Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of America’s leading edtech company, lays out ambitious expansion plans for the region
Chairman and CEO of Coursera during the interview with Khaleej Times in Dubai
Jeff Maggioncalda, who joined Coursera as CEO in June 2017, said Khaleej times during his recent trip to Dubai on how Coursera – America’s leading IT company – “has broadened the scope of its courses, advanced data and analytics, from cloud computing to psychology and social sciences” .
The pioneering edtech company has begun involving industry partners, not just universities, in job-related training exercises.
“People who may not have a relevant degree or digital profile, but can develop a skill set to stay relevant in the job market,” said an affable Maggioncalda.
“We have created industry micro-certificates for all young populations, such as the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Governments around the world are realizing that they need to change their education policies to facilitate these micro-credentials are being integrated into education systems to make them accessible to all.This is a valiant attempt to capitalize on the population explosion and take advantage of a young population and exuberant,” he said.
However, the biggest product differentiator for Coursera in a highly competitive edtech industry is its content, which comes from top institutions, universities, and industry partners around the world.
For example, Maggioncalda recently signed deals with India’s top 10 universities for content as South Asia’s most populous country plans to roll out a New Education Policy (NEP) starting next year. “This kind of rapprochement is a win-win situation for universities and for us, as we provide top-quality courses to learners around the world,” he added.
He is optimistic about growth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
“We are working with the Abu Dhabi School of Government to ensure that their public sector employees go through retooling and upskilling and that their human capital is growing. We have worked from Saudi Arabia’s National Online Learning Center to Emirates NBD to G42 to FGB, which are among the largest institutions in the region.” he added.
Coursera’s growth over the years can be categorized as the first phase, where educators were taken to individuals between 2012 and 2014 and followed by educators to institutions from 2014. Lately, it connects learners to jobs, this which is a skills map for a large portion of the developing world’s young population.
The latter approach serves the MENA region well.
Coursera has 4,095,795 registered learners in the MENA region by the end of December, a record 61% year-over-year growth
“The Persian Gulf Coast countries have an incredible opportunity to take the resources that were available because this was happening in the energy markets and invest that in human capital,” Maggioncalda said while citing the merger of Coursera with the top 200 universities in the world. in all disciplines.
The combination may prove to be a boon for the oil-rich region which is investing heavily in the simultaneous creation of world-class physical infrastructure and human capital.
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