Mr. Luis E Garcia de Brigard is Founder & Managing Partner at Appian Education Ventures. He previously served as Deputy Minister of Education of Colombia where he led efforts to reform the teaching profession, create effective measures of learning and promote accountability. Before joining the Ministry, Mr. Garcia de Brigard was an educational entrepreneur who started and scaled educational companies across the Americas. He is also a committed social entrepreneur and has advanced the cause of educational opportunity in his country by co-founding Enseña por Colombia (partner of the Teach for All Network) and Volunteers Colombia (partner of Harvard University’s WorldTeach). Mr. Garcia de Brigard earned his law degree from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, completed an exchange program in politics and economics at the University of Notre Dame and received his Master of Education from Harvard University. He has served as Chairman of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional and ICFES in Colombia and has been a member of numerous boards of educational organizations.