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 United States based Founder operating in the EdTech 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.
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.
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.
Ankur Nagpal
Founder & CEO of Teachable
Founder of Fedora.
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About Teachable: Teachable is a venture-backed company that allows anyone to create and sell online 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.
Tom Davidson
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of EVERFI
Tom Davidson picked the “CEO” slip out of the hat at a recent EverFi staff party and has yet to be fired by the Board of Directors. Davidson ran for the Maine State Legislature while a senior at Bowdoin College in 1994 and spent the better part of three terms working to bring education technology to students in the Pine Tree State. As Chairman of the Utilities and Energy Committee, Davidson led a successful effort with Governor Angus King to provide laptops to every Maine seventh grader as well as to create a major expansion of the wiring of schools and libraries across the State. After deciding that he needed to tell his children one day that he actually once earned a paycheck, Davidson left the Legislature in 2000 and began investing in early-stage technology companies in the education and social media spaces. He was a Venture Partner with Village Ventures, a network of venture capital firms across the U.S. Davidson graduated from Bowdoin College devoid of any academic honors of any consequence.
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About EVERFI, GrowthSpur: EVERFI is an education technology company that provides learners of all ages education for the real world.
Jon Chapman
Co-Founder and President of EVERFI
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About EVERFI: EVERFI is an education technology company that provides learners of all ages education for the real world.
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.
Rachel Carlson
Co-Founder & CEO of Guild Education
Rachel Carlson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Guild Education, which helps employers design and offer education-as-benefit programs that provide employees with individualized pathways to a degree and earn credit for on-the-job training. Selected as one of Forbes’ 30-Under-30 for Education, Rachel has an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and a M.A. in Education and a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University. Rachel lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, David.
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About Guild Education: Guild Education is a lifelong learning platform that offers classes, programs, and degrees for working adults.
Brittany Stich
Co-Founder and Vice President of Learning at Work of Guild Education
Brittany Stich is the co-founder and vice president of Learning at Work at Guild Education. Prior to co-founding Guild Education, Brittany served as a program director at Quad Learning, Inc. She is a former teacher at Aspire Public Schools and Bay Area Corps member at Teach For America.
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About Guild Education: Guild Education is a lifelong learning platform that offers classes, programs, and degrees for working adults.
Genevieve Ryan Bellaire
Founder & CEO of Realworld
Genevieve Ryan Bellaire is the Founder and CEO of Realworld, a company that provides a simple way to navigate adulthood and its life moments, with help from your community. Genevieve has had a broad array of professional experience across business, law, and government. An attorney by profession, she received her JD/MBA from Georgetown University, and worked on strategic partnerships at Goldman Sachs until leaving to found Real World Playbook. Genevieve received her B.A. in Politics-International Relations from Princeton University, where she held numerous campus leadership roles and graduated with Honors in her department. Beyond her work in the entrepreneurial world, Genevieve is passionate about women’s empowerment, education, and national security. She currently serves as a member of the Pencils of Promise Leadership Council, the Acumen Fund Young Professional Committee, and the Washington Institute for Business, Government, and Society.
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About Realworld: The #1 platform to navigate adulthood
Maisha Leek
Operating Partner and Head of Founder & Studio Ops of Human Ventures
Maisha Leek is chief of staff at United Masters and Translation. Prior to Translation, she served as the National Vice President, Government Relations for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America where she led a team advocating for 4 million youth across the country, including on military installations and Native lands. Before BGCA, she served as senior advisor to the President of Howard University, and chief of staff to a senior member of Congress. She also led a team in establishing the Equity and Excellence Commission at the U.S. Department of Education . During the Bush Administration, she was appointed to serve as special assistant to the Vice Chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Maisha is a trustee of Trinity College – Washington DC and a member of the Corporate Advisory Council of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
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About Human Ventures: Human Ventures is a business creation platform, comprised of a venture fund, studio and enterprise agency.
Joe Marchese
Co-Founder of Human Ventures
Joe Marchese is the Executive Chairman and lead investor in Human Ventures. Joe serves as president of Advanced Advertising Products at Fox Networks Group, where he leads operations in non-linear advertising products and services for 21st Century Fox’s global portfolio of channels. Joe was appointed to his current position after the company he founded, true[X], was acquired by 21st Century Fox in 2015. true[X], the leader in engagement advertising technologies, is now a part of the Advanced Advertising Products division. Joe is also the co-founder and Chairman of the Human company, Reserve. Prior to true[X], Joe spent several years as a television executive at the cable network Fuse TV, where, as SVP of Digital and Advertising. Joe currently serves on the board of trustees of the Paley Center for Media and the Board of Directors of the Tribeca Film Institute. Mr. Marchese holds a B.A. in Economics and Finance from Bentley University. He lives in New York with his wife Christie and their dog
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About Attention Capital, Casa Komos Beverage Group, Human Ventures: Human Ventures is a business creation platform, comprised of a venture fund, studio and enterprise agency.
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.
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.
