Today, Maria talks with Jordan Levy, who is the Executive Director and Founder of CapSource, an education company bridging the skills gap between the professional work environment and higher ed. CapSource enables collaboration between industry partners, universities and their students, through custom experiential learning that exposes students to new circumstances with real stakeholders, challenges, and outcomes. Through a combination of software and services, CapSource helps educators match with companies and design projects based on specific academic requirements. They have leveraged 200+ company partners to provide learning experiences to 3,000+ students at more than 50 institutions around the globe. Jordan started his first company, called Real Time Cases, while an undergraduate at Lehigh University while studying Accounting, Finance, and Entrepreneurship. Together we explore Jordan’s learning journey and how his experience in college inspired him to impact the higher ed system through experiential learning. Tune in for an insightful conversation about the future of higher ed with a serial education technology entrepreneur who has been named one of the 30 under 30 by Forbes Magazine.
Production team:
Host : Maria Xenidou
Producer: Julie-Roxane Krikorian
Introduction Voice: David Bourne
Contact us:
impactlearningpodcast@gmail.com
Music credits:
Like Lee performed by The Mini Vandals
Transition sounds: Swamp Walks performed by Jingle Punks
Where to find Jordan Levy:
On Linkedin
Mentioned in this episode:
Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation
Listen to this episode and explore:
Childhood: Being a wheeler-dealer, learning to cook with his mom and growing up in a bi-cultural household (3:24)
High School & College: studying accounting only to be disappointed by his internship in that field (8:10)
How he shifted from accounting to entrepreneurship in experiential learning (11:56)
The critical role of professors and mentors (16:06)
Starting his first business while an undergraduate in college: Real Time Cases (18:45)
CapSource: vision and mission (21:20)
The numbers for CapSource (25:51)
Why there is a disconnect between higher ed and the professional realm (27:24)
CapSource’s step-by-step process (30:46)
How they manage their different projects (35:14)
Creating real outcomes for the students (38:37)
How mentors have a stake in the success of the mentoring relationship (41:30)
The importance of getting specific advice from specific mentors that are related to their situation and project (46:42)
OKR: Setting clear objectives and goals to measure the success of the project (47:42)
How to ensure that students' learning is the priority of the collaboration: have the universities pay for the cost of the programs (49:52)
Jordan’s biggest challenge (54:54)
Jordan’s biggest learning (1:00:25)
What Jordan wants to leave his mark on during his lifetime (1:03:04)
Maria's takeaways related to CapSource's distinct process (1:07:34)