Edtech Insiders

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore the political and technological currents reshaping education, from college ROI and student loans to AI’s expanding role in higher ed. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:04:28] 🗳️ Election’s Impact on Education Policy [00:12:11] 🎓 Debating the Value of College Amid Rising Costs [00:15:12] 📉 Freshman Enrollment Sees Largest Drop Since...

Send us Fan Mail Roosh X is an investment arm of Roosh Investment Group. Nathan Maynard is the CEO and Founder of HighFive , a company using mobile technology to foster connected school communities and reduce recidivism for negative classroom behaviors. With over 11 years of experience as a youth worker, teacher, and school administrator, Nathan co-authored the best-selling book "Hacking Scho...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore the latest in education technology, AI developments, and key edtech funding moves. ✨ Episode Highlights : [00:02:53] 🗽 Recap of New York EdTech Week, highlighting key themes and vibrant energy from the event. [00:04:37] 📈 Discussion on the rise of micro companies, with lower barriers leading to a surge in niche startups. [0...

Send us Fan Mail Brian Shaw is the CEO of Discovery Education , a global leader in educational technology that reaches over 45 million students and 4.5 million educators across 100+ countries. With a background in finance and corporate strategy from his roles at Red Ventures and Time Warner Cable, Brian has extensive experience in M&A and business integration. At Discovery Education, he drives...

Send us Fan Mail Auditi Chakravarty is CEO of AERDF (the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund) . AERDF applies Advanced Inclusive R&D to find potentially transformative teaching and learning solutions that can scale, centering on the assets, strengths, and needs of Black and Latino learners and all learners experiencing poverty. Auditi also chairs the Board of Bottom Line, a nation...

Send us Fan Mail Stephen Jull was the COO/CFO and co-founder of GeoGebra GmbH (acquired by BYJU’S in 2021), and a limited partner at Emerge Education. With a PhD from Cambridge and over two decades of experience in EdTech, Stephen has led transformative projects in mathematics, STEM education, and AI-driven learning at a global scale. He is also the former interim CEO of Epic! and a dedicated advi...

Send us Fan Mail Katie Kurtz is Managing Director and Global Head of Youth and Learning at YouTube where she is responsible for developing the ecosystem to engage, inform, and educate kids, teens, and adults. Katie joined YouTube in 2019 after serving as Chief Product Officer at Noodle Partners, an online program manager designing and building fully online degree programs for universities. Previou...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore the latest in education technology, AI developments, and key edtech funding moves. ✨ Episode Highlights : [00:05:12] 👩‍🏫 OpenAI raises $6.5B and launches OpenAI Academy [00:09:05] 📚 Google’s $120M AI Education Fund and NotebookLM tools [00:15:03] 🦜 Duolingo’s AI strategy and record stock prices [00:22:05] 📉 Udemy lays of...

Send us Fan Mail Oliver Page is the Co-founder & CEO at CyberNut . Starting his journey as a teenage founder of NutKase Accessories, Oliver scaled the business to 60 countries before transitioning to cybersecurity. Now, with CyberNut, he focuses on providing schools with gamified, easy-to-use cybersecurity training. He is also an Angel Investor, and Startup Advisor. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in...

Send us Fan Mail Tal Havivi is the Managing Director of R&D at ASCD + ISTE , focusing on initiatives to improve the health and effectiveness of the EdTech market. He leads research around high-quality EdTech design, programs focused on improving evaluation processes in school systems, and supports EdTech providers. Previously, he led Education Strategy at Amazon Business focused on improving e...

Send us Fan Mail Join hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore the latest developments in education technology, from AI breakthroughs to new VC investments and edtech reports. ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:03:16] 🧠 OpenAI’s New Reasoning Model - ChatGPT o1 (Strawberry) [00:07:20] 📚 AI's Role in Education - Practical Use Cases [00:14:03] 👩‍💻 Common Sense Media Report on AI Use Among...

Send us Fan Mail Jennifer Holland is the Director of Program Management at Google for Education. With over 17 years at Google, she has been a pivotal figure in the development of Google for Education and Google Classroom. Jennifer has played a key role in shaping the tools that have transformed teaching and learning in K-12 and higher education. 💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode : The histo...

Send us Fan Mail ThinkHumanTV delivers evidence-based emotional skills training and assessment by integrating with major streaming sites like Netflix and Disney+. The platform employs a research-based training methodology and curricula developed by our founding team of Columbia cognitive scientists. The methodology involves explicitly teaching emotion science principles in a systematic manner and...

