A behind-the-scenes force in edtech, Crawford has spent decades building ecosystems that work—not just for companies, but for classrooms.
INTERVIEW | by Victor Rivero
Liz Crawford is a dynamic edtech leader whose career began in the classroom, teaching first-grade English language learners—an experience that grounded her lifelong commitment to empowering educators and improving student outcomes through technology. That commitment has propelled her across the education and tech sectors, where she has become known for her rare ability to build powerful ecosystems, scale strategic partnerships, and align cross-functional teams to deliver real impact in learning.
‘I enjoy bringing structure to ambiguity and turning ideas into tangible programs and strategies that move business and partnerships forward.’
At Gateway, HP, and Intel, Liz designed and led integrated marketing, strategy, and partnership initiatives that connected education leaders with transformative technology. She created HP’s U.S. education marketing strategy, launched educator communities, chaired advisory councils, and even brought HP into NBC’s School Pride to promote school transformation nationwide. At Intel, she authored key edtech strategy guides, built global go-to-market campaigns, led customer advocacy programs, and grew the brand’s social presence to hundreds of thousands of followers—all while cultivating global partnerships that drove lasting adoption and impact in schools.
At Apple, Liz conceived and launched the company’s global education partner ecosystem, scaling it from early concept to international growth. She built deep, strategic alliances that brought Apple technology into classrooms worldwide, accelerating adoption across partner platforms and enabling solution-selling at scale.
At Instructure, Liz led one of the largest and most impactful partner programs in education, managing relationships with over 900 SaaS partners, including tech giants like Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Zoom. Her work integrated third-party tools into the Canvas LMS ecosystem used by over 7,000 customers, delivering revenue growth and enhancing learning experiences globally.
Now at Kahoot!, Liz continues to lead at the cutting edge of edtech, championing playful, purpose-driven learning. Across every role, her throughline is clear: Liz Crawford is a visionary connector who builds bridges between education and innovation—always with educators, students, and long-term impact at the center.
You’ve had a storied career in edtech—what prompted you to get involved in the field way back when in the first place? And why edtech?
I’m from a family of educators who cared about providing opportunities for children in our community. After a few years of working in marketing, I had the opportunity to team-teach with a veteran teacher in a Title 1 first-grade class in California and learned how hard and fulfilling teaching is first hand. The students tugged at my heart every day. While teaching, I was working on my credential simultaneously. The school couldn’t guarantee a position for the following school year because my credential wasn’t yet complete, so I went back to marketing and shortly thereafter, applied for an Education Marketing Manager role at Gateway Computers, where I started my career in edtech. I quickly developed a passion for how technology enhances learning experiences and helps prepare students with tech and higher order thinking skills for their futures. Throughout the years, I’ve witnessed the benefits of education technology and how it can unlock the magic of learning.
‘Throughout the years, I’ve witnessed the benefits of education technology and how it can unlock the magic of learning.’
One of my first-grade students skipped recess every day to stay in the classroom and use a digital ESL reading program to read Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed over and over again and I saw the light in his eyes flip on as he learned to read. Here we are 20 years later!
What highlight(s) from your past inform your current approach?
I’ve had some wonderful career opportunities and each has been a stepping stone to the next, providing experiences across marketing, partnerships, sales enablement, strategy, and product marketing. As I reflect, I enjoy bringing structure to ambiguity and turning ideas into tangible programs and strategies that move business and partnerships forward.
From building and executing the K-12 U.S. marketing plan and creating a partner marketing program at HP; to building Intel Education’s global brand ambassador program and learning how edtech is deployed in emerging markets around the world; to launching Apple’s education partner program from an early concept and scaling it into a global program; and then leading a large edtech partner ecosystem for Instructure, it has been a rewarding journey. These opportunities gave me a breadth of experience and led to the next role.
And now at Kahoot!, I’m championing another world-class brand and bringing industry expertise to develop new business opportunities and working with our customers to help district leaders and educators impact learning outcomes and student engagement with Kahoot!
