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Posts by Wayee Chu

Goalbook: Setting the Bar

I often find myself deeply humbled by the entrepreneurs I have the great fortune to engage with day to day here at NewSchools, all of whom are tackling important and difficult challenges within our education system. Nationwide, innovative entrepreneurs are addressing many facets of the K-12 system but there is one subgroup of education that gets little attention and focus among entrepreneurs: special education (SPED). Yet across the country, the achievement gap […] Read more

Friday Night Lights (and Pitches)

Last Friday night saw nearly 300 Bay Area entrepreneurs, VCs and philanthropists gather for the final pitch session of The EdTech Entrepreneurs Lab, an education startup incubation program helping cultivate the next generation of education technology entrepreneurs. Since February, a cohort of 25 incredible individuals has been working through the Lab on tech-enabled solutions to the challenges facing American public education—and at this culminating event, their months of hard work were clear.The […] Read more

Pitch It!

In partnership with Teach For America and the Stanford d. school, NewSchools is excited to host a great startup event to celebrate the inaugural cohort of this year’s EdTech Entrepreneurs Lab. The event will feature eight teams from the EdTech Entrepreneurs Lab who will pitch in front of a Silicon Valley star-studded panel, they will receive feedback and questions, but the final vote is up to the audience. The public has the final say, so […] Read more

The Chief of Yelp Talks to the EdTech Cohort

Tonight the TFA-NewSchools EdTech cohort spent a great evening with Jeremy Stoppelman, the CEO and co-founder of Yelp at their hip HQs in downtown San Francisco talking about entrepreneurship, Jeremy’s road from PayPal to HBS to Yelp, and the books he is reading about education these days.  Some interesting thoughts on life as an entrepreneur: Follow your passion: If you don’t love the idea, chances are it won’t stick Learn to pivot: Be flexible […] Read more

Building 550, Studio 2: “Design Thinking” Within Reach…

This weekend 25 aspiring education entrepreneurs convened in Building 550, Studio 2 (the beautifully industrial-designed workspace at the Stanford d.school) for the kick-off workshop of  The EdTech Entrepreneurs Lab, an initiative of NewSchools and Teach For America. Saturday’s workshop was the official launch of the Winter-Spring 2011 cohort, which represented a diverse cross-section of participants across the technology, education and business sectors. The goal of the program is ambitious: to cultivate and build […] Read more