698: Gabe discusses the skills that will be necessary for employees in the Digital Age and how companies can foster the upskilling essential to keep pace with their digital transformations. Gabe looks at the current state of digital skills and where Udacity fits in the spectrum of overall education. He describes the three main skill sets that will be crucial for companies to train employees in, the path ahead for employees in non-technical roles, and the best practices for companies developing their own in-house digital academies. Finally, Gabe advises incoming college students on what skills to learn for their future careers.
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Among other topics, Peretz discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Peretz Lavie’s Biography
Peretz Lavie is the President of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the oldest university in Israel specializing in the sciences, engineering and medicine. Throughout his six year tenure as president, Lavie has overseen the Technion’s 18 faculties, and lead international initiatives like the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute in New York and the institute for technology at Shantou University.
President Lavie has researched, taught, and worked as an administrator at the Technion since he returned to Israel from the United States in 1975 to found the Technion’s sleep laboratory. He later opened a similar center affiliated with Harvard University, authored several books including The Enchanted World of Sleep and Restless Nights: Understanding Snoring and Sleep Apnea and served as President of the Israeli Society of Sleep Research. He also has advocated for policy reforms in education, transportation safety, broadcasting and the military where those fields relate to sleep.
Peretz Lavie received his bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Statistics from Tel Aviv University, earned his PhD in Physiological Psychology at the University of Florida, and pursued post-doctoral research at the University of California at San Diego.
Among other topics, Nic discusses the following with Metis Strategy:
Nic Borg’s Biography
Nic is the co-founder and chief product officer of Edmodo, a private K-12 classroom communication tool that’s drawn 15 million teachers and students together in only four years. On the secure platform teachers and students can collaborate, share content and access educational apps to augment in-class learning. Edmodo’s goal is to create social media tools that help teachers engage students and to make sure every school in the world has access to them.
Before launching Edmodo, Borg worked at Kaneland High School in Maple Park, IL for seven years, building web-based tools and learning management solutions.
He has been named to Forbes prestigious “30 Under 30” list, as an innovative entrepreneur under the age of 30.
Nic has a bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University.
Among other topics, Umar discusses the following with Metis Strategy:
Umar Saif’s Biography:
Umar is the Vice Chancellor of the Information Technology University in Pakistan, a newly created university that aims to implement a unique teaching methodology and cross-disciplinary research that is grounded in real-world problem solving to educate the next generation of innovative and entrepreneurial engineers. Umar has an ideal background for this, having spent time both in academe and in the start-up setting.
Prior to his current role, Umar was an Associate Professor in the department of computer science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). He is also the founder of one of the first startup incubators in Lahore, Pakistan, called SCI. He has worked on a number of start-ups including SMSall, BumpIn.com, SeeNreport.com, and Ticketmy.com.
Umar was named one of the top 35 young innovators in the world (TR35) in 2011. He was selected as a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He also received the Google Faculty Research Award in 2011 and the MIT Technovator Award in 2008 among many other accolades.
Umar has a Bachelor of Science degree from LUMS, a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and a post-doctorate from MIT, all in computer science.
Among other topics, Dan discusses the following with Metis Strategy:
Dan Huttenlocher’s Biography
Dan is the Dean and Vice Provost of the Cornell NYC Tech Campus. As Dean, he has overall responsibility for programmatic aspects of the new campus, including the academic quality and direction of the campus’ degree programs and research. Working with both internal and external stakeholders, he is developing strategic plans for the most effective ways of working with companies and early stage investors in New York City as well as overseeing the faculty recruitment and entrepreneurial initiatives of the campus.
Dan has a mix of academic and industry background, having worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and served as CTO of Intelligent Markets, as well as being a faculty member at Cornell for two decades.
Dan received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and both his Master’s and Doctorate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and currently serves as a Trustee of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Among other topics, Anant discusses the following with Metis Strategy:
Anant Agarwal’s Biography
Anant is President of edX, a not-for-profit MOOC-based online learning destination founded by MIT and Harvard Universities.
Anant taught the first edX course on circuits and electronics from MIT, which drew 155,000 students from 162 countries. He has served as the director of CSAIL, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. He is a successful serial entrepreneur, having co-founded several companies including Tilera Corporation, which created the Tile multicore processor, and Virtual Machine Works.
Anant won the Maurice Wilkes prize for computer architecture, and MIT’s Smullin and Jamieson prizes for teaching. He is also the author of the textbook “Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits.”
Anant holds a Ph.D. from Stanford and a bachelor’s from IIT Madras.
Among other topics, Simon discusses the following with Metis Strategy:
Simon Nelson’s Biography
Simon is the CEO of FutureLearn, a massive open online course (MOOC) founded in late 2012 as a company majority owned by the UK’s Open University.
Simon also oversees digital activities for Phaidon Press, a role he retained while joining Futurelearn Ltd as CEO in late 2012.
Prior to his current roles, Simon led a number of projects in the TV, radio and publishing sectors for companies including Random House, UKTV, Specific Media and New York Public Radio. He also spent more than a decade at the BBC, leading all digital activities for the BBC’s television divisions where he helped launch the iPlayer and built an award winning portfolio of online and cross platform services.
Simon is a graduate of University of Cambridge and holds an MBA from University of Manchester.
Among other topics, Salman discusses the following with Metis Strategy:
Salman Khan’s Biography
Sal is the founder and executive director of the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a free world-class education to anyone, anywhere.
As of December 2013, the Khan Academy channel on YouTube attracted 1,553,000 subscribers and the Khan Academy videos have been viewed over 334 million times. In 2012, Time named Sal in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Forbes magazine featured Sal on its cover with the story “$1 Trillion Opportunity”.
Prior to founding Khan Academy, Sal was the portfolio manager at Khan Capital Management and a Senior Analyst at Wohl Capital Management. He also spent time at MVC Venture Capital, Scient Corporation, and Oracle Corporation.
Sal received his MBA from Harvard Business School where he was president of the student body. He also holds a Masters degree in electrical engineering and computer science, a Bachelors degree in electrical engineering and computer science, and a Bachelors degree in mathematics from MIT where he was president of the Class of 1998.
Among other topics, Mike discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Mike Feerick’s Biography
Mike is the founder and CEO of ALISON (Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online), a MOOC-based e-learning platform headquartered in Galway, Ireland.
ALISON is considered by some to be the first ever MOOC, as Mike launched the company in 2007, which has since became a noted global provider in the e-learning community, and in September of 2013, ALISON was announced as one of six winners at the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) awards, an initiative of the Qatar Foundation.
Prior to founding ALISON, Mike founded YAC, a unified messaging/telecoms company (acquired by J2COM NASD in July of 2007), and he also founded Advance Learning, a global provider of interactive multimedia courseware for IT literacy. Mike also served as Acting MD of Interactive Investor and on the Board of BMG Music UK.
Mike holds a BBS (University of Limerick) and MBA (Harvard University).
Daphne is the co-founder and co-CEO of Coursera, an education company that partners with many of the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
She is also the Rajeev Motwani Professor in the Computer Science Department and the Oswald Villard University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. She is the author of over 180 publications.
Daphne pioneered in her classroom many of the ideas that are key to Stanford’s massive online education effort.
Among the many awards she has won include a 2004 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and she was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011.
Daphne has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a PhD from Stanford University.
