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 San Francisco 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.
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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.
Sandra Oh Lin
Founder & CEO of KiwiCo
Sandra Oh Lin is the Founder and CEO of KiwiCo. KiwiCo is inspiring the next generation of innovators by designing and delivering seriously fun and enriching hands-on experiences that build creative confidence and problem solving skills. Through its ecommerce and content platform, KiwiCo now offers seven different product lines that cover engineering, art, science, geography, and more for kids of all ages. Before starting KiwiCo, Sandra was the GM for eBay Fashion and a founding member of PayPal Mobile. Additionally, she led product management, marketing, and technology at an online content management startup and a payments startup. Sandra’s early career began in R&D at Procter & Gamble. Sandra graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About KiwiCo: KiwiCo is a website for kids that provides inspiration and materials necessary for imaginative play and learning.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Nitesh Goel
Founder & CEO of Padlet
Founder of Padlet
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About Padlet: Building software for a good education.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Robert Statica
Founder & Director of Center for Information Protection
Robert is an information security, information technology and homeland security expert with over 25 years of experience. As the CTO and Co-founder of Wickr, he leads the innovation and design of the corporation, provides core algorithm design and co-authored the patents for Wickr’s underlying technology. Robert is the founder and director of the Center for Information Protection (CIP), a computer forensics and cyber security research lab at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He is also the former director and a founding faculty member in the Information Technology Program where he certified NJIT as an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE-IA). Prior to NJIT, Robert held leadership positions in the private sector where he lead the innovation, research and development for several technology companies. He also led the design and development of the first intelligent Intrusion Prevention System (i-IPS) to mitigate threats based on correlating, learning, and adapting to threat behavior for a U.S. Army contract. Robert holds a Master of Science and PhD in Computer Science, a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Homeland Security and a Ph.D (ABD) degree in Business Administration – Homeland Security.
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About Center for Information Protection: CIP hosts many hands-on courses for a variety of classes at NJIT to supplement the theories taught by faculty.
Suz Somersall
CEO & Co-Founder of KiraKira3D
Serial entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of KiraKira, engineering educational company & mobile 3D modelling app. KiraKira is an Intel-Capital backed startup based in Silicon Valley, partnering with companies like HP and Autodesk to democratize access to 3D modelling and 3D printing. Studied art and engineering at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design. Featured in Fast Company this year as 100 Most Creative People in Business.
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About KiraKira3D: KiraKira3D is a First 3D Modeling Mobile Application
Daniel Kraft
Faculty Chair for Medicine, Founder & Chair, Exponential Medicine Program: of Singularity University
Founder of IntelliMedicine, Daniel conceived of the personalized, printed IntelliMed and is inventor of the IntelliMedicine technology.. He is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician. He serves as faculty chair for Medicine at Singularity University, and is founder and chair of Exponential Medicine, a program that explores the cutting edge of technology and the potentials to reshape health and medicine. Daniel trained both internal medicine and pediatrics at the Massachusetts General Hospital with further specialization in hematology/oncology and has deep clinical and biomedical research and innovation experience. As a fellow at Stanford Daniel was enrolled in the inaugural year of Biodesign Program, and developed expertise in medical device development. He is always looking to identify unmet needs in healthcare and address them through the convergence of technology and alignment with patients, clinicians and healthcare systems.
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About IntelliMedicine, Proteus Regenerative Medicine, RegenMed Systems, Singularity University, Tech Nation Health, The Aspen Institute, The Commons Project Foundation: Singularity University is a benefit corporation that provides educational programs, innovative partnerships, and a startup accelerator.
Nolan Amy
Founder of Plickers
Nolan Amy joined Plickers as Founder in 2011.
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About Plickers: Plickers is an online assessment tool used by teachers to check the student’s understanding.
