Founder & CEO of Praxis Labs
Elise Smith is a co-founder and CEO at Praxis Labs. Prior to co-founding Praxis Labs, Elise invested in and coached entrepreneurs developing diversity and inclusion solutions at NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy. Prior to that work, she developed ed-tech products and led ed-tech partnerships at IBM Watson. Elise holds a B.A. in Geography & Social Inequity from Dartmouth College and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University. Inspired by her parents’ fight for educational equity, Elise is dedicated to scaling access and opportunity with the goal of creating a more equitable society.
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Melina Lopez
Founder of Praxis Labs
Melina Lopez is a Co-Founder of Praxis Labs.
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Heather Shen
Founder of Praxis Labs
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Joshua Broggi
CEO & Founder of Woolf
Joshua is the founder of Woolf, a university project that makes it possible for qualified academics and institutions to create accredited courses and teach them. Previously, at Oxford, Joshua was a member of the Faculty of Philosophy, a member of Wolfson College, and a member of the governing Congregation of the University. He also held a Humboldt Fellowship, during which I worked on the definition and measure of human progress.
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About Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Oxford, Woolf: Marketplace, Market Network, EdTech, Higher Education
Jeremiah Owyang
Founder of Crowd Companies
Jeremiah Owyang is the Founder of Crowd Companies, an innovation club for Fortune 1000 companies, which focuses on how large companies tap the collaborative economy. He focuses on how disruptive technologies—such as social media, mobile, and the internet of things powers the collaborative economy—and impacts the relevance of corporations to customers today and in the future. He is well recognized by both the tech industry and the media for his grounded approach to deriving astute insights through rigorous research. His site, “Web Strategy” is one of the premier blogs on how corporations connect with their customers using Web technologies. Jeremiah is frequently quoted in top-tier publication and cited in books and press and media. He was featured in the “Who’s Who” in the Silicon Valley Business Journal, and his Twitter feed was named one of the top feeds by Time. Jeremiah was an Industry Analyst at Forrester Research, a founding partner at Altimeter Group, and a web marketing leader at Hitachi.
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About Crowd Companies, Kaleido Insights: Crowd Companies is an association to help big companies better understand the collaborative economy.
