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Jeanette Cheah is an award-winning education technology and business leader based in Melbourne, and raised across the US, Japan and Australia. As CEO & founder of HEX, she’s dedicated to transforming young people into the innovators the world needs tomorrow and seeing the next generation of talent thrive. 

HEX prepares students for the fast-changing global workforce with the tech and design skills they need to close the future skills gap shortage – and the entrepreneurial mindsets employers want using programs that are immersive, seriously fun, and academically aligned. 

Previously, Jeanette spent 14 years building innovation solutions, marketing strategies and digital products for some of Australia’s corporate giants including ANZ, AXA, AMP and Origin Energy.

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Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

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Karl Rectanus is an educator, serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of LearnPlatform, a mission-driven "for benefit" corporation, where he leads a team of educators, researchers and technologists committed to expanding equitable access for students.

LearnPlatform is an Edtech effectiveness system working to deliver safe, equitable, cost-effective learning for districts, states and their partners such as solution providers. Learnplatform’s technologies are used by over 8,000 schools serving more than 7 million students across the United States.

Recommended Resources

• #edchat or #superintendentchat on Twitter to put your finger on the pulse of what's going on in schools and states 
• Edweek
• Hechinger Report
• Edtech Digest

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1. Outschool
   • How Outschool won the pandemic
2. Master’s Degree Pricing Soars
   • Ryan Craig on MasterCrash
3. Web3 and Education
   • Jomayra Herrera on Learning, Earning, and Web3 
4. University Rankings Don’t Add Up
   • Columbia Professor Challenges U.S. News & World Report College Ranking
   • The University in Ruins
5. M&A
   • Nigerian Edtech Startup Klas Secures $130k
   • Video Learning Startup Raises $29m to Tackle Post-Pandemic Education
   • Edtech startup Leverage Edu pockets $22m in Series B round
   • Perlego raises $50M

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Ope Bukola was a product manager at Amplify Education and a product lead for Google Classroom for four years before branching out as an entrepreneur in 2020.

She founded a company to build African tech talent, was a founding member of Level, a multiracial network that invests in businesses led by Black women, and joined the Board of Zeta, a network of high-performing charter schools in the Bronx.

Most recently, Ope is the co-founder and CEO of Kibo School, which offers affordable, high-impact Computer Science degrees to students in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Recommended Resource

Rest of World: Reporting Global Tech Stories

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Sergio Monsalve is a Founding Partner of Roble Ventures, a venture capital investing firm based in Silicon Valley that invests in human enablement technologies: solutions that help human progress.

Sergio is also visiting professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and Business. In both roles, he is focused on the “Future of Work and Learning” and on developing technology innovations and entrepreneurship.

Sergio has been on the board and/or an investor of various companies in this area of focus, including Udemy ($3B), Adaptive Insights (Sold to Workday for $1.6B), Ubits, Slang, and Kahoot! Before he started his investing career, he was an entrepreneur and also held various roles in high-growth technology companies like eBay.

Sergio holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor of science degree in management sciences and engineering from Stanford University. Sergio is originally from Mexico and is very active helping aspiring Latinx entrepreneurs and VC’s.

Recommended Resources

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

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Topics This Week:

1. NSVF and Others Receive Funding from MacKenzie Scott for General Operating
   • Here’s Who MacKenzie Scott Donated To So Far In February
   • MacKenzie Scott Makes Historic Gift to NewSchools Venture Fund
2. Edtech Metrics and Skepticism
   • Edtech Companies Must Place Learning Ahead of Revenue and Engagement
   • Who is the Theranos of Education?
   • Edtech firm Zovio (ZVO) fined $22 million for false advertising, misleading students
3. Amazon expands Career Choice
   • Amazon’s Employees Can Go to College, Free. What’s in It for Higher Ed?
   • Amazon Partners With 140 Colleges And Universities To Expand Free Tuition Program
4. Funding, M&A
   • Byju’s founder backs startup in $800 million funding at $22 billion valuation
   • Medway raises $15 million Series A from Softbank and seven other funds 
   • Edtech startup FourthRev raises $11.2 million Series A to bridge the digital skills gap
   • From coding school to career acceleration platform, Italy’s Epicode strives for expansion with €10 million
   • Chipper Raises $5.6M to Eliminate Student Loan Debt and Combat the Latinx Funding Gap
   • Course Hero scoops up Scribbr for subject-specific study help
   • Classplus set to score $80 Mn in Series D round
   • Cialfo extends series B to $60m, Tiger Global leads $20 mn fund raise in edtech firm Cialfo

