Akili Lee

Akili Lee is a social entrepreneur who has spent 14 years creating human-centered and technology empowered systems that provide equitable access to opportunity.

He is the co-founder of the Digital Youth Network (DYN), an organization that addresses the urgent need to redesign learning by cultivating equity in our systems and agency in the lives of young people. Akili has been critical in defining DYN’s model of leveraging school, community, and online spaces to create new pathways to success for young people. Within DYN, Akili co-directed the Chicago City of Learning, a first of its kind citywide initiative that connects youth to thousands of local and online learning opportunities and supports them to develop rich portfolios along the way.

Akili has led the design and development of two ground-breaking technology platforms that power the DYN learning systems. He is the creator of iRemix, one of the earliest youth-focused social learning networks designed for both formal and informal education environments. He is also the creator of the L3 Platform, the technology powering the Chicago City of Learning as well the national scale up of the Cities of Learning model adopted in a number of large and mid-sized cities including Los Angeles and Dallas. Akili is the co-founder and CEO of Remix Learning, a social enterprise that provides its learning platform to various youth and adult serving institutions.

Akili earned his bachelor’s degree in Computing and Information Systems from Northwestern University and a master’s in Business Information Technology from DePaul University.