How do I want Course Hero to impact education?

I want Course Hero to make a hugely positive and disruptive impact on education by leveraging technology. We will accomplish this with our small, young, passionate, dedicated team and aim to do so with limited capital resources.

I want Course Hero to make education more affordable, accessible and collaborative. I want students and teachers on Course Hero to publish and access high quality educational resources beyond borders - a lot of these resources can be given away for free and the rest at a cost that's less than the purchase price of a textbook. A wise man once said, "Schoolin' should never get in the way of my learnin'." I agree.

Course Hero is about democratizing access to quality learning materials and services. I want Course Hero to increase access to the most and best academic resources from students and teachers regardless of their institutional location - let's get the best and most from thousands of colleges and universities around the globe. I want there to be collaboration between students and teachers regardless of where and when they are learning or teaching. I want students to discover and learn from the best teachers, whether they are a professor at Stanford, Cornell, NYU, Foothill College, University of Phoenix or Washington State. I want students to able to ask an active learning community questions when they don't access to classmates or a professor.

Why did I start Course Hero?

Course Hero was born from a simple yet powerful observation that students and teachers create an incredible amount of interesting and valuable knowledge in the form of lectures, notes, study guides, outlines, research, analysis, exams, assignments, syllabi, labs, and much more that they never end up sharing beyond the four walls of their classrooms. It was a confounding and depressing observation. Why should all of this knowledge be doomed to fill empty hard drive space on a computer desktop, filed in a drawer or thrown in the trash? And why shouldn't this knowledge be shared with as many learners as possible? Learning should be more than a physical classroom, a professor, a textbook and a group of students in that classroom.

Where did I go to school?

Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Graduated in May 2010

What's the best tip I would give to a college student?

Take this with a grain of salt because I graduated from college in May 2010
Learn to learn. And take the courses that will help you build the skills you value.
I agree wholeheartedly with Alec Bourne: "It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated."

Where did I go to school?

I graduated from Troy High School then attended Cal Poly Pomona. In both schools I majored in Computer Science (yes even in high school). My high school had a technical program where we took many college level courses. By the time I went to Cal Poly Pomona, I was already a Sophomore in terms of Computer Science credits.

Ever since I was 11, I wanted to be a computer programmer. Specifically, I wanted to create video games. My entire eduction focus has been geared towards that goal. In 2007, I was able to fulfill that dream, when I joined Cryptic Studios and later Atari. Having reached my goal, I am now happily pursuing my web programmer career at Course Hero.

Who was my favorite professor?

My favorite professor at Cal Poly is Craig Rich. His courses were engaging and enjoyable. His level of enthusiasm showed that the study material he taught was not only his job but also his hobby. I specifically enjoyed the assignments he would give us. For example, in our compiler class, he gave us a group project to write a Python compiler.

What was my toughest course?

The toughest course I took was the CS 130. Its known as the 'weeder' course for the freshman students. The course was designed to weed out the people that weren't "up to snuff" to become Computer Scientists. It did its job very well =)

Why Course Hero?

I came to Course Hero because I really liked the idea. I think, and would like to see, Course Hero become the defacto resource for college students. Each college student would have; pens, paper, books and their Course Hero login.

Where did I go to school?

University of California, Santa Barbara

Who was my favorite professor?

Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin, Sociology Professors. The power of a lesson or lecture is amplified exponentially when it can become relevant to both your life and the experiences within. As sociology professors, the Baldwin's accomplished exactly that in every lesson that they taught, teaching from a perspective of experience, while presenting information and ideas in a manner that wass relevant to contemporary lifestyles. Whether it was discussing the impact of parental relationships on our own, or examining how cultural perspectives affect marriage, the capacity to make their content both relevant and meaningful to their audience was paramount, and is something that I hope all teachers strive to achieve.

What was my favorite course?

Game Theory. A class that taught and honed the ability to predict human behavior in certain games or situations? I was sold instantly, and fascinated with the class once the chalk hit the blackboard. From the classic prisoners dilemma to the Nash equilibrium, the power to analyze competition seemed almost magical. The fact that I could watch Russell Crowe's A Beautiful Mind again and actually understand the central theory that made John Nash a household name was simply icing on the cake.

Why Course Hero?

