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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Interview with Shaul Kuper, CEO of Destiny Solutions (Part 1)

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 3rd 2013

Shaul Kuper is the chief executive officer of Destiny Solutions, a company that provides software solutions for higher education management on a cloud-based SaaS. He holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology and genetics from the University of Toronto. In this interview he gives us a detailed overview of the origins of Destiny and of the education space, in which he specialized at the very early stages of the company.

Sramana Mitra: Shaul, let’s introduce you to our audience. Where are you from? Where did you grow up?

Shaul Kuper: I was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. I had a fairly normal childhood: I grew up, I went to school and went to university. I was promised the dream of “make sure you learn math, science, and French, and you will be able to do anything you want in the future.” >>>

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The Past, Present, and Future of Robotics: Interview with Rich Mahoney, Director of Robotics Engineering at SRI (Part 5)

Posted on Tuesday, Nov 26th 2013

Sramana Mitra: Your point is well taken. From what I know from bringing products to market, anything that requires too much work on the part of the consumer basically fails. As long as the products that come onto the market have self-learning capabilities, that would be fine.

Rich Mahoney: At the end of the day, these robots will be products. They will have to meet customer demands and have some value for the price people are paying for them. That is a phase that has to happen. There is a lot of attention to robotics right now. Even the smallest bits get a lot of attention at the moment. That is just the nature of the technology. But if you compare it with any other consumer product or any other area, the overall activity is extremely low. It is still very early. >>>

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The Past, Present, and Future of Robotics: Interview with Rich Mahoney, Director of Robotics Engineering at SRI (Part 4)

Posted on Monday, Nov 25th 2013

Sramana Mitra: I don’t see this happening in the food preparation domain as much as I see it happening in cleaning services. Lawn mowing is a good example, because it is a repetitive and physically exerting function. Those are good application areas. If I were thinking about consumer applications, what other applications would I be looking at in terms of launching a product to market that could be remotely as successful as Roomba? >>>

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The Past, Present, and Future of Robotics: Interview with Rich Mahoney, Director of Robotics Engineering at SRI (Part 3)

Posted on Sunday, Nov 24th 2013

Sramana Mitra: I think the way to think about it is from different societies, where there is a lot more use of services and a lot more domestic help. In American society that help is there, but probably in the more affluent class of society and not as penetrated into the broad mass of society. If you look at lawn mowing, for example, I could see a parallel of the Roomba technology.

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The Past, Present, and Future of Robotics: Interview with Rich Mahoney, Director of Robotics Engineering at SRI (Part 2)

Posted on Saturday, Nov 23rd 2013

Sramana Mitra: If you look at today’s robots, what would the market penetration look like? Are we still mostly in the area of industrial and manufacturing applications? How much have consumer applications taken off?

RM: First off, robotics is a very broad technology. There were talks about robotic kiosks at the airport that were handling the check-in for people bringing their bags. It was the first time I ever heard anyone refer to a kiosk as a robotic kiosk. >>>

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Instructure in the IPO Pipeline

Posted on Thursday, Jul 18th 2013

Within educational institutions there is an increased demand for learning management systems (LMSs), which help to integrate technological solutions with traditional methods to assist with classroom learning. Analysts peg the domestic LMS market to be worth $1 billion. Within the LMS, online courses are becoming a very popular segment. According to research by Ambient Insight, the number of post-secondary students in the U.S. taking online classes is estimated to grow 11% annually over the period 2010 through 2015 to 21.13 million. It is not just massive open online courses (MOOCs); today the Internet is being used as an effective teaching aid by both higher education providers and by K-12 schools.

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What is the Future of Liberal Arts Education in America?

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 12th 2013

Ever since I read this recent WSJ article ‘At Harvard, Humanities Lose Status‘, I have been disturbed by this question. Actually, I have been thinking about the issue for longer, and wondering how the American Higher Education industry will evolve.

I am curious what your thoughts are on the subject. Here are some of mine:

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Learning Disability Apps and Important Innovations Underway

Posted on Monday, Mar 25th 2013

In 2012, we saw some serious movement in the educational technology market. From massive online open courses (MOOCs) to iPad apps, the industry is seeing rapid progress on the wings of technology. Today, I will introduce you to another innovation that is positioned for rapid adoption.

Introducing the Avaz App for Autism
Electrical engineer Ajit Narayanan was in the right place at the right time, poised to welcome the impending tablet revolution. >>>

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