Education Technology Innovation Summit

Building @AnEstuary. Helped build @DHFBaltimore. Interests: Merging Digital/Physical Space; Human-centered Tech; Next Iteration EdTech; Data; Poetry.

Jessica Brondo is the Founder & CEO of The Edge in College Prep and Admitted.ly, two ed tech companies focused on test prep and college admissions based in New York. She founded The Edge in College Prep in 2005 and has since expanded to 5 international cities and has launched an innovative online SAT/ACT prep course: The SAT/ACT Edge. Through a strategic partnership, The SAT/ACT Edge will be distributed to over 100,000 students at over 1000 high schools for the 2013-2014 school year. Admitted.ly is automating and gamifying the role of a high school guidance counselor online, and is set to launch in September 2013. Jessica is also the recipient of the hallowed Susan M. Huffman Senior Thesis Prize, which is awarded to a Princeton University senior with the best thesis in her department and the Women with Wings Award, bestowed upon the 25 most influential women at the university. More recently she was named one of the top 50 women in business by Long Island Business News, and has been featured in Ellegirl, Forbes, MSNBC, Newsday, Family Circle, KillerStartups, Billion Success, and several other magazines. She is also the Chairperson of the Young Executive Board for NOMI Network, which creates economic opportunities for survivors of (and women at risk of) sex trafficking in Cambodia and India, the New York Community Ambassador of the Half the Sky movement, and a member of the Young Entrepreneurs Council.

Before joining Mindgrub, Dan Cohen worked as COO/CTO of TigerGPS.com, a market leader in the GPS eCommerce space. In his role as COO/CTO, he led their Operations, Business Development, and Sales initiatives to help grow annual revenues from 1mm to 20mm within three years and a ranking of 218 on the 2007 Inc. 500 list.

Dan holds a BSE from Princeton University in Operations Research and Financial Engineering, and a MS from Georgia Tech in Operations Research. As Mindgrub’s Chief Operations Officer, Cohen brings his education and experience in business operations and technology.

Andrew Cohen is founder & CEO of Brainscape. He developed the first version of Brainscape as an Excel macro to help him study French, and he later refined his new learning methodology (Confidence-Based Repetition) during a Masters in Education Technology from Columbia University. Brainscape is now a multi-purpose & adaptive mobile education platform with more than 5 million app installs to date.

Before starting Brainscape, Andrew spent nearly a decade developing eLearning solutions for large corporations, U.S. government offices, the United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank, across four continents. He speaks three languages, and in his spare time he enjoys helping other entrepreneurs discover their passions and find markets for new products.

Educator, technologist, mentor, and entrepreneur interested in bridging the gap between education and technology. Passionate about educational equality and dedicated to reinventing education to empower students to take their place in the 21st century digital workplace.

Dirk is an educator and technology innovator. With more than 20 years of educational experience, he has taught English, mathematics, science, business and computer science in the U.S. and abroad and has been recognized as a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow in Mathematics. He also earned the Presidential Award for Mathematics and Science Teacher in CT and been named a GTE STEM Fellow. As an Apple Distinguished Educator, Dirk is fully invested in the critical need to develop interdisciplinary programs in grades pre-K through 12 and has accomplished this through extensive academic technology training for teachers and administrators.

For 11 years, he served on the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools Commission on Technology and chaired its efforts throughout the region for a term. Through coordinating statewide conferences and presenting at local, regional and national venues, Dirk has demonstrated his commitment to professional development for his colleagues. He has previously held positions at Westminster School and Ethel Walker School (both in Simsbury, CT), and he has been a consultant for a number of other schools and organizations.
Dirk received a B.A. degree in mathematics and English from Amherst College and three advanced degrees from Columbia University Teachers College: an M.A., an M.S. and a Ph.D., all in mathematics education.
Dirk has built a talented technology team, designing and implementing leading edge technology and infrastructure and providing resources to empower Avenues faculty to transform education using technology.