Ultimately I believe that education reaches its greatest potential when it becomes fully relevant and applicable to a student's life and lifestyle. If a teaching method or lesson is outdated, or fails to reach a student in a manner that is meaningful to them, how can we expect students to learn or be interested in doing so?
Contemporary students utilize online networking capabilities and web 2.0 software to increase efficiency, productivity, and comprehension in almost every facet of their life, with a glaring exception being that of academic enhancement and achievement. I want Course Hero to be the solution, providing a means to share and create knowledge more efficiently and effectively in a fashion that is more relevant and meaningful to current life and learning styles. If we can succeed in providing students with such a tool, I believe that we can once again place the pursuit of knowledge at the forefront of students minds, right where it should be.

Where did I go to school?

Menlo School, Tufts University

Who was my favorite professor?

George Norman, my amazing professor of Multinational Enterprises. I loved macroeconomics coming in, and he made it come alive with his crazy Scottish accent and contagious passion for the subject.

What was my toughest course?

Linear Algebra--I enrolled in the course because I thought it would be beneficial as an economics major. As it turned out, I was one of maybe 3 liberal arts students in a class of engineers. In retrospect, I should have dropped it.

What was my favorite course?

I took my two favorite courses my senior year--Multinational Enterprises and Energy Economics. While I was inherently interested in both subjects, what really made these two courses stand out was that my professors were experts in their fields and constantly integrated their own research and current events into the curriculum. Their syllabi were fluid, and I felt that what I was learning in class was always applicable to what was going on in the world.

Why Course Hero?

I work at Course Hero because I want to be a part of something that helps to bring the same love of learning that I have to a mass audience.

Where did I go to school?

University of California, Riverside

Who was my favorite professor?

Scott Brooks, Professor of Sociology. He did a tremendous job of engaging students and taught courses in a relevant, personable way. His goal was to teach students how to pursue and understand the affects of social issues in real world situations, and he definitely succeeded.

What was my toughest course?

Sociology of Economic Organization was very challenging. The course pushed student to understand the core concepts of both social and economic pressures, based on developments within corporate and communal organizations.

What was my favorite course?

My favorite course was Urban Sociology. The course revealed how sociological issues within the inner city shaped and changed classic economic ideologies.

Why Course Hero?

I believe Course Hero provides a medium for students to share and learn from one another in an academic fashion that is relevant to their lifestyles. There is a wealth of material that can provide tremendous insight and understanding for the topics and lessons that are being taught around the world.

Where did I go to school?

Cal State University, San Marcos

Who was my favorite professor?

My favorite Professor was Dr. John Schneider. I took every college course he offered while at Cal State San Marcos. He really helped me shape and mold my educational aspirations as well as guiding me look within to get a better understanding of self. With the mentoring of Dr. Schneider, I was able to look at every situation from a third party perspective and formulate unbiased conclusions to situations resulting in positive resolutions. Dr. Schneider was one of those professors who genuinely took an interest in every one of his students and always made himself available for help. After I graduated from college, Dr. Schneider invited me back into the classroom to speak as a guest in one of his senior classes because of how well I responded when I was in that same class. As a former student I was able to provide relevant insight to the subject matter, and how it could impact them both in the classroom and beyond.

What was my favorite course?

Well I have two - My favorite Sociology course was the Sociology of Death and Dying. No, it wasn't a morbid subject. It was probably one of the most enlightening classes and also the hardest class I ever took. The class was comprised of a series of units revolving around how people, cultures and families deal with different aspects of aging. While in this class, I began volunteering at the local Hospice center which really allowed me to get involved in public service and giving back to society.

My other favorite class was my very first photography class. This was the class that really sparked my interest in the art. I took the class about six months before the first digital single lens reflex camera came out (Canon D30) so everything I did including film development, to print enlargement to darkroom techniques was all done by hand. This, in my opinion, is where the art lies. Anyone can pick up a digital camera and take photographs, but it takes a true artist to create an image.

Why are you doing Course Hero?

I am a part of the Course Hero team because I believe that one should never stop educating themselves. Education is the foundation of all that is good and productive in the world. To bring an educational resource to the fingertips of our future is a truly amazing opportunity. Being able to give back to society and feel like I have accomplished something for the greater good truly inspires me, and allows me to jump out of bed every morning with a smile on my face. Course Hero allows me the opportunity to take everything I have learned over the years and apply it in a positive nature. These beliefs are captured in my favorite quote from a book by Mitch Albom, "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops"

Where did I go to school?

Kellogg School of Management
Boston College

Who was my favorite professor?

