Garron Hillaire is AERDF’s Director of Strategic Development, and he draws on a technical background and an equity perspective in K-12 education. He has over a decade of work in technology start-ups, and he has contributed to research on Universal Design for Learning for another decade. Most recently he led a project in Equitable Teaching Practices while a Post-doc at MIT in the Teaching Systems Lab – where he explored Digital Decolonization through supporting communities to lead research around issues of equity. He holds an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Technology Innovation and Education as well as Ph.D. in Educational Technology from the Open University as a part of the award winning Open World Learning program. In his work at AERDF, Garron has helped to establish a strategy for identification of new ideas and leaders for new programs referred to as the Community Garden of Inclusive Research & Development.