Tory Patterson
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Owl Ventures
Tory is the co-founder and Managing Director of Owl Ventures where he is actively involved with all facets of the firm and serves on the board of directors for Accelerate Learning (acquired by Carlyle Group), BetterLesson, Degreed, DreamBox Learning (acquired by TPG), Gather, Hazel Health, Kiddom, Labster, Newsela, Noodle Partners, Quizlet, Remind and uLesson. As one of the early pioneers in the next generation of leading EdTech companies, Tory has led investments in some of the most successful companies in the sector. As a lead investor and board member he has played a hands-on role helping leading edtech companies across all facets of development including core definition and measurement of value proposition, sales & distribution, hiring, funding and eventual paths to successful exit. Prior to Owl Ventures, Tory was a Partner at Catamount Ventures where he founded and ran one of the venture industry’s first education investment practices. There he led investments in education companies TenMarks (acquired by Amazon), MasteryConnect (acquired by Instructure), PresenceLearning and EdSurge (acquired by ISTE). Tory is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow and holds a B.A. in Economics from Williams College and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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About Catamount Ventures, Owl Ventures: Owl Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in education technology companies.
Jed Smith
Co-Founder of Owl Ventures
Jed is a Partner of Catamount Ventures. He has dedicated his business career to the art of entrepreneurship and to making a difference. Prior to launching Catamount, Jed founded drugstore.com (NASDAQ: DSCM) in 1997, serving on its board of directors with John Doerr, Brook Byers, Peter Neupert, Howard Schultz and Jeff Bezos. Before that, he co-founded and spent four years at Cybersmith, a retail store chain that showcased the latest advances in information technology and multimedia software. Jed was also Vice President of Sales at Tribe Computer Works, a networking hardware and software company that was successfully sold. Jed began his career in technology working for Tom Siebel and, later, Marc Benioff at Oracle Corporation, ultimately serving as District Manager for the Eastern Region. Jed has no doubt that world-class mentors have been important to his career. Jed has advised many private companies and currently serves on the boards of Linden Lab, Numi Organic Tea, Banyan Water, Plum Organics, and Revolution Foods. He has also served on the boards of several education and non-profit institutions, including the Board of Trustees of Middlebury College, the Monterey Institute for International Studies, Shackleton Schools and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Jed earned a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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About Catamount Ventures, drugstore.com, Owl Ventures: Owl Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in education technology companies.
Darrell Silver
CEO & Co-Founder of Thinkful
Founder of Thinkful (acq by Chegg), Perpetually (acq by Dell).
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About Thinkful: Thinkful provides 1-on-1 learning with industry experts to bring high growth tech careers to their students.
Daniel Friedman
Co-Founder & President of Thinkful
Dan co-founded Thinkful with the belief that great education is built on strong relationships between students and teachers and between peers. Prior to starting Thinkful, Dan was a product manager at Elm City Labs, where he helped entrepreneurs turn their ideas into products and find their first customers. He first started as an analyst at RRE Ventures, a venture capital firm in NYC (and now a Thinkful investor). Dan attended Yale University, but dropped out after two years to join the Thiel Fellowship, a program that pays 20 people each year to leave college and start a company.
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About Thinkful: Thinkful provides 1-on-1 learning with industry experts to bring high growth tech careers to their students.
Joshua J. Mark
Author, Editor, Researcher, Co-Founder, Director of World History Encyclopedia
Joshua J. Mark is the Author, Editor, Researcher, Co-Founder, and Director at World History Encyclopedia.
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About World History Encyclopedia: Non-profit organization publishing the world’s most-read history encyclopedia.
Josh Cohen
Founder & Partner of City Light Capital
JOSH COHEN IS ON A MISSION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE VIA CAPITALISM. HE BELIEVES THAT HOW YOU MAKE MONEY (AND WHAT YOU DO WITH IT ONCE YOU HAVE IT) MATTERS AND WANTS TO HELP IMPROVE THE WORLD, NOW. When considering how he wanted to be remembered, Josh turned to impact investing before it had a name, combining his experience as a venture capitalist, technology company executive, and family office CIO with his values. Thus, the idea for City Light was born: partnering with experienced entrepreneurs using technology to generate significant financial returns while having a measurable social impact. As a father of three boys, Josh’s sense of urgency to address issues such as education for underserved communities, tackling the global climate crises and keeping families safe has only continued to grow. It is this commitment that makes his work more than a passion, but a calling. Prior to founding City Light, Josh led direct investments for a Greenwich CT-based family office, worked in venture capital for a family office based in St. Louis, was a Partner in a private debt fund, and was the Director of Business Development for Mobility Electronics (NASDAQ: IGOI). He began his career as an investment banker in the technology group of Deutsche Banc Alex Brown in San Francisco. Josh co-founded (and is a Board member of) The ImPact, a member network whose mission is to inspire families to make impact investments more effectively. In addition, he is on the investment committee for a family office based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Josh sits on the Board of Directors for Ready Responders and is an advisor to OhmConnect, Trilogy, and Straighterline. Josh previously held advisory roles with 2U (Nasdaq: TWOU), Shotspotter (Nasdaq: SSTI) and Practice (Acquired by Instructure: INST). He is a frequent speaker on the topic of impact investing.
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About City Light Capital: City Light is a venture capital firm that invest in impactful companies in the areas of education, safety and care, and the environment.
Vinay Mahadik
Co-Founder & CEO of Securly
Founder at Securly.
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About Ayraa AI, Securly: Securly is a web filter that enables educators to use instructional tools such as Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia in classrooms.
