Edtech Insiders

Send us Fan Mail In this special episode, we spotlight the Global EdTech Prize 2025 with founder Vikas Pota of T4 Education and six inspiring finalists from around the world. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode: Why educators (not investors) choose the winners How AI, AR, and VR expand access to learning Innovation across Brazil, Nigeria, India, MENA, and Ukraine How schools and governments a...

Send us Fan Mail Julie Stewart and Scott Stewart , award-winning creators behind global children’s shows for Disney, Netflix, and Sesame Workshop, co-founded Nurture with serial entrepreneur Roger Egan , former CEO of RedMart, and learning expert Musa Roshdy , a Minerva University alum and advisor at Transcend Network, to build future-ready skills through immersive play. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn i...

Send us Fan Mail Jean-Claude Brizard is President and CEO of Digital Promise , a global, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on accelerating innovation in education. He is the former Chief Executive of Chicago Public Schools and Superintendent of Rochester, NY. Previously, he spent 21 years with the NYC Department of Education, serving as Regional Superintendent for 100+ schools and Execut...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they dive into the biggest stories shaping education technology this week: ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:04:32] OpenAI study shows teaching and tutoring are ChatGPT’s top global use cases [00:10:50] Parents testify in Congress about risks of unsafe AI chatbots for kids [00:19:38] Google announces “Learn Your Way” and AI video generation for Y...

Send us Fan Mail Naria Santa Lucia is the General Manager of Elevate at Microsoft , where she leads global education, workforce, and skilling programs that have already reached over 100 million learners. With 20+ years of experience across corporate, nonprofit, and international organizations, she has partnered with the UN, World Bank, and Ministries of Education worldwide to advance AI, cybersecu...

Send us Fan Mail Dave Messer is a Product Manager on Google's Learning & Education team, leads product for emerging learning initiatives, including Learning Labs and Gemini. A former teacher with masters degrees in software engineering and education, he works with experts and the education community to build products that target real-world challenges for educators and students. 💡 5 Thing...

Send us Fan Mail Andrew Grauer is the co-founder and CEO of Learneo Inc . , a leading productivity and learning platform that includes QuillBot , Course Hero , CliffsNotes , LitCharts , Scribbr , LanguageTool , and Symbolab . He also serves as CEO of QuillBot, an AI-powered writing and communications tool. Andrew launched Course Hero in 2006 while at Cornell University and has since grown Learneo...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and guest co-hosts  Matt Tower of Whiteboard Advisors ,  & Kate Eberle Walker , CEO of Presence  as they break down the latest headlines in education technology and from Big Tech’s AI push to the evolving future of school models.  ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:00:00] Kate Eberle Walker on parents’ concerns about AI chatbots and student mental health [00:03:...

Send us Fan Mail CT Turner is President of GED Testing Service and VP at Pearson’s Enterprise Learning and Skills division. A recognized leader in workforce development, he champions equitable economic opportunities for underserved populations. CT supports adult education and workforce initiatives, holding degrees from Indiana University and Wichita State University. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in Th...

Send us Fan Mail Ivan Crewkov is the CEO and Co-Founder of Buddy.ai , the leading AI tutor for kids under 12, reaching over 20 million students annually from all over the world. Buddy is not just a chatbot. It’s an AI-powered talking animated character in a mobile app teaching English as a foreign language to students all over the world.  Buddy is unique because it operates in a highly regulated e...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they break down the latest shifts in education technology, from Google’s aggressive AI push to early childhood challenges and new federal initiatives. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:04:48] Google’s AI surge disrupts Duolingo with gamified language learning in Google Translate [00:12:14] Google’s edge in practical AI tools versus the AGI race [...

Send us Fan Mail In this special episode, we speak with Daphne Li , CEO of Common Sense Privacy , alongside leaders from Prodigy Education, AI for Equity, MagicSchool AI, and ClassDojo—recipients of the Privacy Seal . Together, we explore how the edtech sector is tackling one of its biggest challenges: earning trust through responsible AI and data privacy practices. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in Thi...

