The CEO of education tech provider Tynker tells Moneyish about his partnership with doll owner Mattel and the secret to getting more women in STEM. Barbie no longer needs male technical support. The most iconic of American dolls came under fire in 2014 for a book titled “I Can Be A Computer Engineer” that was mocked as being “almost laughably sexist.” But under new management and in a more woke era, franchise owner Mattel now is working with education tech startup Tynker on a Barbie-themed curriculum to teach kids programming.

VERICITE, a developer of a plagiarism detection tool used in schools and universities, has been acquired by Turnitin. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. In a blog post announcing the transaction, Turnitin CEO Chris Caren noted that VeriCite’s leadership and staff will join the Turnitin. Founded in 2014, Vericite claimed as many as 150 institutional customers in K-12 and higher education as of November 2017. In her post announcing the deal, Vericite CEO Valerie Schreiner said that no immediate changes to pricing or service will happen for its customers.

If you buy it, you better use it. That especially holds true for K-12 school officials who altogether spend more than $8.3 billion on education software each year, according to estimates from the Software and Information Industry Association. Yet it can be tedious to manually keep track of how students interact with different pieces of software—or whether these tools are even being used. For many districts, it takes time and a bit of Excel wizardry to download data from each software provider, then combine and distill the information into a single dashboard. “We had to go into different websites, find different usage reports, talk to vendors,” says Matthew Raimondi, an assessment and accountability coordinator at U-46, a school district in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago. “You run around to a bunch of different places to get information about whether students are actually making progress through the tools.” The days of hacking together spreadsheets may be coming to an end, however. Since last fall, Raimondi, along with technologists at 19 other school districts, have piloted a new service that automatically provides data in how students engage with different online education programs. Dubbed “Clever Goals,” the tool lets educators, students and parents see how long a pupil spent on different digital learning programs, along with their “progress,” which is defined differently depending on the kind of edtech software. (It could be books read, quizzes finished, activities completed.) Teachers can also set weekly usage targets for individual students and track their progress against those goals.

Course Hero, an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed, today announced that it has been recognized as "Best of 2017" in the 16th annual Mobile Star Awards™ program, hosted by the mobile events and news site MobileVillage.com. Course Hero is being honored as "Best of 2017" in the "Best Educational App" category. Winners in other "Best of 2017" app categories include AirBnB, EventBrite, Adobe Scan, and Overstock.

Hiring full-time programmers remains a competitive and lengthy process for businesses. That's one reason demand for freelancers and consultants is rising. Forrester predicts that spending on outsourced software help will accelerate by 6 percent in 2018. To find the best possible contractors for the job, large firms, including Cisco, Ford and Orange Telecom, are using artificial intelligence from a San Jose start-up called Tara Intelligence. Tara AI matches projects with freelance programmers who have the exact skills required to complete them. To do this, the start-up developed a "scraping engine" that constantly scours the open web, figuring out who worked on code that resembles a project that a business needs to get done. According to Tara AI CEO and co-founder Iba Masood: "Developers give us access to their Github. We see projects similar in nature to what you are trying to build. And then we connect you to the right and available talent." Tara AI's software also helps businesses automatically scope out and manage projects with freelancers, monitoring the pace and quality of their work, and making sure contractors are paid on-time for their code commits, for example. Developers who score work via Tara AI are paid flat rates, which are set automatically and correspond with a project's level of difficulty. Whether they're men, women, retirees or twenty-somethings with a fresh undergraduate degree, developers get paid the same wages for the same work. "Some people are better at negotiating," Masood said. "But we think developers should be paid based on their actual abilities and the work they deliver."

David Rogier always loved to ask questions. “I love to learn,” shares the Co-Founder and CEO of MasterClass.”But ever since the first grade I got in trouble in class because I usually questioned what my teacher said.” As much as he loved learning, Rogier, who had a bad stutter when he was a child, struggled in school. “I wasn’t rewarded for being a kid who was dorky and curious,” says the entrepreneur who created and sold a search engine with his friend when they were in middle school. “Those traits were not valued. So I got in trouble and didn’t get good grades.” He will never forget the time when he complained to his grandma about his math homework. Her response was sit down and let me tell you a story. When she was 16 and living in Kraków, Poland, she and her mother went on vacation while her father stayed behind to work. While they were away, the Nazis invaded Kraków and her father was killed. She fled to New York City, got a job on a factory floor but longed to go to medical school. “She applied to something like 50 schools and got a “no” from every single one," says Rogier. The following year she applied again and was rejected by every single one. “Then she called the Deans of Admissions asking why didn’t you let me in? Each person hung up the phone on her except for one who told her point blank: "You have three strikes against you. You are a woman. You’re a foreigner. And you’re Jewish." And he hung up," recalls Rogier. Ever intrepid, Rogier’s grandma applied to medical schools until she finally got accepted into one. She ultimately became a doctor and built a successful practice. “Here I was in the second grade as she told me this story,” recalls Rogier. “She said, “David, I’m trying to tell you that education is the only thing that someone can’t take away from you.” Rogier kept his Grandma’s precepts close to his heart. “I wanted to build a school which teaches things that people can’t take away from others. I wanted to create a school that made it possible for anybody in the world to learn from some of the best minds and masters of their crafts,” says Rogier who was recruited by Tesco to launch their first stores in the United States He then got his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business where he met tech investor Michael Dearing, whom he worked for after graduation. In fact, Dearing became his first MasterClass investor. “I thought, how do we do this affordably, where it's not thousands of dollars. How do you do it in a way for somebody like me who is curious and wants to learn?”

Course Hero, an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed, today announced it ranked No. 250 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Course Hero grew 376 percent during this period. Course Hero's chief executive officer, Andrew Grauer, credits its rapidly expanding user base, course-specific content library and learning tools with the company's 376 percent revenue growth. He said, "Course Hero clearly hit an inflection point of huge growth over the past year – we now have a community of more than 20 million students and educators with 18 million pieces of user-generated content from 11,000 different schools – and we're only getting started!" "The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment," said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers." "Emerging growth companies are powering innovation in the broader economy. The growth rates delivered by the companies on this year's North America Technology Fast 500 ranking are a bright spot for the capital markets and a strong indicator that the emerging growth technology sector will continue to deliver a strong return on investment," said Heather Gates, national managing director of Deloitte & Touche LLP's emerging growth company practice. "Deloitte is dedicated to supporting the best and brightest companies of the future in the emerging growth company sector. We are proud to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of this year's Fast 500 winners." Overall, 2017 Technology Fast 500™ companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 135 percent to 59,093 percent from 2013 to 2016, with median growth of 380 percent. About Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500™ Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies — both public and private — in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016. In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. About Course Hero | Master Your Classes™ Course Hero is an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed. Fueled by a passionate community of over 20 million students and educators who share their course-specific knowledge and educational resources, Course Hero offers the biggest and best library of study documents, expert tutors, customizable flashcards, and course advice. Download the Course Hero app for iPhone or Android.