Alan Rogers, a history professor at Boston College was the first professor at college I truly connected. I took several classes from him while at BC and he taught each one with amazing energy and passion. It was professor Rogers who inspired me to pursue a history major.

What was my toughest course?

Decision Analysis. The course introduces the fundamentals of decision analysis: probabilistic modeling, preference modeling, the five rules of actional thought, decision tree construction and rollback, and the value of imperfect and perfect information. Areas of focus included assessing probabilities and ranges, judging the sensitivity of decisions to risk attitude and assessed probabilities, and computing the value of better information. I loved it.

What was my favorite course?

Marketing Strategy. This is the capstone course for marketing majors at Kellogg. It focuses on understanding, developing and evaluating brand strategies over the life of a product market. A major component of this course was a computer simulation game where teams competed to own a "widget" market. While our team was given the worse initial market position we dominated the market at the end.

Why are you doing Course Hero?

I am a firm believer in the collaborative learning. Throughout my education, I learned just as much from my classmates as I did from my professors. Multiple times a member of a study group was able to present a complex idea in a way the group could understand. Course Hero expands collaborative learning beyond the study group even beyond campus walls.

Where did I go to school?

University of California, Berkeley

Who was my favorite professor?

Professor Joe Slusky. He taught me in few different courses in the environmental design program including visual representation, art, and architecture. Incredibly liberal and engaging, he was not afraid of breaking the rules and encouraging students to be bold.

What was my toughest course?

Physics 7A. I took this course my first semester in freshmen year. I remembering pouring hours and hours into the weekly homework assignments hoping to stay on top of the class, but after a couple weeks, I was lost.

What was my favorite course?

My favorite course was Energy & Environmental Management. We learned how to save energy through the use of natural light, water conservation, and decreasing our carbon footprint. We also built scale models of energy-saving buildings and sundials!

Why are you doing Course Hero?

The most efficient (and paper-saving!) way for students to connect and share resources is through the internet. I think the concept of Course Hero combines the knowledge, technology, and education that students, now and in the future, are looking for!

Where did I go to school?

Cal Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA

Who was my favorite professor?

The first was Marianne Wolf, Ph.D. who taught me the importance of marketing strategy and consumer focus. She was one of the only teachers I ever had who gave our class a full disclosure biography on her background, major career accomplishments, and exactly what we would gain from her course if we applied the knowledge she had to share. She was passionate about her work, and she showed me the value of applying my education specifically in marketing.

Stuart Styles, Ph.D. (My Dad) is another professor I look up to because he showed me the value of being passionate about your work and sharing knowledge on an international scale, especially if it benefits the quality of life for people in third world countries. He has taught modern water control and management practices in irrigation on almost every continent in a collaboration with the World Bank, and has inspired thousands of irrigation professionals to apply these tactics.

What was my toughest course?

Statistics - sometimes I felt like I was trying to read Chinese when I was sitting in class. I spent more money on tutors and supplemental study materials on this class than any other which is why I REALLY wish I knew about Course Hero back then!

Why are you doing Course Hero?

I've always been passionate about helping people achieve success. For the past 7 years, I've performed sales and recruitment in education, non-profit, and staffing industries - specifically serving the college-level demographic. I thrive on assisting others to refine their skills and develop themselves professionally so they can obtain their dream jobs!

I am excited and honored to be a part of Course Hero because it allows me to apply the knowledge and career skills I've acquired to help others achieve their academic and career objectives on a global scale.

Where did I go to school?

USF, University of San Francisco

What was my toughest course?

Operating Systems, full stop. OS is the class in our department that is considered the turning point for any potential Computer Science student. The sheer jump in difficulty between the previous classes and this one is usually enough to eliminate any student that isn't dedicated to getting their CS degree. From memory allocators to file systems to implementing threads on a operating system called Pintos, this one class has enough of a work load to overwhelm anyone that cannot or refuses to manage their time properly. However, those that were able to get though it definitely showed that they had what it takes to survive in the real world where crunch times and undocumented code are a reality.

Who was my favorite professor?

I liked all of the professors in the CS department at USF and all of them have contributed to my success in one way or another. All of them have a great sense of humor and are easy to talk to in and out of the classroom. If I had to choose one, I would say Greg Benson would be my favorite. He was the one who taught the OS class during my time and if it wasn't for his ability to motivate students to keep trying, I would have probably given up on the major during that class.

