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Dan Avida, CEO and Founder
During the pandemic, my wife Daphne Koller and I watched our daughters slog through the uninspiring experience of taking their classes on Zoom. It quickly became clear to us that the problem wasn’t the students or the teachers - it was the tech. Educators were trying to force a meeting platform to do the job of a classroom, and it just wasn’t built for it.
Daphne, the CEO and Founder of insitro, co-founded Coursera and spent 18 years as a Stanford professor. With deep experience in the online learning space, we knew a far superior learning platform was possible. Together with our long‑time friend and colleague Serge Plotkin, a Stanford Professor Emeritus, we created Engageli. Our platform replaces the isolation of traditional online learning with a social, table‑based environment that truly brings people together to learn.
Engageli is driven by two core goals: making the digital classroom feel human and consolidating all necessary teaching and learning tools into a single platform. We break down the barrier between live and recorded learning by unifying both within one ecosystem. This ensures that asynchronous learners have an experience similar to those attending the live session.
Through our interactive playback rooms, students watching later can participate in the same polls, view shared documents, and access persistent collaborations. Furthermore, with AI-powered tutoring and gamified motivation built into the core experience, engagement doesn't stop when the live class ends - it's just getting started!
At Engageli, our guiding principles drive our mission to transform education with engaged learning worldwide. These values are lived out daily by our team, who bring their expertise, passion, and dedication to every project.
We believe in the power of lifelong learning, not just for the users of our virtual classroom but of ourselves. By embracing new challenges and expanding our knowledge, we ensure that Engageli continues to innovate and serve our global user base.
Our team is driven by an unwavering commitment to the success of our customers, partners, and team. We are action-oriented, and strive for flawless execution in order to build and deliver the world’s most engaging virtual classroom.
We encourage our team to take ownership by exploring new ideas, taking initiative, and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. This entrepreneurial spirit enables us to remain a pioneer in the active learning industry, inspiring us to improve our product, informed by continuous user feedback.
Engageli fosters an environment where everyone’s contributions are respected and great ideas flourish, regardless of role or title. We are an inclusive, remote-first company, allowing the flexibility and trust to be productive and collaborative anywhere in the world and in real time.
Dan Avida is the Co-Founder and CEO of Engageli. Before founding the company, Dan worked in technology as an executive and/or board member for more than three decades. Throughout his career, he has scaled several companies from a small founding team to over $100M in revenues and valuations of over $1B. As co-founder of Decru, he led the company from its inception through its acquisition. He also served as Chairman and CEO of EFI, where he oversaw the development of its flagship product from the earliest days and achieved market capitalization of over $3B. Most recently, he acted as General Partner at Opus Capital, where he led early-stage investments in several companies, including SolarEdge, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEDG).
Dan has a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, summa cum laude, from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology.
Daphne Koller is a Co-Founder and Board Member of Engageli. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she was a member of the faculty team for 18 years. She is a MacArthur Fellowship recipient and a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2012, Daphne was selected as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. She co-founded Coursera, one of the world’s largest online education platforms, and Insitro, a machine learning-enabled drug discovery company. She is also the author of over 200 publications.
Koller has a BSc and MSc from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Serge Plotkin is the Co-Founder and CTO of Engageli and an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he taught for over 25 years. He was also the Co-Founder of Decru, where he served as Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering. Serge has published more than 100 technical papers and has been issued 14 patents.
Serge has a Ph.D. from MIT.
Nobu Fukatsu is the VP of Product Planning and Business Development at Engageli. He brings over three decades of experience in product planning, business development, and international sales in security, scientific instruments, office equipment, and renewable energy products. His career started with the President’s Office at Canon Inc. and most recently, before joining Engageli, Nobu worked at SolarEdge Technologies as the Sales GM for Japan.
Nobu graduated from the University of Tokyo with Bachelors of Agriculture.
Anita is the VP of Global Partner Success managing the customer portfolio of Engageli. She brings over 30 years of edTech experience in both the public and private sector. She has architected and implemented systems from startup to large scale business units at Pearson Virtual Schools, Arizona State University Online, and Purdue Online. Her roles in the launch of new products encompass a wide range of skills spanning launch strategy, disruptive innovative models, revenue growth, operational excellence, and technology efficiencies. Before shifting to the education sector, Anita worked in the finance industry at PWC and Goldman Sachs on financial systems and M&A.
Anita holds a Bachelors of Engineering in Computer Science from Bombay University, and an MBA in Finance and Accounting from Arizona State University.
Beverly Rubin is the VP of People at Engageli. She brings over 30 years of extensive strategic, leadership and operational experience in all areas of human resources that span SaaS, digital printing technology and satellite communications industries. Before joining Engageli, she was the VP of Global HR for Clarizen where she developed and aligned people strategies to business growth initiatives. While at EFI and Space Systems/Loral, Bev held senior leadership roles in global talent management; total rewards, HRIS and M&A.
Bev has a BS in Business Management from San Jose State University.