Jason is the Chief Executive Officer at TeachBoost. Jason began his career in consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Business Technology Transformation group, spending a large portion of his time working on large-scale SAP implementations with clients like PepsiCo and the United Nations. At Teachboost, Jason is responsible for strategic direction and school engagement at TeachBoost. He believes strongly in the impact teachers can have on student outcomes, having several influential teachers single-handedly shape his education and career choices. Through TeachBoost he has been able to empower administrators with tools to support and engage their staff to improve instruction and ensure a great teacher is at the center of every classroom.

Ryan A. Duques, is a serial media and ed tech entrepreneur. At 18 he co-founded Shore Publishing, Connecticut's second largest newspaper publisher. The group started fourteen and acquired two award-winning weekly newspapers. Duques graduated from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he earned his bachelor degree in Operations Management. Duques is co-founder and managing partner of Apparos Education, which supports students across the world with live online instruction and tutoring through its website TutaPoint.com and ByronAcademy.org. The company's patent-pending technology interacts directly with school districts to significantly shorten the remediation cycle. Duques serves as treasurer for both Vista Vocational, Inc., and the E.C. Scranton Library and is the chairman of Madison's Economic Development Commission. Duques previously served as the president of the Madison Chamber of Commerce and on the board of corporators for the Guilford Savings Bank and board of directors of the Suburban Newspapers of America.

As a teacher in Baltimore for nearly a decade, Justin strives to incorporate technology into instruction whenever possible. Currently, he teaches middle and high school technology at The SEED School of Maryland, a public boarding school in West Baltimore. He also helps other educators to enhance their instruction with the latest technology as an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Graduate School of Teacher Preparation. For the past year, Justin has been an EdTech Link Fellow with the Digital Harbor Foundation, a local non-profit organization that trains teachers in the use of technology, hosts fabrication challenges, and provides a range of after-school and summer programming for inner-city kids.

Lately, Justin has turned his attention to the subject of game-based learning. Seeing the power of leveraging the kid-friendly medium, Justin has been impressed with the growth his students exhibit when learn through games like Minecraft, Portal II, and Rollercoaster Tycoon. Justin also creates his own games, which he uses to present his own unique content to his students.

Justin has a B.A. from the College of William and Mary and M.Ed. from Johns Hopkins University.

Adam is a venture investor at Charles River Ventures in New York, focusing most of his time working in Education and Enterprise Technology. He's also the Founder and President of The Flatiron School, a 16-week intensive program in New York City that gives people the skills they need to get jobs as Ruby on Rails Web Developers. Previously Adam worked at HubSpot where he started and led the National Accounts sales team to help bring Inbound Marketing to the enterprise.
Adam's primary extracurricular activities revolve around education. Before founding the Flatiron School, he taught Entrepreneurship 101 at South Bay Correctional Facility, Inbound Marketing at Harvard Business School, & First Grade at Community Partnership Charter School in Brooklyn.
Adam holds a BA in Policy Analysis from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he started the school's first Sales Club in an attempt to squeeze some real skills out of his business school education.

Domitilla Enders, CEO of Open Assembly, is an architect, educator and digital learning content expert. Her mission at Open Assembly is to improve the affordability of higher education by enhancing the quality, discoverability and relevance of Open Educational Resources (OER) and facilitating their adoption by instructors and students in community and public colleges.

Prior to founding Open Assembly she was the managing partner of a successful NYC architecture firm for over 15 years, and taught as an adjunct instructor in the SUNY college system.

Jess has taught in classrooms around the world, including Thailand, South Africa, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

As a 2009 Teach for America Corps Member, she taught middle school Social Studies in Baltimore City for three years. Jess promoted arts and technology integration and received her master's degree in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University.

In February 2013, Jess founded Allovue, an edtech startup committed to increasing effectiveness in resource allocation in education. Allovue software offers an integrated technology solution to help school leaders budget school funds, track expenses, and analyze spending data. Jess just finished her time as part of Accelerate Baltimore.

