Adaptive Campus
Name of business: Adaptive Campus – www.adaptivecampus.com
Mission: In today's world, we all have to continue to adapt to the changing business world, reinventing ourselves as the economy changes and as our job pursuits change. Adaptive Campus is currently developing a set of services that will provide the glue that makes these transitions easier for potential students, quality institutions, and for the local economies around the world. Adaptive Campus seeks to connect the world of education.
Began: 2005
Where: Natick, MA
Founders: Keith Bourne, M'03
How The Idea Began: Adaptive Campus began as a marketing services and web development firm for institutions and organizations in higher education, but it has always been the intent to find more effective ways to connect students with institutions and to better manage their careers through lifelong learning. Adaptive Campus is developing a hosted software package that connects students, governments, institutions, financial aid, and employers, and crosses the boundaries of formal and informal learning in ways that are unprecedented in today's educational technology.
Initial Preparation to Germinate Idea: Adaptive Campus has researched approaches of many of the top institutions in the field and how they market to and reach potential students, as well as the best practices of how students interact with and use today's learning management systems. We also have several clients that have given us the hands on experience of launching marketing campaigns and learning what challenges these institutions face. We are currently planning pilot launches of the software package with a handful of participating institutions across the U.S. to help test and improve prior to a full scale launch sometime next year.
Favorite Thing about the Business: At the end of the day, we are helping to increase access to education and career advancement in ways that allow thousands of people (hopefully millions at some point) make dramatic improvements in their lives and the lives of their families.
Biggest Challenge: There are many, many moving parts that need to be aligned just right to make this successful. Aligning them all at the same time is definitely the biggest challenge.
Lesson Learned: In the last 5 years since I've graduated from Babson, I've had many potentially successful opportunities come across my path that I could have pursued, but I held out for the one that I would find the most personally rewarding, not just financially, but in making a positive impact in the world for a large number of people. The lesson learned is to not just jump at the first opportunity or you may miss out on the right opportunity.