From her home base in Tampa, Celeste Grupman is ready to change the way we learn the most in-demand skills.
Grupman was recently named the CEO of Dataquest, an EdTech company providing project-based courses in AI and data science skills. She is stepping up after serving as the startup’s Director of Operations since 2018.
Dataquest’s online curriculum focuses on career and skills paths. Career paths are curated for students looking to break into data science, data engineering, and data analytics. Students can also log on and learn specific skills like SQL or Power BI for a few hours at a time.
The New EdTech Realities
Dataquest was founded by self-taught machine learning engineer Vik Paruchuri, who saw a gap in the online education space. Instead of traditional lectures, the platform focuses on project-based learning. The company, based out of San Francisco, has awarded one million certificates in data, programming, and AI to date.
The business landscape changed drastically over the last year, as companies across industries rushed to implement AI products and AI-led services. Recently, the Dataquest team rolled out its Generative AI track to help organizations and students compete in this new world.
Grupman said rolling out AI skills has been a unique challenge for the company. One of the hardest thing about teaching AI is dealing with the fact that skills become obsolete seemingly overnight.
“For the last probably thirty years, educational companies and institutions have struggled to keep up with the pace of technology with the offerings to their students. But platforms like Dataquest help fill that gap. We can innovate quickly, and we can put out what are basically textbooks and new labs onto our online environment very quickly,” Grupman told Hypepotamus.
The Road To CEO
Before joining Dataquest, Grupman ran an email marketing company, Happy Grasshopper, for ten years. As Dataquest’s Director of Operations, she was responsible for day-to-day financial operations, setting strategic priorities, and ultimately helped the company roll out more of its AI-related paths.
She credits Embarc Collective, Tampa’s startup hub, with providing her the “leadership training, the startup training, and coaching resources” necessary to prepare for the CEO seat.
Grupman’s CEO announcement wasn’t the only big hiring announcement for Dataquest recently. The EdTech platform announced that SF-based Anna Pershyna has been named as CTO and Casey Bates as Technical Program Director.