Heather Gilchrist is the Founder of and Program Director at Socratic Labs. Located in New York City, Socratic Labs is part accelerator program for learning technology startups and part community for educational technology companies and all stakeholders in education. Heather was the founding Director of Academics at Grockit, the social learning company behind the world's first massively multiplayer online learning game (and its newest product, Learnist). Her journey with Grockit served as entry point to the world of startups and edtech.

Prior to Grockit, Heather was a Master Teacher and Trainer for Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions. During her time there, she wrote curriculum for both the LSAT and LSAT Extreme courses and worked on revisions to the multinational organization's teacher training program.

She currently serves as the curator of Startup Digest EDU; co-organizer of the New Jersey Tech Meetup; a member of the Executive Committee of the newly formed Entrepreneurship Alliance of the Georgetown University Alumni Association; and organizer of Startup Weekend EDU New York City. Heather also advises a number of early stage startups.

Frustrated by his own experiences with the college search process, as an 18 year-old Jordan created the best-selling "Students' Guide to Colleges" series of college guidebooks, which were released in five annual editions from Penguin Books. After graduating Jordan founded Unigo, which The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg called "a college resource built for the age of YouTube and Facebook."

Jordan and the Unigo team have gone on to raise capital from McGraw-Hill Ventures and The Gates Foundation, grown Unigo to more than 18 million visitors per year, and have forged strategic partnerships with publishers including USA Today, US News & World Report and The Wall Street Journal. Unigo's business lines include direct-to-consumer services and b2b SaaS technology sales to non-profit and for-profit colleges.

As an education expert, Jordan has published papers with The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation, been a columnist for US News & World Report and The Huffington Post, and has been featured on more than 75 episodes of ABC News. He was named "One of the Top 30 Young Entrepreneurs in America" by Inc Magazine, "One of the Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs in America" by the White House, and "One of the 100 Most Influential People in NYC Business and Technology" by Silicon Alley Insider. Jordan studied English Literature at Wesleyan University, Oxford University and The University of East Anglia and lives in New York City.

Paul Gollash is an experienced business operator, investor and entrepreneur with 14 years of experience building businesses around the world. He is currently the CEO of Voxy, a venture-funded education technology company based in NY that he founded in 2010. Voxy is an experiential learning platform that uses sophisticated mobile/web technologies to teach people English.

Prior to starting Voxy, Mr. Gollash was a venture investor for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, the organization that created Virgin Mobile, Virgin America, and Virgin Galactic. While at Virgin, Mr. Gollash evaluated new business opportunities across a number of sectors, and helped conceive, incubate and launch Virgin Hotels.

Before Virgin, Mr. Gollash was a management consultant with Booz Allen, where he advised senior executives in media and consumer-facing businesses on strategy and operations.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Gollash spent three years in Madrid, launching a new retail business for GM Europe. Additionally, he helped start an import/export business in Santiago, Chile, which is where he learned Spanish, and developed his passion for travel and language education. He speaks fluent Spanish, ever-improving Portuguese, and is trying to learn Mandarin.

Mr. Gollash has a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA with Honors from The University of Chicago (Booth).

Erica Gruen, Principal, Quantum Media and President, Sand & Stars Productions LLC
Erica Gruen is a former teacher and educational psychologist, whose career in TV, advertising and digital has focused on creating brand and content strategies for companies across all industries that are developing their own web, TV, film and publishing properties, and for emerging companies in branded social media, online video, and educational technologies. An Emmy Award-winning TV producer and executive, Erica is known for masterminding one of television's biggest brands as President/CEO of The Food Network/foodnetwork.com, staging a complete business and brand turnaround that introduced several now-famous smash hits including Emeril Live!, The Two Fat Ladies, and The Iron Chef, in addition to launching the leading food site. Way back in 1994, she started one of Madison Avenue's first digital advertising agencies, Saatchi & Saatchi Interactive, and was named to New York Magazine's first "Cyber 60" list. Erica is a Technical Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a mentor in Socratic Labs, and an advisor to and investor in leading ed tech ventures. She is the recipient of the 2012 Distinguished Fellow award from her alma mater, The University of Wisconsin/Madison, and is an Advisor to the Weinert Entrepreneurship Center at the School of Business there.

