GigaOM: Degreed 'disrupting the diploma'

Tuesday, September 17, 2013


GigaOM's Ki Mae Heussner writes about LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman's take on rethinking (and overhauling) education ("we need to apply new technologies to the primary tool of traditional certification, the diploma," says Hoffman),  with a nice shout out for the approach being pursued by Kaplan EdTech Accelerator alum company Degreed:



"But Degreed, a startup launched by a member of the founding team of ed tech company Zinch (which later sold to IPO-bound textbook rental site Chegg), comes closest to matching Hoffman’s vision of technology-driven credentialing. Its slogan (“jailbreaking the degree”) lines right up with Hoffman’s goal of 'disrupting the diploma' and its service is very similar to the design specs he lays out. 
The company, which has raised $900,000 in funding and just graduated from Kaplan’s TechStars-powered ed tech accelerator, gives users an online, updateable and machine-readable repository for tracking all of their learning — from a Harvard education to classes on Coursera or iTunes to educational books and videos. It also aims to score those experiences so that users and employers have a modular way of understanding a person’s collection of skills. Since launching last year, the company says, users have uploaded 1.5 million pieces of credentialing information to the site."

READ Ki Mae's full post "LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman on education: overhaul the degree, not just the instruction," at GigaOM (Sept 16, 2013).

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