education-access
(10)
Noon figured out who was missing from online school. Your friends.
A Saudi test-prep website discovered that students wanted company as much as content. Now Noon is taking that idea off the phone and into classrooms.
Robert F. Smith and the price of an open door
Before he erased a graduating class’s student debt, Robert F. Smith was a teenager calling Bell Labs every Monday. His story runs through coffee patents, enterprise software and a recurring question: who gets a chance?
Nhon Ma and the Price of Asking Again
A bus ride across Los Angeles taught Nhon Ma what educational access looked like. Years later, students replaying their tutoring sessions helped him see how to share it.
Leading Change Africa bets on what happens after the opportunity
A scholarship opens a door. This Madison nonprofit works on the awkward business of getting young Africans through it - and helping them open the next one.
Lisa Ryerson Is Teaching a University to Listen
A first-generation college student became a middle-school teacher, then learned to lead at two very different scales. At SNHU, Lisa Marsh Ryerson is betting that a university with more than 200,000 learners can still hear one voice at a time.
Rethink Ireland’s big bet: good causes need good operations
Cash gets a social project started. Rethink Ireland adds the planning, people and practical support that help it grow - with government and private donors sharing the bill.
Kimberly Moore Built a Startup Around the Trip Everyone Else Took for Granted
At 53, after Verizon, national events and a year beside Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Kimberly Moore began again. Her big idea was hiding in her sister’s kitchen: access to school often depends on the ordinary trip between home and the classroom.
Yusuf Amdani Bet on Honduras. Then He Built Around the Job.
A textile heir arrived in Honduras with a factory plan and stayed to build an ecosystem. Three decades later, Yusuf Amdani's revealing product is not cloth or real estate - it is his theory of opportunity.
The $18,750 Bet That Your Best Freshman Dorm Is a Foreign City
Verto Education turned the awkward gap between high school and college into a five-city, credit-bearing product. The pitch is seductive; the fine print is where the actual business lives.
Adrian Ridner
Adrian Ridner is the CEO and Co-Founder of Study.com, one of the world's most visited online education platforms serving 34+ million monthly users. An Argentine-Jewish immigrant who navigated multiple countries before settling in California, Ridner built Study.com from a bootstrapped startup in 2002 into a 4,100-person company offering 20,000+ micro-video lessons and 200+ transferable college courses. His Working Scholars program has saved graduates $20 million in tuition and is particularly focused on first-generation college students and students of color. Ridner is a recipient of the ASU+GSV 2022 Innovator of Color Award and Silicon Valley Business Journal's 40 Under 40.