What was my favorite course?

My favorite course would have to be the very first one that I took, CS110 with David Wolber. The class was paced really well, being challenging for a relative beginner while not being so difficult that it would suck out all your free time. It was perfect for a freshman that wanted to spend time meeting new people outside of class while still forcing them to learn about the basic skills that every programmer will eventually take for granted. Dave himself was a great guy and would always be available for his students when we needed him.

Why are you doing Course Hero?

I've always considered education to be a necessity. The lack of accessible education in many countries is one of the biggest reasons for human suffering in them. Without it, people become helpless and are usually unable to pull themselves and their families out of poverty.

Course Hero is a step in the right direction. It gives people the ability to join a community of like-minded individuals who want to learn. It is affordable and easily accessible to the public thanks to the nature of the Internet. It also actively encourages users to give back to the community by uploading documents so that future students will be able to benefit too the way they did.

Where did I go to school?

UCSC, Santa Cruz

Who was my favorite professor?

Andrea Di Blas for computer architecture. When I think back to college for life lessons, one that keeps coming up in my memory is the first course I took with him. I had lived comfortably most of my life thinking of a computer processor as a magic black box; electricity went in one end, and computer games came out the other. However, Andrea was able to take the most complicated concepts seem within the grasp of any student. He was engaging and had an unwavering great sense of humor that made his class a pleasure to attend. Andrea's attitude towards teaching also made the experience feel a little less like sitting in a lecture hall, and more like a meeting of minds.

What was my favorite course?

Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. I took those courses at a JC instead of UCSC, and I wish they would have offered more. Having done a fair bit of traveling myself, it was great to read the works of anthropologists who immersed themselves in cultures I never knew existed or only briefly encountered. I was able to shake the idea that there is such a thing as normal human behavior, and most of the ethnocentric attitude that one culture or way of life is somehow superior to any other. Though some cultures may appear so foreign and different that they'd be impossible to relate to, I feel there is more that people have in common than they don't. We're all pretty nuts.

Why are you doing Course Hero?

Everyone I work with is really smart. It's intimidating, challenging, and a lot of fun. Each person here is working their magic so that we can all achieve a common goal, and it is great to be a part of that. I have more fun developing, brainstorming, and even reading through lines and lines of legacy code, than I've had at any other job. I feel education is the staple of our society, and Course Hero gives me the opportunity to make a positive change to an otherwise dated model.

Not to mention stock options!

Where did I go to school?

Stanford University, California
DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering (University of Mumbai), India

Who was my favorite professor?

My favorite professor was Prof. Vakil. He taught me Electronic devices and circuits. The thing I liked about Prof. Vakil was his focus on conceptual learning as compared to just sticking with the material in the class syllabus. He went deep into a subject, first getting the students to understand the basic concepts. His focus on having a strong foundation in core concepts was in complete contrast to the teaching method of other professors who concentrated just on the course material to help the students get a better grade. This is one of the main reasons why I admired Prof. Vakil, because his approach helped me get value out of my education which was beyond grades and assignments.

What was my favorite course?

Computer graphics was my favorite course. I always had a penchant for Math. Computer graphics with its deep rooted base in Mathematics also provided the visual stimulation which mathematical concepts on paper did not. It allowed me to be creative with my math knowledge and come up with applications and designs which gave me a sense of creative satisfaction. While taking that class, for the first time I felt that I had put my theoretical knowledge to practical use.

Why are you doing Course Hero?

Education and technology are mingling at a very rapid pace. Technology is combining different learning media like text, video, animation etc. and bringing all of them on a unified platform. However any education is incomplete till it allows its participants to collaborate seamlessly and efficiently. Course Hero is a step in that direction. It aims to provide a platform where learning can be collaborative and interactive. My aim is to make Course Hero an uber education platform on which developers can make/build interactive tools and apps promoting collaborative learning.

Where did I go to school?

Stanford University, California

Who was my favorite professor?

Professor Matthew Snipp - He was the head of my academic department and a huge reason that I chose my field of study. I was very apprehensive about making Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity my major given my interest in business school, but Matt really drew me into the field. I took an introductory seminar with him and really got to explore the issues of race that I had only witnessed in the past, not study or debate about in an intellectual capacity. His passion for race relations and how it intersects with sociology, politics, business, and everyday life in America not only intrigued me but inspired me to delve deeper into the field.

