How Startl Is Hacking Education From the Outside In. What would happen if you took the principles of a startup incubator like Y Combinator and applied it to improving education? A new philanthropic venture called Startl aims to find out. The non-profit startup accelerator is being backed by some of the world's best-known foundations (Gates, Hewlett, MacArthur), and has for-profit partners including IDEO, DreamIT Ventures, and investment bankers Berkeley & Noyes.
Startl is entirely focused on educational entrepreneurs. Co-founder and Managing director Phoenix Wang, formerly of Accenture Consulting, iVillage, and then the Hewlett Foundation, is holding the organization's first five-day "bootcamp" for ideas in mobile learning from March 15-19. Fast Company caught up with Wang to learn more and find out what's coming next. Anya Kamenetz: How did Startl get started? In education that layer doesn't exist. AK: What are the most important forces for change in the education world that you see right now? PW: Technology is one set of forces. Video en educacion. Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education. Khan Academy. Sugata Mitra.