As a partner at Academic Business Advisors, Mitch works with educators, policy makers, thought leaders, and EdTech providers to get best educational practices into schools and used by students and teachers. Mitch has overseen development of systems, content, curriculum, and courses across the spectrum of K-12, postsecondary, corporate training, and job readiness and helped many organizations expand in both K-12 and Higher Education.
Mitch co-authored the SIIA guide to the Postsecondary Market and is a national speaker at conferences on education technology in both K12 and higher education. He writes the PilotED Blog and was cochair of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) Education Division.
In 2014, Mitch cofounded Edchat Interactive with Tom Whitby and Steve Anderson, a service to share best practices among educators through live online interactive events. Edchat Interactive provides a platform for thought leaders to highly engage with educators and administrators.
In January 2015, Mitch cofounded the nonprofit Games4Ed with Larry Cocco, to facilitate collaborations between educators, researchers, game developers, publishers and policy makers to further the use of games and other immersive strategies in schools.
Two recent articles by Mitch are How Games Promote Learning in the Education Week blog, and The Psychology Behind Why Gaming Helps Students Learn in K-12 Tech Decisions.
Mitch was the founder, President, and CEO of Personal Computer Learning Centers of America, Inc, from 1981 through 1999. Under Mitch’s guidance, the company developed methods for creating training materials, training trainers, developing course developers, and teaching technical writing, growing the business to eight offices, and 130 employees. Mitch was subsequently Chief Technical Officer, College Pilot.com, 2000-2004 where he successfully designed, developed, launched, and managed an online learning management system and SAT preparation course.
Farimah along with business partner, Mitch Weisburgh, formed the education consultancy business, Academic Business Advisors, in 2004.
Farimah’s market analysis, product development guidance, and market introduction planning experience and successes are broad and deep in K-12, college, and for profit higher education. She has worked in face-to-face sales all over the country at the local, district, state, and national levels.
As an Active member of SETDA, CoSN, SIIA, as well as other industry associations Farimah is often called upon to develop or moderate conference sessions. She has addressed audiences on the subject of technology in the education industry at such national and international events as the Education Industry Association, the Bank of Montreal “Back to School” conference, and Enterprise Ireland. In addition Farimah is on the Board of Directors of ClassLink Technologies, on the editorial board of Learning Times, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Education, and co-chairs the Board of the Post-secondary group within Education Division of the SIIA, as well as being a past chair of the Education Board. Farimah has received multiple accolades including, the Pinnacle Award from Quality Education Data for her support of newcomers to Education Marketing, a Member Impact Award from SIIA and named a CoSN Volunteer of the Year.
Farimah began her career in the education industry at Pearson Education Distance Learning, heading the marketing team that put Pearson solidly in the forefront of online education. From videodisc reference and marketing and sales success with the then technologically state of the art product, The Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century, to the beginning of significant development of online and cloud-based courseware, Farimah understands the market forces and guides her employers and clients through the unpredictable waters.