Bharath Madhusudan
Co-Founder & CRO of Securly
Bharath Madhusudan is a co-founder of Securly, an SF-Bay Area based stealth mode security startup. Prior to Securly, Bharath was an architect at Huawei-Symantec where he led the design of their Application Firewall and Intrusion Prevention technologies. Before that, he spent several years as a security researcher in McAfee where he worked on the industry’s leading Intrusion Prevention solution. He has been named a co-inventor on 4 patents related to botnet detection in enterprise networks. Bharath holds a MS in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis where his Masters thesis was a hardware system to detect fast-spreading worms. He also has a Bachelors degree from the University of Maryland.
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About Securly: Securly is a web filter that enables educators to use instructional tools such as Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia in classrooms.
Shailu Tipparaju
Co-Founder & CTO of Examity
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About Dallas Venture Capital, Examity, Strateology: Examity is an online exam proctoring company.
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.
Hakan Satiroglu
Co-Founder of LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator
Hakan Satiroglu is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at XR Terra.
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About LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator, Mountain Gap Solutions, Testive, XR InLearning, XR Terra: LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator invests in and supports entrepreneurs on the mission to positively transform education.
Eileen Rudden
Co-Founder & Board Member of LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator
Eileen Rudden is the founder of Sankaty Growth Partners, and co-founder of LearnLaunch. Most recently, she served as the Chief Officer of College and Career Preparation for the Chicago Public Schools, where she led the efforts of the third largest public school system in the U.S. to ensure that its 400,000 students are college and career ready. She was a 2009 Broad Fellow and graduate of the Broad Superintendent’s Academy. Rudden is the Board Chair of SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: SDBT), and former VP and GM of the Unified Communications Division at Avaya, a Fortune 500 business communications provider. At IBM’s Lotus Software unit, Rudden was senior vice president and general manager responsible for Lotus Notes and Same Time, the leading email and collaboration software. She also served as CEO of FairMarket (NASDAQ:FAIM). She is currently Chair of the Advisory Committee on Computing and Information Technology at Brown. She also serves as a board member at The Achievement Network, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, Maria Mitchell Association, and Pew Center on the Internet and American Life. Rudden received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BA from Brown University.
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About LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator: LearnLaunch Fund + Accelerator invests in and supports entrepreneurs on the mission to positively transform education.
Alex Hern
Founder and CEO of Tsunami XR
Alex Hern has been an entrepreneur for more than 25 years. During his career, he has focused on early stage companies and on the incubation of technology companies. Alex Hern co-founded and served as a Director of Inktomi Goldman Sachs-led IPO (INKT), which powered and was the search technology for MSN, Yahoo and AOL. He was also the co-founder and Director of Yesmail Alex Brown led IPO (YESM), an email marketing and web directory company, which went public and then sold to CMGI, now ModusLink Global Solutions, for $650 million ten months later. Alex Hern co-founded Military Commercial Technologies a technology commercialization incubator funded by Lockheed and L-3, where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In addition, Alex Hern co-founded and served as Director of Arcsight (ARST), a cyber security company, which also went public and was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.5 billion. Alex Hern co-founded and served as Director of CloudShield a network security company which sold to SAIC, a large technology and engineering firm specializing in government and commercial projects. Alex Hern also founded and served on the Boards of NewHomes.com and of Triton Network Systems (TNSI). Alex Hern has also served on the board of Zero Knowledge Systems, a security and encryption company now named Radial Point.
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About Tsunami XR: Tsunami develops and delivers advanced digital collaboration services for teams.
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.
Saad El Yamani
Founder & CEO of Ambi
Saad El Yamani is the Founder & CEO at Ambi Inc
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About Ambi, Babson College: Ambi is designed to centralize the college experience for students through a productive and powerful social network.
Soham Khaitan
Co-Founder & COO of Ambi
Co-Founder at Ambi.network.
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About Ambi, Forbes: Ambi is designed to centralize the college experience for students through a productive and powerful social network.
Subbarao Siddabattula
Founder and CEO of Practically
FOUNDER & CEO Serial Entreprenuer 20+ yrs exp. in the US, in technology senior leadership roles;
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About Practically: Practically is India’s first experiential learning app designed to make learning immersive for students of classes 6-12
Charu Noheria
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Practically
Charu Noheria is a Co-founder and Chief Operating Office at 3RDFLIX Visual Effects Pvt. Ltd.
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About Practically: Practically is India’s first experiential learning app designed to make learning immersive for students of classes 6-12
Reshma Saujani
Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code
Reshma Saujani is the Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, a national non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology. Through its Summer Immersion Programs and Clubs, Girls Who Code is leading the movement to inspire, educate, and equip young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities. Started in 2012, the organization has grown to reach 40,000 girls in every state by the end of 2016. This year, Girls Who Code will run 78 Summer Immersion Programs and 1500 Clubs. The results speak for themselves: 90 percent of alumnae have declared or intend to declare a major or minor in computer science. Reshma began her career as an attorney and activist. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, Reshma visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. Reshma has also served as Deputy Public Advocate for New York City and ran a spirited campaign for Public Advocate in 2013. Reshma’s TED talk, “Teach girls, bravery not perfection”, has more than one million views and has sparked a national conversation about how we’re raising our girls. She is also the author of the groundbreaking new book, Women Who Don’t Wait In Line. Reshma is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Yale Law School. She’s been named one of Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders, Fortune’s 40 under 40, a WSJ Magazine Innovator of the Year, one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in New York by the New York Daily News, CNBC’s Next List, Forbes’s Most Powerful Women Changing the World, Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People, Crain’s New York 40 Under 40, Ad Age’s Creativity 50, Business Insider’s 50 Women Who Are Changing the World, City & State’s Rising Stars, and an AOL/PBS Next MAKER.
