AI Edu heavyweights join Atypical AI engineering leadership

Kevin Wiggen, Former Blackboard CTO, Joins Atypical AI as CTO Amid Engineering Team Expansion

Hello everyone,

In an exciting move for Atypical AI, Kevin Wiggen, the former CTO of Blackboard, has joined us as our Founding CTO - as well as industry veterans Nate Edwards, former founding team of Flipgrid, and Reinhold Staudinger, former Chief Architect at Blackboard.

Kevin managed the global onboarding of 100M+ students at Microsoft during the COVID-19 pandemic and has successfully executed tech transformations impacting 150M users in 80 countries. Kevin led tech management of 14 key products at billion-dollar Learning Management System Blackboard. He has deep startup DNA - having co-founded a startup that scaled from 2 to 85 employees. It is rare to find someone with both hacker abilities and the ability to scale to worldwide operations - for example, his focus on efficiency led to a significant data center to AWS transition, streamlining operations and reducing costs. Kevin’s strong track record is marked by a successful startup exit and leadership roles at major tech firms. His international experience will be a cornerstone in Atyical’s global strategies.

Nate has developed and scaled products and teams from startups to industry leaders used by millions across the world. As part of the founding team and the VP of Engineering for Flipgrid, Nate led engineering vision and operations that were rooted in community-driven development which eventually led to the company’s acquisition by Microsoft in 2018. As a part of Microsoft, he led multiple integrations across the organization that served the EdTech community and beyond.

Formerly Chief Architect of Blackboard and VP of Analytics at Anthology, Reinhold led the modernization of a large EdTech portfolio. His team’s cross-product data solutions have been implemented in over 800 education systems around the world. We know that the combination of software excellence and generative AI understanding is profoundly impactful - and Reinhold is key to unlocking the value of LLMs in Atypical for teachers and learners.

This marks a significant milestone in our journey. The addition of Kevin, along with our expanded engineering team, positions Atypical AI at the forefront of innovation and growth in the AI for education world.

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