Hakan Satiroglu

Hakan Satiroglu is an entrepreneur and investor specializing in Education and Technology (EdTech). He has been actively involved in the founding and launch of several companies in the field over the last decade. Hakan is committed to identifying and incubating companies that leverage technology to improve educational outcomes as well as teacher and student engagement.

In 2004, Hakan started down the path of EdTech entrepreneurship when he founded Xplana Learning. As its CEO, Hakan established Xplana as the premier EdTech R&D company creating products for top learning companies such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, Cengage Learning (Thomson Learning), Houghton Mifflin and many others. Xplana developed one of the world’s first interactive online e-book platforms, a white labeled K-12 learning management system, as well as more than a dozen other widely used education products including podcasting, quizzing, activity and simulation engines. The company was acquired in 2009 by MBS, one of the largest text book distribution companies in the US.

Since the sale of Xplana, Hakan has become a very prominent visionary leader in the EdTech industry globally. He is one of the co-founders of LearnLaunch, the world’s first EdTech entrepreneurship ecosystem. LearnLaunch has a co-working space that can accommodate over 100 entrepreneurs and is currently home to 30 EdTech companies. LearnLaunch’s accelerator program is accepting applications for its third cohort and will bring in two more cohorts in the next year. The program is targeted to invest in a total of 35 companies through five cohorts. LearnLaunch also hosts weekly, monthly, and annual events that bring together EdTech leaders and entrepreneurs. In January 2015 LearnLaunch held its third annual conference in partnership with HBS with over 750 global attendees.

Beyond LearnLaunch, Hakan has founded several EdTech companies:

· In 2012, he launched EdTech Times to be the voice of the entrepreneurs in the EdTech ecosystem.

· Xlibro, founded in 2013, aims to create international student portals. As the international growth of EdTech is still in its infancy stage, Hakan wanted to invest in this growth early by pioneering the push of US-based edtech IP to international markets.