Thought Leaders in Online Education: Gregory Marino, CEO of Kaplan Higher Education (Part 1)

Purdue University has recently acquired Kaplan University to create Purdue University Global, one of the pioneers in online learning. Read on to understand why.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you as well as to Kaplan.

Gregory Marino: I just celebrated my 26th year with Kaplan. My resume reads newspaper boy and then Kaplan. I’ve been in education my entire professional career. Over those 26 years, I’ve been pretty much involved in each one of our major divisions.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Niall McKinney, President of Avado (Part 1)

Avado is a $100M online learning company that focuses on group learning for enterprises. The discussion includes several exciting open problems that are ripe for new entrepreneurs to step in.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing yourself as well as Avado to our audience. 

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Andrew Grauer, CEO of Course Hero (Part 1)

We interviewed Andrew on the Entrepreneur Journeys series five years back when Course Hero was at around $10 million in revenue. In 2018, the company’s website had 300 million visits. Revenue is approaching $100 million. And as for comparables, Pluralsight has gone public and has validated the business model of all-you-can-eat subscription-based online learning.

Read on to deep dive into the trends for the sector.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to a bit of a recap. We had you over five years ago and you told us your entrepreneur journeys story. Give us a little recap and then let’s catch up. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Dror Ben Naim, CEO of Smart Sparrow (Part 1)

This conversation delves into the personalized learning design system space.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by having you introduce yourself and Smart Sparrow to our readership.

Dror Ben Naim: I’m the Founder and CEO of Smart Sparrow. We are a learning technology platform. We help education providers make their digital learning experiences personalized and adaptive.

Sramana Mitra: Double-click down on that for us and tell us a bit more about what that means. You can use use cases. It’s a perfect way to explain all this complex stuff. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Patrick Mullane, Executive Director of HBX (Part 1)

Harvard Business School is using online education extensively across different use cases. Learn how.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by having you introduce yourself and HBX platform.

Patrick Mullane: I’m the Executive Director of HBX, which is Harvard Business School’s online education initiative. Harvard Business School built a custom platform about four years ago with the intent to deliver case-based business learning in a scaled way; in a way in which we could reach more people around the world in the interest of furthering the business school’s mission, which is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. >>>

Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to 5 Million Plus: Nick Shaw, CEO of Renaissance Periodization (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.

Nick has built a very interesting e-learning company and addressed scalability with nifty strategic choices. Read on. You’ll learn a lot.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Nick Shaw: I was born and raised in the state of Michigan. I grew up with the goal of wanting to go to the University of Michigan. It’s a top-level school. I was lucky enough to get accepted there. I started in the Sports Management program. I originally wanted to be an athletic director. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: O’Reilly Media Chief Content Officer Karen Hebert-Maccaro (Part 1)

Karen discusses the trends in online learning including in-the-moment and multi-channel.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as O’Reilly Media and your activities in online education.

Karen Hebert-Maccaro: I’ve been at O’Reilly Media as Chief Content Officer for about a year. I have spent much of my career in talent development and talent management roles including Chief Learning Officer for a high-tech company in healthcare. Prior to entering the corporate world, I was in academics. I taught and was the Associate Dean of School of Business in Massachusetts for about 12 years. >>>

Man and Superman: Future of Education

In the One Million by One Million online curriculum, almost eight years ago, I decided to put in a line as a joke: “We’re working on a chip that can be implanted in your brain and it will transfer ALL the entrepreneurial knowledge from my brain to yours. However, this chip is not quite ready yet. So, in the meantime, please study the curriculum and learn the methodology of entrepreneurship that we have designed.”

Well, little did I know that this would cease to be a joke by 2018.

In fact, in the next decade or two, perhaps, this sort of implant will become the future of education.

>>>

Thought Leaders in Online Gaming: JumpStart Games CEO David Lord (Part 1)

This conversation highlights Gamification in online learning.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to JumpStart Games.

David Lord: I’m the CEO of JumpStart Games. We build games for kids ages 3 to 13. Some of our products include JumpStart, which is our legacy brand that has been delivering early childhood learning for 25 years. School of Dragons is a science-based game based around Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon and NeoPet.

Sramana Mitra: Also set some context about how big the company is. What is the footprint? >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Steve Gross, CEO of Calvert Education (Part 1)

A very interesting discussion on the pedagogical gap in online-offline hybrid learning methodology for younger kids.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Calvert Education.

Steve Gross: Calvert is a very established organization. It was founded in the early 1900s. It’s probably the world’s first distance learning organization. It was founded as part of a private school in Baltimore, which is where the company is based. It is fair to say that we have been doing personalized learning genuinely since 1906. >>>