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Things are moving quickly in higher ed. Ideas that seemed impossible in January are suddenly possible – making it exciting to think about which of today’s "impossibilities" might exist in the near future.
That’s what I found myself doing as I perused the list of finalists for the Penn Graduate School of Education and Milken Family Foundation Business Plan Competition. The competition is in its third year and IHE’s Kevin Kiley wrote a great article about it last June. This year’s finalists were announced two weeks ago and are competing for six prizes, $120,000 in total prize money. All ten are described in detail here.
A wide range of education-related ideas were proposed, from mPrep, “a Khan Academy for the bottom of the pyramid,” to Mindblown Labs, using “mobile gaming to inspire learning anytime, anywhere.”
I wonder which new businesses might have the greatest potential for higher ed disruption? From that perspective, one caught my eye, Degreed. What is Degreed? According to its website, “Degreed is a free service that scores and validates your lifelong education from both accredited (i.e. Harvard) and non-accredited (i.e. iTunesU, Lynda.com, Khan Academy, etc.) sources. Get credit for your education -- all of it. Whether it is more or less than a 4-year degree, Degreed gives you the way to have your education validated and enables you to unlock relevant employment and educational opportunities.”
The market for badges might still be mixed. But there certainly are an ever-increasing number of ways to ‘hack’ an education, EdX included.
Do you think world (or even just employers) is more ready for a solution like Degreed?