Lucian Tarnowski
CEO & Founder of BraveNew
Lucian is Founder and CEO of BraveNew.com, the enterprise platform for knowledge sharing communities. BraveNew ‘Communities of Purpose’ enable organisations such as Lockheed Martin, Mercer, Manpower and the Collaborative Health Network to use curated content to connect, engage and develop stakeholders inside and outside of the company around any initiative such as Veterans, STEM, Women, Diversity, Health, Sustainability and Leadership development. BraveNew is creating the ‘Knowledge Graph’ by mapping members informal learning. Through peer-to-peer learning communities BraveNew is helping its client break down the knowledge silos that exist everywhere and over time identify collective intelligence of communities. The company has been awarded the Best Advance in Social Learning Technology by Brandon Hall Group. Lucian lives with his wife in San Francisco. He has been honoured as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum and is winner of the Global Enterprising Young Brit. He has served on the Steering Board for a World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Talent Mobility and has been Topic Champion for Employment and Skills. He obsesses over the social science behind communities and believes communities give humans both meaning and context in increasingly complex world. Lucian is passionate about using technology and communities to disrupt the way people learn and has worked in vocational education from the age of 9. In his spare time he runs Take Heart India, a 50 year old no overheads charity started by his father that provides blind and handicapped people in rural India with the vocational employment skills to required to get lifelong employment or start a small business. He sits on the Board of Innovate Educate, a US Foundation that aims to bridge the skills gap with a demand driven approach to jobs. He has spoken at gatherings such as Davos, TEDx, The China Digital Summit and for companies such as Coca-Cola, Oracle, Pearson, IBM and PWC. He speaks to audiences around the world about the convergence of talent and technology and its impact on the future of the global workforce and learning.
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About BraveNew, Civana, The World Economic Forum: BraveNew enables collaborative learning by creating engaging online spaces for professional communities to share knowledge.
Dave Vasen
Founder & CEO of Brightwheel
Dave Vasen is the founder and chief executive officer of [brightwheel](https://www.crunchbase.com/person/dave-vasen#/entity), a mobile platform for early education that serves as the hub for preschools and families. Previously, he was an advisor at Tempo AI. Prior to joining Tempo AI, Vasen leadership roles in the fields of product and business development at AltSchool and Amazon. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and an MBA from University of Pennsylvania – The Wharton School.
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About Brightwheel: Brightwheel is the first all-in-one software platform for preschools and childcare providers.
Stefano Bellasio
CEO & Founder of Cloud Academy
Stefano started working with web stuff, projects and big messy websites when he was fifteen and never stopped. He loves building things and creating companies that solve real problems in any industry. Cloud Computing, E-commerce and SaaS Software are among his preferred topics and passions.
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About Cloud Academy: The best enterprise e-learning platform for cloud technologies including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and the DevOps ecosystem
Giacomo Marinangeli
CTO & Co-Founder of Cloud Academy
With a Computer Science background, Giacomo has a long experience as a Sr. Software Engineer and Project Manager on several IT Projects for small and big companies. He loves creating products with Python, Django, Linux, PostgreSQL and Javascript.
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About Cloud Academy: The best enterprise e-learning platform for cloud technologies including AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and the DevOps ecosystem
Angelo Kaichen Huang
CEO, Founder of BlaBla
Founder at BlaBla EdTech
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About BlaBla: BlaBla is a language learning app that makes learning a language engaging, fun, and mobile.
Zhen Shao
Co-Founder and CTO of Parent Lab Inc.
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About Parent Lab Inc.: ParentLab helps parents connect and grow with their children through insightful, research-based content.
Melih Sener
Co-Founder of Kunduz
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About Kunduz: Kunduz is an Ed-Tech application that makes test prep 10x faster and 10x cheaper by providing instant answers to students’ questions.
Baris Bilgic
Co-Founder of Kunduz
Baris Bilgic is a Co-Founder at Kunduz.
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About Kunduz: Kunduz is an Ed-Tech application that makes test prep 10x faster and 10x cheaper by providing instant answers to students’ questions.