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About Girls Who Code: Girls Who Code works to educate, inspire, and equip young women with the skills and resources to pursue academic and career opportunities.
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.
Jonathan Hefter
Founder, President of Neverware
Jonathan Hefter is a technology entrepreneur and CEO of Neverware, based in New York City. He is paving the way for innovative technologies that help solve the current business and educational computer procurement model by way of perpetually extending the life and performance of existing PCs, eliminating the need to purchase new hardware. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania – Wharton with a degree in finance in 2009, Hefter spent a year teaching himself the basics of virtual computing while developing the Neverware’s prototype in his parents’ basement.
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About Neverware: Neverware develops desktop operating systems designed to optimize security and manageability.
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.
Aaron Skonnard
Co-Founder and CEO of Pluralsight
Aaron is a co-founder of Pluralsight where he serves as the Chief Executive Officer. Aaron has spent years developing course materials and teaching professional developers throughout the world. He has presented at many popular developer conferences like PDC, TechEd, and VSLive! Microsoft recognized Aaron as an MVP in the “Connected Systems” developer community for eight years. Aaron has written numerous books, articles, and whitepapers including the Essential XML Quick Reference (Addison Wesley, 2001), Essential XML (Addison Wesley, 2000), and his popular columns in MSDN Magazine. Aaron lives in Utah with his wife Monica and five children Michelle, Michael, Nathan, Gisela, and Emma.
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About Pluralsight: Pluralsight is a technology learning platform for software developers, IT admins, and creative professionals.
Joshua Dahn
CCO & Co-Founder of Synthesis School
Joshua Dahn is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Synthesis School. He is also the Founder of Astra Nova School.
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About Synthesis School: Synthesis School is an online enrichment program for ages 8 to 14 with a mission to nurture future innovators.
Hadi Partovi
Founder and CEO of Code.org
Hadi Partovi is an entrepreneur and investor, and CEO of the education non-profit Code.org. In 2013 Hadi and his twin brother Ali launched the education nonprofit Code.org which Hadi continues to lead full-time as CEO. Code.org has established computer science classes in 15% of US classrooms, created the most popular curriculum platform for K-12 computer science, and launched the global Hour of Code movement that has reached over 100 million students. A computer science graduate of Harvard University, Hadi began his career during the browser wars in the 1990s, when he was Microsoft’s Group Program Manager for Internet Explorer. In a second stint at Microsoft, he was General Manager of the MSN portal, delivering its first year of profit. As an entrepreneur, Hadi was on the founding teams of Tellme Networks and iLike, which were acquired by Microsoft and MySpace, respectively. Hadi has served as an early advisor to numerous startups including Facebook and Dropbox, and as a tech investor his portfolio also includes airbnb, Uber, Zappos, IndieGogo, Change.org, and others. Aside from his investments, Hadi also serves as a Director on the boards of TASER International and Convoy.
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About Code.org: Code.org is a non-profit foundation focusing on developing computer programming education in the U.S.
Zachary Sims
Co-Founder & CEO of Codecademy
Zach is the cofounder and CEO of Codecademy, the easiest way to learn to code. Since the company started in August of 2011, millions of people have begun learning to program using the site.Codecademy has worked with organizations like The White House, the Government of Colombia, American Express, Rakuten, and more. Zach and his cofounder Ryan have grown Codecademy to 18 full time employees in New York and have raised $12.5m in venture capital financing from top tier investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, Yuri Milner, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, SV Angel, Richard Branson, Y Combinator, and more. Prior to founding Codecademy, Zach was a student at Columbia University. He has worked in product and business development/strategy capacities at startups including GroupMe (sold to Skype) and drop.io (sold to Facebook). He also has experience in the venture capital industry with AOL Ventures, the venture capital arm of AOL. Zach and Codecademy have been honored by many publications. TIME Magazine called Codecademy one of the “50 Best Websites of 2012,” while TechCrunch awarded Codecademy the “Best Education Startup” Crunchie Award in 2013. Zach has been named to Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list, along with Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list. The City of New York named him a New York City Venture Fellow in 2013.
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About Bowery Capital, Codecademy: Codecademy provides an online learning platform that teaches employable digital skills.
Ryan Bubinski
Co-Founder of Codecademy
Ryan and Zach have been working together on Codecademy since 2011, back when they were students at Columbia.He started building web applications at age 13 and hasn’t stopped since, except for an occasional break to practice cooking or spend time with team members and friends.
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About Codecademy: Codecademy provides an online learning platform that teaches employable digital skills.
Gregg Scoresby
Founder & CEO of CampusLogic
I am an entrepreneur. I love to build something from nothing. I find company building to be incredibly interesting, fun, challenging, creative, energizing (and sometimes exhausting), motivating, and addictive. I love it. Right now, I am working on one of the biggest social issues of our time: student debt. Colleges and universities need technology to improve the student experience, lower financial aid administration costs, and help students borrow less. CampusLogic’s student self-service platform solves these problems.
