50 on Fire will bring together D.C.'s best and brightest to recognize the disruptors, luminaries and visionaries that are pushing our city forward. Buy your tickets now and join us on Dec. 10 at Howard Theatre for the celebration and winners reveal. Education is important and innovating in an industry that can often be held back by older systems is a vital part of it. Whether its coming up with new ways to use technology in education or creating the kind of infrastructure that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship in students, these people and companies are changing the face of education and it's worth learning who they are and why they might be considered on fire.
2U - 2U has been riding the rising edtech tide all year. The company has been beating analyst expectationson Wall Street all year, boosted in part with new programs and new clients including Yale. 2U has been adding new staff as its services grow as well, including a former Deputy Secretary of Education.
Blackboard - The last year and a half or so has been all about acquisitions for Blackboard, with around 10 announced, one every couple of months it sometimes seems. The company recently renewed its commitment to the District with a new office in its original location, if a lot larger in size.
Derick Maggard, Apex at Virginia Tech - As head of Apex at Virginia Tech, Maggard is in charge of a lot of efforts to boost the innovation profile of the school. Most recently, he helped launch the new Innovate Venture Lab. The lab, under the umbrella of the Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, will provide a place for student entrepreneurs to come and build up their ideas into startup companies as part of a larger, school-wide effort to attract more entrepreneurial efforts by students.
Dr. James V. Green, Mtech - Green is in charge of education activities of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) at the University of Maryland. He's also Director of Entrepreneurship Education, where he created and leads the Master of Technology Entrepreneurship. At Mtech, Green has served over 800,000 students around the world via his "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies" MOOC, run in conjunction with Coursera and UMD. He's personally taught over 2,000 UMD students in entrepreneurship and innovation.
Dr. Wayne Frederick, Howard University - As president of Howard University, Wayne Frederick has been involved with the latest big moves from the school as it seeks a comeback after a rocky few years. This year, Howard has confirmed it will open a new tech incubator with a $1 million investment from the District, will host a Wizards basketball practice arena and been ranked as one of the best journalism schools in the country.
DubLabs -DubLabs builds apps for schools that students will actually want to use. Over 140 schools in the last three years have used DubLabs for their apps, with 60 new schools added in 2015. They've also entered into partnerships with Desire2Learn and Follett.
Echo360 - Echo360 combines data analytics with education to quantify student interaction and help teachers better understand what is or isn't working in the classroom. This year, they were selected as the first partner for the UVa-based Jefferson Education Accelerator to evaluate the impact of active learning on student engagement and outcomes, and were picked by Trending40 as one D.C.'s fastest growing companies.
EverFi - Edtech stalwart EverFi brought in its largest national partnership yet to offer financial education to millions more students around the U.S. It also launched a new workplace financial tool to help employees at big companies track and manage their finances. The company has hired around 50 new team members, closing in on 200 total.
Interfolio - Edtech startup Interfolio is the developer of a platform to aggregate and help people looking for higher education careers and offer advice to colleges and universities. This year, the company hired Blackboard co-founder Andrew Rosen as its new CEO to expand the reach of the company and has been starting to expand into other industries like healthcare.
Jeff Ray, Ellucian - Jeff Ray led Fairfax, Va.-based edtech software firm Ellucian to a successful acquisition of a majority stake by Texas-based global private investment firm TPG Capital and LA-based Leonard Green Partners. The company's cloud and information services for schools and teachers is using the leverage offered by the purchase to vastly expand its client list and add new products.
Joshua Meredith, Georgetown University SCS - Joshua Meredith has taken on the Technology Management program at Georgetown and managed to beat enrollment estimates, bringing in 57 new students for a total of 174, a program record. This year he's hep coordinate the DC Girls Who Code program, which helped 60 women graduate from the program and hosted events with international diplomats about global digital issues and worked with Red Bull to produce a program called "The Business of eSports," which was viewed by more than half a million people online.
Laureate Education - Baltimore-based Laureate has had a very big year, culminating in filing for a $100 million IPO in October. The company, which developed a network of degree programs both campus-based and online is basically a two part corporation, split between software product development managing more than a dozen universities around the globe.
Learning Objects - Learning Objects builds "adaptive learner-centric" technology that helps users personalize lessons, education plans and the class material. The company is growing quickly and was named one of Trending40's fastest growing companies in D.C.
LearnZillion - LearnZillion is an edtech company but with the focus on creating curricula for teachers with a mix of online and live classes to help teachers learn new techniques and provides free resources for schools and teachers to use in applying those lessons. Recently, it launched a successful mobile app for teachers and has been hiring more staff.
Paul Gleger, General Assembly - General Assembly Regional Director Paul Gleger has done a great deal this year to boost GA's tech education services, focusing on skills that tech companies are demanding right now. A recent campus renovation added three new classrooms and the group has hit 90 percent employment for graduated of its program.
Sarah Johnson, Reingold - Sarah Johnson is Reingold’s senior director of media relations and has been pushing the company to work with causes to improve educational outcomes in places that are often in serious need of help. She's led partnerships with the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans and helped create The Nation’s Report Card, which keeps the public informed about how the country's students are doing in 12 subjects. She's also worked pro bono for Generation Hope, helping teen parents get a college degree and directly mentoring a student herself.
Smartly - An online mobile learning platform, Smartly has had a very good year. It launched a free pre-MBA feature for incoming MBA students this summer and just came out with a subscription version for MBA candidates. It's all part of its larger philosophy of making the education process streamlined and more efficient.
Whiteboard Advisors - Whiteboard Advisors helps education companies navigate complex policy issues and works with them on marketing and communications strategies. The team has grown significantly this year, including adding former North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue as an advisor. The firm has become a go-to resource for investors and companies of all sizes looking for an edge in the world of education.