What was my favorite course?

The Urban Underclass. It was taught by Professor Michael Rosenfeld, who teaches many sociology classes at Stanford. The class really dealt with and explained the trajectory of the African American experience in our country and explained where the community had been, and why, and where it was going. The class dealt with issues of race, class, politics, and history all in one and gave me insight, from the academic perspective, to the life I had come to live and why. To live a certain experience and then get to study the experience gives the unique opportunity to see your life from both sides of the lens and I very much appreciated it.

What was my toughest course?

My toughest course was probably multivariable calculus/Math 51. It was a huge hurdle for me, especially the first time I took it. Most of the concepts went over my head and I didn't dedicate the right amount of time and attention to the class. I ended up retaking it and while it was still challenging the second time around, I really learned from the class and ended up improving my grade.

Why are you doing Course Hero?

I am at Course Hero because I am committed to improving education on multiple levels. Whether its helping the minds that will soon be leading us in the near future or a child just wanting the opportunity to indulge in make-believe, I think education is the key to finding one's place in the world. The forward-thinking atmosphere that Course Hero promotes along with the timeless notion of helping people help each other makes it a wonderful place to be.

Gokul Rajaram, known at Google as one of the godfathers of AdSense, still remembers fondly the night before it launched. His team had been given less than six months to complete the program, and that night he and Google co-founder Sergey Brin spent five hours debugging what would soon become one of Google's biggest cash cows, generating $1.45 billion in the third quarter of 2007 alone. Rajaram, 33, left Google in November to start his own company, Chai Labs. He's keeping mum on what it does, allowing only that the startup is targeting consumers. "Working on AdSense gave me that entrepreneurial itch," he says. "My favorite memories at Google were the early days when I worked with small teams. It was an incredible rush."

Gokul earned his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and his B.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he was awarded the President of India's Gold Medal for being class valedictorian

Why am I doing Course Hero? A lot of how I learnt was from discussions with my friends and classmates, and from class notes that I took. What I love about Course Hero is how it unlocks these invaluable resources and makes them accessible to millions of students across the world. I strongly believe that all educational material will go digital eventually, and Course Hero is at the vanguard of this trend.

Jeff was the Co-Founder of StubHub, where he served as CEO until its sale to eBay for $310 million in January of 2007. Jeff is an advisor to several Silicon Valley emerging technology companies. He has been honored as one of Sports Business Journal's prestigious "Forty Under 40," a list recognizing the most influential young executives in the sports industry; and by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the 24 Best and Brightest young entrepreneurs in America. Jeff earned a dual degree in Engineering and Finance from the University of Pennsylvania and attended Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Earlier in his career, Jeff worked at The Blackstone Group and Thomas Weisel Partners.

I invested in Course Hero because I am interested in enhancing education in this country. Our country has been at the forefront of technological innovation and, despite some common beliefs, I believe we can stay there. Our educational system needs some help from the private sector to ensure that all kids have an opportunity to succeed. I think Course Hero fits into this agenda quite well by helping students learn and achieve their goals.

Steve Chen is the former CTO of YouTube. He and Chad Hurley co-founded the company in 2005 with the intent to provide a simpler way to share videos online. Steve was instrumental in building YouTube into a viral video phenomenon and helped lead YouTube through the Google acquisition for $1.65 billion - less than a year after launching the site. As the company's key technologist, Steve is credited with developing massive data centers and helping build YouTube into a premier entertainment destination and one of the most popular Web sites on the Internet today. Along with Chad, Steve has received several prestigious honors and acknowledgements, including GQ's "Men of the Year," and Fortune's "Most Powerful People in Business." They also were prominently featured in TIME Magazine's "Person of the Year" issue.

Before YouTube, Steve was one of the first product engineers at PayPal. He led development efforts and served as an engineering manager on a variety of critical projects. Steve studied computer science at the University of Illinois.