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About CampusLogic: CampusLogic develops tools and resources used by college officials to help students manage scholarships, loans, and other supports.
Jacob Hanchar
CEO, Co-Founder, and Executive Chairman of Digital Dream Labs
Jacob Hanchar is the CEO and a major investor in Digital Dream Labs, an educational technology company based in Pittsburgh. He serves as advisor and investor to many start-up companies in Western PA. Before this, he was a director of River Hill Coal Company in Central Pennsylvania and was a recognized international consultant on coal markets. He received his doctorate in 2007 from the University of California.
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About Digital Dream Labs: Digital Dream Labs provides hands-on educational technology for children ages 4 to 9.
Ryan Carson
Founder & CEO of Treehouse
Ryan Carson is the Founder and CEO of Treehouse.
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About Treehouse: Treehouse is an online technology school that guides students from zero to job-ready for the tech industry in 6-12 months.
Jenny Abramson
Founder & Managing Partner of Rethink Impact
Jenny Abramson joined Rethink Impact as Founder & Managing Partner in 2015.
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About Rethink Capital Partners, Rethink Impact: Rethink Impact is a venture capital firm investing in female leaders using technology to solve the world’s biggest problems.
Joshua Blank
Co-Founder , President of OpenSesame
Josh manages general operations and oversees product development for the OpenSesame elearning marketplace. Josh has a rich background in technology, software development and user interface design, enabling him to create flexible solutions for communication and management challenges. Josh co-founded the internet services agency PopArt in 1997 and, under his leadership, the company quickly became the fifth fastest growing technology firm in the state. At PopArt, Josh created an employee-focused workplace that was named the third best place to work in the state by Oregon Business magazine in 2003. Josh also co-founded Portland-based technology company Eleven Wireless, which provides on-demand software to centrally manage broadband networks for hospitality providers.
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About OpenSesame: OpenSesame is an e-learning company that provides online training courses for businesses and employees.
Tom Turnbull
Co-Founder & VP, Partnerships and Legal Affairs of OpenSesame
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About OpenSesame: OpenSesame is an e-learning company that provides online training courses for businesses and employees.
Byron Hsu
Co-Founder, President, CTO of Paragon One
Founder at Paragon One.
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About Founders Pledge, Paragon One: Paragon One turns company work into scalable remote externships that help students gain hands-on work experience in different industries.
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.
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.
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.
Scott Burgess
Founder & CEO of Continu
Scott Burgess is the Founder & CEO of Continu.
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About Continu: Continu is the World’s First Learning Amplification Platform™ helping companies train teams better!
Jun Ying
Founder of SchoolSnap
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About Equifax, SchoolSnap: SchoolSnap empowers parents’ engagement in children’s digital classroom.
Stephanie Dua
Co-Founder and President of BEGiN
Stephanie Dua is Co-Founder & President of BEGiN, parent company of HOMER. After launching her career at McKinsey & Co.,Stephanie spent 15 years in public education, most recently as a Senior Advisor to the Common Core Standards effort.She served as the CEO of the New York City Education Department’s Fund for Public Schools, raising more than $165 million to support literacy and teacher-training efforts. In 2009, she was named to Crain’s New York Business 40 Under 40 list. She received a BA in geophysics from UCLA and a Masters from the Harvard Kennedy School where she was a Kennedy Fellow. Stephanie lives in Coconut Grove, FL, with her husband and three daughters.
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About BEGiN, HOMER: BEGiN is an award-winning company offering best-in-class solutions across digital, physical, and experiential learning to kids globally.
Neal Shenoy
Co-Founder & CEO of BEGiN
Neal Shenoy is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at BEGiN. Neal manages BEGiN’s purpose and vision, sets its strategy and execution plan, recruits talent and manages strategic relationships with investors and partners. Neal has built a team with deep industry expertise across organizations such as Nickelodeon, PBS Kids, Scholastic, Barnes & Noble, Pearson and Mattel.He has helped guide BEGiN to be one of the largest, fastest growing and most promising platforms for early childhood literacy and language learning, earning recognition from the Aspen Institute, American Library Association, Education World and National Education Association. Neal is also a Co-Founder of SAAVN, the largest streaming service for South Asian music in the world, and a Founding Partner at [212]MEDIA, which builds consumer media ventures in fragmented markets alongside major media companies. Prior to [212]MEDIA, Neal was Co-Founder and President of Simile, a contextual advertising platform in media and publishing. With a B.S.F.S. in International Relations from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University Neal began his career as an Investment Banker in an upstart unit of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette that advised media & telecom companies.
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About [212]Media, BEGiN, HOMER, Speakaboos: BEGiN is an award-winning company offering best-in-class solutions across digital, physical, and experiential learning to kids globally.
Danny Leonard
Co-Founder of Ramped
Early in his career, Danny was a continuous top-3 and top-1 performer at Groupon (over 1,000 reps at that time) – almost entirely new business / hunter. He was promoted into sales management, running a 40+ person team that carried a P&L of $70M+. Danny has launched sales teams at various VC-backed (Sequoia, August, and Spark, amongst others) startups from scratch, bringing them through initial traction and onto scale/profitability. He’s closed deals upwards of $2M on his own and managed SDRs, Ops and City Managers, Sales Ops, AEs, Sales Managers, and Account Managers. He’s mentored, coached, and advised hundreds of startups via Keep Scaling, 500 Startups, and MGV. Currently, he’s a Co-Founder at Ramped (www.rampedcareers.com) where he’s helping to build the largest job skilling marketplace for early-career talent.
