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Alex Prtichett is the Co-Founder and COO of Upswing, a company that works to improve student retention in colleges and universities. Prior to founding Upswing, Alex worked in higher education for 9 years, 5 months, where they gained extensive experience in online instruction and academic support. In their role at Upswing, Alex is responsible for overseeing the company's operations and working with clients to improve the personalization of academic support, predict student behavior and risks through data analytics, and scale to meet the specific needs of each institution. Over the past 5-10 years, higher education has broadly adopted online instruction, making it easy for students to learn remotely while expanding the amount and types of students that can access higher level learning. However, online academic support has fallen behind, often nonexistent in many colleges and universities. Because of this, the only opportunity that most students have to receive personalized support is through the school's learning center. Through the Upswing marketplace, institutions are able to provide their students with much needed online academic support, enabling online personal connections to take place between their students and the tutors and academic mentors on Upswing. As a student uses Upswing, we learn key information about each student that helps to improve future sessions. Things such as the student's learning style, where the student may need more focus, and areas in which the student excels contribute to personalizing each session. In addition, the educational institution gains access to the data results, helping them to make better informed decisions on where to allocate resources, how to improve instruction, and which students are most at risk of dropping out.

Alex Prtichett attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Kenan-Flagler Business School, where they earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management, Entrepreneurship, and Investments. They were involved in several extracurricular activities, including The Community Empowerment Fund, Los Caballeros, Circle K, and the Undergraduate Investment Club.