Reflections on Digital Inequality, Live from ISTE 2013
Walking the aisles at ISTE reminds me of the Charles Gibson’s quote, “the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Like many of you, I’m drawn to edtech for it’s potential to open up access and increase opportunity for kids previously isolated by social class, geography or other challenges.
Startups Should Prioritize Sustainability over Fundraising
Startup guru and author of The Startup Owner’s Manual, Steve Blank wrote a great blog post this week on raising money titled “Fund raising is a means not an end” and I couldn’t agree more. I worry about this increased focus on raising money over building a sustainable business – for both for-profits and not […]
Seed Fund Investing Values
When Wayee and I launched this Seed Fund in late 2011, we started with this set of investment principles to guide our evaluation process though realizing that every company is unique and early stage investing is not a precise science. I’d like to share these principles in an effort to make the investing process more open and transparent.
Blended Learning at Aspire
Aspire is one of my very favorite networks of public schools. You can walk into any of their 34 schools (serving 12,000 kids) and viscerally feel that these are great schools for kids.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” –Einstein
I’ve heard some criticisms that the new generation of teacher tools lack sophistication. Simplicity should not be mistaken for simplistic. Because teaching is so complex, education tools, in particular, have suffered from bloated feature sets, non-intuitive interfaces and an utter lack of simplicity
‘Tis the season
“If we want America to lead in the 21st century, nothing is more important than giving everyone the best education possible — from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career.” —President Barack Obama We all know that our school system needs help. That our kids are not prepared well in […]
Introducing Jason Singer, our new entrepreneur-in-residence
Almost a year ago nearly to the day, at an edtech holiday party, I met Jason Singer, who shared his idea for an interactive e-reader with me. I was hoping he would act on his idea but as principal of KIPP King Collegiate High School and with a young family at home, I knew he […]
A closer look at edtech funding for K-12 startups
Last night at a packed Silicon Valley meetup, I joined Alan Louie of ImagineK12 and Nari Ansari of Technology Crossover Ventures for a panel discussion of edtech investing. It was inspiring to see so many education entrepreneurs eager to network and learn more about funding opportunities. In this spirit we’d love to share with you […]
rational [edtech] exuberance
I’ve been enjoying the thoughtful pieces on the increased excitement about education technology from Frank Catalano in GeekWire, Betsy Corcoran in All Things D and Audrey Watters in Hack Education. From our vantage point at NewSchools, the excitement is palpable. Our education technology pipeline has increased 5x from last year and at least 10x […]
The Innovation Challenge
Today marks the start of the Citi Innovation Challenge, which will culminate in a live pitch session at NBC News’ “Education Nation” Summit on Tuesday, September 25th. For a second year, NewSchools is partnering with NBC and Citi to design and carry out the Innovation Challenge. This year’s Challenge will feature three startups: ReadImagine, Pathbrite and […]