I have decided to focus on Daphne Koller’s work for this assignment. She received her BSc and MSc from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1993. She is known for her work in computer science and artificial intelligence. I chose her because she created a free online education tool that can be assessed globally regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and race. Moreover, she focuses mainly on advocating for accessible education. For example, in her Ted Talk, What we’re learning from online education, Daphne claimed that tuition rates have risen by 559% since 1985. As a result, this makes education unaffordable for people. Furthermore, Daphne wanted everyone to have access to education. As a result, Daphne Koller and co-owner Andrew Ng decided to provide quality education to as many people as possible. Thus, they formed Coursera in 2012. The primary objective of Coursera is to take the greatest courses taught by the most exceptional professors and offer them for free to everyone around the globe. In 2012, after they opened their website, they had 1.5 million enrollments and 640,000 students from 190 countries in less than a year. Online courses have been accessible for some time, but Coursera stood out because of its organic learning environment. There are authentic course assignments, lessons, quizzes with deadlines and grades and certification of completion once done. Moreover, it allows an individual to follow their personalized curriculum. Since founding Coursera, Daphne Koller has also established Daphne Koller – Insitro, a company that provides cutting-edge approaches to science education by utilizing machine learning techniques, like drug development.
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