Frederick (Fred) L. A. Grauer, Ph.D., has been Senior Advisor of BlackRock, Inc., since 2010. Mr. Grauer is a General Partner of Angel Investors, L.P. He served as Senior Advisor to Barclays Global Investors from 2003 to 2009 and served for fifteen years as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He served as Vice President of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Group. He was a Co-founder of StraightThrough, Inc. and served as its Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. He served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors. Mr. Grauer is a co-founder of Financial Crossing, Inc. and eRugGallery.com and serves as its Chairman. He serves as the Chairman of Purfresh, Inc., Visfinity, Novazone Inc. and Integrated Trade Processing, Inc. He served as Executive Chairman of Barclays Global Investors. He serves as Trustee of 41 funds in American Century fund complex. He served as Director of New York Stock Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Columbia University. He served as faculty member, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University and Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He serves as a Trustee and Advisor to such organizations as Commonfund, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Menlo School and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Mr. Grauer holds a BA with honours in Economics from the University of British Columbia, an MA in Economics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Business from Stanford University.

As a Professor at MIT and Columbia I encouraged study groups and assigned collaborative work. We all learn at differential rates and in different ways. No single pedagogical path to understanding for all students exists. Study groups help calibrate teaching to different learning styles and needs. If the real objective is that students master the subject matter, then students must to some extent teach each other, since there are simply not enough profs to provide individual tutoring (assuming they are effective tutors) especially in typical larger-scale Freshman and Sophomore classes.

Course Hero is the digital analog of the long-standing tradition of students helping students to learn. Of course, this digital transformation of student-to-student teaching offers spectacular improvements over the traditional ad hoc, time-space constrained world of the classroom-based on the one-to-many model. Course Hero is a breakthrough in efficient access to knowledge - notes from the best professors in the country, not simply from the prof you got assigned; insightful approaches from top performing students at the best universities to solving difficult problems; exposure to creative work from all over the country that stimulates the imagination; rapid, structured searches of huge archives of documents that offer relevant responses to questions asked. With the explosion of knowledge, particularly in the sciences, no prof can communicate and no student can master the corpus without the help of technology. There is simply too much and too little time. With Course Hero, students understand more and perform better. My student life would surely have been better had Course Hero existed ... a long time ago, in a galaxy far ...

Nils Johnson is co-founder of Beautylish, a social commerce startup. He started his career at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, where he was a selling specialist for Calvin Klein. From the world of fashion, Nils went on to finance working for Deutsche Bank before starting his first company, Gorilla Mobile, an international telecommunication company. He is an active angel investor, advisor and mentor at Open Network Labs, a seed accelerator program in Japan.

Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail.

Ron was previously with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions from 1973-1979, and Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO from 1979-1990. He eventually took Altos public in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) from 1991-1995. PTS went on to be acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft. Ron has served/serves on Boards/Advisory Boards including: Twitter, Digg, Bright Mail, Ask Jeeves, Rupture (acquired by EA), Associated Content(acquired by Yahoo!), Facebook, RockYou, ScanScout, Zappos, Trulia, StumbleUpon, Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Photobucket (acquired by Fox), and Anchor Intelligence (co-founder).

Ron was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top "deal-makers" in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ron is Vice Chairman of the UCSF Medical Foundation in SF, Board Member of The Tiger Woods Foundation, and SF Homeless Connect, and on the Benefit Committee of Ronald McDonald House, College Track, and the Blacked Eyed Peas-PeaPod Academy Foundation.

Conway is also featured in Gary Rivlin's book The Godfather of Silicon Valley: Ron Conway and the Fall of the Dot-coms, described as 'the man who has placed more bets on Internet start-ups than anyone else in Silicon Valley'

Conway is active in community and philanthropic activities, serving as Vice Chairman of UCSF Medical Foundation in San Francisco and also as co-chair of the "Fight for Mike" Homer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). He is on the development committees of UCLA, St. Francis High School, Sacred Heart Schools, The UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco, Packard Children's Hospital, Legacy Ventures, and Ronald McDonald House at Stanford.

David Lee is an angel investor at SV Angel, an angel investment firm, where he is partners with Ron Conway. SV Angel focuses its investments on early-stage consumer media companies.

He focuses on investments within the consumer Internet, mobile, video and other IT industries. Prior to SV Angel, he was at Google, where he led new business development efforts in video, media and content/data partnerships. After Google, he led all business development-related efforts for StumbleUpon.

Recently he was a partner at Baseline Ventures and also an attorney at Morrison and Foerster representing high-tech companies in commercial transactions. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins, NYU (JD) and Stanford (MSEE), where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate fellow.

