Disrupt Education Podcast

Matthew Raidbard is a former men's college basketball coach and senior level college athletics administrator. He has a Doctorate in Educational Leadership, and recently published a book called, "Lead Like A Pro: Effective Leadership Styles For Athletic Coaches." The book is based on his research and experiences as a coach, and even though it was written through a sports lens.  It is a great r...

Eric Hayes is an inclusive educator at The American International School of Vilnius.  He takes us on a journey through his own learning and how he discovered building on student strengths.  As an educator and a life long learner himself, He knows how to find and help students by building on their interests with a student centered approach.     Connect with Eric on LinkedIn...

Ekta Sahasi has first-hand experience in taking ideas from inception to scale both within corporates and startups. Ekta also specializes in early-stage venture development, strategic initiatives, and strategies for scaling startups. Ekta has experience in both leading due diligence as an investor and as well as fundraising for early-stage ventures. Ekta was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine as the...

Ken Wallace is an award winning Superintendent of one of America's "most innovative" school districts.  That district was Google's first K-12 partner.  He is also the founder of the Chicago Coaching Center and founding partner of the Illinois Personal Learning Network.     Ken is never one to hold back.  He tells it like it is and creates learning systems that work .....

Dave Gee is the CEO & Co-Founder at Hello Digital Ed, EdTech Founder, Amazon Best Selling Author, Entrepreneurship and Digital Marketing Faculty, who is passionate about Building Future Student Innovators and Entrepreneurs.  We discuss his learning journey and how he is helping students learn and teachers teach current business courses to their high school students like social media marke...

Eric Santos is a National Board Certified Teacher currently serving as a Regional Educational Technology Coordinator for K-12 schools in Illinois. As an experienced STEM educator, his former students won multiple science and STEM competitions. Eric has secured nearly $40,000 in educational grants for classroom materials and equipment for his students across his career. Eric also writes secondary s...

Rocky Singh Kandola is an Author, Speaker, Actor, Convict, Lover, Traveler, Entrepreneur, & CEO.  His journey is nothing short of remarkable.  Through horrific conditions in schools and life, he figured out how to remove toxicity and grow businesses that help people.  We talk about his life and his journey through awful educational systems.   Learn more about Rocky on Linke...

Michael Vargas is an international facilitator with nearly 10 years of experience.  He is the founder of Lead By Impact .  Utilizing his Master in Clinical Psychology, improv and design thinking background Michael facilitates workshops and speaks to organizations on developing collaborative and productive team cultures.  Supporting teams to develop psychological safety, building tru...

Academic integrity has been at the core of Eric Gibbs's professional career for over 20 years. In those two decades, Eric has served in various high-growth EdTech leadership roles at Aplia, Cengage Learning, and Turnitin.  President of  Ouriginal , a plagiarism software that assists K-12 districts and higher education institutions in safeguarding their academic integrity initiatives. Eric has help...

Sarah Baker Andrus is the founder and CEO of Avarah Careers, a career coaching business. She’s worked on all sides of the hiring equation, as a recruiter, hiring manager, and a career counselor, serving in the corporate world, non-profits, and academia. When it comes to the hiring process and how it works from the inside, she’s seen it all. She shares her learning journey and how she is disrupting...

Jacqueline Evanecz is a teacher-turned-entrepreneur, who's using her years of experience in elementary and secondary education to create a peer network for students to direct and manage their own projects. She has seen how transformative learning can be when students take the reins, so her mission is to support teachers and the work they are doing to foster self-directed learners in their classroo...

Kyle Wagner is the founder and chief [co] learning experience designer for Transform Educational Consulting Limited, an organization that empowers forward thinking schools and educators to create more globally, socially and emotionally aware citizens through Project-Based Learning.    As a former educator at High Tech High, the school featured on the hit documentary “Most Likely to Succe...

A self professed podcast addict, when she heard Rick Mulready, of The Art of Paid Traffic say “Facebook ads are simple. They are all about the numbers,” everything for Meredith Kallaher just clicked.   An A-Ha moment, maybe?   Her CPA and 6 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers combined with her social media marketing expertise has uniquely prepared Meredith to help businesses execute and im...

