Team

Laurie Racine
Co-Founder & Managing Director
A seasoned entrepreneur, strategist and change agent, Laurie is addicted to start-up culture. She has launched or secured funding for a variety of cutting edge nonprofit and for-profit enterprises. Laurie founded dotSUB, the video translation platform that is well known for powering TED’s open translation project and was a principal at Eyespot, an early leader in video remix technology. As a funder, Laurie managed a private portfolio endowed by the founders of Red Hat, and launched transformative early stage enterprises including Lulu Press, Creative Commons and ibiblio. In addition to her history as an entrepreneur and dealmaker, Laurie previously held leadership roles on several boards: co-founder and chair of Public Knowledge, chair of Teachers Without Borders, and president of DocArts, the corporation that produces the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. She was a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications and executive director of the Health Sector Management Program at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Currently, Laurie is a director on both for and non-profit boards including Creative Commons, the Tribeca Film Institute, Wizehive and CQ. She also serves on the advisory board of Road Trip Nation, Notehall and Open Road Media. Laurie received a B.A. from New York University and conducted graduate work in human genetics at University of California, Berkeley.

Phoenix M. Wang
Co-Founder & Managing Director
Phoenix has spent her career enabling people to achieve and lead transformative change. Adept at strategic, product and operational plans, Phoenix has spearheaded a range of initiatives, from corporate systems integration to new media ventures to systemic change in urban school districts. She spent her early career in business as a team leader on large-scale organizational change projects at Accenture Consulting and, later, as vice president of Strategic Operations at iVillage Inc. Since joining the field of education, Phoenix has been a relentless advocate for using technology to better serve students and bring about equality of opportunity. Phoenix was formerly an education program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, directing investment strategies aimed at improving instructional practices and using digital media to enhance learning. Phoenix’s passion for social change began with grassroots organizing while pursuing a B.A. from Williams College and M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Diana Rhoten
Co-Founder
How is existing knowledge shared? How is new knowledge created? As a researcher and strategist, Diana has dedicated her professional life to exploring these questions and testing their answers. Diana has been designing and evaluating educational policies and programs, organizations and technologies since she began her career as an educational analyst in Massachusetts. Over the last decade, Diana has been faculty at the Stanford School of Education, co-director of a nonprofit research institute dedicated to interdisciplinary collaboration, and consultant to a host of large educational institutions seeking to innovate. She has also been the founder of three different programs focused on the future of learning at both the Social Science Research Council and the National Science Foundation. Diana is currently the Senior Vice President of Strategy in the News Corp Education Division. She has published in numerous journals and has co-edited a volume on the future of higher education called Knowledge Matters. She earned a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Educational Policy and an M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University, as well as an M.Ed. from Harvard University and an A.B. from Brown University.