Why am I doing Course Hero? When I went to college, teaching and learning had 3 actors: teacher, student, and the textbook. It was a very static process where rote memory was the lynchpin for success in classes (at least for me). While this helped me to be successful in school, I don't feel like I learned a lot. And while there's this aspirational goal in college/high school to "learn for the sake of learning", the reality is that getting good grades is very important and generally the number one goal for students. So the tension between the goals of learning and getting good grades can be acute at times. Course Hero eases this tension by helping you with your coursework while also giving students dynamic tools to learn for a lifetime, and not just for the semester.

Amy is our horseback riding, fly-fishing, black-diamond snowboarding, wine collecting, SF Giants-loving Californian. She joined the Maveron team as a partner in 2008, expanding our operations beyond the rain of the Pacific Northwest's Seattle to the fog of San Francisco. She offers Maveron more than 25 years of business and operating expertise as a leading entrepreneur, senior executive and social-mission visionary. Her focal points are emerging Web enabled consumer trends, e-commerce social shopping, and online education. Amy currently serves on the Altius Education, Course Hero, KidZui, Livemocha, Mozes and VideoEgg boards of directors.

Amy's multifaceted career has ranged from the online Web 2.0 media industry to the offline consumer marketplace, and has stretched as far as volunteer nonprofit leadership. Most recently, she was chief executive officer and an owner of Olivia, repositioning the travel company as a complete lifestyle company for gay women both online and offline while multiplying revenues from $5 million to $25 million in 2007. In 2006, she was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California. Prior to her work at Olivia in 2002, she founded and served as chair and chief executive officer of The Spectrem Group, a worldwide strategic consulting, information, and M&A advisory firm. Amy sold Spectrem to an IPG subsidiary, NFO Worldwide (NYSE:NFO) in 1996. After the sale, she joined the senior management team at E*Trade where she diversified the company's business beyond brokerage and ran a $200 million business that encompassed the management of E*Trade's growth areas, including their business-to-business stock option division, and launched a successful asset-based products and investment management services division. Among Amy's citations is the Israel Fellows Award, presented by the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation. A passionate humanitarian, Amy is the chair of the board of Glide Foundation, San Francisco's largest nongovernmental, direct social services organization. Amy is also a member of San Francisco's Barbary Coast chapter of YPO and serves on the board of Wharton West.

Why am I doing Course Hero? Think the intersection between community, user generated content and crowdsourcing is important as students share data- this is is the new paradigm

Ben has a wide-angle view of the world. And it's not just because he's a published amateur photographer. Born in Peoria, raised in San Francisco, and educated in Cambridge, Ben looks at everything in life from multiple angles.

Ben joined Maveron as a principal in 2009 and focuses on investments in the mobile and Web enabled consumer services sectors. Ben currently serves on the board for The Wrap.com, and is a board observer for Course Hero, KidZui, Mozes and VideoEgg.

Ben joins Maveron from Storm Ventures where his board involvement included Ad Infuse, Adgregate Markets, Boorah, DeviceVM, Marketo, Mobio, and YieldBuild. Ben began his career in venture capital at RRE Ventures, where he invested in Massive, an in-game ad network purchased by Microsoft in 2006 for over $200 million. He later joined the strategic venture capital arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel, where he led their investment in Rhevision, maker of tiny cell phone zoom lenses.

Ben came to venture as an operator in several technology startups. Most recently, Ben served as vice president strategy at Greystripe, a mobile rich media ad platform. At Yahoo, he directed the Southeast Asia mobile strategy. Ben was also an engagement manager at ZEFER, an Internet consulting firm (acquired by NEC), which raised over $150 million in venture capital financing and grew to over $100 million in annual revenue.

Ben lives in the Bay Area with his wife and twin boys. He's an avid traveler and deeply involved with humanitarian relief efforts. His travels have taken him to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, Africa, Brazil, and Central America. Of course with the arrival of twin boys, he's narrowed his scope a bit to the local beauty of the Bay Area and Seattle.

Ben received his BA in Computer Science with honors from Harvard University, and his MBA from Columbia Business School, with Dean's List and Beta Gamma Sigma distinctions. Ben is also a graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program, an exclusive professional organization for the venture capital industry.

Why am I doing Course Hero? I was a terrible student when it came to classes. I learn through conversation and synthesis of ideas. My friend Alex Tsai saved me several times by sharing his course notes. I literally learned more reading his notes than sitting in lectures with some famous professor or another. I believe that peer learning like this should be a seminal part of any college educational experience as it teaches collaboration and self-learning. I think Course Hero will help future students find their Alex and inculcate peer education into the learning process.