Naila Moloo is a 15-year-old passionate about making impact in the sustainability sector. She has worked on projects like designing more efficient transparent and flexible solar cells utilizing nanomaterials, a solar sailed fusion propelled spacecraft, and a sustainable shopping browser extension. Naila is currently trying to make an inexpensive bioplastic, building my solar cell in a lab, and dev...

Marc Berkman is the executive director of Organization for Social Media Safety, and Ed Peisner the founder of Organization for Social Media Safety. Ed's son Jordan Peisner was a victim of a social media attack, motivating these gentlemen to take action to assist others in helping to make appropriate social media choices for their families. "Every time your child logs onto social media they are at...

Gabriela Nguena Jones is the CEO and Founder of Teens Tutor Teens. She aims to help youth regain the skills and confidence to excel in the classroom. Gabriela believes that the face of the job industry is changing to be a more competitive environment requiring advanced degrees, prior experience, and connections to succeed. This is why she has garnered a passion to aid youth in obtaining a strong e...

Debbie Tannenbaum is an Elementary School Technology Specialist in Fairfax County, VA. An educator with over twenty years of experience, Debbie supports both staff and students to integrate technology tools into instruction through both co teaching sessions and weekly technology classes.   Debbie is also an avid blogger and shares her thoughts and reflections regularly on her website: www. Ta...

RiseKit provides all job seekers access to a career path, regardless of the zip code in which they live.  Listen to co-founder and CEO Matt Strauss talk about his journey to understanding the hiring gaps and how he works to help those who are unemployed or underemployed with RiseKit.    Check out RiseKit.co for more information The Disrupt Education Podcast is a proud member of The...

At age 12, she ran away from a hard-scrabble and abusive childhood. At 15, with only a sixth-grade education, she had a baby to raise. Her love for her son, Victor, inspired her to do whatever it took to get a college education and keep him safe. Over the next two decades, Rocio Perez began to guide other people to achieve their goals and dreams.   Rocio shares her incredible learning journey...

William Minton launched CanopyEd after spending the 2015-16 school year traveling around the world to visit and write about top-ranked schools across five continents. That experience inspired Will to think more creatively about how to approach the challenges facing education in the United States.  Will has shared these insights in Edutopia and at conferences around the country.  He share...

Uzair Hussain is and EdTech Entrepreneur set to help people remove blockers in the way of their success.  He founded District Zero, a wellness-first learning system in order to help students and teachers attain goals.  He shares his journey to empower learners, schedule check-ins, and achieve skills.    Learn more at DistrictZero   The Disrupt Education Podcast is a proud...

Naphtali T Bryant is the Founder of Spark-ED University, an initiative dedicated to supporting students to achieve their education goals and find success in their careers of choice.  Naphtali received a scholarship for his own studies, and his college experience opened his eyes to the many ways the current system and student experience needs improving.   The Disrupt Education Podcast is...

As a career educator, Timeri Tolnay became an edupreneur in 2008 to help start a curriculum and professional development company which she launched, grew and exited from in 2014. In 2019 she launched EdCuration to bring a match-making marketplace to the education industry to help educators more easily identify the high-quality instructional resources that they need, and to get better learning mate...

Olivia Barnes is a nature enthusiast, competitive swimmer, visual artist, and a 17-year-old lover of learning. After leaving traditional high school at the end of her freshman year, she began to shape her own learning experience, taking classes at various institutions with the goal of challenging herself and exploring her passions in more depth. Now, as a junior in high school, she is completely s...

Navin Goyal, MD, serves as CEO of LOUD Capital, driving the vision of how entrepreneurship, education, and investment can positively impact people, businesses, and society. He emphasizes his physician ethics of treating people equally and well.  He shares his learning journey and how education, investment and entrepreneurship merge in the VC world with LOUD Capital. Learn more at loud.vc The...