Anant Agarwal

Anant Agarwal is Chief Academic Officer of 2U, founder of edX, and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. Prior to becoming Chief Academic Officer, Agarwal served as 2U’s Chief Platform Officer.Since launching edX in 2012, Agarwal has guided the organization’s vision to expand access to high-quality education for everyone, everywhere. Today at 2U, he leverages his expertise in building powerful online learning platforms to drive edX’s growth as one of the world’s most comprehensive free-to-degree online learning marketplaces.As the first educator to teach an edX course on circuits and electronics from MIT, Agarwal drew 155,000 students from 162 countries. He remains a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT today. Previously, he served as the director of CSAIL, MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.Agarwal is a successful serial entrepreneur, having co-founded several companies including Tilera Corporation, which created the Tile multicore processor, and Virtual Machine Works. He has received multiple accolades over the years for his pursuit of great educational innovation. He won the Maurice Wilkes prize for computer architecture and MIT's Smullin and Jamieson prizes for teaching. He is also the 2016 recipient of the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize for Higher Education, which recognized his work in advancing the MOOC movement. Additionally, Agarwal is a recipient of the Padma Shri Award from th