Chhay Chhun
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer of KidPass
Chhay is the co-founder and CTO at KidPass. Chhay runs engineering and oversees the technical strategy of the company, and is dedicated to building a team of world-class engineers to modernize parenting. Chhay has an extensive background in web development and project management at The Economist, Time Out NY, and Forbes. Raised in the Bronx, Chhay has a deep-rooted love for NYC and believes KidPass will make the city a better place for raising families. Chhay received his BA from Harvard.
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About KidPass, NY Tech Mixer: KidPass is the new way for parents to discover and book amazing kids activities.
Andy Sparks
Co-Founder & CEO of Holloway
Andy Sparks is the Co-Founder & CEO of Holloway, a publishing and technology company in San Francisco that publishes reliable frameworks for solving complex practical problems. Prior to Holloway, he co-founded Mattermark. He lives in San Francisco, CA and graduated from The Ohio State University.
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About Holloway: Holloway publishes comprehensive practical Guides, each researched, written, and refined by experts.
Pooja Shah
Co-Founder, CEO of KidzToPros
Pooja drives KidzToPros strategic vision and manages all business interactions. Before KidzToPros she was involved with several Silicon Valley giants launching mobile phones and security apps, including: Apple, Google, Facebook, and Symantec. Turning strategy into action when it comes to work or at home is what drives Pooja day in day out. Networking, technology, ability to look beyond hurdles and creating opportunity for the future is the part that Pooja drives at KidzToPros.
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About KidzToPros: KidzToPros is a provider and marketplace for after school enrichment programs.
Arjun Nagendran
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer of Mursion
Arjun completed his Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Manchester, UK, specializing in landing mechanisms for Unmanned Air Vehicles. Prior to Mursion, he worked for several years as an academic researcher leading the ground vehicle robotic system for Team Tumbleweed, which was one of the six-finalists at the Ministry of Defense (UK) Grand Challenge. During his academic career, he has contributed to several projects and manuscripts including the development of a robot to explore the Great Egyptian Pyramid, adaptive robots to catch fast-moving objects, and robots that can grasp objects of any shape. The latter parts of his academic career were focused on developing camera-based computer vision systems to detect faults in railroad tracks, aerial video gathering platforms for action recognition, and the bridging of virtual reality and robotics to impact social behavior in people.
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About Mursion: Mursion, a virtual reality environment or platform where professionals practice and master the complex interpersonal skills.
Yijen Liu
Founder of Human
Yijen Liu is the Founder of Human. She was the VP of Product at Mezi.com (Acquired by American Express).
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About Human: Human is an e-learning platform to hear and follow voice notes from the greatest mentors.
Jeremy Rossmann
Co-Founder of MakeSchool
Jeremy Rossmann is the founder of Make School, a computer science and software engineering school based in San Francisco. Make School offers summer programs for high school and university students as well as a 2 year alternative to the traditional computer science degree where students have already received offers from Google and Facebook. Jeremy dropped out of MIT to found Make School and has received funding from Y Combinator, Tim Draper, East Ventures, and other top US and Asian investors.
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About MakeSchool: MakeSchool provides a higher education degree program, creating a more direct connection between education and employment.
Ashu Desai
Founder of MakeSchool
Ashu Desai is the Founder at Make School.
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About MakeSchool: MakeSchool provides a higher education degree program, creating a more direct connection between education and employment.
Federico Schiano di Pepe
Founder of Teachfloor
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About Forbes Magazine, GoPillar, GoPillar Academy, Teachfloor: Building the future of education with a cohort-based courses platform
Gagan Biyani
CEO and Co-Founder of Maven
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About Maven: Maven is a developer of an online cohort-based leadership program designed to create a community where anyone can start their own course.
Nitzan Cohen Arazi
Co Founder and COO of Jolt
Nitzan is a life long learner, passionate about using technology to connect people, ideas and cultures. Investor turned entrepreneur, Nitzan is the co founder of Jolt, with the mission to disrupt adult education. Prior to Jolt, Nitzan was the investment manager at the early stage venture arm of Deutsche Telekom in Tel-Aviv, and Managing Director of “The Junction”, Israel’s first start-up accelerator. In 2016, Nitzan was named Forbes 30 under 30.
