Stories
Learn about the world of Impact Investing with Hichem Omezzine, Partner at TPG Rise, a leading private equity impact investing platform dedicated to addressing global societal challenges. Gain insights on the trends driving growth in the field and which sectors are making a significant societal impact.
Youmna Chamcham, Co-Founder and CEO of MiniStudio.AI, shares her experience as entrepreneur, designer, artist and producer of one of the biggest kids’ tv shows in the Middle East. Learn how she is embracing AI ethically & creatively to create connection and impact by transforming children’s drawings into magical creatures.
Phil Cutler, Co-Founder & CEO at Paper, talks to Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about the origin of the company and his mission to close the educational equity gaps. Gain Phil’s views on the public education system, the impact of technology on education, the ‘Eduverse’ and what the next generation of EdTech looks like for him.
Kirill Pyshkin, senior portfolio manager in the Thematic Equities team at Credit Suisse talks about his personal interest in education as a whole and the important role of technology in the sector. Speaking as one of the few public equity fund managers to invest in the education sector, Kirill shares what it means to invest ‘with a purpose’, the criteria he applies in investment decisions, lessons learned and more.
Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet speaks to Matti Niebelschütz, Co-Founder and CEO at CoachHub on the events that led him to build a coaching business, his ambitions for the company, what ‘Impact’ means, and how he sees the future of the knowledge economy.
Now part of the newly launched ImpactX 2050 Stories series, this episode features Marie-Christine Levet, CEO and Co-Founder of Educapital, the leading European Impact Fund dedicated to EdTech and the Future of Work. Hear about what impact investing means to her, what she looks for in a business and what she sees as the hottest market in EdTech.
Memrise CEO, Steve Toy joins Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet in conversation on the events that inspired him to become involved in adult literacy and ultimately to become CEO of one of the leading language learning apps. Learn about the science and technology behind the company’s unique pedagogic approach to language learning, and hear Steve's vision for the future of the industry.
Former public high school teacher, Amanda DoAmaral talks about the reasons she left teaching to build her EdTech business, Fiveable– a virtual library ‘powered by the idea of social accountability’ to support highschool and college students with study guides and study spaces tailored by students for students. Learn about her experience as a woman teacherpreneur working in the EdTech space, the challenges in obtaining VC backing, and her vision for what will shape the future of education.
Ahad Khan, CEO of EdTech Unicorn, Kajabi joins Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet in conversation on the knowledge economy, and how his business is helping knowledge entrepreneurs create, build and scale educational businesses around online courses on anything from beekeeping to taking care of babies or learning the Scottish drums. Learn more about Ahad’s beliefs and perspectives on the knowledge industry, as well as his vision for the future.
Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet speaks with Chris Eigeland, Co-Founder at Go1 about the events that led Chris to create a corporate training company, its raison d'être and the nuts and bolts behind delivering an effective online learning experience. Learn about the work Go1 is doing in the reskilling and upskilling market, and gain an insight into the leadership style that drives Go1 - Australia’s first EdTech Unicorn.
Gabriel Dalporto, CEO at Udacity speaks to Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about the reasons he took the role at Udacity, and the work they are doing in the digital reskilling and upskilling space. Gain his perspective on the digital learning experience and what needs to change in online education.
Anna Brailsford, CEO at Code First Girls joins Bracy Fertig, Associate at IBIS Capital for an insightful conversation on the people and events that inspired Anna to lead an EdTech business, building a strong online learning community, and how they are training thousands of women to code for free. Learn about Code First Girls’ massive growth trajectory and expansion as well as their ambitious plans for the future.
Amir Nathoo, Co-Founder & Head of Outschool joins Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet in an engaging conversation on what makes his educational platform model different to other online education businesses, how the capabilities of online education can be leveraged to connect people globally, and he shares his plans to build a global community of learning serving 100 million learners worldwide within the next 10 years.
Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet speaks with Martin Basiri, CEO & Co-Founder of student recruitment platform, ApplyBoard. Hear how Martin’s own experiences motivated him to build a bridge between the underserved and opportunity, and create the world’s largest online platform for international student recruitment in North America.
Advait Shinde, CEO & Co-Founder of GoGuardian speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about the motivations behind the business and the reasons for the successful growth of his company. Gain insights on technology adoption in the classroom and how EdTech can be leveraged to improve society as a whole.
Vamsi Krishna, CEO and Co-Founder of Vedantu speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet on his trajectory from teacher to founder of India’s first online tutoring platform, now turned unicorn. He speaks of his mission to scale the best offline teaching and learning experiences via his online platform by keeping the teacher at the centre and delivering quality learning outcomes to all underserved children in India.
Hear from Mayank Kumar, Co-Founder and MD at upGrad about his desire to turn his business into the world’s largest EdTech company in the higher education space, and how a love and passion for education drove Mayank to create his business in order to power career success for every member of the global workforce.
Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet speaks with Julie Hansen, CRO & US CEO of Babbel, about the future of education for language learners, her mission to bring people together through communication and greater understanding, and the digital learning experience. Julie shares some of the exciting new developments at Babbel and how she and the team are working to make language learning as profound and impactful as it can be.
Anant Agarwal, Chief Open Education Officer at 2U, Professor at MIT and Founder of edX speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet on the combination of edX and 2U, its impact on learners and faculty and the mission commitments of the two companies. Hear insights on Anant's new role as Chief Open Education Officer at 2U, efficacy in digital learning compared to the campus-based experience, and the capabilities of cognitive science and AI in improving online learning.
Lin Zhou, VP and CIO of The New School speaks with Carla Aerts about the inspiration behind his career in higher education, his role as CIO of The New School, and shares insights on the unprecedented supremacy of quantum computing over the classical computer and how it can be leveraged at curriculum level, including in the creation of music and other arts.
Elnaz Sarraf, founder of ROYBI speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about how ROYBI is supporting children with their early years education, the inspiration behind the business and how it is helping address the global teacher shortage while providing underserved children with access to education, globally.
Sari Hurme-Mehtälä, CEO and Co-Founder of Kide Science, speaks with Jonathan Viner about how a dislike for science at school coupled with a drive to create a business with meaningful impact led to the creation of her startup, a science education platform for early years. Sari also reflects on the challenges and rewards of building a startup, and what it means to be a female entrepreneur.
Shai Reshef, Founder & President of the University of the People (UoPeople), speaks with Alison Clark-Wilson, Professorial Research Fellow at UCL Institute of Education, about his belief that education should be a basic right for all, and how higher education can be made accessible, affordable and of high quality. Highlighting some of the challenges and misconceptions of moving online, Shai explains how to do it right, and how the UoPeople tuition-free model can be replicated and scaled globally to bring down the cost of higher education.
Vikas Pota, Founder of T4 Education speaks with Christine Weiser, VP of Content & Brand Strategy at Tech & Learning on how his mission to improve learning outcomes inspired him to become engaged in the education sector through multiple projects and initiatives worldwide. Vikas shares insights on the challenges facing education as well as the powerful “silver linings” that emanated from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eilert Hanoa, CEO of Kahoot! speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about his ongoing mission to “make learning awesome” through the use of education technology. He shares insights on the role of digital education tools in extending and improving the overall learning experience, and talks about the rationale behind Kahoot!’s recent acquisition of leading US K-12 EdTech learning platform, Clever.
Chip Paucek, CEO and Co-Founder of 2U speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet on how his career in EdTech began before creating and building 2U into a successful public listed EdTech company. Gain insights into Chip's views on how flexible online learning can eliminate the back row in Higher Education, and how 2U’s planned acquisition of edX will drive greater access to more affordable options for students on a global scale.
Pierre Dubuc, Co-Founder & CEO of OpenClassrooms shares his non-traditional story with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet, from a personal project at middle school building online coding courses, to creating a business, finding the right product-market fit and eventually scaling to become an EdTech Unicorn with a mission to make education accessible to all.
Felix Ohswald, Founder & CEO of GoStudent speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about his journey building and scaling his tutoring business to reach Unicorn status. He shares his inspirations, challenges and learnings from this experience as well as his mission to continue building GoStudent into the #1 global school.
David Blake, co-founder of Learn In, BookClub, and Degreed speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about the importance of lifelong learning, the value and ROI of upskilling, and his mission with Learn In to break down the barriers to effective talent building in the workplace.
Mika Kasanen, CEO and Co-Founder of Finnish startup School Day, speaks with John Martin on the strategy behind the success of Finland’s education system, and how he is leveraging his country’s approach to social-emotional learning and wellbeing with School Day to make teachers’ lives easier and improve learning outcomes at scale.
Racial equity strategist and anthropologist, Dr Darnisa Amante-Jackson speaks with Svenia Busson, CEO at Learn Space, about how her own experience of social and racial inequity in schools made her question how systems impact education, setting her on a path to support education leaders to engage in cultural change within education institutions through the Disruptive Equity Education Project (DEEP).
Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO at Coursera, speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet on his pre-Coursera journey, his role as CEO, and shares his views on the place and role of digital education and how he envisages the future trajectory for both Coursera and remote learning and work at large.
Jenna Ahn, CEO and Co-Founder of Millie Group, shares her inspirational story with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet on how she made over USD$200K in 2 years to fund her Ivy League education, the gender inequalities women face in tech, and her mission to help give students across the world access to opportunity through her work with Millie.
From an initial "successful failure" at a startup after graduating from university, Jeffrey explains how his experience working in a corporate guided him to recognise a market opportunity. A chance encounter with an investor would then lead him to quit his job and devote his time to his new venture, Enroly, rapidly taking the startup from zero to 30% market share.
Allison Baum Gates, Partner at SemperVirens Venture Capital, speaks with Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet about her journey to investing in companies transforming the workplace and how the future of work is digital, distributed, data driven, dynamic and diverse - with the most potential for innovation to be found within the possibility of mass personalisation.