Edtech Insiders

Send us a textSunil Gunderia is the Chief Innovation Officer at Age of Learning, a leading education technology innovator with a mission to help children everywhere build a strong foundation for academic success and a lifelong love of learning. He oversees the company’s innovation strategy and has led the development, distribution, and implementation of its research-proven educational programs for students prekindergarten through second grade. Age of Learning has been recognized as one of the most innovative companies in edtech for its research-based, highly scalable learning products that are built to advance positive educational outcomes and address inequities in learning. The company’s flagship program, ABCmouse, is the leading digital education brand for young children in the U.S., and its expanding portfolio of offerings includes Adventure Academy, ABCmouse English, and the personalized, adaptive learning programs for schools, My Math Academy and My Reading Academy.  To-date, Age of Learning has helped educate more than 50 million children worldwide. Today, Sunil also serves on the Board of Trustees at the Children’s Institute, an LA-based non-profit that provides early education and services to help transform the lives of children and families affected by poverty. He also sits on the advisory boards of Edtech Evidence Exchange, Digital Wellness Lab, and Educating All Students Alliance, and served on the Editorial Advisory Board for the “Handbook of Research on Innovative Approaches to Early Childhood Development and School Readiness.”Prior to Age of Learning, Sunil was the General Manager of Mobile at The Walt Disney Company, overseeing mobile strategy, product development, distribution, and partnerships globally. Sunil also founded Gunderia Advisors, where he advised numerous early-stage technology companies on strategy, product, and execution.Recommended ResourcesChristensen InstituteSmall Talks, newsletter by Isabelle HauEnd of Average by Todd Rose

Send us a textGuests: David Harris, OpenStax at Rice University & Justin Weinberg, Aktiv LearningTopics This Week:Back to School, But Media Narratives Say Education Is in TroubleTeacher ShortageLocal School Grades PlummetingHMH report: education is not an appealing fieldValue of Higher Ed in QuestionWhy Americans are increasingly dubious about going to collegeHigher Ed Must Change or DieA New Vision for College ExcellenceThe Shrinking of Higher EdCardona SpeechFeds cancel $4B in ITT Tech loans  Potential Solution? Increasing Modularity in Higher EdCompany steps in to ease transfer credit frictionIndicators of Higher Education Equity in U.S.What Works in K12Learning on TikTok & YouTubeTeens, Social Media and Technology 2022TikTok TeachersThe Edtech Space in 2022EdTech isn’t special anymore and that’s a good thing.7 investors discuss why edtech startups must go back to basics to survive23 Most Promising Edtech Startups in 2022Funding + M&ACreatorDAO raises $20MFundamentalVR raises $20MJunto raises $5MSphere raises $4.3MHarver acquires Pymetrics

Send us a textGauthier Van Malderen is the co-founder and CEO of the University Digital Library Perlego. Gauthier decided to start Perlego as a Cambridge student after realizing how many people were having problems financing their textbooks. In 2017, he decided to found a subscription service to provide all the textbooks a student would need, in eBook form, at an affordable price.Perlego raised $50 million in March (out of $75M total funding) to expand its business after seeing its platform boom through COVID-19. The London based startup currently has 400,000 paying subscribers who get all-you-can-read access to some 850,000 titles — textbooks, fiction and other literature that students are assigned as coursework at universities and other higher-learning institutions. It works with 5,000 education publishers, including Cengage, Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Harvard University Press. That catalog makes Perlego the largest online textbook subscription service in the world. Perlego has won 26 awards including Europas Best Edtech, Virgin Voom and the KPMG pioneer award.Recommended ResourcesBrighteye Venturesenablinginsights blog by Adam Black

