Watch: Akilah Institute’s Q1 Community Briefing Call Recap
Akilah’s Q1 Community Briefing call was held on March 19, 2019, hosted by Akilah’s CEO and Co-Founder, Elizabeth Dearborn Hughes, and our new Chief Academic Officer, Dr. Cristi Ford.
More than 200 Akilah donors, supporters, and friends of Akilah dialed into the call, followed along on Facebook Live, or viewed the recording afterward.
The Community Briefing Call took the shape of a podcast discussion focusing on Akilah’s approach to creating a scalable model for affordable education — by leveraging technology and blended learning.
“We have been on a five-year journey to answer an important question. How do you offer a high-quality, personalized education, that is market-relevant and leads to employability, in a way that is also affordable and scalable, so it can be delivered in a way that is not dependent on donors?” — Akilah CEO and Co-Founder Elizabeth Dearborn Hughes
Our CEO opened with an overview of Akilah’s journey in the last ten years, and how our focus has increasingly shifted towards reducing the cost to serve while maintaining our high standards of education, as part of our drive towards financial sustainability and self-sufficiency. Akilah’s implementation of a blended learning approach is an important step in this direction.
Dr. Ford then shared a brief lay of the land of the innovation currently taking place in the education space as a whole. She went on to de-mystify some of the buzzwords of the emerging education technology space before shifting her focus to Akilah’s intention to leverage data and artificial intelligence to create truly personalized learning journeys for students.
Dr. Ford also shared how the combination of a competency blended education with a blended learning approach gives Akilah Students a significant advantage when it comes to being able to secure employment opportunities after graduation — and the positive effects this has on their families and communities.
The call wrapped up with our CEO sharing some of the highlights on Akilah’s upcoming calendar of events including:
Akilah Decennial Gala Event: October 5 (Tampa, Florida)
Akilah Graduation Donor Trip: November 10–15 (Kigali, Rwanda)
Stay tuned for updates on both these events!
In case you missed the Community Briefing Call, you can watch the full recap in the video below:
https://web.facebook.com/akilahinstitute/videos/569234630257389/