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About Jolt: Jolt is a network of learning spaces curated for people in the workforce seeking to gain a competitive business edge.
Thomas Brunskill
Co-Founder and CEO of Forage
homas Brunskill is the co-founder and CEO of Forage. Before moving to San Francisco in 2018, Tom was a corporate lawyer at a multinational law firm in Australia.
It was during his own career journey that Tom discovered that an education and a degree doesn’t necessarily translate to knowing how to do a specific job role.
After observing the unfair advantage those with access to connections or educational opportunities had, Tom co-founded Forage to provide anyone the ability to learn through virtual job simulations produced by the world’s top companies.
By breaking down barriers to gaining workplace-specific skills, Tom hopes to level the opportunity playing field and help students get great jobs.
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About Forage: Forage creates free open-access training courses for candidates to build their career skills and confidence.
Ush Patel
Founder of BrightStart
At VKRM, a small boutique venture firm, Ush primarily focuses on finding and evaluating investment opportunities and the strategic direction of the company. Over the past three years he has closely worked with the current portfolio advising them on financing, recruitment and business development. Previously, he helped launch Apara Global Services and developed its client base to enable growth in its European and Middle East business. Prior to that, Ush was a senior technology manager with Merrill Lynch for 7 years where, he was instrumental in the development and implementation of key operational processes that form the underpinning of his group’s success today. Ush has a Bachelors degree in Mathematics and Management from King College London and a Masters in Computer Science and Engineering from University College London. He currently serves on the board of Indus International Schools and Bring Me A Book Foundation. When he’s not working or spending time with his young family.
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About BrightStart: BrightStart is an interactive learning system that teaches children Letters, Words, Numbers and Phonics
Kush Patel
Founder & CEO of App Academy
Founder of App Academy.
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About App Academy: App Academy is a web development school where 98% of graduates are placed in developer roles earning an avg. of $105K in SF and $89 in NYC.
Ariel Zvaifler
Co-Founder of PupBox
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About Petco, PupBox: Everything new puppy owners need on a monthly basis. Puppyhood is hard, PupBox makes it easier.
Oleg Oksyuk
Founder and CEO of AllRight.com
Oleg Oksyuk is the Founder and CEO of AllRight.com.
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About AllRight.com: AllRight.com is an online english school for kids and children on educational and exciting programs.
Michael Lai
CEO and Founder of Tinycare
Michael Lai is the Founder and CEO of Tinycare.
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About Tinycare: Tinycare is a network of modern, micro centers that serves infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
Karl Kleissner
Co-Founder of Toniic
Charly is a philanthropic entrepreneur who uses his high-tech background in his venture philanthropy. Together with his wife Lisa, he co-founded KL Felicitas Foundation, which focuses on enabling social entrepreneurs and enterprises worldwide, and advocates for a sustainable, mission-driven, and social investment strategy. Charly is also co-founder of the Social-Impact initiative helping social entrepreneurs worldwide to accelerate and increase their social impact. He serves on the advisory boards of multiple nonprofits including the Acumen Fund, Global Social Benefit Incubator, and Global Philanthropy Forum. Charly has over twenty years of experience as a senior technology executive in Silicon Valley. He held executive and senior engineering management positions at Ariba Inc., NeXT Software Inc., Digital Equipment Corp., and Hewlett-Packard Company. He has authored two software patents, published numerous articles and he is co-author of Solutions for Impact Investors: From Strategy to Implementation. He holds a doctorate in computer science from the University of Technology, Vienna, later receiving their Distinguished Alumnus award.
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About Toniic: Toniic is an action community for impact investors.