Guest: Ryan Stewart - Secretary of Education @ New Mexico Public Education Department

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1. International Women’s Day (“Break the Bias”)

• Top 200 Women who are leading Global EdTech Startups. – HolonIQ
• Supercharger Edtech Female Founders
• Erase All Kittens signs distribution deal with Tesco

2. Russia becomes a true pariah state for education

• Colleges cut financial ties to Russia
• European University Association Kicks Out Russian Universities
• Hundreds of Medical Students Trapped in Ukraine

3. Continued Rise of Work-Integrated Training

• Work Shift Explainer: A new language for CS degrees - Work Shift
• Employers Are Changing How They View Training. 
• Is Competency-Based Education an Idea Whose Time Has Come?

4. Funding and Policy

• Education Department clarifies rules on income-share agreements
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness Tops 100,000 Borrowers
• High-poverty schools get only small boost in budget deal

5. India India India 

• India top nation to get edtech patents
• Edtech Eruditus gets $350 million 
• Edtech startups bridging the education gap in non-metro cities

6. M & A

• Reforge Raises $60M
• Clearlake to buy edtech firm Discovery Education
• Daybreak earns (Series) A+ 

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 Josh Owens is the CEO and co-founder of Boost, a personal notification assistant for students on their smartphone. 

Josh was formerly the CEO of Supplykick, a growth-stage online marketplace retailer, has been a gubernatorial candidate for the State of Indiana, and has taught economics at Butler University and Indiana University.

Boost connects directly to a student's Canvas account, and is designed to be easy & effective to use with no new work for administrators, instructors, or students; students who use Boost are 3% more likely to pass their class, they earn 4% higher grades, and they are 6% more likely to turn in any given assignment.

Recommended Resources

• Boost Efficacy Research Reports
• Why Aren't Text Message Interventions Designed to Boost College Success? by Benjamin Castleman, UVA
• Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

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Eduflow is rapidly becoming one a best-in-class LMS, including a cutting edge peer grading system that both saves instructor time and provides learning opportunities for learners and graders alike.

David Kofoed Wind, the CEO of Peergrade and Eduflow describes his unusual journey from university teaching to edtech in Copenhagen, Denmark, and how Eduflow is working to make online, asynchronous collaborative learning into a new paradigm for education.

We also talk about Artificial Intelligence, and David is one of the rare people who both deeply understands AI and does not necessarily believe that it solves all core education problems; he states how a fully AI-based grading system would simply deprives learners from the educational experience of grading others' work.  

David's Recommended Resource

25 Years of Edtech by Martin Weller

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Topics this week include:

1. The Impact on Education of the War in Ukraine 
   • 7.5 million children & youth with education disrupted
   • Students rally to support Ukraine
   • EdTech Startups in Ukraine
   • Top 10 Ukrainian EdTech Startups to Look Out for Amid War
   • MIT Ends Program in Russia
   • Ukraine invasion underscores value of higher ed
2. Funding Rounds
   1. Disco, Toronto-Based CBC platform, gets $15mm series A from GSV and others
   2. EdTech startup Tutored by Teachers raises over $10m 
   3. Edtech Luca Raises a $3 Million Pre-seed Round and Starts Operations in Mexico
   4. Singapore edtech Genius Group files for $40M US IPO
   5. EdTech startup Vygo raises £1.5m to accelerate global borderless education support
   6. Founders of Zerodha, Cred, others invest $1.7m in edtech platform Kalvi
3. Google Dedicates $100mm Career Fund toward New Forms of Education and Certification
   1. Google Creates $100 Million Fund for Skills Training Program
   2. Interview with Leila Makarechi - Chief Business Officer @ Merit America, the non-profit that is one of the first recipients of Google's investment
4. Interview with Guest:
   1. Justin Weinberg - Co-founder & CEO @ Aktiv Learning
      • Aktiv Learning has recently renamed itself (from 101edu), released a new mobile first math curriculum and continues to build world class platforms dedicated to active learning. 

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1. DONATE TODAY! to  Education Cannot Wait
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