Business Black Box

PETER BARTH
FOUNDER
THE IRON YARD
TECH
Education has been a hot topic for a while, and everyone likes to point to a different cause
for the turmoil. Parents point to the government, politicians point to the other party, and
everyone points to the pocket book.
Here’s one thing we know for sure: technology has changed education as we know it. Until the
recent past, educational institutions derived a significant amount of value from their possession of knowledge.
Be it in books or teachers, on some level, schools were places you went to access information you couldn’t get
anywhere else. Now, much of that information is available for free to anyone with a smartphone.
Of course, simply having access to information doesn’t mean you can make meaningful use of it,
but it definitely means changes in educational distribution channels as we’ve known them, as well as
people’s perception of the value of the information itself.
Take Georgia Tech’s Computer Science program, for example. A master’s degree used to cost
tens of thousands of dollars in tuition only, not including living costs (and for many, a move to the
Southeast). Today they offer the same degree online for $7,000 through a service called Udacity.
A Greenville-based startup I’ve written about before, Pathwright, has built a platform that allows
teachers of any subject to deliver their courses online. That includes class discussions, homework
assignments, and the ability to adjust curriculum and resources on the fly.
TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION:
IT’S ALL CHANGING NOW
About the author...
Peter went to Vanderbilt
University, where he studied
computer engineering.
After school he moved
to Manhattan to become
an options and securities
principal at Duke & Company
(and later Morgan Stanley).
A few years on Wall Street
reminded Pete he was
a hacker at heart, so he
packed up and headed to
Indianapolis to develop
software for SinglePoint, an
enterprise payroll service.
With hard work and technical
expertise, he worked his way
up to CTO and purchased a
stake in the business.
In 2006, Peter moved his
family to sunny South
Carolina. In Greenville, Peter
has taken leadership roles in
the development of NEXT,
the NEXT Innovation Center,
InternGreenville, and the
southeast’s premier startup
accelerator, The Iron Yard.
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Skill-based education isn’t immune, either. Treehouse offers classes on almost every code language
out there, and it’s all through online videos, projects, and discussion forums. (Several of their employees
work in Greenville.)
Some people are wringing their hands at the thought of our educational future, but these changes
are exciting for several reasons. First, more people than ever in the history of the world have the
opportunity to learn about almost anything they want. That fact alone has the potential to change
entire economies.
Second, we believe that this massive momentum in online education will ultimately make in-person
instruction more powerful. Direct interaction with a human teacher is one of the most powerful ways
to learn, and our code and design classes are tangible proof that it’s true. The tools mentioned above
allow our instructors to distribute incredibly rich resources and assignments outside of class, making
their time with students in person that much more focused, personal, and productive.
We’re launching new, tech-augmented classes for kids and adults this fall and next spring, and we’re
excited to be forging a new path in an industry that will have significant influence on the world our
children live in.
For more on this topic visit InsideBlackBox.com/tech