Send us a text In 2022, Heather Combs was appointed CEO of StraighterLine , one of edtech’s fastest growing companies and the leading provider of high-quality, affordable, online courses that helps learners earn college credit and meet their professional goals. Heather has led the company through its first acquisition of ChildCare Education Institute, one of the largest online training providers for early childhood education professionals. This acquisition is the company’s first step to signific...
Sep 04, 2023•54 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Guests: Dr. Deepak Sekar and Maria Walley of Prof Jim Prof Jim Launches Reelbooks 2.0 - AI Now Achieves Parity with Human Instructors AI Edtech Companies Rising Atypical AI raised $4M in pre-seed to continue shaping the future of learning and assessment Sizzle AI raised $7.5M in seed for their tutoring chatbot for middle and high school STEM courses , led by Owl Ventures Course Hero Launches "AI Academy" to Help Educators Navigate Role of AI in the Classroom Q2 Earnings ...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Marco DeRossi is the CEO and founder of WeSchool , a leading Italian EdTech startup Founded in 2016, WeSchool is an online collaborative learning platform that is designed to be easy to use- it already enables 1.7 million students and 230.000 teachers to amplify their learning experience by leveraging digital tools. WeSchool recently closed a 6.4M€ Series A funding round to scale their technology and enter new markets. Recommended Resources: Visible Learning by John Hattie...
Aug 28, 2023•38 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text In this episode of Week in Edtech, Ben and Alex discuss: 1. Edtech Investment Cooling EdTech investment cooling in 2023 but growth outlook remains strong It’s been a bumpy 6 months for Edtech — are smoother roads ahead? 2. K12: Private Schools, School Choice and ESAs + Edtech vs. Burnout Private School Choice is Booming. Here’s What It Means for Education Companies Florida teachers are worried new policies could get them fired — or even criminally charged New Survey: Majority of T...
Aug 22, 2023•34 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Dr. Satya Nitta is the CEO and co-founder of Merlyn Mind , a deep tech generative AI company working on natural language interfaces and voice computing. He was previously the global head of AI solutions for learning at IBM Research and led teams in the development of conversational systems, speech recognition, and natural language understanding. Dr. Nitta received his PhD in Chemical Engineering and holds over 100 US patents, as well as having published over 40 publications and re...
Aug 21, 2023•46 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Sam Walder is a violinist, computer engineer, and the co-founder and CEO of Trala , which he founded as an undergraduate at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Trala is a tech-powered online music school. Founded in 2017, their mission is to make world-class music education accessible to every single person on Earth. With over 600,000 downloads and violin students in 193+ countries, Trala has received support from top musicians and investors at Duolingo and LinkedIn. Trala c...
Aug 15, 2023•48 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Edtech Winners of the Summer: - Kahoot! gets $1.72B Buyout - Duolingo continues to beat the market - GoStudent raises $95 (some debt) to expand - Ukraine-based Preply raises $70M (some debt) Edtech Bummers of the Summer: - Paper conducts layoffs - Byju's negative press after board walkouts , despite AI rollout Edtech Partnerships of the Summer: - Instructure to distribute Khanmigo through Canvas AI App Marketplace - Newsela acquires Formative to expand assessment capabilities...
Aug 07, 2023•45 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Kristina Ishmael is the Deputy Director at the US Office of Educational Technology (which we’ll call the Office of Edtech, or the OET), part of the US DOE . She is an educator, learner, advocate, and agent of change. As the leader of the Office of Ed Tech, she executes the office mission of developing national edtech policy that enables everywhere, all-the-time learning and supports digital equity and opportunity. Before the OET, Kristina was the Sr. Research Fellow on New America...
Aug 07, 2023•50 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text Dr. Martyn Farrows is the CEO of SoapBox Labs , the global leader in voice AI technology for children. Martyn joined SoapBox Labs in 2017 as Chief Operations Officer to lead operations, business development, and strategic partnerships. He was appointed to the CEO role in May 2021. Founded in 2013, SoapBox Labs is an equity-centered, privacy-by-design voice AI company that powers accurate and equitable voice experiences for children of every accent, dialect and stage of development...
Aug 02, 2023•45 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 the past, he’d always been able to pass language exams, but would find himself totally unable to actual...
Jul 31, 2023•52 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 learners worldwide. Recommended Resources: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Differe...
Jul 24, 2023•29 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago while also having an appointment at the university as a lectu...
Jul 21, 2023•48 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 sector, with roles at Wells Fargo and Walmart. Much of her work focused on frontline worker economic stab...
Jul 19, 2023•49 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 partnerships that close talent supply/demand gaps in order to improve students' employment outcomes; employe...
Jul 17, 2023•51 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, Chicago Scholars has created REACH Pathways, a first-of-its-kind app designed to connect top talent with ...
Jul 10, 2023•47 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 plans. They recently launched ASA’s latest digital resource, EvolveMe™ , which helps teens in middle an...
Jul 03, 2023•30 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 also declined. Last fall, 31 percent said they “never or hardly ever” read for fun, compared to 22 per...
Jun 27, 2023•43 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 learning game scholars Drs. Kurt Squire and James Paul Gee. Prior to founding Filament in 2005, Dan worked as...
Jun 26, 2023•54 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 recently completed the Techstars JP Morgan Chase Female Founders Catalyst program....
Jun 23, 2023•43 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 where how we feed our minds matters just as much as how we feed our bodies. Mario is a robotics engin...
Jun 23, 2023•51 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 developer, system analyst, lecturer in computer and software engineering departments, project manager and th...
Jun 19, 2023•54 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 Education Partners. Earlier in her career she was a founding team member at Teach For America, created an A...
Jun 12, 2023•56 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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, Anada built and launched 5 products (1 IPO, 1 exit via acquisition) in both enterprise and consumer, acro...
Jun 06, 2023•37 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America (November 2023). He is also author of A New U: Faster + Chea...
Jun 05, 2023•23 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 technologies to safeguard students online. Al writes for a range of international titles on all aspect...
May 29, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 work with the Gates Foundation includes leading student voice research to inform the K-12 Balance The...
May 25, 2023•59 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 Edtech We check in with Arman Jaffer, Tom Whitnah and Corey Crouch, the founding team of the powerful AI ...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 across all subjects, with the leading technologists and learning scientists to build the most innovati...
May 22, 2023•16 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 teach leadership workshops for 1200 girls. Most recently, Katie founded Twenty , a coaching & commu...
May 19, 2023•35 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Send us a text 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 high school students at the start of the pandemic, Audrey decided to mobilize her most ambitious peers...
May 15, 2023•55 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 
