Hadi Partovi

Hadi Partovi is a tech entrepreneur, angel investor, and co-founder of Code.org, a nonprofit organization focused on expanding access to computer science education for students worldwide. With no computer science classes available at his school, Partovi and his twin brother Ali taught themselves to code at home on a Commodore 64. After immigrating to the United States, Partovi worked as a software engineer during summers to help pay his way through high school and college, ultimately graduating from Harvard University with a master's degree in computer science.

Partovi began his career at Microsoft, where he served as group program manager for Internet Explorer and later as general manager of the MSN Portal. In his role as general manager, he delivered the portal's first year of profit. As an entrepreneur, Partovi founded two startups: Tellme Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft, and iLike, which was acquired by NewsCorp. The iLike platform reached 10,000 users within its first thirteen hours and grew to 55 million users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions. Beyond his own ventures, Partovi has served as an early advisor or investor at many technology startups, including Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb, Uber, and SpaceX.

Partovi and his twin brother Ali launched the education nonprofit Code.org, which Partovi led as CEO for more than a decade and continues to serve as chairman of the board. Code.org has established computer science classes in the majority of U.S. schools, created the most widely used curriculum platform for K-12 computer science with over 100 million student accounts, and launched the global "Hour of Code" movement that has had 2 billion student engagements spanning every country in the world. The mission behind Code.org reflects Partovi's conviction that every young person deserves the opportunity to advance in life by learning computer science.

Partovi is recognized as a prominent voice in the global effort to make computer science a standard part of K-12 education. His speaking topics include artificial intelligence, computer science, education, entrepreneurship, STEM, and technology. He serves as CEO and an investor behind the expansion of Payam Music, a piano school using innovative teaching methods to engage children. He has delivered a TEDx talk titled "Computer Science is for Everyone" and has keynoted events such as the Governor's Summit on Innovative Education. Partovi has also addressed President Joe Biden and top CEOs and leaders at a Presidential Summit on computer science education. He serves on the board of directors of Axon and MNTN. Through his work at Code.org and his experience in the technology industry, Partovi offers expertise in computer science education, technology entrepreneurship, and STEM advocacy.