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Dmitry Stavisky

Full-stack startup advisor specializing in international expansion

Dmitry Stavisky is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive with extensive experience in EdTech, consumer products, and network infrastructure. He is currently the Co-Founder and COO of Buddy.ai, an AI-powered virtual English tutor for children.1

Career Highlights

EdTech Experience::

  • Co-founded Edwin.ai in 2016, focusing on helping students learn English as a foreign language.2
  • Served as CEO of Lingualeo, Eastern Europe's largest online English-learning service, growing student enrollment from 7 million to 13 million learners.

Tech Industry Roles::

  • VP of Product Management and later VP of International at Evernote, leading the company's global expansion efforts.2
  • Held technical leadership positions at SightPath, Inc. and Cisco Systems, specializing in Content Networking and CDN technologies.

Education and Achievements

  • Ph.D. in Geography from the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
  • MS in Meteorology, Atmospheric Physics, and Glaciology from Lomonosov Moscow State University.1
  • Author of six patents.

Current Role

As COO of Buddy.ai, Stavisky has helped the company expand internationally, with over 50% of revenue coming from outside North America within a year of joining.1 Buddy.ai offers a voice-based AI English tutor for kids, allowing children to practice spoken English by conversing with a virtual AI-powered cartoon character in a mobile app.1

Expertise

Stavisky is known for his skills in:

  • EdTech and language learning technologies
  • International business expansion
  • Product management and development
  • Entrepreneurship and startup leadership

His diverse background in both technical and business roles has positioned him as a valuable leader in the EdTech industry, particularly in the field of language learning and AI-powered educational tools.12

Highlights

Aug 8 · linkedin

This can be of interest to folks in EdTech and Education - an update on AI deployment in South Korean schools: https://lnkd.in/gx8jH-T9

TL;DR:

  • South Korea adoption of AI-powered digital textbooks, to be introduced in the new school year starting March 2025 for 5 million students from elementary to high school. The program is the first of its kind in the world. With these textbooks, student proficiency levels will be assessed via AI, with extra material provided to those who are lagging behind and higher-level content given to more advanced students. Virtual reality will be added to lessons as well.

  • LG has installed "future classrooms" in schools at 18 locations across South Korea since 2023, featuring digital whiteboards linked to its AI-equipped CLOi robots.

  • Samsung announced in June a new generative-AI-equipped display designed for schools. Teachers can give voice commands from anywhere in the room to the AI, which automatically transcribe or summarize lessons. Teachers are no longer stuck at the front of the classroom, allowing them to walk over to students for more one-on-one attention

  • Naver has developed an app for education and career counseling

  • Kakao has an app for contacting students' parents or guardians.

#AI #ML #EdTech

Jul 10 · linkedin

An interesting -- historic -- perspective on the AI alignment problem from the review of David Runciman's new book The Handover, https://lnkd.in/gqrEQDbQ: "Runciman argues that the rise of artificial, machine-like systems is not remotely novel - we are surrounded by [Thomas Hobbes's] leviathans. He argues that the state itself is an artificial (if not intelligent) ‘being’ whose goals are not the same as the humans which make up its constituent parts, and the reward function of the state is the ability to make decisions related to its survival and power, not to make optimal or correct decisions from our point of view. States can - and obviously do - provide benefits to the population, but survival remains its ultimate goal." "A related and more granular approach was developed by Richard Danzig, who argues that markets, bureaucracies and machines are all information processing systems which reduce reality into more narrow inputs, such as bits, prices and completed driving licence applications. Just as AI can seem alien and new to us, so can the behaviours of states and outcomes of markets." "When discussed in the context of the omnipotent power of the state leviathan, AI comes to sound like a similarly lumbering and unresponsive entity. However, personal assistants and AI systems rooted in and aligned to the interests of individuals could empower them in the face of the leviathans which currently surround us, helping to navigate the bureaucracy which characterises much of our interaction with the state (there is nothing ‘human’ about filling out forms any more than delegating it to agents we trust). They could act as cognitive shields, protecting both our stated and revealed preferences from external influence. They could provide the context, information and cognitive support to help us make better decisions as individuals." "The section on how close we came to destruction during the Cold War as a result of automated state systems and nuclear response plans (but were ultimately saved by human intuition), is effectively discussing an alignment problem." "The book argues that the state is the only social structure we have with a wide and long enough view of history to ensure AGI remains moored to our long-term interests (albeit one which comes with its own non-aligned aims and survival goals). So shouldn’t working on AI safety be a top priority for the state and society? Some modern leviathans seem to think so."

Related Questions

What inspired Dmitry Stavisky to transition from Evernote to EdTech?
How did Dmitry's experience at Lingualeo shape his approach at Edwin.ai?
What are some of the key challenges Dmitry faced while expanding Buddy.ai internationally?
How did the merger between Edwin.ai and MyBuddy.ai impact their product offerings?
What unique strategies did Dmitry implement at ClassDojo during his international expansion role?
Dmitry Stavisky
Dmitry Stavisky, photo 1
Dmitry Stavisky, photo 2
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Experience

Full-stack startup advisor, Self Employed (2021 - Present)
Head Of International at ClassDojo (2021 - 2022), Co-Founder and COO at Buddy.ai (2020 - 2021), Co-Founder and CEO at Edwin.ai (2016 - 2020), Advisor at Zenly, Inc. (2013 - 2017), CEO and Board Member at Tellus Institute (1991 - 1994)

Education

PhD in Geophysics and Numerical Climate Modeling from Institute of Geography, USSR Academy of Sciences, MS in Meteorology, Atmospheric Physics and Glaciology from Lomonosov Moscow State University (MS

Location

Menlo Park, California, United States