Meet Our Keynote Speakers
Dr. Barbara Kurshan, Senior Innovation Advisor and President, Penn GSE and Educorp Consultants Corporation
Dr. Barbara Kurshan supports purpose-driven companies & develops innovative products. She is the Senior Innovation Advisor at PennGSE where she builds & advises innovation ecosystems. As the President of ECC, she provides consulting on digital transformation, entrepreneurship, & innovation. As the past Executive Director of Curriki, she helped to build one of the most innovative open-source education communities. Dr. Kurshan has previously served as the Co-CEO of Core Learning, an education investment fund, and the Chief Academic Officer of bigchalk. She was on the board of APEI & invests and advises edtech companies. She is the author of several books, articles, and blogs for Forbes.com. Her book, InnovateHERs – Why Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurial Women Rise to the Top is on Amazon. She was recognized for her work as IT Innovator of the Year by IBIT & Globant's Women that Build Board Executive Awardee.
A-ATP Opening Keynote: Disrupt or Be Disrupted - Assessment in the Age of AI
The traditional evaluation model is dead. As Artificial Intelligence tears through global learning markets, we aren't just updating software—we are rewriting the rules of human evaluation. This provocative keynote is a wake-up call: AI is not merely an automation tool, but a double-edged engine for continuous, radical innovation.
True innovation means reinventing what and how we measure. An entrepreneurial mindset, supercharged by AI, shifts our industry from defensive gatekeeping to an offensive strategy of talent discovery. By leveraging data, we can supercharge talent mobility, revolutionize upskilling, expand student growth, and build adaptive learning experiences that reflect real-world capability.
This keynote is a blueprint for bold leadership. If you are content with incremental changes, you will be overtaken. This presentation will push you to think like an entrepreneur, disrupt your own best practices, and harness the compounding power of innovation to pioneer the next frontier of assessment.
Jenny Zapf, PhD., Senior Fellow and Director of Education Entrepreneurship, GSE and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
Jenny Zapf, PhD., is a Senior Fellow and the Founding Director of the world's first MSEd. and MSEd.-MBA in Education Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Education and the Wharton School. Dr. Zapf also serves as Co-Founder and Faculty Director of Penn's Global Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and AI certificate, plus Founder and Managing Director of the Global Impact Fellowship and Prize.
As a global leader in education innovation, she has trained thousands of education, business, and industry professionals to build, test, manage, and scale diverse educational models including schools, programs, services, and products. Over the last decade, she has advised business and institutional leaders on entrepreneurial projects in more than 30 countries. Drawing on experience in academic leadership, non-profit management, research, evaluation, and policy, she advances equity by developing brand-new learning models and pathways.
Her teaching covers Entrepreneurial Universities, Education Innovation Ecosystems, EdTech Ventures, and entrepreneurial mindsets. Her signature course applies lean startup and design thinking to validate educational solutions, while her research investigates how to design, cultivate, measure, and scale entrepreneurial thinking across global education systems. She routinely delivers keynote addresses worldwide on innovation and the future of learning.
A-ATP Closing Keynote: Building the Future through Entrepreneurial Innovation
In a rapidly changing world shaped by AI, digital transformation, and evolving workforce demands, entrepreneurial innovation is no longer optional—it is a leadership imperative. As the closing keynote of A-ATP 2026, this session will inspire participants to rethink how innovation can drive the future of education, assessment, and workforce development. Through practical insights and compelling examples, the speaker will explore how leaders can foster entrepreneurial mindsets, unlock new opportunities, and build collaborative ecosystems that empower individuals and organizations to thrive in an era of continuous change. This session will leave attendees with fresh perspectives and renewed inspiration to shape the future with confidence.