simulation-training
(2)
Ruchir Shah
Ruchir Shah is the founder and CEO of SkillCat, a mobile-first training platform that has taught more than 300,000 people to enter skilled trades like HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and appliance repair. A Rice-trained energy engineer with a Stanford MBA, he started building animated industrial simulations after researching the BP oil spill and concluding that bad training kills. His first company, LearnToDrill, trained 25,000 oil and gas workers for clients like Halliburton and BP. When COVID threw skilled workers out of jobs while contractors begged for help, Shah pivoted to SkillCat to bridge that gap with simulation-based, $10-a-month trade education. He also runs the GRIT Foundation to introduce trades careers to underserved youth, and once spent a summer doing stand-up comedy in New York.
Mark Atkinson
Mark Atkinson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mursion, an AI-powered immersive learning platform that blends live human performers with artificial intelligence to create realistic practice simulations for professional development. An Emmy Award-winning television producer turned serial edtech entrepreneur, Atkinson has spent over two decades building technology ventures at the intersection of human capital development and innovation. Before Mursion, he co-founded Teachscape, a pioneering video-based teacher observation platform that became central to the Gates Foundation's Measures of Effective Teaching project. Under his leadership, Mursion has grown to serve more than a third of Fortune 100 companies, delivering 18 million-plus minutes of simulation-based training across healthcare, education, corporate, and hospitality sectors.