Brewster Kahle
Founder & Digital Librarian of Internet Archive
A passionate advocate for public Internet access and a successful entrepreneur, Brewster Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing Universal Access to All Knowledge. He is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, one of the largest libraries in the world. Soon after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied artificial intelligence, Kahle helped found the company Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker. In 1989, Kahle created the Internet’s first publishing system called Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), later selling the company to AOL. In 1996, Kahle co-founded Alexa Internet, which helps catalog the Web, selling it to Amazon.com in 1999. The Internet Archive, which he founded in 1996, now preserves 20 petabytes of data – the books, Web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with more than 400 library and university partners to create a digital library, accessible to all.
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About Internet Archive: The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit internet library.
Jordan Lee
Founder & CEO of Backer
Jordan is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and product leader. CollegeBacker’s mission was inspired by his own improbable tour of American higher education, where he earned degrees from Harvard and Yale and pursued a doctorate in political science at Princeton. He is the lead investment adviser representative at CollegeBacker and holds a Series 65 license.
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About Backer: Backer is a social savings platform that enables users to set up a tax-free 529 account where family and friends can contribute.
Julianna Rapu Leong
Co-Founder of Kupu Hawaii
Julianna was born and raised in Rapa Nui, Chile. Her family immigrated to Hau’ula, Oahu, in pursuit of educational opportunities for herself and her younger brother in the 1990s. After graduating from Punahou School, Julianna earned a BA in Biology from Scripps College, CA. She is married to John Leong and together are blessed with three children: TeAraMa’eha, Heikura Hererangi, and Mataora Taharoa. Julianna feels blessed to be able to invest time in both the Hawaii and Rapa Nui communities.Julianna has a deep love of open spaces and nature. She is a founding member and current Vice President of Pono Pacific Land Management, which in 2001 began providing land owners and conservation agencies with cost-effective land management services. Pono Pacific currently works on/manages over 45,000 acres statewide with offices on Oahu, Hawaii Island, and Molokai.Julianna is also passionate about education and encouraging individuals and communities to thrive. She is a founding member of Kupu, a Hawaii based non-profit whose mission is to “empower youth to serve their communities through character-building, service-learning, and environmental stewardship opportunities that encourage integrity (pono) with God, self, and others.” Kupu partners with over 80 organizations throughout Hawaii. In 2012, Kupu programs provided an average of $2.8 dollars in community benefit for every $1 in cost. The same year, Kupu volunteers logged over 250,000 volunteer hours and provided a total benefit to Hawaii of $8.8 million dollars.
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About Kupu Hawaii: Kupu, based in Hawaii, aims to empower the youth to serve the community through character building and environmental stewardship.
Kwiri Yang
Founder & Forum Leader of Second Time Founders
Driven and passionate repeat founder focused on the Future of Work. Optimizing productivity and efficiency at workplace leveraging technology. Obsessive problem solver who enjoys helping teams through leadership coaching. Built 4 companies made 2 exits with 15+ years of experience.
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About Second Time Founders: Second Time Founders is a premier network of seasoned and multiple-time founders dedicated to building ethical and sustainable businesses.
Amy Peck
Founder CEO, AR/VR Consultant of EndeavorVR
Amy Peck is the founder of EndeavorVR, a VR strategy & consulting firm. Amy launched enterprise at Leap Motion before starting her own company. Her own personal mission is to see AR/VR fundamentally improve every aspect of our lives with the goal of making this technology accessible and transformative for everyone
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About EndeavorVR: Virtual Reality consultants for Startups, Enterprise, Education & Government focused on VR, AR and Frontier Technologies
David Berger
President, Co-Founder and Board Member of Trilogy Education Services
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About Trilogy Education Services: Trilogy Education is a workforce accelerator that powers skills-based training programs in high-demand tech fields at leading universities.
Michael Flexer
Co-Founder, CTO of Duck Duck Moose
Co-Founder and CTO at Duck Duck Moose.
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About Duck Duck Moose: Duck Duck Moose (a subsidiary of Khan Academy) is an award-winning creator of educational mobile apps for children.