Edtech Insiders

Send us a textAcky Kamdar is the CEO of Magic EdTech and Magic Finserv. He is a technology entrepreneur and an investor in the fields of digital technologies, blockchain, machine learning, AI and NLP. Acky has over 25 years of experience in Process Management, Technology Solutions, and Outsourcing services at companies like Genpact, Headstrong, Compaq Computers and the HCL group. Currently, he also serves as General Partner at Solmark, a NY-based entrepreneurs equity fund. Recommended ResourcesEconTalk, podcast by Russ RobertsEducated by Tara Westover

Send us a textFrancie Alexander is Chief Research Officer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) and an industry leader in the fields of Early Childhood Education, Literacy, and Intensive Intervention for striving reading and math students. Francie provides inspirational and informative leadership on topics from early and adolescent learning to brain development and its influence on childhood and teenage learning and is focused on Future Ready Readers and the future of learning. She works closely to listen to and learn from key school districts across the U.S. in order to lead HMH's efficacy efforts.Francie serves on the board of Text Project and formerly Los Angeles Universal Pre-K (LAUP). She served for almost 10 years on the PBS Next Generation Media Advisory Board. She was previously chief academic officer for Scholastic.Additionally, Francie has authored more than 50 books for children, including Curious George Readers.Prior to her time at HMH, Francie held key positions in both state and federal education agencies, including serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education's research branch, where she led Department-sponsored standards efforts and campaigns in support of libraries and the arts. HMH is an education technology company and a leading provider of K–12 core, supplemental, intervention, and professional learning solutions.Recommended ResourcesShaped, blog by HMHEducator Confidence Report by HMH

Send us a textGreg Bybee is the Co-Founder and CEO of Avela Education and the Co-Founder of PoliScribe. Greg was an early employee at NovoEd where he ultimately ran every business function from marketing to business development and customer success, and ultimately helped sell the company to Fidelity.Previously, he was a Fellow at NewSchools Venture Fund, the first product manager at Coursera, an advisor to Renren’s expansion into education, the lead for VMware’s vCloud Suite launch, and a strategic counselor to Fortune 500 executives at McKinsey & Company. He's also an advisor and mentor to several education organizations and tech startups, including Vendition, Veery, HiCounselor, and Rutgers UniversityAvela's mission is to increase equitable access to education. Avela offers a modern application and enrollment system for schools, districts, and mission-driven organizations, which focuses on empowering families and enabling data driven decisions.Recommended ResourcesExpanding Access to High-Quality Schools report by Center for American ProgressWho Gets What ― and Why by Alvin RothSchool District RFPs archive

Send us a textGuest: Fadl Al Tarzi, Founder & CEO @ Nexford UniversityOnline University Nexford will use $8M to plug affordability and relevance gaps in educationTopics This Week:Ads in EducationThe next chapter for Learning on YouTubeRoblox jumping into ads in effort to diversify beyond virtual goodsSPACS & Aging UnicornsLondon Looks to Un-Meme the SPAC Market A Sober Look at SPACsCollege ChaosMalignant by Scott GallowayCollege Student Transfers Declined By Nearly 300,000 During PandemicOberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59 Million to a Local BakeryThe Post-Pandemic College Campus as a Design ChallengeFrance hits 400,000 international student mark after record growthStanford Law to offer 'income share' financing as law school costs soarReligion & EducationIn Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Yeshivas Flush With Public MoneyYeshiva University doesn't have to recognize LGBTQ student group for now, Sotomayor rulesFunding + M&A3 in 10 Education Companies Secured VC or Made Acquisitions Over the Last YearVirtual Internships raises $14.3MuDocz raises $2M Hone raises $30MTract raises $7MDocquity raises $44MEdupia raises $14MCode First Girls raises £4.5MCitizens Financial Group acquires College RaptorLepaya acquires vCOACHOrenda Education Merges with Think TogetherCheck out our Newsletter @ https://edtechinsiders.substack.com/

Send us a textShravan Goli has been the Chief Product Officer and Head of Consumer Revenue at Coursera since 2018. Shravan came to Coursera with over 20 years of experience of building products and leading companies. He has built products at Microsoft and Yahoo, been the CEO of Dictionary.com, and was most recently President of tech job marketplace Dice (part of public company DHI Group Inc).Coursera was launched in 2012 by two Stanford Computer Science professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with over 100 million registered learners globally.Coursera partners with over 275 of the world’s top universities (Yale, University of London, Penn) and industry educators (Google, Meta, IBM) to offer courses, Specializations, projects, certificates, and degrees. Over 7,000 businesses, government entities, and campuses have used Coursera’s enterprise offering to provide job-relevant online education to their employees, citizens, and students.Recommended ResourcesA New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College by Ryan Craig

