Edtech Insiders

Jess Weems Thibault, VP of Growth at HireEdu, talks about transitioning from education to the Edtech industry. They cover different types of recruiting agencies, the current state of tech and Edtech industries, standing out in resumes, understanding revenue, working in nonprofits vs private sector, and transitioning from classroom teacher to Edtech companies.

Send us a textChatGPT 4Hear from Kristen DiCerbo, Chief Learning Officer at Khan Academy, about KhanmigoDuolingo MaxReadleePaperBarnes and NoblePhotoStudyGlobal EdtechLEAD Completes Acquisition Of Pearson’s IndiaupGrad crosses 22,000 job placementsEdtech startup uLesson starts an Open UniversityThe Rise of EdTech In SEE

Send us a textJohn Gamba is a serial entrepreneur and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, John Gamba, Jr has been dedicated to transforming education for most of his career. In 1999, John co-founded PACE – The Partnership for Academic and Community Excellence. PACE was the first school-to-home communications network, connecting thousands of schools to millions of homes nationally and was eventually sold to Blackboard, an international industry leader in education. John currently serves as Entrepreneur in Residence and Director of Innovative Programs at Penn’s Graduate School of Education. In this role, John mentors education entrepreneurs, helps incubate new EdTech ventures and oversees the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition, which has awarded millions of dollars to world-wide education ventures.Thaddeus Reichley has over twenty years of teaching and leading in public, charter, and independent schools. He has designed curriculum, led faculty through challenging times, done strategic development, and built highly productive teams. Thaddeus is completing an EdD at USC and is in the midst of writing his dissertation about student engagement in online environments.Recommended ResourcesAlan November, Who Owns the Learning?John Doerr, Measure What MattersStanford + Emeritus' Collaboration

Send us a textVarun Gulati is the CEO and co-founder of Koalluh, a startup which makes reading & writing more engaging by empowering kids to make & share quality, illustrated children's stories using AI.Varun is a former public school teacher, and a product & engineering leader. He co-founded, scaled, and sold his first company, UClass as CTO & Head of Product. Most recently, Varun led the Product & Growth teams at Mystery Science, the fastest-growing K-12 science supplemental in the U.S.. The products he has built have reached tens of millions of students. Varun is also an ex-Googler and former Teach For America corps member. Recommended ResourcesBen's Bytes on Substack on AIEducation and The Significance of Life by Jiddu Krishnamurthi

Send us a textJohn Edelson founded homeschooling platform Time4Learning in 2013 in his living room and remains the president today. Over 360,000 students have now benefited from Time4Learning. He also created Time4Writing, VocabularySpellingCity, and Science4Us. His company was run independently until joining Cambium in 2018. He has extensive expertise working with various educational software, diversified entertainment, and technology companies. He was the producer of the Sony PlayStation game, Croc, Legend of the Gobos, which went Platinum. After college, he spent two years in West Africa in the Peace Corps. He is a proud father of three. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard.  

Send us a textIn this special, UNEDITED version of Week in Edtech, Ben, Alex and special guest co-host Matt Tower discuss:1) The sudden demise and federal takeover of Silicon Valley Bank and what it means for Tech, Banking and Edtech.News:Jenna Smialek and Alan Rappeport of NYTEric Wallerstein et al. of WSJDaniel Taub of BloombergTakesKevin Roose of NYTMatt Levine of BloombergNoah Smith of Noahpinion2) Discuss the rumors of ChatGPT4 launching next week with AI-created videoMicrosoft will launch ChatGPT 4 with AI videos next week | Digital TrendsNew Study Reveals Only 1 in 10 Global Workers Have In-Demand AI SkillsGrammarly expands beyond proofreading with AI-powered writing3) Herald the Launch of Non-Profit ai.edu with 50 partners across tech and edPartners include Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Verizon, Intel, TFA and many more4) Unveil the (secret) purchase of top Education App Photomath by GoogleMatt reports on this in Edtech ThoughtsYou can also read about it in Croatia Week5) Discuss the on-the-ground happenings at SxSW EDU

Send us a textGuest co-host this week: Zaza KabayadandoTopics This Week Include:New Federal Guidance for Higher Ed FalloutEducation Dept. Shocks Ed-Tech Experts and Colleges With Expansion of OversightAI Continues to Polarize Educators AI bots can seem sentient. Students need guardrailsIs ChatGPT the future of cheating or the future of teaching?Adapt, evolve, elevate: ChatGPT is calling for interdisciplinary actionGSV Goes to IndiaGSV + Emeritus India Summit: Women entrepreneurs lead conversations on gender funding gap; call for critical changes to foster women entrepreneurs Edtech Startup Ecosystem in AfricaCo-Creation Hub’s edtech accelerator puts $15M towards African startups | TechCrunchAfrican tech startup funding reaches new recordState of Edtech ReportFound Here

Send us a textDepartment of Ed launches new OPM RestrictionsInsider Higher Ed on thisPhil Hill on this (here too)U.S. Department of Education Launches Review of Prohibition on Incentive Compensation for College RecruitersTeen girls in mental health crisis, blowback toward big techNPR: 10 things to know about how social media affects teens' brainsNearly 1 in 5 Teen Girls ‘Engulfed’ In Wave of Sexual Violence; Many SuicidalRecord Levels of Sadness in Teen Girls, CDC Reports - The New York TimesCovid Relief fund cliff is comingTime Is Running Out for Colleges to Spend COVID-19 Relief FundsChatGPT- Things are moving faster than we can anticipateMost sites claiming to catch AI-written text fail spectacularly | TechCrunch

Send us a text1. ChatGPT, Pt. 1: APIsOpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT, plus dedicated capacity for enterprise customers | TechCrunchIntroducing Q-Chat, the world’s first AI tutor built with OpenAI’s ChatGPT | QuizletChatGT, Pt 2: Ramifications of ChatGPTThe evolution of ChatGPT will fuel the future of higher education, says Udacity's Sebastian ThrunWill ChatGPT Make Students Turn Away From Homework-Help Services? | EdSurge News2. Federal Guidelines on TPS DelayedDepartment of Education Delays Guidance on TPS Expansion3. Interesting AcquisitionsIXL Learning Acquires Teachers Pay Teachers, the World's Largest Platform for Educator-Created ContentPaper™ acquires MajorClarity to Create a Comprehensive Career & College Readiness PlatformEducation services company Perdoceo acquires coding bootcamp school Coding Dojo for $52.8M4. TikTok Launches New Edtech Platform GeniusJoy for MathTikTok's parent ByteDance is building a new 'AI-based' edtech platform called GeniusJoy and is hiring in Los Angeles and SingaporeFrom TikTok to Trigonometry: Could ByteDance Corner the Market on Edtech?Funding RoundsNew Markets Venture Partners Raises Over $160 Million Chinese platform Nowcoder raises $50mStudentFinance secures $41m for ISAs in Europe 

Send us a textIn this special episode, we speak to four of the seven finalists for the SxSW EDU Launch competition: - Sari of Kide Science- Nick Suwyn of Promineo Tech- Varun Gulati and Christie Chu of Koalluh- Kavindya Thenakoon of Tilli