When James Kenigsberg immigrated to America, he quickly found that technology could make learning easier and more fun. This desire to create educational tools led him to help found 2U, a company that partners with universities to deliver online learning programs that are university quality.

James sat down with Peter ahead of his talk at the New York CTO Summit to discuss the future of education technology, why he loves software that helps with focus, and explains why future maintenance needs should be on your mind when you’re working on transformative projects. Tune in!

[01:23] - Falling in love with education technology
[04:35] - From coding to management
[05:44] - Promotion at The Princeton Review
[07:53] - Start, stop, continue
[09:54] - Founding 2U
[18:14] - Run, grow, and transform
[24:03] - Measuring tasks differently
[25:40] - Managing transformative projects

James Kenigsberg is the founding chief technology officer (CTO) at 2U, Inc., a global leader in education technology that partners with great universities to build, deliver, and support world-class online graduate programs and certificates at scale. As founding CTO, Kenigsberg directs 2U’s technology functions and efforts to build an academic product that delivers positive student outcomes, an efficient client relationship management system, and a secure, resilient, and configurable architecture.

This episode is sponsored by Clubhouse.io. Clubhouse lets you manage software projects with the perfect balance of simplicity and structure, so you and your team can be happier, less stressed, and hyper-focused on building products that customers love. It’s free for up to 10 users, plus you can get two free months on any paid plan at https://clubhouse.io/CTO.

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