Jason Palmer

Eric Tucker and Edward Metz explain how public seed funding, exemplified by SBIR, can effectively scale innovative edtech delivering immense value at minimal cost per user https://lnkd.in/g4Ndzgen

11

Founders and investors converged at TEDCO's 2025 Entrepreneur Expo for the "Access to Capital: Different Funding Sources for Startups" panel. Recognizing that securing funding is a universal hurdle for early-stage companies, this session served as a strategic roadmap, confirming that Maryland’s robust capital ecosystem is actively engineered to fund visionary ideas and drive next-level growth at every stage. Learn more about the session and the advice provided by moderator Mindy Lehman of TEDCO and panelists Jeff Cherry, Conscious Venture Lab; Dawn Medley, FSC First; and Bret Schreiber, Fulton Bank at https://lnkd.in/ewG_E5Ss #entrepreneuer #startup #TEDCOExpo

58

1 Comment

👩🏫 Faculty buy-in is the missing link in many EdTech rollouts. Tools fail not because of the tech—but because faculty weren’t included, trained, or trusted as partners. 💡 Adoption starts with alignment. 👉 How do you secure faculty buy-in for new initiatives? Read more: https://buff.ly/tcltnMb #HigherEd #Faculty #EdTech #Leadership #Innovation

58

1 Comment

“Innovation happens in the gray space between systems.” We talk a lot about breaking silos. Christopher Brida (Portland Public Schools) shows what it looks like in practice—where K-12, higher ed, industry, and community co-design instead of operate in parallel. Highlights from our conversation: 1. “Boundary-spanning leadership” treats the space between departments and sectors as the R&D lab. The job of the boundary-spanner: build relationships, buffer the team, and design the infrastructure that lets collaboration stick. 2. AI has two jobs within CTE: - “AI in CTE”: a cross-cutting skill across every pathway (from agriculture to manufacturing), not just computer science. - “AI for CTE”: a co-designer that helps sequence work and match the right people to the right task at the right time so partnerships move without endless meetings. 3. Students today have “high exposure but low application literacy” with AI. The fix is less about writing essays and more about using AI to think—critiquing ideas, surfacing blind spots, iterating. 4. Partnership design should optimize for outcomes and motivation: “We’re designing for joy so people keep coming back to the table.” 5. Future-proof guidance: help students discover aptitudes, not just interests—those aptitudes change only ~2% from about age 15 to 70. One boundary-spanning example: the Albina D-Lab—a 7-year pipeline (3 years in PPS + 4 at Portland State) where Black engineering students use human-centered design and invention education to solve real redevelopment challenges. If you care about AI, career readiness, and equitable opportunity, this episode is a playbook for building at the boundaries. 🎧 Listen to my conversation with Chris Brida on Make It Mindful: https://lnkd.in/gxjRbey6 #CTE #AIinEducation #DeeperLearning #CareerReady #BoundarySpanning #InventionEducation #EdLeadership #K12 #CleanEnergy #Partnerships

12

My #edtech journey started in 2010 with a math game that we sold to schools, which meant a detour into student rostering. This was pre-Clever, pre-InBloom (it was the "Shared Learning Collaborative" back in those days)… and it was a lot of sending CSVs back and forth via SFTPs. In 2025, this is still happening. Rostering is hardly what gets #edtech developers out of bed… unless you’re Mick Hewitt Doug Weber Benjamin Berte and the team at Ednition, who have lived through these challenges as they grew and scaled their previous company. This Edtech Insiders piece is a great run-through of how rostering and edtech infrastructure has evolved over the years, and what’s possible now. Knowing how data pipes work can be the different between scaling and stalling your business. Today, with open standards maturing, infrastructure tools like Ednition, and AI taking friction out of the messiest parts of the process, what once felt like a chore is now opening doors to faster integrations, lower costs, and stronger district relationships.

31

2 Comments

Dear #HigherEd colleagues and connections — 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬. The latest 2026 Higher Ed Landscape report from EducationDynamics is 🔥. #EDDY is spot on - Adult learners are the growth market. The most differentiated, nearly untapped, and sustainable way to recruit adult learners is B2B: through #EmployerPartnerships. Every private university leader I’ve spoken with knows this. But few know how to do it — or have a platform or playbook to make it real. I get it. Paying for leads and chasing enrollments via direct-to-consumer marketing is not only getting insanely expensive — it’s producing diminishing returns. And it misses the bigger opportunity: ->Your local employers. ->Your regional industries. ->Your ability to partner — not just market. If you want to grow again, start where the jobs are. Start with B2B. Employer-Funded Financial Aid (EFFA), Inc. Job Ready Podcast Jeff Creighton Jeff Nelder https://lnkd.in/gg6vtAZE

8

7 Comments

Some great insights from 2026 EducationDynamics benchmarks report. Two that show how quickly marketing/enrolment is changing: 1) Zero‑click searches from prospective students are becoming the norm as Google answers 78% of education searches with an AI Overview. Almost half of these ending without a click, meaning students may never hit your website. 2) On the enrolment side, 65% of applicants want a decision within a week (and even more remarkable that 37% want one within a day). This speed matters as 72% enroll at the first school that admits them. Even if US data, this is some good context for Canadian universities and colleges working on marketing or enrolment strategies for this year. Check it out (it’s gated but free): https://lnkd.in/gTEjENr4

58

2 Comments