Funders have major influence over the direction of new ventures in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Two edtech leaders will discuss how they evaluate new companies and projects on ethical terms, and how they seek to influence the ethical development and deployment of technologies in the education space. Jennifer Carolan is a co-founder and partner of Reach Capital, a leading venture capital firm specializing in education. Isabelle Hau is Executive Director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, and formerly the U.S. Education lead and partner at Imaginable Futures and Omidyar Network. Both of them have extensive experience funding entrepreneurs and innovators in education.  

Panelists:

Jennifer Carolan started her career as a classroom teacher in Chicago where she taught history for 7 years in traditional district schools. She moved to the Silicon Valley in 2000 to attend Stanford University and was inspired by all of the entrepreneurs working on their ideas. She found a way to use her teaching experience to support these founders. She worked at NewSchools Venture Fund, an organization founded by John Doerr and Brook Byers, for 9 years and learned the craft of venture capital. She also co-created and taught the popular course Innovations In Teaching at Stanford University for 3 years. This year, Jennifer is on the teaching team for Lean Launchpad ENGR 245 at Stanford. She co-founded her first fund NewSchools Seed Fund in 2011, her second, Reach Capital I in 2015, Reach II in 2018 and Reach III in 2020. Reach backs amazing and often unlikely entrepreneurs who are passionate about bringing cutting edge technology into education. The Reach portfolio of 100+ companies are creating new opportunities for people everywhere who might think of themselves as underdogs due to background or other challenges. Jennifer has sat on the boards of Nearpod, Ellevation Education, Desmos, Outschool, BetterLesson, and BookNook and is heavily involved in TeachFX, Derivata and Sketchy.

Isabelle Hau is the executive director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, a Stanford-wide initiative to connect researchers across disciplines, and bridge research, practice, and policy, to bring quality, scalable and equitable learning experiences for all learners and throughout the lifespan. Prior, she was a founding partner at Imaginable Futures, a venture of the Omidyar Group, the philanthropic investment firm of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. She led the U.S. education initiative, portfolio and team. Her work has directly impacted millions of learners and families. Isabelle is a contributor to Forbes and EdSurge publications. She writes a popular weekly newsletter Small Talks. Isabelle was awarded the 2021 Global MindED Inclusive Leader Award in Early Childhood Education. She was honored as 100 Inspiring Women at Harvard Business School. She was also featured with Grover of Sesame Street on early childhood innovation. Isabelle earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated from ESSEC and Sciences Po Paris.

To stay up to date on our news and events, subscribe to our mailing list here. If you have any questions about the workshop, please contact the Graduate Student Coordinator, Caitlin Murphy Brust, at cbrust@stanford.edu.