An interactive graphic designer, Alex Hachey specializes in mobile app and game interface design, as well as contributing to web design and video production projects. Alex graduated from Syracuse University with a dual degree in Creative Advertising from the Newhouse School of Public Communications and Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises from the Whitman School of Management.

Alex’s experience includes working as an Art Director for a DC-area promotional marketing agency and advertising and marketing experience throughout the greater New York area. Alex is passionate about keeping designs on the cutting edge, and loves including motion graphics and video wherever possible.

Alex loves to cook, play soccer and tennis, wrangle his energetic puppy, and entertain the Mindgrub team with spot-on celebrity impressions.

Sarah first cut her teeth in the professional world on the floor of the UN General Assembly as a delegate for St Vincent and the Grenadines, fighting for the rights of women, children and other vulnerable populations. From there she spent time in the public health space working for PHMC in Philadelphia and UMCOR in the Ivory Coast.

Never one to limit her curiosities, Sarah turned her attention to behavioral economics, running the workforce component of the first national replication of a successful financial incentive program for Seedco/NYC government. She then transitioned to a NYC creative agency, Code+Theory, where she worked with numerous international brands and successfully ran the global re-launch of Calvin Klein's CKONE.

Always imbued with the spirit of a entrepreneur, Sarah decided it was time to strike out on her own and launched hybrid agency Harley & Co. in the spring of 2012. Bridging the divide between the analytical and creative, Sarah assembled an elite team of strategists and creatives with backgrounds as diverse as her own to work with brands, governments, startups and talent.

Lest this all sound too serious, Sarah also had numerous intermissions that included things like sky diving, spontaneous global travel and the utterance of countless wildly inappropriate things.

Michael is the co-founder and CEO of Three Ring, a mobile platform to capture and share artifacts from the classroom. Before starting Three Ring in November 2011, Michael studied history at Yale and Oxford and worked as a consultant. Raised by entrepreneurs, he always wanted to start his own business, but it was former Oxford classmate and Three Ring co-founder Steve Silvius that provided the focus on education technology. Since founding Three Ring, Michael has had a crash course in education theory, research, and practice thanks to Steve and Three Ring's users.

Michael's elementary school had a tradition of binding each student's classwork into a book at the end of the year and these books remain his most cherished mementos. Three Ring builds on this tradition by creating an online space for all the cool things students create and do in the course of their learning. Thanks to Three Ring's mobile app, the platform is the simplest way for teachers and students to capture and share rich information about student learning.

Todd Marks is the teacher-turned-technologist founder of Mindgrub Technologies, the first Innovation Technology Agency of its kind. Based in Baltimore, Mindgrub, a mobile, social and web applications consultancy, works with companies and organizations in a variety of industries to bring their brand to mobile. Offering creative and technical services, and a proprietary white-label location-based services, augmented reality, and mobile gaming framework—viaPlace—Marks leads a talented group of consultants from the loft of a renovated 1901 bank building.

Marks maintains status as Chief-Everything-Officer for the company. He leads information architects, user experience specialists, creative interface designers and top-notch developers to solve business and consumer challenges in rapid information transfer. Marks founded Mindgrub in 2002 to focus on the creation of web applications that enable instant information travel and has developed enterprise systems for a wide range of clients such as DELL, Yamaha, Adobe, Motorola, ORACLE, A&E, The Economist and Discovery Communications; Federal Agencies such as the FBI, NSA, VOA and the US Navy; and several education organizations such as MSDE, Wrox Press and O’Reilly Media.

