Neeraj Kapoor, former Chief Technology Officer for the Learn To Be Foundation, has assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer, effective March 1, 2010. Former Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Stephen Chen will still continue to play an active role in the organization. Known for his commitment and dedication to serving under-represented students, Kapoor has been with the Learn To Be Foundation since its inception. With an eye towards the future, Kapoor relishes the opportunity to partner with schools and communities in the southern California area and spread the mission of the Learn To Be Foundation.
Bruce Dos Santos, Director of Education and Outreach for the Foundation, said of him, “He possesses an intrinsic drive to make a positive impact in education. His passion for Learn To Be and what it stands for make him the kind of leader this organization needs. Neeraj has a concrete understanding of the mission of this organization and is always striving to improve the services for tutors and students.” While serving as Chief Technology Officer for the past two years, he was primarily responsible for overseeing the design, delivery and quality of Learn To Be online sessions. With his background in web-based programming, Kapoor hopes to invest more resources into making the Foundation’s technology more efficient for tutor and student use.
Kapoor believes that in-person tutoring can be seamlessly transitioned to an online medium and that a Learn To Be tutoring session can offer multiple ways of connecting to a student. However, the success of online tutoring is largely predicated on the strength of its web-based programming. Working hand in hand with Dos Santos, Kapoor has already implemented updates to the back-end of the Learn To Be website and virtual whiteboard, now allowing staff members to monitor sessions more efficiently, improve tutor accountability and edit the website in a more timely manner – changes that should, on the whole, improve the teaching process for tutors and students.
In his new role as Chief Executive Officer, Kapoor intends to lead the Foundation through an intensive and thorough evaluation. He noted that he is particularly interested in assessing the impact of Learn To Be’s free online tutoring services and whether students involved are, indeed, seeing an improvement in academic achievement. In addition, Kapoor has started a campaign to launch Learn To Be tutoring services in inner-city schools across the greater Los Angeles area. His firm belief in ensuring that the Foundation serve students in these areas stems from his personal experiences, nearly two years ago, tutoring high school students during college. Many lacked fundamental knowledge in math and science and as a student in the sciences, he realized that students were not “being required to purposefully learn [this] material.” Hundreds of tutoring sessions later, Kapoor continues to expound the relevance of math and science to academic success and support students in their drive to achieve personal goals.