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About 500 Startups, Keep Scaling, Maschmeyer Group Ventures, Maschmeyer Group Ventures, Ramped: Job skilling platform for early career professionals
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.
Jamie Fitch
Co-Founder & CEO of OnlineMedEd
Jamie is an Ohio State and Tulane graduate rooted in medicine and healthcare. He’s currently the cofounder and CEO of OnlineMedEd (OME), a hyper-growth adult learning platform based in Austin, TX. In his day to day he focuses on investing in his employees through coaching to keep his company culture genuine and aligned. As an angel, he invests in industries such as: medical diagnostics, telemedicine and digital marketing. Jamie’s focus on culture, trust and empowerment has led him to become passionate in supporting startup community. He helps craft narratives to attract talent, funding and business opportunities.
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About OnlineMedEd: OnlineMedEd is a digital health care learning platform designed for medical students and health professionals.
Dustyn Williams
Co-Founder & Lead Educator of OnlineMedEd
Dustyn Williams is a Co-Founder and Lead Educator at OnlineMedEd.
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About OnlineMedEd: OnlineMedEd is a digital health care learning platform designed for medical students and health professionals.
Nicole Neal
Co-Founder & CEO of Noodle Markets
Nicole is a visionary leader and pioneer at building transformative educational products. As the CEO of Noodle Markets, she leads the company in its mission to enhance efficiency and transparency within the education landscape by revolutionizing K-12 purchasing. Prior to joining the company, Nicole was the President of the Education Solutions Group at CORE Education Consulting and Solutions, Inc., where she oversaw a staff of 300 employees and managed a portfolio of formative assessment, intervention, and content solutions for districts and states serving the Pre-K, K-12, Employability, Special Education and Higher Education sectors. Nicole also served as the Senior Vice President of Major Accounts and State Services for Pearson Education Inc., one of the world’s largest education publishing and technology companies. Prior to Pearson, she served as Senior Vice President of Client Services for Schoolnet, Inc. Nicole holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Binghamton University’s Watson School of Engineering and an MBA from the University of Maryland University College. When she is not working, Nicole finds great joy in mentoring young girls and spending quality time with her family and friends
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About Noodle Markets: Noodle Markets is K-12’s first digital procurement platform and national marketplace.
Femi Adebogun
Co-Founder and CEO of ScholarMe
Femi Adebogun is a programmer, problem solver and technology innovator with a passion for improving broken and inefficient systems. While still in High School he founded Testify Software, an EdTech start-up geared towards individualized learning. Alongside Testify, Femi designs and develops custom websites and applications for commercial clients throughout the United States. He is currently the Co-Founder and CEO at ScholarMe.
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About ScholarMe, Testify Software: ScholarMe simplifies how high school and college students pay for college.
Justin Serrano
Founder & CEO of Littera Education
Justin Serrano is the former President of Kaplan’s K12 and College Prep division which provides state test readiness programs and college preparation solutions. As President of Kaplan K-12 and College Prep, Serrano was responsible for having driven a new SAT/ACT strategy that propelled Kaplan to the leading market position in 2010. He also spearheaded the development of Kaplan’s Smart Track™, an adaptive software platform which analyzes individual student performance and prescribes custom learning plans. Previously, he was President of SCORE! Educational Centers, a subsidiary of Kaplan, where he created groundbreaking software that enabled a completely integrated offline/online tutoring model featuring adaptive online instruction, automated teacher lesson plans, and real time parent reporting. Prior to his management role at SCORE!, Serrano oversaw Kaplan Test Prep’s graduate business where he led the integration of official test maker content into Kaplan’s courses. Justin graduated with a B.S. From Cornell University and an M.B.A. From Harvard Business School. He now serves on the board of CFY (formerly Computers for Youth), a non-profit dedicated to bringing technology into low income households in order to help close the achievement gap.
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About Littera Education: Littera Education is an education platform that offers online tutoring to students.
Chip Paucek
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of 2U
Chip Paucek is 2U’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. After graduating from The George Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in political communication, Paucek founded Cerebellum Corporation, the company behind the award-winning educational Standard Deviants television program. Standard Deviants was distributed on over 100 PBS stations and was selected by TV Guide/Today Show as the top show for kids. After leading Cerebellum Corporation for a decade, Paucek co-managed the re-election campaign of U.S. Senator from Maryland, Barbara Mikulski. Senator Mikulski won the election in a landslide and set a state record for campaign contributions. Paucek then returned to education as the CEO of Hooked on Phonics and expanded access to the program by bringing it from infomercial sales to distribution across major U.S. retailers. His innovative work at 2U earned him the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year 2012 Award, and in 2012 he was invited to be on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Education & Skills. When not 2Uing, Paucek is most likely on his boat in the Chesapeake Bay with his wife, Gabrielle, and two sons. Chip is currently obtaining his MBA from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School .
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About 2U: 2U is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform that provides schools with the comprehensive operating infrastructure.
Justin Wenig
Co-Founder & CEO of Coursedog
Justin Wenig is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Coursedog.