Congratulations on the new role! Tell me about why you’re excited, how you fit so well, what you’re looking forward to, some highlights with Kahoot! thus far, and what’s ahead.
I first got to know Kahoot! in 2018 when launching Apple’s partner program. Kahoot! was one of my first partners in the launch cohort because of our awesome apps for iPad and iPhone. Over the years, I’ve watched the product transform from a playful engagement tool into a robust learning platform for schools and districts used by over 8 million educators to assess learning progress, differentiate experiences for students of all abilities, and ultimately impact learning outcomes. There are a lot of aspects I’m excited about, specifically the speed of innovation to deliver features that support teachers and excite students and the deep library of research and awards that shows Kahoot! increases student grades by a letter grade, reduces anxiety and stress with test taking, improves knowledge retention, and motivates students.
Kahoot! has launched incredible AI features to support teachers and help them save time when creating formative assessments or introducing new lessons or topics in an engaging way with Kahoot!. Teachers can import their slides, scan handwritten notes, scan PDFs, or type in a topic and the Kahoot! AI Generator automatically creates kahoots and slides from the teacher’s content. Our educator customers say it saves them 45-60 minutes or more when creating lessons and assessments.
The brand love for Kahoot! is strong! Every customer I’ve spoken to says they and their students love Kahoot! and that’s a great statement to hear in every conversation.
In this new role, I’m looking forward to working with education leaders and amplifying the evolution of Kahoot! for schools and districts by informing strategy, developing and growing partnerships, and designing go-to-market approaches. There is so much to share with the edtech industry on how the product continues to evolve – AI tools to support teachers, accessibility features, reporting and analytics, ecosystem integrations, efficacy research, ready-to-use kahoots from millions of educators and brands that students love.
‘There is so much to share with the edtech industry on how the product continues to evolve – AI tools to support teachers, accessibility features, reporting and analytics, ecosystem integrations, efficacy research…’
What is your take on the current state of education today? What is technology’s role in this? Your thoughts on AI’s impact?
The current state of education presents significant opportunities and substantial challenges. As a sector, education is facing teacher shortages, chronic absenteeism, budget cuts, leadership changes, new policies, old policies, even more responsibility allocated to states and local education agencies, and school and student safety. Many schools and educators still face gaps in essential resources and support for students.
However, education and edtech have always faced change and continue to evolve, innovate, and keep moving forward. Access to technology is a great equalizer for students, but it also depends on how learning is designed and delivered through technology that makes the difference. Teachers are still the heroes in the classroom and our role is to support them in discovering and implementing technology that delivers the biggest impact on student outcomes.
Districts, schools, and teachers have important decisions to make on how they will spend their time and budgets in the coming school year, and it’s more important than ever to consider affordable edtech that delivers improved student outcomes and provides equitable and inclusive access for all students.
AI has revolutionized the technology industry. We have to embrace it, it’s here to stay and students are already using it. District and school leaders and the edtech industry as a whole are thinking carefully about how AI can and should be used by students and teachers, how to transform existing curriculum and content, guidelines on how and when to use AI, thoughtful prompting, protecting students and data and guidelines to steer us in the right direction.
Anything else you care to add or emphasize concerning the future of learning, or anything else we didn’t cover?
Technology can help educators create equitable learning experiences that create a sense of belonging and build collaboration, communication, tolerance and understanding, skills and attributes students will take with them into their futures. The future of learning depends on educators who continue to be inspired to design and foster an inclusive, accessible environment with the right technology to support them in a more scalable way.
In conclusion, it’s been a pleasure working in edtech for two decades. What a special and unique industry, full of passionate people who care about educators and students and want only the best authentic outcomes. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story.
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Victor Rivero is the Editor-in-Chief of EdTech Digest. Write to: victor@edtechdigest.com
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Original Article Published at Edtech Digest
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