Bob Regan

Director of Education, bgC3

Bob Regan is the Director of Education at bgC3. Based in Seattle, Bob divides his time between building products, advising other education efforts and thinking about the future of education. Two of these projects include, the Big History Project and Graphite. The Big History Project is a set of free, online materials for teaching history that starts with the Big Bang and runs through to the future. Bringing together some of the leading intellectuals from around the world to create a series of video, text and interactive content and a group of creative, innovative teachers to create fantastic instructional content, Big History is an unique approach to teaching history and a unique approach to publishing. Graphite, developed in partnership with Common Sense Media, is a platform for rating educational technology products with a goal of helping teachers to find the best materials faster.

Bob began his career in the classroom as a teacher of math, French and technology in Chicago and New York City schools. Bob earned a Master’s in Elementary Education from Columbia University Teachers College where he focused his research on performance assessment. From the first days in the classroom, he expressed a deep passion for improving teaching and learning through the use of technology in schools. Bob went on to study education policy and technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before focusing on software development full time in 2000.

At Macromedia, he oversaw product development for the Education and Government markets. He was instrumental in leading Macromedia’s Accessibility efforts, pioneering techniques in accessible rich media and helping shape accessibility standards for people with disabilities around the globe. He was also heavily involved in building and shaping elearning standards and advancing the concept of the Rich Internet Application. In 2005, Bob joined Adobe with the acquisition of Macromedia where he became the Director of Worldwide Primary and Secondary Education in 2007.

As Director of Worldwide Primary and Secondary Education at Adobe Systems, Bob lead the marketing, product development and business strategy for schools. This included a period of time where Adobe developed a massive partnership with the state of New South Wales, Australia around a ubiquitous deployment of creative tools for students and teachers. With Bob’s leadership, Adobe saw sustained growth of the education business through an exceedingly challenging economic climate.

Bob went on to join Pearson Education in 2011 as Director of Product Development. While at Pearson, Bob lead development of a new, tablet-based product focused on Common Core standards and founded a product innovation studio focused on teacher publishing and project-based learning.