Send us a textGuest: Anjuli Gupta, Head of Academic Partnerships @ Outlier.orgMasterClass's Co-Founder Takes on the Community College DegreeOutlier.org & Golden Gate University Reinvent Affordable College with Degrees+Topics This Week:LAUSD CyberattackLos Angeles Schools Hit with Ransomware AttackFBI joins probe into LAUSD cyberattackLearning Loss & Pandemic RecoveryPlunging NAEP scores signal a long and difficult road to recovery7 charts highlighting the pandemic’s impact on 2022 NAEP scoresU.S. School Closures Leave Students Behind.Experts Say Kids Are Far Behind After COVID; Parents Shrug. Why the Disconnect?Around the WorldChina Liberal Education acquires Wanwang Investment LimitedVitru Limited acquires Rede EnemEntrepreneurship and Education across AfricaByju's to raise $500M @ $23B valuation + Ministry of Corporate Affairs Inquiry XR GrowsMetaversity is in Session as Meta and Iowa’s VictoryXR Open 10 Virtual CampusesOxford University Press partners with Immersify Education to create interactive learning modulesFunding + M&AGlints raises $50MLearnsoft raises $17MAstro raises $13MLumiQ raises $5MEarlyDay raises $3.25MDiscovery Education acquires Pivot InteractivesUnacademy acquires Gate AcademyEdlio acquires SchoolInfoScholastic acquires Learning OvationsXanEdu acquires PLC AssociatesCheck out the Edtech Insiders Newsletter @ https://edtechinsiders.substack.com/

Send us a textLisa Jiang has a long career at the heights of edtech; she was most recently the head of Remote Learning at Facebook, after 4 years as a senior director of product at New York’s Flatiron School, a leading bootcamp provider and 6 years at Google, where she was a product manager and lead for education for Google Hangouts.Joe Burgess was the first hire at Flatiron School and worked his way up to the VP of Education, where he led the education product and delivery teams across four disciplines both online and in Flatiron’s eight campuses.Together, they are the co-founders of Ribbon Education, which is building software to help student-facing staff scale their impact to serve more learners and improve outcomes in adult education.Recommended ResourcesPhil Hill's blogMichael FeldsteinRobert Ubell's booksLearners' Success Guild & blog by Ribbon Education

Send us a textGuest: Ish Baid, Founder & CEO @ VirtuallyCheck out Ish’s podcast: Reshaping EducationTopics This Week:Duolingo MathJoin the waitlist to test their new math app!Takes by Forbes, The Verge, & Fast CompanyCollege Enrollment Shifts2020-21 IPEDS Data: Profile of Mid-Pandemic 12-Month EnrollmentsAs More Stressed-Out Students Consider Dropping Out, Surgeon General Pushes College Leaders to Ramp Up SupportWhich School Has The Most Expensive College Tuition In 2023?One state offers lessons in how to cope with the college enrollment crisisAround 25% surge in popularity of hybrid learning amongst study abroad aspirantsPublic Teacher Workforce5 Big Technology Challenges Teachers and Administrators Will Face This School YearHow Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? Depends on Where You Live.America’s new “national teacher shortage” is neither new nor nationalNearly 70% of LA teachers have seriously considered quitting, study finds | US educationCareer Education‘Academic Career Plans’ Have Students Exploring Careers as Early as KindergartenNew Poll From Third Way Shows Voters Want Accountability For Career Education ProgramsFunding + M&A HighlightsCrunchbase: Edtech Funding Falls SharplyFrance launches fund endowed with 500 million eurosUpkid raises $1.7 millionETU receives Strategic Growth InvestmentVUIHOC raises $2 millionNazara acquires WildWorks kids IP ‘Animal Jam’ Renaissance Acquires Illuminate EducationAlchemy acquires ChainShotAkili raises $163 million in “blank-check” merger

Send us a textT. Nicole Tucker-Smith, founder and CEO of Lessoncast, helps schools implement professional learning initiatives focused on inclusive leadership and teaching practices, culturally responsive pedagogy, and equity best practice. Tucker-Smith was an assistant principal charged with planning professional development (PD) for a turnaround middle school in the Baltimore County Public Schools when she realized that traditional PD methods were not going to lead to transformational results. This PD redesign led to the Lessoncast process - providing customized teacher learning experiences that capture the impact on classroom practice. Founded in 2011, Lessoncast offers its platform technology to schools, districts, consultants, and teacher education programs. With the unique Lessoncast video format and interactive PD modules targeting specific teaching practices, educators engage in professional learning that is tailored for their individual needs and aligned with their community's goals. Tucker-Smith also leads the Jumpstart PD Network, a community of educators who access flexible PD options to engage in high-quality professional learning experiences that fit their needs, budget, and capacity. She has served as a teacher, supervisor of parent support services, principal, and systemwide coordinator of professional development and training for Baltimore County Public Schools and as a faculty member for Johns Hopkins University School of Education. She is the co-author of Supercharge Your Professional Learning: 40 Concrete Strategies that Improve Adult Learning and the host of the Did We Learn Anything? podcast.Recommended ResourcesCaste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel WilkersonPredictably Irrational by Dan ArielyDecentertheTeacher on Instagram

Send us a textTopics This Week:Student Loan ForgivenessNYT + Inside Higher Ed Valuations”Stars Through Thunderstorms”Accelerator NewsY Combinator cuts startup batch size by 40% amid economic downturnCrunchbase: 2,000 Tech Layoffs in 2022Higher Ed & K12 EnrollmentThese Colleges and Universities Are Reporting Record Size Freshmen Classes + UC program seeks to re-enroll adults who stopped outHopeful but careful: Parents and teachers address new school yearHigher ed must build on what we learned during the pandemicStates Where Public Schools Are Losing the Most StudentsLabor Disputes Threaten Start of New School YearFunding + M&ASunstone raises $35MGrowthSpace raises $25MMicroverse raises $4MITHAKA raises $2.5MReady Player Me raises $56M BrightCHAMPS Acquires ScholaNerdy Acquires Codeverse