Photo courtesy of Jen Kelly, KeliComm
Terri Soutor, CEO of University of Minnesota startup FastBridge Learning, received an award last week recognizing her prowess in building a business around emerging technology.
At the 2017 Titans of Technology award ceremony, hosted by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, Soutor received an award for her leadership of FastBridge Learning, which was based on discoveries and innovations by Theodore Christ, Ph.D., educational psychology professor with the College of Education and Human Development. The company was launched with help from the U’s Office for Technology Commercialization in 2015 to provide assessment tools and training for teachers of preschool through 12th-grade students to track and improve their students’ learning.
Soutor, an education and software technology executive with more than 20 years of experience, aims to put evidence-based tools in educators’ hands to aid in teaching and learning. She has garnered a reputation for her strategic focus and collaborative approach to interacting with peers and associates. Under her leadership, FastBridge Learning’s revenue doubled in 2015 and grew another 48 percent in 2016.
“We were privileged to take an invention and incubate a proof-of-concept business under the guidance and support of the Office for Technology Commercialization at the University of Minnesota,” Soutor told the Business Journal. “From that incubation and early adopter process, we launched the business with a small, talented team; early adopter customers; and a revenue-generating, validated and developed technology. We [had] a very solid foundation from which to build our success.”
See the full story in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.