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About Coursedog: Coursedog builds software that powers Higher Education.
Nicholas Diao
CTO & Co-Founder of Coursedog
Nicholas Diao is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Coursedog.
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About Coursedog: Coursedog builds software that powers Higher Education.
Karan Goel
CEO & Founder of GetSet
Karan Goel is an experienced entrepreneur with a track record of success, having led two successful exits in enterprise education technology. Prior to founding GetSet, he created PrepMe, a successful college readiness business that built the first adaptive learning platform and helped hundreds of thousands of students succeed in college. He has a B.A. in Economics and M.B.A. in Finance and Entrepreneurship from The University of Chicago.
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About GetSet: GetSet, a new stealthy US edtech startup that’s aiming to reduce the high college drop-out rate
Lee Wise
Co-Founder and CEO of The WISE App
Lee has a B.S. in chemistry from Colorado State University. He also has a Masters in Education from Colorado State University. He is currently in his second year of teaching in the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado. Lee is a science teacher with experience in a formal laboratory setting and in the classroom. Lee had the original idea for the WISE application after being frustrated with the speed and data analysis limitations when grading multiple choice exams for his students. He is well-versed in current educational technology and passionate about further developments.
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About The WISE App: The WISE App is a mobile application that scans and grades 30, 60, and 100 question multiple choice questions instantly.
Dalton Ying
Co-Founder & CFO of The WISE App
Dalton has a B.S. in general science from Oregon State University. He also has a Masters in Education from Western Oregon University and a second Masters in Online Curriculum Writing at University of Colorado Denver. Dalton immediately recognized the frustrations and problems that could be solved with new test scanning technology and helped Lee turn this concept into a reality from the ground-up. Dalton is a veteran teacher, currently in his tenth year of teaching in the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado, with experience in online learning, educational assessments, and classroom pedagogy.
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About The WISE App: The WISE App is a mobile application that scans and grades 30, 60, and 100 question multiple choice questions instantly.
Dan Cogan-Drew
Co-Founder & Chief Academic Officer of Newsela
Dan brings twenty-plus years of professional experience spent working towards a more perfect union of teaching, learning and technology. Most recently, Dan was the founding Director of Digital Learning at Achievement First Public Charter Schools, where he spearheaded the integration of digital learning technologies across twenty-two schools, including flipped classrooms, mobile learning, and 1:1 computing. He was also a founding member of the Gates Foundation Next Generation Community of Practice, traveling the country to visit sites of innovation and reviewing dozens of software products across K–12 math and literacy. Prior to this, Dan was Director of Programs at the Connecticut Career Choices Program, where he developed blended high school STEM programs and co-authored one of the highest rated applications to the Race to the Top I3 grant program. Before that he taught and developed federally funded professional development programs in the Graduate Department of Education at Tufts University. Dan also rode the dot-com boom as a content producer at Fact City, a search engine startup. He began his education career in Teach for America in Wrightsville, GA, and went on to teach in public and private schools, as well as in the US Navy. He holds a B.A. in English and Spanish from Wesleyan University, an M.A. in English Literature from Brown University, and an M.A. in Educational Studies from Tufts University. Dan is a longtime youth and college coach and two-time world champion ultimate Frisbee player (1999 and 2000) with the legendary Boston club team Death or Glory. He and his wife are raising two Newsela readers in Maplewood, New Jersey.
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About Newsela: Newsela is an Ed-tech startup that takes content from trusted providers and turns it into learning materials.
Matthew Gross
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Newsela
Matthew Gross has a nineteen-year career in the education sector, for-profit and nonprofit entrepreneurship, and product development and distribution. Matthew was Executive Director of the Regents Research Fund, a privately funded affiliate of the New York State Board of Regents and Education Department that helped lead the implementation of Race to the Top–driven education reforms. Reporting to Education Commissioner John King, Jr, Matthew oversaw the organization’s growth strategy, public–private partnerships, talent acquisition, and day-to-day operations. While at the Fund, Matthew led the development of EngageNY.org, a web application providing teachers and administrators with resources for implementation of Common Core state standards and teacher and principal evaluations. Since its August 2011 launch, the site has been viewed over fourteen million times by educators in all fifty states. Matthew played a leadership role in the development of the Regents Research Fellows, a team of nationally recognized thought leaders who help lead the implementation of the Common Core, next-generation assessments, and other education reforms spurred by Race to the Top. Under Matthew’s purview, the Fund raised over $9 million in support from many of the nation’s most respected education funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and the Robin Hood Foundation. Prior to joining the Fund, Matthew was Vice President of Planning & Resource Development at Pencil, a national leader in building private-sector partnerships with public schools that improve student achievement. He led a wide array of initiatives at Pencil, including the development of the Pencil Exchange, a social media and relationship-management application for business–school partnerships now used in over 400 schools nationwide. Earlier, Matthew spent several years managing entrepreneurial ventures, including as co- founder and President of out-of-home media company Submedia, which secured over $6 million in venture investment, $2 million in annual bookings, contracts with multiple government agencies, and licensing agreements in Europe and East Asia. Matthew co-holds two patents for Submedia’s technology. Matthew began his career as a Teach for America corps member, teaching music at C.S. 50 in the South Bronx. He serves on the School Leadership Team of P.S. 101 in Queens, which his three boys attend. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University.