Marks has been featured in several technical journals and mainstream media outlets, such as the Baltimore Business Journal, The Baltimore Sun, CNN and Newsweek. He speaks regularly at conferences, and has made recent appearances at NABShow, SXSW, TEDxBaltimore, SALT and the Government Video Show. He and Mindgrub have won numerous awards for their technology solutions and creative services support including a Gold Addy for Best Mobile App, Smart CEO’s Top 100 Companies and Best Innovator awards, and the BBJ’s Biz Buzz Award for Best Mobile App. Marks has also written and contributed to a number of books including Flash Magic, New Masters of Flash and Web Design in a Nutshell. He teaches Instructional Technology at the University of Maryland (UMBC) and sits on the advisory boards for Loyola University’s MBA program and the Greater Baltimore Technology Council (gb.tc).

Arun is a Senior Developer Advocate at Google. As part of the Developer Relations team, Arun works closely with Google Apps customers, partners and independent developers to help build compelling applications and workflows using Google Apps Script. Prior to Google, Arun spent over 9 years at a Boston area company leading a team building a cross-platform mobile application development framework for large enterprises. Arun has a BS in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. Arun resides in New York City but still loves the outdoors.

Katie Palencsar is the CEO and Founder of Unbound Concepts, which allows consumers to identify books and learning resources through a wide variety of "educational filters." Katie holds an M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction and is a graduate of the female entrepreneur program — ACTiVATE. She has worked with the NYC Department of Education, Blue Ribbon Savannah Country Day School, and Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth. In less than a year, Katie has raised the profile of Unbound Concepts' offerings among investors and collaborative partners. Named one of three Alva Emerging Innovators by General Electric and 99U -- Katie continues to grow awareness for the application of Unbound Concepts' knowledge sharing value among publishers, educators, and technologists, with a mission for inspiring female-led startups in the technology space.

Mickey Revenaugh is co-founder of Connections Academy (now Connections Education) and Executive Vice President of Connections Learning, the new division created to provide online/blended learning services to districts, schools, and consumers and also the incubator of the new network of Nexus Academy blended charter schools. Mickey has served twice as Chairman of the Board of iNACOL, The International Association for K-12 Online Learning, and is currently Vice Chairman. Previously, she helped launch the E-rate program to wire American schools to the Internet, and served as education technology editor at Scholastic. Mickey has an MBA from New York University, did her undergraduate work at Yale University, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Ms. Sajwani joined the Cooney Center in January 2013. She currently manages the Cooney Center's work on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant for the Games and Learning Publishing Council, among other projects. Additionally, she oversees general operations at the Cooney Center.

Before joining the Cooney Center, Sadaf was the project manager for Sesame Workshop's co-production in Pakistan — Sim Sim Hamara (Our Sesame). She led the New York team's efforts to collaborate with the Pakistani partner, Rafi Peer Theater Workshop, bringing Sesame Street to millions of Pakistani children.

Sadaf has worked in both the public and private sectors. In particular, she has over ten years of experience leading various nonprofit, volunteer and community programs in the areas of education, youth development and community outreach with organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the Afghanistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Aga Khan Development Network, Pakistan, and the Aga Khan Education Board for the USA.

Sadaf holds a Master of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Tufts University. A Miami native, she is fluent in English, Spanish and Urdu, and speaks beginner Farsi.

Eric is the Principal at New Milford High School located in Bergen County, NJ. He is passionate about establishing and fostering learning environments that are student-centered, collaborative, flexible, and prepare all learners to succeed in the 21st Century. As an educational administrator he firmly believes that effective communication, listening, support, shared decision making, and the integration of technology are essential elements necessary for the transformation of school cultures.

