What do we really mean when we say college isn't for everyone?
83,518 views |
Alex Bernadotte |
TEDxBYU
• March 2018
Born in Haiti and raised in inner-city Boston, Alex assumed that getting into college was
going to be the most difficult part of her journey. She was wrong. The challenges she
experienced as a first-generation college student led to her lifelong commitment to smooth the path for other students, culminating in the founding of her national nonprofit Beyond 12. Experiencing first-hand the benefits of a college degree, Alex pushes us to examine what we really mean when we question whether college is for everyone.
Alex Bernadotte is the founder and CEO of Beyond 12, a high-tech, high-touch nonprofit that integrates personalized coaching and intelligent technology to increase the college graduation rates of underserved students. She has more than twenty years of executive management and strategic development experience in the nonprofit and private sectors. Alex has won numerous awards, including being named an Ashoka Fellow, one of the highest honors for social entrepreneurs in the world. In addition, Beyond 12 was recognized as one of the world’s ten most innovative companies in education by Fast Company, and the organization’s MyCoach mobile app won the 2016 Xammy Award for best social impact app. Alex received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and earned a master’s degree with a concentration in policy and organizational leadership from Stanford.