2023 was a big year for Discourse Analytics! We experienced growth, attended great events, and expanded our message about using mindsets to engage with students. Here’s our year in review, plus an important takeaway from what we learned this year.
Expanding our team
This year we expanded our U.S. based team by adding on three new members: Alejandra Acosta, Mark Armstrong, and Alex Riker.
Alejandra is our Director of Knowledge Sector and leads the Knowledge Sector vertical. She comes from a decade of higher education experience ranging from advising students to higher education policy and research. She develops strategies in the knowledge economy and build relationships in the field.
Mark is our Chief Product Officer and leads product development at Discourse Analytics. Previously, he served as Chief Strategy Officer for Campus Management Corp., a leading provider of enterprise software, solutions, and services for higher education. Prior to joining Campus Management, Mark served as Vice President of Higher Education Product Development at Oracle. He originally entered the software market with Campus Solutions, Inc., and after its acquisition by PeopleSoft he was responsible for building the company’s presence in higher education. Prior to that, Mark developed and supported student solutions at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Alex is our Senior Sales Executive leading our sales efforts in higher ed. He brings extensive sales and account management experience in Higher Education from his time working at Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, and edX. He enjoys working with clients to understand their needs and finding ways to use DA’s mindset data to address those needs.
EdTech Awards
Discourse Analytics was named a Trendsetter finalist in the 2023 EdTech Awards. The world’s largest awards program dedicated to edtech, The EdTech Awards from EdTech Digest, recognizes outstanding contributions in transforming education through technology to enrich the lives of learners everywhere. DA is proud to have been named a finalist and is excited to see where our improvements and growth will lead us next year.
Presence at conferences
We attended several conferences this year where we spread the word about using mindsets to engage with students and connected with potential partners in the knowledge sector.
D2L Fusion
Discourse Analytics had a strong presence at this year’s D2L Fusion in Anaheim, California. We were proud to be a Fusion 2023 Plus Sponsor and support D2L’s annual conference. Our CEO, Lou Aronson, was on a panel. We had a booth and met with many potential partners. To read more about our experience and takeaways from the conference, check out this recap.
Jobs for the Future's Horizons
We were also first–time attendees at this year’s Jobs for the Future’s Horizons conference in New Orleans. We connected with old and new colleagues across the higher education and workforce training landscape, including folks at several foundations, several companies, institutions, and training providers. This conference was unique in that it was forward looking and encouraged attendees to think beyond current realities in education and workforce. Other conferences in edtech and education have more of a “how-to” focus, but Horizons looked toward the future. We enjoyed this year’s Horizons and hope to be back next year in Washington D.C.
Educause
Presenting at Educause 2023 in Chicago was another highlight of the year. We hosted a thought-provoking session on why institutions should use behavioral data titled “Demographics vs. Behaviors: Why Mindsets Matter for Student Outcomes”. We had the pleasure of having our Director of Knowledge Sector Alejandra (Ale) Acosta co-present with our colleagues Dr. Dionne Curbeam, Chief Information Officer Coppin State University and Dr. Jaclyn Ocumpaugh, Associate Director of the Penn Center for Learning Analytics at the University of Pennsylvania.
At Educause, we were also featured on The eLearn Podcast hosted by Stephen Ladek from OpenLMS. We spoke about Discourse Analytics’ work and how higher education is sitting on the opportunity to engage with students in a deeper way. The episode will be available on your favorite podcast platform in January 2024.
We had a strong year in 2023 that was full of growth, learning, and opportunities. We’re looking forward to expanding our work in the knowledge sector and beyond in 2024!