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About Newsela: Newsela is an Ed-tech startup that takes content from trusted providers and turns it into learning materials.
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.
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.
Gustavo Rodriguez
Co-Founder and CEO of BabySparks
Gustavo Rodriguez previously worked as an investment banker for JPMorgan (NY) and Merrill Lynch (London). During his years with JPM and ML Gustavo focused in the consumer & retail sectors, providing advice to key clients like Nestle, Danone, Unilever and General Mills among others. Gustavo graduated Cum Laude with a B.S., Industrial Engineering from Los Andes University (Bogota, Colombia) and has a Masters of Business Administration from the Darden School (University of Virginia).
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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.
Andrea Barrica
Founder & CEO of O.School
Andrea Barrica is the Founder & CEO at O.school.
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About Deep Connection Technologies, O.School, SexTech Revolution, SexTech Revolution: O.school is building a shame-free space by offering pleasure education through live streaming and moderated chat.
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
Andres Moreno
Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of Open English
Andrés is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Open English, the leader in internet-based English language instruction. He is also the Founder of Next University, an online higher education institution that is bringing job-ready skills to the emerging middle class in Latin America. Next University was acquired by Open English in December of 2015. Growing up in eight countries spanning three continents, Andrés learned four languages on his own. He began his entrepreneurial career in his native Venezuela, co-founding Optimal English, a company that provided English-language training to LatAm executives at Fortune 500 companies, such as Procter and Gamble, and Sun Microsystems. In 2005, Moreno teamed up with his classmate and friend Wilmer Sarmiento in Caracas to design a different type of online English experience. They rejected the traditional brick and mortar model and decided to create a system that would allow students to learn English online, with native English-speaking teachers from their home or workplace 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Currently, Open English has enrolled nearly 500,000 students and raised over USD $120 million in venture capital to drive the company’s expansion throughout the globe. Moreno has also become the face of his own brand for appearing in the company’s television commercials, which have aired extensively since 2009 in over 20 markets. Moreno is a multifaceted entrepreneur involved in a myriad of projects of regional impact. In 2013, he became a founding board member of Endeavor Miami, a leading promoter of entrepreneurship present in more than 16 countries. Moreno travels frequently to Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries to hold his popular Exito! conferences on success and entrepreneurship. The explosive growth of Open English and Next University have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, El Mercurio, Globo, El Tiempo, O Estado de São Paulo, The Miami Herald and other top media outlets across the Americas.
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About Next U, Open English: Open English is an educational technology company focused on English language learning for the Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets.
Jeffrey Groeber
Founder of Leif
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About Leif: Leif is a technology platform that enables the creation, payment management, and financing of Income Share Agreements.
Richard Lee
Co-Founder of Leif
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About : Leif is a technology platform that enables the creation, payment management, and financing of Income Share Agreements.
Arpit Jain
Founder & CEO of SplashLearn
Arpit Jain is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at SplashLearn.
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About SplashLearn: SplashLearn is an EdTech startup company providing game-based math and reading courses to students in pre-kindergarten to grade five.
Neal Gupta
Co-Founder & CIO of KiwiTech
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About KiwiTech, KiwiVenture Partners: KiwiTech is a growing innovation ecosystem that’s home to more than 500 portfolio companies and 2000 investors.
Harry Aurora
Founder & CEO of iTutor.com
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About iTutor.com: iTutor offers schools and education institutions cloud-based technology solutions to support teachers and advance student learning.
Katie Fang
Founder and CEO of SchooLinks
Katie Fang is the founder & CEO of SchooLinks; a college readiness platform that helps students plan their post-secondary paths and districts improve their college and career readiness program outcome. Katie is a world traveler and studied abroad in four countries since the age of twelve. After her world adventures and founding SchooLinks in Los Angeles, she settled in Austin, TX to continue scaling SchooLinks. She was named Forbes Top 30 under 30 in 2018, Top Texan under 30 in 2016, the Young Woman to Watch, was on the cover of Austin Woman June 2016 issue, and was the Woman’s Way award winner in May 2017.
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About SchooLinks: SchooLinks is a career readiness platform that engages students in career education and college planning and application.
Richard Botto
Founder and CEO of Stage 32
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About Stage 32: Stage 32 is the world’s largest online platform connecting and educating the global entertainment industry.
Michael Vilardo
Co-Founder, President, COO, and Board Director of Emile Learning
Michael Vilardo is the Co-Founder, President, COO, & Board Director at Emile Learning.
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About Emile Learning: Building the Netflix of HS education, where students can earn HS and College credit for engaging with our premium videos.
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
Diego Villegas
Co-Founder & CEO of Slang
Diego Villegas is the Co-Founder & CEO at Slang.
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About Slang: Slang offers a variety of online specialized English courses for career development using a proprietary ML-driven engine,
Kamran Khan
Co-Founder & CTO of Slang
Kamran Khan is a Co-Founder and CTO at Slang.
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About Slang: Slang offers a variety of online specialized English courses for career development using a proprietary ML-driven engine,
Charlie Javice
Founder & CEO of Frank Financial Aid
Charlie Javice is the founder and CEO of Frank.
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About Frank Financial Aid: Frank is a financial platform that helps college students manage their financial aid and student debt.
Basar Basaran
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.
