Kriss Deiglmeier
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Passions and Voice

Get to Know Kriss

 

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Kriss Deiglmeier is a dynamic board director, CEO, and thought leader who drives growth and innovation. Known for her strategic leadership and transformative approach, she has served on numerous boards, helping them evolve by recruiting new members, restructuring committees, and improving governance practices. Her extensive experience spans both public and private sectors, with a particular focus on delivering value across industries and geographies.

An avid traveler, Kriss's passion for adventure and love of learning has shaped her belief system and fueled her commitment to positively impacting the world. Her diverse personal and professional experiences inspire her to create a better future for everyone’s family, friends, and communities. 

fun facts

  • Kriss believes you grow when you “repot” yourself. She has worked in the corporate, philanthropy, nonprofit, social enterprise, and academic sectors. 

  • She has backpacked around the world and visited more than 50 countries and counting.

  • Kriss has presented nationally and internationally on, social innovation, stakeholder economy, ESG,  responsible AI, design thinking, and impact investing. 

  • Each year, she picks a “word for the year” and strives to live by it — believing firmly in keeping things simple.

  • Kriss’s core beliefs include:  “Learn something new every day” and “Be adventurous. Be afraid.”

  • She loves walking meetings and agrees with Nilofer Merchant that “sitting is the smoking of our generation.” 

  • She prefers research articles over what seems like an infinite number of “blogs” 

  • She co-authored the most cited article on social innovation, Rediscovering Social Innovation—with over 3,200 citations. 

  • Her family, friends, and colleagues bring her joy and keep her going. 

 

In Applying Tech to Education, We Can’t Mistake a Clear View for a Short Distance

Digital textbooks, online lectures, innovative software, learning games, laptops, tablets, and smartphones have all made it possible to customize content, enhance instruction, and improve assessment in the educational arena. This convergence of possibilities could really revolutionize the way students learn. But the landscape is decentralized and complicated, and leveraging what’s possible to really move the field of education forward will not be easy.

To explore these challenges and opportunities, the Center for Social Innovation, Stanford’s School of Education, and the LEAD Commission recently cohosted a symposium on technology in education here on campus. The presenters were as diverse as the field. Four, however, stood out to make a significant difference. Each represents a different approach and set of priorities, and highlights key questions as we work to bridge the huge gap between technology’s potential and today’s reality.

Education Superhighway targets the infrastructure problem, for without speedy, reliable internet access in schools even the best innovations won’t ever reach most of our nation’s students. The nonprofit’s founder and CEO, Evan Marwell, shared the startling fact that 80% of America’s 100,000 schools – serving 40 million students – don’t have the internet connectivity infrastructure to take advantage of digital technology. We need to understand the starting point before designing appropriate solutions, so Marwell has launched the “national school speed test” to crowd source data on which schools have good access to broadband and which do not. They also plan to support schools to get better pricing and terms for broadband service. Currently, the nation’s 14,000 school districts approach this as fragmented individual interests, but by joining together and aggregating their purchase decisions they can better leverage the 1.5 billion dollars they’re already spending on internet access and infrastructure.  Education Superhighway’s work is not flashy, but it’s necessary. Without addressing the fundamental question of access, all the momentum around new applications and content is like a frenzy to build cars with no place to go.

So much of the symposium, while exciting, featured endeavors that directly target students outside of the traditional classroom. That can work to supplement the school day, but ask any adult what got them excited about learning and you’ll surely hear about a great teacher who brought learning to life. Learn Zillion stood out because they “believe that the teacher is the right unit of change,” explained cofounder and president, Alix Guerrier. Learn Zillion has developed an ever-growing library of 1500+ lessons in math and ELA (English Language Arts) that includes activities, commentaries, and assessment modules to help teachers better teach core curriculum requirements in the classroom. After all, kids are still in classrooms 6+ hours a day looking to teachers to guide them through the learning process.

Apple’s education initiative centers on iTunes U and iBooks, targeting higher education. John Couch, the company’s vice president of education, talked about his work to get iPads into the educational environment, and to empower educators to create content and better manage the learning process. And if anyone can figure out the right tools, interface, and design, of course it’s Apple. But who’s going to use these innovations? Their mission isn’t about improving access to quality education across all strata. Case in point: Couch touted a recent announcement by the United Arab Emirates to provide iPads for all university students and teachers – not easily replicated in most contexts. iPad access and Apple’s new applications will be great for those who can afford it, and will hopefully elevate the design and usability aspirations of other innovators in the space. But I don’t think their tools will ever be widely accessible to the kids who most need them, and content designed specifically for the iPad will be inherently limited in its reach.

In contrast, Coursera aims to give everyone access to the world-class university education that has so far been available only to a select few. They do so by partnering with top universities around the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Cofounders Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller are both Stanford professors who are excited by the way technology can make top courses more widely available. As an example, one of Ng’s Stanford courses is capped on campus at 400 students. He put it on Coursera and reached 100,000 students, including many from India and a single mother of two who would otherwise not have access. Since its launch one year ago, 1 million users are already accessing Coursera’s online classes, and benefiting from the translation, captioning, lesson segmenting, assessment and feedback tools, and online community features of the platform. If information is power, Coursera is on track to empower people on a global scale.

It has been decades since talk about technology’s potential to disrupt and revolutionize education started to buzz. The potential to level the playing field, increase access for all, and improve student outcomes is enticing, but for some reason the hype often overshadows delivery on these promises. It’s clear that there’s no one solution, and certainly not just one tool or app that is going to resolve the injustices, ineffectiveness, and inefficiencies in today’s educational arena. To really make progress will take a broad look at the sector’s challenges and opportunities, starting with the basics – the need for sound infrastructure and for capable, supported teachers.

We should be careful not to mistake a clear view for a short distance. The social innovations that have scaled for broad impact in the past 30 years required collaboration, time, tenacity and investment. Hopefully, a decade from now, we’ll be able to look at real change and regard technology as just the disruption that was needed to improve learning both inside and out of the classroom.

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