A fellowship at the intersection of tech and education
Editor’s note: Tiffany Taylor is a Partner and Co-President at ASU+GSV Summit and Partner at GSV Ventures, dedicated to advancing innovation, equity, and opportunity in education and workforce development.
GSV is a global platform supporting and investing in education and workforce skills innovation. At our core we are investors, connectors and conveners. And we do just that with our Google GSV Education Innovation Fellowship, a program that provides K-12 Superintendents, Chief Academic Officers and top-level instructional leaders with learning and mentorship opportunities. Here’s how the program started — and a look at what our fellows are working on now.
It all started with a simple question. In 2021, Deborah Quazzo, Managing Partner of GSV Ventures and Co-Founder of the ASU+GSV Summit, asked me a question that I haven’t stopped thinking about since: “What does it look like for GSV to truly invest in innovative education leaders?” I wrote that question on a sticky note and placed it on my monitor, where it still sits today.
Deborah also invited me to join a call with Jennie Magiera, Google’s Global Head of Education Impact. As Jennie and I shared the ways in which each of our organizations were growing and evolving education leaders, we had an idea: We could bring together chief academic officers and superintendents to dream, strategize and take action at the intersection of technology and instruction.
The Google GSV Education Innovation Fellowship, which started in 2023, offers fellows the chance to explore emerging technologies, refine leadership skills through executive coaching and collaborate on projects that drive real, sustainable change. Fellows were selected through a process that included a written application and a phone interview with Google for Education and GSV team members. We partnered with other organizations to help education leaders develop a district-wide initiative, or “transformational opportunity.”
Fellows led over 45 initiatives that focused on everything from building teacher capacity with AI to improving instruction, enhancing student feedback and preparing for the future. This included LearnKit.ai, a district-wide AI solution to equip leaders with actionable insights, and the The Level Up Lynwood project, which aims to revolutionize education in the Lynwood Unified School District by expanding access to large language models and generative AI. Insights and resources from Cohort 1 can be found in a thematically curated Digital Lookbook. The Lookbook for the second cohort will be available for viewing in April 2025.
A single question and a shared commitment led us to where we are today: 50 leaders, 50 districts and over 3.5 million students affected. Together, we’re not just imagining the future of education — we’re building it. Education leaders can apply for Cohort 3 in April 2025.