Send us Fan Mail Abhay Gupta is the Co-Founder and CEO of Frizzle . He was Previously a Product Manager at Coinbase, where he drove $50M of incremental revenue, as well as Tesla, and Meta and helped scale an online e-learning platform to millions in revenue. He holds a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Economics from Vanderbilt University. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode: How Frizzle sav...

Send us Fan Mail Chong-Hao Fu is the CEO of Leading Educators , a national nonprofit specializing in comprehensive instructional improvement.  Over the past 14 years, he’s worked to scale exceptional teaching and leadership in some of the country’s fastest-improving districts while exploring how emergent technology like AI can bring new possibilities to instruction. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in Thi...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they navigate a week of heavy headlines in education technology—from AI risks and teen safety to global expansion moves by OpenAI and new research from Anthropic. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:02:20] AI panic in the headlines with concerns about teen mental health, suicide, and youth dependency [00:06:33] AI’s impact on job opportunities for...

Send us Fan Mail While you spent thousands of hours studying math in high school, odds are you never use any of it. There is math that really matters – it’s just not covered in school. Just as Freakonomics made us rethink economics, Aftermath does the same for math. Today’s guest, Ted Dintersmith , is a bestselling author, education advocate, and former venture capitalist who believes math has bee...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they dive into the biggest headlines shaping the future of education technology, from AI breakthroughs to new models of learning challenges. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:03:23] GPT-5 fallout and Altman’s vision for GPT-6 [00:08:14] AI risks: AGI fears, scams, misinformation [00:14:37] Post-COVID learning gaps and inequities [00:18:33] Studen...

Send us Fan Mail Arun Saigal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Thunkable , the no-code platform where anyone — from students to startups to enterprise teams — can build powerful, native mobile apps. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and integrated Gen AI tools, Thunkable empowers creators to go from idea to real, publishable app without writing a single line of code. Arun has an S.B. and M.Eng....

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin, Ben Kornell, and guest co-host Matt Tower from Whiteboard Advisors for a back-to-school edition of Week in EdTech, covering market shifts, Big Tech’s push into education, the GPT-5 rollout, and the rising challenge of deepfake abuse in schools. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:03:40] Back-to-school funding uncertainty and “back-to-basics” mentality [00:06:40] B2C...

Send us Fan Mail Drew Bent leads Education as part of Anthropic 's Beneficial Deployments. He also co-founded the tutoring non-profit Schoolhouse.world with Sal Khan. Prior to that, he wrote code at Khan Academy, taught high school math, and has been tutoring students for over a decade. Drew has degrees in physics & CS from MIT, and an education master's from Stanford. 💡 5 Things Yo...

Send us Fan Mail Julia Stiglitz is the CEO and Co-Founder of Uplimit , an AI learning platform helping companies equip their talent with the skills of tomorrow. She previously was a Partner at GSV Ventures, where she invested and partnered with some of the most innovative entrepreneurs in edtech. Prior to GSV, Julia was one of the first hires at Coursera and led many groundbreaking initiatives, mo...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and guest host Claire Zau of GSV Ventures as they unpack a huge week for AI in education, major edtech mergers, and new funding opportunities. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:00:00] Claire Zau on AI tutor memory, personalization, and data contamination risks [00:01:58] Google Guided Learning Mode vs OpenAI Study Mode – Socratic AI tools compared [00:14:07] Google...

Send us Fan Mail Amir Nathoo is CEO of Outschool , a marketplace for live online classes for K-12 learners, and an advocate for expanding education access.  Previously, he led product development at Square and co-founded Trigger.io, a platform for creating native mobile apps. Amir holds an MEng in Electrical and Information Sciences from The University of Cambridge and lives in San Francisco with...

Send us Fan Mail Katy Knight is President and Executive Director of Siegel Family Endowment , where she leads bold, systems-focused philanthropy at the intersection of technology and society. Since 2017, she has advanced equity, flexible funding, and inquiry-driven grantmaking grounded in the scientific method, and centered on reframing big questions and learning alongside grant investments.  Dr....

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they break down a pivotal week in EdTech, from AI breakthroughs to Roblox’s education push and the future of personalized learning. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:00:33] Quizlet report shows 85% of students and nearly 90% of teachers using AI, with different adoption patterns. [00:02:24] International Math Olympiad highlights AI’s reasoning ad...