Edtech Insiders

Send us Fan Mail Ben Whately is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Memrise . A psychologist by education, with a Masters in Experimental Psychology from Oxford where he focused on neural networks and computational modeling of human learning, Ben has spent the last 15 years looking at ways to learn and teach languages. While at Oxford, Ben became fascinated by how we learn languages. In t...

Send us Fan Mail Michael Chasen is the co-founder and CEO of Class Technologies Inc. , the maker of Class. He is an entrepreneur who has dedicated his career to improving the way people live and learn. Most notably, Chasen served as co-founder and CEO of Blackboard Inc., a pioneering edtech company with software used by over 20,000 institutions in more than 70 countries by 20 million teachers and...

Send us Fan Mail Charles Abelmann is the director and producer of the short documentary English Hustle . He is an educator with a background in research, policy and practice. Earlier in his career, he worked at the World Bank managing education projects in a wide number of countries including China and Mongolia. He has also led public and private schools including being the Director at the Laborat...

Send us Fan Mail Ellie Bertani is the President and CEO of the GitLab Foundation , with the mission of improving lifetime earnings and economic mobility of workers worldwide. With a background in the nonprofit, public, and private sectors, she brings a shared value, cross-sectoral approach to drive sustainable impact. Prior to joining the GitLab Foundation, Ellie spent ten years in the private sec...

Send us Fan Mail Sacha Litman is a core member of the Public Sector practice at Boston Consulting Group and the global lead for analytics in education, employment, and welfare (EEW) for that practice. Sacha is an expert in talent gaps, higher education turnarounds, pricing, and student financing. Sacha advises higher education, employer, and state leaders on building education/employer partnership...

Send us Fan Mail For over two decades, Chicago Scholars , a 501(c)(3) nonprofit leadership development organization, has empowered nearly 6,000 high-performing, under-resourced students to overcome systemic barriers to success in college. Chicago Scholars is the largest education nonprofit in Chicago, a city of over 2.5 million. In addition to its wraparound support for Chicago-based students, Chi...

Send us Fan Mail Clay Colarusso is the CMO and SVP of Digital Strategy at American Student Assistance , a national non-profit changing the way kids learn about careers and navigate a path to postsecondary education and career success.  Clay and his team focus on creating transformational digital experiences to support today’s youth in the development of their post-high school education and career...

Send us Fan Mail In this final Week In Edtech until August, we cover: L ondon EdtechX  and ISTE Reading/Math Crisis : NAEP Results, Times “Achievement declined across lines of race, class and geography. But in math, especially, vulnerable children — including Black, Native American and low-income students — experienced bigger drops.” “The percentage of 13-year-olds who reported reading for fun has...

Send us Fan Mail Dan White is founder and CEO of Filament Games , an educational game company that’s been breaking ground in game-based learning for 18 years.  Dan believes that good gameplay and good learning are complementary rather than oppositional forces. An alumnus of Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Dan earned an M.S. in Education Technology under seminal learni...

Send us Fan Mail Mario Vasilescu is co-founder of Readocracy, an online learning platform that makes all the content you consume count. Readocracy includes a knowledge profile that quantifies and showcases your passions, private insights like a “Fitbit for your information diet”, and social features that reward people for being well-informed. With his team, they are on a mission to create a future...

Send us Fan Mail Bridgette Leslie is the Co-Founder, CEO of IEP&Me, Inc. Bridgette had spent her career as a special educator, focusing on creating inclusive classrooms, fostering self-awareness advocacy with her students, and triggering innovation in several school settings. As an entrepreneur, she's been accepted into the ODX Accelerator, achieved a NewSchools Venture Fund grant, and re...

Send us Fan Mail Melda Akin is the CEO and founder of D14.AI and STEM training organization Sirius Labs . D14.AI provides an AI-driven software platform for healthcare clinics, gyms, and logistics companies to optimize their workforce and manage business operations in an easy, secure and affordable way.  Before launching D14.AI into Dubai’s burgeoning tech start-up scene, Akin was a software devel...

Send us Fan Mail Kim Smith is the founder of LearnerStudio, an equity-focused education investment studio being incubated inside Cambiar Education.  She is also the founder and CEO of the Pahara Institute, a national nonprofit that aims to identify, strengthen, and sustain diverse high-potential leaders who are transforming public education.  Immediately prior, she was co-founder of Bellwether Edu...