Send us a textTopics This Week:Fall Election CycleVa. Gov. Youngkin faces second suit over teacher tip lineDemocrats Cede ‘Party of Education’ Label to GOP2022 CHLOE 7 ReportAnnouncement + PDFOnline learning leaders think fully in-person will be a rarityBig Tech vs. UdemyAmazon Launches Udemy CompetitorFacebook Working on a Udemy Competitor?MetaverseHarvard Metaverse in Education ReportDeloitte Metaverse ReportAppLovin wants to buy video game maker Unity for $20 billionFunding + M&AupGrad raises $210M and acquires ExampurJodo raises $15MTerritorium raises $4.4MKide Science raises $1MAchievable raises $650KPrometric LLC acquires FinetuneEducationDynamics acquires EDU First

Send us a textJosh Chernikoff is an educational entrepreneur and small business advisor. For the last 14 years, he has founded and grown two successful educational enrichment programs serving hundreds of thousands of students in 85 schools across six states. He now runs Cascade Communications, an edtech advisory. Josh and his team at Cascade are, above all, content and relationship experts in the educational space, leveraging email communication and live relationship roundtables to engage the entrepreneurs and businesses with key education decision makers. He also hosts two entrepreneurship and Edtech podcasts - How I Broke That and Breaking the Grade.Recommended Resources@brianbeers@thejustinwelsh@dickiebush@JasonRBradwell@justingordon212@nathanbaugh27

Send us a textWelcome to Season 2 of This Week in Edtech!Guest: Matthew Tower, Principal @ Workshop Venture PartnersSubscribe to Matt’s weekly newsletter @ https://matthewtower.substack.com/Topics This Week:Byju’sLayoffs, debt, litigation!?Bearish OPMsPhil Hill: ”The brutal spring and summer for OPMs & MOOCs”Zovio sells OPM business to University of Arizona Global Campus2U Layoffs + tuition share agreementsFunding LandscapeHolonIQ – Global Edtech Funding 2022 H1MetaverseCollege in the metaverse is here. Is higher ed ready?Time Magazine cover + Meta ads Classdojo raises $125MMCrypto & Web3Pearson plans to sell its textbooks as NFTsDAOs - the new LLCs?Also check out our weekly newsletter @ https://edtechinsiders.substack.com/

Send us a text Jonathan Finkelstein is the CEO of Credly, one of the leading organizations in the credentialing space for education technology around the world. Credly is a Pearson business.  Previously, as founder of LearningTimes, he helped mission-driven organizations produce and launch innovative online programs, products and platforms that impacted the lives of millions of users. He was also a co-founder at HorizonLive, which was acquired by Blackboard, and author of Learning in Real Time.  He's a frequent author and speaker on digital credentials and the future of work. Recommended ResourcesHow I Built This, podcast hosted by Guy RazHuman Work In the Age of Smart Machines, book by Jamie MerisotisHow to Tell a Story, book by The MothResources Page, curated by Credly

Send us a textSophie Ruddock is a former impact investor and consultant with 10+ years experience across the private, public and non-profit sectors. She is one of the  founding members of Multiverse, a tech company building an outstanding alternative to college. She spent the last 4 years growing Multiverse’s delivery operations in the U.K, before moving onto leading their expansion to NYC as GM North America.Recommended ResourcesThe Job, a weekly newsletter by Paul Fain

Send us a textTroy Williams is a Managing Director at Achieve and University Ventures. Troy leads both firm’s investments in education technology companies, including AdmitHub, EverTrue, Examity, Motimatic, Packback and Ready Education.Prior to UV, Troy was a senior executive at Macmillan where he was CEO of Macmillan Enterprise Solutions and President of Macmillan New Ventures. Previously, Troy founded and served as CEO of Questia Media, an early ebook company. Prior to Questia, He was previously employed in the mergers and acquisitions practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York.Recommended ResourcesBetter Money Better World, podcast by Daniel Pianko

Send us a textAlec Levin is the co-founder and CEO of Learners. Learners, formerly known as UXR Collective, started as a small meetup in Toronto and has become an online learning platform for researchers and designers around the world. Before Learners Alec worked in product and user research at a number of Toronto-based startups including Thalmic Labs, Finaeo, and Meta.Recommended ResourcesEconomic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell