edX, the open-source technology platform for online courses and this year's 50 on Fire finalist, announced that former TripAdvisor Senior Vice President of Product, Adam Medros, will be taking on the new role of President and COO for the company.
On October 18, Medros made the announcement through his personal Twitter account:
The reasoning behind the appointment of Medros as President and COO came from the want of strengthening the company's management team, according to Anant Agarwal, CEO and founder of edX. The company saw the opportunity to use Medros' strengths in the digital transformation space as “TripAdvisor transformed the hospitality industry,” Agarwal said in an interview. “We believe he will be a fantastic addition to our team.”
As for what Medros and Agarwal have in mind for the city of Boston, edX has been working with undisclosed companies around the Boston area that will be announcing new happenings with edX over the next couple of weeks, according to Agarwal. Many of these same companies are also utilizing edX’s learning platform for their employees and “many of these companies are also hiring these learners that come out of edX,” says Agarwal. “Education is arguably one of the top businesses in the Boston area,” Agarwal said, “and we are excited to be a leader in the space.”
Before the announcement of the newly appointed president, the non-profit education platform has seen exponential growth in business, according to Agarwal. In a span of approximately five years, the online edtech platform has seen 14 million students across 196 countries “doubling in the number of courses every year,” said Agarwal. The site now offers approximately 2,000 courses in tandem with 30 partner institutions including Boston University, MIT, Harvard University and others that offer their courses through edX.
Since the addition of novel credentials such as edX’s MicroMasters program, which is their series of graduate-level courses from various accredited universities, edX has seen even more new learners enrolling in courses “wanting to learn in a very new way,” said Agarwal. The recent interest and growth in the company have been enabling what Agarwal called “the digital transformation of education.” The traditional education experience will soon transition from going to school to learning digitally, according to Agarwal.