Send us Fan Mail Anada Lakra is the co-founder and CEO of BoldVoice . Her mission is to empower every non-native English speaker to fulfill their potential through confident English. . BoldVoice is an app that helps learners to improve their English speaking clarity and confidence through videos from Hollywood accent coaches and instant feedback from speech artificial intelligence. Previously, Ana...

Send us Fan Mail Ryan Craig is a Managing Director at Achieve Partners and was formerly an MD at University Ventures. Ryan’s commentary on where the puck is going in education and workforce regularly appears in the biweekly Gap Letter , Forbes , and Inside Higher Education . He is the author of the upcoming book Apprentice Nation: How the "Earn and Learn" Alternative to Higher Education...

Send us Fan Mail Al Kingsley has over 30 years’ experience in educational technology and digital safeguarding. For the last 25 years Al has been the Group Managing Director of NetSupport, an international software company developing market-leading software solutions used by over 18 million customers, designed to support the effective use of instructional technology in classrooms alongside eSafety...

Send us Fan Mail Sheryl Cababa is a multi-disciplinary design strategist with more than two decades of experience and has worked extensively in human-centered design within the social impact space. She specializes in developing tools and methods for designers to expand their mindsets beyond user-centered design, anticipate unintended consequences, and engage in systems thinking. Some of her recent...

Send us Fan Mail In this Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex talk about the rise of open-source LLMs and what it means for education, Sam Altman's Congressional testimony and coming AI regulations, and  systemic changes affecting the entire Edtech venture landscape. We also speak to Hussainatu (Hussa) Blake, who leads Edtech and Workforce for the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation about global AI and Ed...

Send us Fan Mail Adrian Ridner is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Study.com and an industry leader in education technology. Adrian has created the leading online learning platform in the world at delivering a personalized learning experience to students and teachers from grade school through college and beyond. Adrian has spent the past two decades bringing together academic experts...

Send us Fan Mail Katie Kirsch is a designer, engineer, and social entrepreneur. At Stanford, IDEO, and Designer Fund, she has launched several products, programs, and ventures in education. A few favorite projects have included working & living at a K-12 boarding school in India, scaling a menstrual healthcare organization in Uganda, and road​-​tripping across the US for 14 weeks in an RV to t...

Send us Fan Mail Audrey Wisch is the CEO and Co-Founder and Curious Cardinals, a global community where K-12 students discover and pursue their passions, build confidence, and unlock their greatest potential with the guidance of college mentors they aspire to be. Audrey started Curious Cardinals as an undergraduate at Stanford University; after teaching her first workshop on mass incarceration to...

Send us Fan Mail In this Episode, Guests: Nishaad Balachandran of Avathon Capital on Private Equity for Edtech  Kavitta Ghai of Nectir on the launch of Soma, their new AI community tool Big Story:  Byju's Properties Raided by Indian Authorities Explained: Why Edtech start-up Byju’s is facing heat from ED Other articles discussed: Teachers Feel Growing Obligation to Incorporate ChatGPT Califor...

Send us Fan Mail Michael Wegerbauer is the Vice President, Learning Solutions/Educational Publishing at M & R Consultants Corporation (MRCC). With 25 years of experience focused on technology in education, project management, process improvement, technology consulting, and business development, Michael spent 6+ years at UCLA developing solutions to support both administrative and educational i...

Send us Fan Mail News Covered:  MICROSCHOOLING: New Research Reveals The Breadth And Impact Of The Microschooling Movement Forbes INDIA: THE HAVES AND THE HAVE-NOTS Unacademy To Be Profitable At Group Level In April: CEO Gaurav Munjal Upstart Ed-tech Firm Simplilearn Plans Acquisitions, Expansion Amid Funding Winter : Business Standard upGrad to expand Study Abroad programme in Africa, South-East...

Send us Fan Mail Perry Kalmus is the co-founder of Akala , which is leveling the playing field for college admissions by providing best-in-class college advising to learners who would not have been able to afford it through technology. Before Akala, Perry ran the Princeton Education Network for over a decade together with his co-founder Barbara - who is also his mother. Together, they have helped...