The Knewton Blog

Here at Knewton, we put a high value on creativity and entrepreneurship, and it shows in the way our team members choose to spend their time outside of work. At any given time a large number of Knerds are working away at side projects — artistic endeavors, business ventures, athletic competitions, and more.  Before he started working in edtech at Knewton, Senior Marketing Associate Robbie Mitchell was working on a different educational project: rap songs…. Read more

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We welcomed three new team members in July. Here’s a brief introduction to our newest Knerds! Sara Ittelson (left) isn’t really new to Knewton, having spent three months here as an MBA intern in the summer of 2011. She left us for a little while to finish up her MBA and Masters in Education at Stanford, but now she’s back for good as the Director of Business Development. Sara is originally from Chico, CA, and received… Read more

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Our Founder and CEO Jose recently talked to Inc. about the challenges of shuttering his first startup, and the sense of responsibility that comes with entrepreneurship. Check out the video for more.

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There’s been a lot of talk about the importance of hiring “T-shaped” people — employees with a breadth of experience across a variety of disciplines (the horizontal bar of the letter T), as well as deep knowledge and expertise in a particular field (the vertical bar). Our Head of Infrastructure Dave Zwieback (aka DZ) has a different requirement when it comes time to find DevOps hires: he’s looking for comb-shaped people. Watch DZ’s talk at… Read more

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Every summer, the seams of our office stretch a bit to accommodate a few good interns. This year is no exception. We’ve got a crop of impressive college students, recent graduates, and grad students here to prove — once again — that age is no measure of errand-running talent. Just kidding. The only coffee these interns will be fetching is their own — and they’ll need it. All of them will be digging into some… Read more

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We’re excited to welcome Sarah Haskins to the Knewton team. Sarah previously worked for the City of New York creating online maps; now, she joins our Platform team as a Senior Software Engineer. Originally from New Hope, PA, Sarah graduated from North Carolina State University. She’s an avid Crossfitter and runner who is currently training for the 2012 New York City Marathon. She also enjoys embroidery (she founded Brooklyn Embroidery back in 2010) and reading (her favorite book… Read more

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We’re psyched to introduce our newest Knerd, software engineer Urjit Bhatia. Originally from Baroda, India, Urjit received his MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech. He’s excited about the “amazing energy levels” at Knewton and ready to help make a positive impact on education. Urjit’s favorite book is “The Lord of the Rings” and his favorite music is Punjabi Sufi. In his free time, he enjoys photography, video games, and cooking. He can found on… Read more

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Thanksgiving: what does it make you think of? Pumpkin pie? Turkey? Or an electronic group hug initiated by a certain Knewton employee? Yep, that’s the one — for us Knerds at least. Over here in our Union Square headquarters, we’ve been experiencing an extended Thanksgiving, with offerings better than your grandma’s gravy. Confused? Here’s the deal: this Friday, while a sizable chunk of our tech team was heads-down on an important project (we’re talking all-nighter,… Read more

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Our latest hire is Alejandro (Alex) Companioni, who joins Knewton as a Jr. Software Engineer. Originally from Miami, Alex graduated from the University of Florida. Before joining Knewton, he was a student at NYU, studying for his Masters in Computer Science; prior to grad school, he worked as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board. Says Alex: “Using what I know about computer science and machine learning to change education is by far the… Read more

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Our friends over at Getting Smart just published a great post about one teacher’s experience using Knewton in the classroom. Irene Bloom, a Senior Lecturer at Arizona State University, was originally a skeptic of online learning. But she says that the classroom dynamic has changed since introducing Knewton into her developmental math classes: … Knewton has allowed Bloom to introduce collaborative learning, allowing students to move along at their own pace. “I love looking around… Read more

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