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Betamore testing online education programs
Betamore is upping its education game.
The Federal Hill-based hybrid organization — part business incubator, part co-working space, part entrepreneurship education center — has paired up with one of its member companies to offer a variety of educational content such as videos and presentations.
The Betamore Online Academy, to launch in early June, is being developed by eThink Education, which serves its clients by helping them integrate and manage an open-source platform for organizing and sharing lesson materials and assignments.
eThink’s employees have greatly benefited from the existing Betamore Academy classes, CEO Brian Carlson said in a statement. The online academy will expand access to those same workshops, Carlson said.
Early offerings will include an email marketing course and several videos created by another organization that provides incubation and guidance serves to startups, Wasabi Ventures. Those videos will address topics such as the general startup ecosystem and early-stage financing, according to Betamore.
Betamore has been offering its in-person academy courses since late 2013.
“People were always asking if we offered anything online,” said Michele Farquharson, Betamore’s director of education. As the organization’s relationship with eThink grew, a partnership between the two made more and more sense, she said.
The online academy will help also help expand Betamore’s reach across the state, Farquharson said. “We’ve had interest from students in lots of different areas who can’t attend something at Betamore in Baltimore,” she said.
There’s a growing entrepreneurship culture on the Eastern Shore, for example, but driving to Baltimore to take classes may not be feasible for those people, she said.
Three classes are currently available online, but the plan is to have a much broader selection that mirrors the traditional academy offerings that focus on business, design and technology.
During the beta-testing phase, users will be able to view most of the academy’s online content for free once they register on the academy’s website, betamore.ethinksites.com. After a month or two of testing and gathering feedback, a fee structure will be set up to compensate the instructors who provide the content.
“We want to build this for the people who are going to use it, so their feedback will really drive what it’s going to look like,” Farquharson said. “It’s a testament to the community growing at Betamore that they’re willing to share their knowledge,”
