Eileen Rudden Co-founder of LearnLaunch Thomas Ketchell CEO of Hstry   EdTech as an Emerging Economic Cluster in MA Tuesday, Nov 11, 2014 at 6:30pm Scholastic Inc, 100 Talcott Ave, Watertown, MA Please register. It helps us and our hosts plan the logistics. Our meetings are free and open to the public.

Abstract

Massachusetts has a unique combination of leading universities, nation-leading K-12 schools, curriculum creators, and a dynamic software industry. Our innovation economy, mixing the talent and technology from these sectors, is creating a rapidly growing education technology industry. Rudden will provide an overview of the EdTech industry and the activity and design opportunity in Greater Boston. She recently wrote an op ed in the Globe about the possibilities: Will education technology be the next growth sector?

Rudden will be joined by Thomas Ketchell, CEO of HSTRY, an EdTech entrepreneur and LearnLaunch Accelerator alum who has created a fast-growing interactive timeline for social studies.

Bio, Eileen Rudden

Rudden is co-founder of LearnLaunch, Boston’s Edtech Community, and Campus & Accelerator. Rudden served as Chief Officer, College and Career Preparation at Chicago Public Schools, where she led the efforts of the third largest public school system in the US to ensure that its 400,000 students are college and career ready. She was a 2009 Broad Fellow and graduate of the Broad Superintendent’s Academy. Rudden received her MBA from Harvard Business School, and her BA from Brown University, where she served as a Trustee and is currently Chair of the Advisory Committee on Computing and Information Technology.

She also serves on the boards of the Achievement Network, Education Pioneers, and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education.

Rudden led the Unified Communications Division of Avaya, a Fortune 500 global business communications leader and was SVP and GM of IBM Lotus Software’s Lotus Notes and Domino. Under her leadership more than 50 million began using the software and she was named to serve on IBM’s Technical Leadership Council. She previously served on the boards of John H Harland Co (NYSE: JH), Agilysys (NASDAQ:AGYS) and SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ:SDBT), where she was Board Chair. She is an active angel investor and a member of the Launchpad Venture Group.

Bio, Thomas Ketchell

Thomas Ketchell is the CEO & Co-Founder of Hstry, which relives historical events through a first-person perspective to bring history to life. He holds a BA in History & Chinese Studies as well as a postgraduate degree in Business & Development. Prior to founding Hstry, he worked in various development roles, including East Africa in 2010 where he built biogas systems. Whilst living in Beijing, he experienced the dreadful quality of the air on a daily basis. Wanting to alert people back home what it was like to breathe in this dirty air, he decided with his colleague Steven Chiu – to re-enact on social media the 1952 Great Smog of London. The success of this re-enactment led to worldwide coverage, which encouraged both Steven and Thomas to co-found Hstry. Hstry is now providing interactive timelines of historical events for both elementary and secondary schools across the globe in line with their vision to become the leading digital learning platform for history. Thomas has given talks across Europe and the US and has recently given a TedX Talk in Belgium on “Teaching History in the 21st Century”.

Evening Schedule

• 6:30 – 7:00 Networking over pizza and beverages
• 7:00 – 8:30 Meeting
• 8:30 – 9:00 CHI Dessert and more networking!

Monthly Sponsors

Scholastic, Inc is hosting us and providing pizza.