Send us Fan Mail Jomayra Herrera is a Partner at Reach Capital, where she leads investments in companies like Guild Education and Handshake. She is passionate about diversity in venture capital, serving on the board of SomosVC to promote Latino representation. Lyman Missimer is the former Head of M&A and Partnerships at Newsela, where he led key acquisitions, including Formative. Now at Owl Ve...

Send us Fan Mail Join Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell, as they explore the most critical developments in the world of education technology this week! ✨ Episode Highlights: [00:03:25] 💰 OpenAI in Talks for $100B Valuation, 200M Weekly Active Users, Considers Higher-Priced Subscriptions [00:15:18] 🖼 Google launches Gems and Imagen 3 [00:18:53] 🐝 Anthropic CEO predicts hive-mind AI, partners with Amaz...

Send us Fan Mail Join Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell, as they explore the most critical developments in the world of education technology this week: 🎯 Rumors about OpenAI's "Project Strawberry" 📰 ChatGPT now includes Wired, Vogue, and The New Yorker 🤝 New AI fund by GitLab Foundation, Ballmer Group, and OpenAI 🔊 Google launches Gemini Live to rival ChatGPT 👨‍🏫 Sal Khan says teach...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc is the Board Chair for Human Systems, a new AI and Education company he co-founded with noted researcher George Siemens.  Until June 2024, he served as President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) . He remains at SNHU as a researcher, writer, and advisor. Under the 20 years of Paul’s direction, SNHU has more grown from 2800 students to over 250,000 and...

Send us Fan Mail Join Alex Sarlin and guest host, Matt Tower, as they explore the most critical developments in the world of education technology this week: 🧠 OpenAI's ChatGPT 5 is Coming 🚪 High-Level Departures at OpenAI 🚫 AI Detection Technology Still Unreleased 🦙 Meta Launches LLAMA 3 and AI Studio 🤝 Google Hires Character. AI Co-founders 🎓 Community Colleges Band Together on AI Educ...

Send us Fan Mail Prashant Raizada is a serial entrepreneur deeply committed to changing the status quo in education, future of work & sustainability. He was part of the founding team of Infosys BPM, playing a key role towards a $2B exit. Later, he built EnglishUp as Brazil's 3rd largest but most loved online English learning platform as a flagship corporate venture of Macmillan-Holtzbrinc...

Send us Fan Mail Andrew Goldman joined HMH in 2024 when HMH acquired Writable , where he, as Co-Founder and CEO, oversaw business and product strategy. Andrew joined HMH as the EVP of HMH Labs, a newly formed division that pursues innovative product development through a highly cross-functional team structure. Previously, he was the Founder and CEO of Subtext, Inc., a collaborative learning compan...

Send us Fan Mail Join Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell, as they explore the most critical developments in the world of education technology this week: 🌐 Microsoft’s investigation into service outages following CrowdStrike chaos 🤖 What to expect from OpenAI's upcoming GPT-5 release 💼 Instructure's $4.8 billion acquisition by KKR 💸 2U's strategic moves amidst bankruptcy and what it mea...

Send us Fan Mail Kevin Leem is the CFO of Mathpresso , operator of the globally recognized AI-powered learning platform, QANDA, which serves over 90 million users. QANDA provides AI tutors that offer personalized support to students anytime, anywhere, enhancing their learning experiences. The platform also equips teachers with AI  teaching assistants to improve teaching efficacy and student tracki...

Send us Fan Mail Joe Connor is the CEO & Founder of Odyssey , a company that partners with state agencies to administer school choice programs. Odyssey currently serves over 140,000 students by helping them access more than $400 million in state funding for education. Joe started his career as a teacher and school leader at the KIPP and Rocketship Education school networks. After working in sc...

Send us Fan Mail Join Alex Sarlin and guest host, Claire Zau , Partner at GSV Ventures, as they explore the most critical developments in the world of education technology this week 🎙️ Andrej Karpathy’s New Venture: AI assistants for education 🚀 Meta’s Largest Llama 3 Model Launch 🔍 Anthropic’s Push for Third-Party AI Evaluations 🍓 OpenAI’s new AI model under code name 'Strawberry' 💸...

Send us Fan Mail Scott Kirkpatrick is CEO of BrainPOP , a leading brand in the U.S. edtech supplemental market whose learning solutions are beloved, trusted, and grounded in research and the science of learning. During his tenure, BrainPOP was acquired by KIRKBI A/S, the family-owned holding and investment company of the LEGO® brand. Scott joined BrainPOP from General Assembly, where he served as...