EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
PRnewswire | May 08, 2023
Relativity, a global legal technology company, today announced it is working with Microsoft Corp. to expand the impact of its programs, Justice for Change and Relativity Academic Partners. Relativity and Microsoft will work together to accomplish Relativity's mission of empowering communities through providing access to the education, technology, and resources necessary for a more equitable society.
"We are deeply committed to driving better outcomes through our social impact programs and are honored and excited that Microsoft has taken notice of our work as well as felt inspired to get involved," said Phil Saunders, CEO of Relativity. "Microsoft's generous investment will directly support our ongoing efforts to power the pursuit of justice and expand legal technology education."
Microsoft will support Relativity's social impact programs, Justice for Change and Relativity Academic Partners and further advance Relativity's existing work with nonprofits and academic institutions and strategically expand access to better achieve program goals. They will establish volunteer opportunities and community engagement projects for employees to nurture the communities in which they live and work.
"Supporting social programs for justice and expanded legal technology education is important to Microsoft and we are proud to work with Relativity on these issues," says Justin Spelhaug, Vice President of Tech for Social Impact, part of Microsoft Philanthropies. "Modern cloud technology is a key component to ensuring students and policy makers have the tools they need to advance racial and social justice."
Relativity's Justice for Change program provides the company's SaaS product, RelativityOne, free of charge to organizations tackling legal cases and academic and policy research related to racial and social justice. The Relativity Academic Partner program offers professors access to practice-ready curricula and Relativity software, enabling students to gain early exposure to the knowledge and skills needed to be indispensable to their future employers.
"It's amazing to see what's possible when we align our resources with other companies like Relativity who are looking to make an impact in the community that's both palpable and enduring," said Nisaini Rexach, Manager, Community Engagement, Microsoft Philanthropies. "Thrilled to support Relativity in this capacity."
"Relativity's commitment to making a difference not only positively impacts the communities we serve, it also creates opportunities for fellow organizations to join forces and amplify their work," said Colleen Costello, Head of Social Impact at Relativity. "We appreciate Microsoft's incredible generosity and look forward to collaborating to make an even greater impact."
Today's news builds on Relativity and Microsoft's existing work to bridge technology with social impact initiatives.
About Relativity
Relativity makes software to help users organize data, discover the truth and act on it. Its SaaS product, RelativityOne, manages large volumes of data and quickly identifies key issues during litigation and internal investigations. Relativity has more than 300,000 users in approximately 40 countries serving thousands of organizations globally primarily in legal, financial services and government sectors, including the U.S. Department of Justice and 198 of the Am Law 200.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Businesswire | May 10, 2023
XPRIZE, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges, hosts a virtual event today to celebrate the grand prize winner of the $1M Digital Learning Challenge, Adaptive Experimentation Accelerator from Raleigh, North Carolina, and showcase the technology developed by the challenge’s three finalist teams, including team Terracotta from Indiana University and team UpGrade by Carnegie Learning.
Launched in 2021, the Digital Learning Challenge incentivized teams to modernize, accelerate, and improve the technology and processes for evaluating and measuring effective learning and education. Using tools like AI methods, big data, and machine learning, teams sought to better understand the effectiveness of specific teaching techniques and practices, with the goal of providing substantial benefit for educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the tens of millions of Americans enrolled in formal education every year. The challenge is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the independent and nonpartisan statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
The three finalist teams participating in the Accelerate & Modernize: New Methods to Assess Student Learning Outcomes closing event include:
• Grand Prize Winner: Adaptive Experimentation Accelerator – Raleigh, North Carolina (Partnership between Intelligent Adaptive Interventions lab at University of Toronto, Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon, & North Carolina State University) o The Adaptive Experimentation Accelerator network aims to involve everyone in using experiments to enhance and personalize education. Our 'MOOClet' toolkit democratizes the contribution of ideas from many teachers, students, and scientists, then experimentally tests which ideas work for which students. Artificial Intelligence algorithms analyze data to adapt experiments in days vs months. This aims to test more ideas more quickly, and to use promising data to more rapidly get better approaches to students.
• Finalist: Terracotta – Bloomington, Indiana (Indiana University)
o Terracotta is an open source plugin to the Canvas learning management system, enabling researchers and teachers to conduct rigorous and responsible experimental studies on learning activities within a course site. Using Terracotta, the team was able to conduct over two-dozen mini-experiments across a variety of courses, ranging from 6th grade to college seniors, where each experiment used local materials and authentic teacher-created assessments.
• Finalist: UpGrade by Carnegie Learning – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
o UpGrade is a free, open-source platform that enables iterative experimental design and deployment of new learning experiences that compare the efficacy of different tools and resources—such as lesson content, interactive elements, videos, algorithms and more—during active student learning. Each experiment measures what works best for whom, advancing the way we understand student learning and engagement and enabling the rapid design, deployment and analysis of large scale studies, including but not limited to complex K-12 school environments.
The final round or demonstration phase of the competition required teams to replicate their experiments at least five times with three or more distinct learner demographics. Based on their demonstration performance, Adaptive Experimentation Accelerator receives the grand prize designation and $500,000, while runners-up Terracotta and UpGrade will each receive $125,000 prizes. The three teams previously shared a $250,000 prize when they were announced as finalists in September 2022.
