How to Transition to a Career in Ed Tech

Over time, we've learned that one of the main reasons people join the Boston EdTech meetup is to learn about opportunities to transition into EdTech from other industries. As a new and growing sector, it can feel overwhelming to find your way to something new. After spending years pursuing a career in one industry, how do you leverage your experiences to a job in a different industry?

In this event, we are highlighting some voices of our Boston EdTech community and hearing how they made the transition from a different sector to Ed Tech. We will be holding a panel discussion, allowing each panelist to talk about their experiences and provide advice on how to start a new career in Ed Tech.

Panelists include:

Delaney Carr: Delaney is currently working at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as a Learning Architect. In her role, she creates and edit curriculum for a math intervention student software called Math180. Prior to working in Ed Tech, she pursued her Masters in Education and then worked in public K-12 teaching for 6 years in the greater Boston area. She taught grades 10-12 math, including Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics.

Danny Ortegon: Danny provides strategic leadership for clients transitioning from their current offerings (online, paper-based or instructor-led offerings) into more cost effective and efficient online learning solutions. He specializes in helping organizational leaders assess and develop more effective online education strategies. He has consulted with clients in K-12, Higher Ed, Clinical Pharmacy, Technology, Financial Services and IT.

Rubina Halwani DHS: Awarded learning & development leader and public speaker with 20+ years in education.
Worked in multiple sectors: public education, government, corporate, and academic institutions.
BA degree in English Education and MA in Education Policy and Leadership Studies. Courses/certifications in Instructional Systems Design, Articulate Storyline 360, Curriculum Planning, eLearning Development, and Visual Storytelling. Published training on employee onboarding, emergency management, public policy, and mental health. Strengths include strategic planning, collaboration, project management, design thinking, analytics, research, and applying best practices. Run polls to stay current on trends and innovative tools. Participate in: ATD, GLDC, TLDC, xAPI Cohort, & L&D Lounge.

Erica Kangas is VP of Engineering and a founding team member at Dough, and has served in a variety of technical roles over the past decade. Her work has spanned multiple industries, guided by opportunities to build technology and use data to tackle challenging problems that require the collaboration of diverse groups. She began her career as a data analyst for the City Year National Evaluation Team. Since then, she has worked for a range of engineering teams in Boston-based startups, from education technology, to competitive intelligence, to advancing women+ led businesses. Erica is passionate about equity in access to educational and economic opportunities, advocating for inclusive hiring practices, team environments that foster a culture of continuous learning, and product development processes grounded in values and ethics. She is currently a mentor and Community Advisory Board member at Hack.Diversity.

Isabella Betran is a Full Stack Engineer at Pluralsight, a workforce development platform helping businesses and individuals adjust to changing technology skills. She has been on a number of teams all relating to a central question; what is the best way to learn? Additionally, Isabella serves as a Strategic Advisor to Jijenge, a social enterprise in Nairobi Kenya training distributed data labeling teams for machine learning startups. Prior to this, she worked as a car sales representative.

A Zoom link will be posted the day of the event.

Event schedule:
6:15-6:30- Panelists join
6:30-Announcements
6:40-7:30- Panel discussion
7:30-8:15- Audience Q&A and Networking