Brighttrack: Free College Prep for Those Who Need It Most

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? From extracurricular planning to campus tours to nurturing a unique Capstone Project that cherry-on-tops the resumé of under-resourced high schoolers, BrightTrack is poised to even the playing field of college candidacy in all the best ways. Sturdy roots in crazy smart founders and a list of advisors that reads like a who’s who of pragmatic do-gooding doesn’t hurt, either. I cannot wait to see this husband-wife operation grow like gangbusters.

Learning Betterer

Full disclosure #1: Things with tag lines like "It's free. Completely free." generally make me nervous. Google's "Apps for Education" is a big exception. The core offering of Web-based email, calendar & documents for collaborative study is cool but not particularly novel. Partnerships with disruptive carriers like YTL that hack around infrastructure limitations and get schools in developing nations online with 4G high speed wireless via Chromebooks, on the other hand, certainly are.


Full disclosure #2: Yes, I work at Google. No, I had nothing to do with creating Apps for Education (sadly!) and have not vested interest in promoting it.