Eric has emerged as an innovative leader in the use of social media and web 2.0 technologies as tools to engage students, improve communications with stakeholders, and help educators grow professionally. Eric is a NASSP Digital Principal Award winner (2012), PDK Emerging Leader Award recipient (2012), winner of Learning Forward's Excellence in Professional Practice Award (2012), Google Certified Teacher, Adobe, ASCD 2011 Conference Scholar, co-author of "Communicating and Connecting With Social Media: Essentials for Principals" and "What Principals Need to Know About Teaching and Learning Science", writer on education for the Huffington Post, co-creator of the Edscape Conference, sits on the FEA Board of Directors, and was named to the NSBA "20 to Watch" list in 2010 for technology leadership. He now presents and speaks nationally to assist other school leaders embrace and effectively utilize technology. His blog, A Principal's Reflections, was selected as Best School Administrator Blog in 2011 by Edublogs. For more information on Eric's work visit ericsheninger.com.

Eric began his career in education as a Science Teacher at Watchung Hills Regional High School where he taught a variety of subjects (Biology, Chemistry, Marine Biology, Ecology) and coached several sports (ice hockey, football, lacrosse). He then transitioned into the field of educational administration as an Athletic Director/Supervisor of Physical Education & Health and Vice Principal in the New Milford School District. During his administrative career he has served as District Affirmative Action Officer and is the current president of the New Milford Administrator’s Association.

Scott Smith is the Outreach Manager for Learningpod, a startup building an open online repository of questions. The company is built around the idea that in order to determine mastery you must ask questions. In order to obtain mastery you must be challenged with those same questions. As outreach manager Scott focuses most of his time around the content that makes Learningpod so great, creating partnerships and fostering a community that actively gives and takes from the platform.

Prior to Learningpod, Scott worked in a variety of startup roles ranging from marketing to product management. His first business and first EdTech love was essayCLOUD, an educational technology company focused on fostering web-based peer to peer learning through writing assignments. He holds a degree in Social Entrepreneurship with additional focus on French and Mandarin, both of which he speaks poorly.

Katrina Stevens, education consultant and blogger, advises edtech companies at all stages of development. Currently she is designing and implementing an online high school for Calvert Education set to launch Fall 2014. . With over 20 years teaching and administrative experience, she believes all children deserve high quality educational experiences, and she believes there should be more communication across different elements of the edtech ecosystem.

In her previous position as the ELA STEM Supervisor in Baltimore County Public Schools, Stevens coordinated multiple curricular, professional development and implementation programs to prepare teachers and the 107,000 students in the district for the CCSS and Next Generation Science Standards. She also served on the MSDE committees to design the new Maryland curriculum framework and the Maryland STEM Standards of Practice, and continues to serve as a designer and reviewer for MSDE and MPT.
Prior to Baltimore County, Stevens served as Deputy Director for Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth in Bermuda where she designed and implemented an island-wide acceleration and enrichment program and laboratory school for academically talented students. Previous to CTY Bermuda, Stevens worked in independent schools as a department chair, dorm dean and teacher. Stevens writes regularly for Edsurge, SmartBlog for Education, and for her own blog, Education Matters. Stevens cofounded and moderates both #edtechchat and #MDedchat, and also serves as a Startup Weekend Education Facilitator.

Nicole Tucker-Smith is founder and CEO of LessonCast, which provides next generation teacher preparation and professional development courseware and tools. She consults with schools, districts, and college/university teacher preparation programs to design professional learning resources that focus on changing instructional practice and measuring what works to improve student learning. She has also served as an elementary and middle school teacher, supervisor of parent support services, district-level administrator, professional developer, and assistant principal. In founding LessonCast, she believes the future of student learning depends on our ability to merge innovative best practices with classroom realities. She publishes via her blog, http://lessoncast.org/author/nicole, where she's written extensively about applying lean thinking to improve instruction.

Ben Zimmer is the executive producer of Vocabulary.com and VisualThesaurus.com. He is the language columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the former language columnist for The Boston Globe and The New York Times Magazine. He has worked as editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press and as a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. His "Word Routes" column appears on Vocabulary.com and VisualThesaurus.com, and he contributes to the group weblog Language Log. He also serves as the chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society.