During the closing event, each of the three teams will present their technology and how it works, followed by a discussion of lessons learned from the Digital Learning Challenge. With the Challenge now concluded, the teams will seek to work with partners across the education and technology sectors to scale the impact and implementation of their solutions.“Through their participation and success in the Digital Learning Challenge, each of these teams has helped make advancements in technology to improve the ways that educators teach and that students learn,” said IES director Dr. Mark Schneider. “These teams have laid the groundwork for a new phase of experiments of frequency, scope and scale not possible through traditional methods of education research, which will ultimately lead to better experiences and outcomes for all learners.”
In the initial pilot phase of the competition, 10 teams had six months to demonstrate the capabilities of their rapid, reproducible experiments in an accredited education institutional setting and then 30 days to launch a replication study with at least one unique learner demographic. A judging panel of education and technology experts reviewed the pilot study technical submissions and selected three teams to move on to the final round and ultimately designated the winner.“We are deeply proud of the achievements of the Digital Learning Challenge finalist teams, whose creativity and commitment to improving education outcomes through technology and experimentation will resonate far beyond the conclusion of the competition,” said XPRIZE Digital Learning Challenge Technical Lead Dr. Monique Golden.“We look forward to working with these teams to forge new partnerships that will ensure they can continue developing and refining their technologies and scale the impact of their solutions.”
The Digital Learning Challenge is part of XPRIZE’s Learning and Society domain which is committed to achieving a future where everyone, regardless of income, race, age, identity, gender, or geography, has access to learning experiences to reflect their unique capabilities, disposition, and aspirations.
About XPRIZE
XPRIZE is a global future-positive movement delivering truly radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. XPRIZE inspires and empowers a global community of problem-solvers to positively impact our world by crowdsourcing solutions through large-scale competitions, tackling the world’s grandest challenges in exploration, environment, and human equity.
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TALENT DEVELOPMENT
PRnewswire | April 12, 2023
The SDA Bocconi School of Management (SDA Bocconi), Italy's premier management school and a top-ranked international academic institution, and edX, the global online learning platform from 2U, Inc. (Nasdaq: TWOU), today announced that SDA Bocconi plans to launch new Professional Certificate programs on edX.org. An existing 2U partner, SDA Bocconi's new offerings will build on the proven success of the institution's executive education courses, launched in October 2020.
Meeting the ongoing global demand for alternative credentials, SDA Bocconi's new offerings on edX provide learners with a flexible, affordable opportunity to gain knowledge in relevant topics across leadership, finance, and strategy. SDA Bocconi has designed these programs to support employers and employees across a wide range of industry sectors with the skills needed to navigate the increasingly dynamic and competitive global marketplace, as well as create innovative, productive, and inclusive working environments.
"Learners today are demanding flexibility and individualized paths in their academic journey. They want to enroll in affordable programs, centered around real-world impact, that fit their schedules, provide a clear pathway to completion, and can offer a quick return on investment. We really want our learners to "live the educational journey" through a dynamic, innovative and interactive path to ultimately create a high impact experience for each of them," said Leonardo Caporarello, Associate Dean for Online Learning at SDA Bocconi. "With high student retention and satisfaction rates for our initial executive education offerings with 2U, we are excited to expand our work to include these new programs with edX, creating even more opportunities for learners all over the world to achieve career success."
Professional Certificate programs on edX are designed to build and enhance critical professional skills needed to succeed in today's most in-demand fields. They are offered in highly relevant fields providing learners with a valuable, standalone credential that showcases knowledge and skills.
"Expanding our partnership with SDA Bocconi to include offerings core to edX's vision for high-quality, innovative, modular, and affordable education underscores our shared commitment to innovation in online learning," said Andrew Hermalyn, president of partnerships at 2U, the parent company of edX. "SDA Bocconi is renowned for its expertise in the wide spectrum of skills needed to thrive in the modern business world. This next phase of our partnership will be instrumental in expanding the institution's reach to learners across the globe."
The new programs will be live on edX.org in the second half of 2023. SDA Bocconi also plans to launch additional courses on edX, exploring topics including health care, sustainability, and blockchain.
About edX
edX is the global online learning platform that exists to help learners everywhere unlock their potential. edX was founded by Harvard and MIT in 2012 to make the world's best education available to everyone. Today, as a 2U, Inc. company (Nasdaq: TWOU), edX connects 48 million ambitious learners with the skills, knowledge, and support to achieve their goals. Together with the world's leading universities and companies, edX offers thousands of free and open courses, professional certificates, boot camps, credit-bearing micro credentials, and undergraduate and graduate degrees. Discover purpose-built online programs in technology, business, healthcare, science, education, social work, sustainability, and more at edX.org.
About The SDA Bocconi School of Management
SDA Bocconi School of Management has been a leading institution in management training for over 50 years. The School's mission is to help individuals, companies and institutions grow by promoting managerial culture, knowledge and innovation. MBA programs, executive and specialized masters, executive programs, custom programs, applied research, research labs and knowledge centers all contribute to a wide offering aimed at professionals from all over the world and all sectors of the economy. SDA Bocconi is among the leading business schools in Europe and those to have gained triple accreditation – EQUIS, AMBA and AACSB – which puts it in the elite of business schools worldwide.
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