Getting to Know
Mike Belcher

HP Director of EdTech Innovation

About Mike Belcher
Currently the Director of EdTech Innovation for HP US SLED team. Mike began his HP career in 2007, helping build and bring to market Education Solutions, including a portfolio of products, services, partners and learning resources for the Americas region, focused on readying US students for the Industry 4.0 economy through innovative uses of technology like XR, Immersive Computing, Additive 3D Printing and A.I. Mike has dedicated his career to helping schools leverage technology and innovative instructional strategies to revolutionize their teaching and learning strategies and help move from Teacher-centric to Student-centered learning.

What is the best advice you have received in your career?
Everyone you’ll meet is either a “lover” or a “teacher” and the best will be both. The guidance was to learn something from everyone you encounter. Learn from the good and the not so good and strive to be both a lover and a teacher. This bit of advice came from my Dad and took me a while to fully understand the depth, simplicity and importance of this approach toward life. I thank my Dad for that.

"Challenges in how we deliver education are straining us all, but we cannot waste this opportunity to improve our instructional strategies or take our eyes off providing the skills that will be needed and in-demand in this next economy."

What is the most important thing you would like us to know about you?
I am incredibly curious and always looking to learn about something new or in more depth. My Mother was an auto-didact and became a VP with the largest Bank in the world at that time. She never went to college, but taught herself and me about computers in the very early 80’s. I’ve been blessed to have that love of learning instilled in me my whole life.

What is the last book you read?
Bryan Alexanders’ Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. I love how Bryan makes the complex easy to understand and his focus and insights on the Social, Economic and Academic challenges and changes facing us are absolutely daunting and possible. But we’ll need to be open to making mistakes, willing to try new things and fail forward. Well worth reading for anyone interested in Educational Futures.

Why do you do what you do?
I’ve always been drawn to technology and understanding how to leverage it to improve how we do everything. Combining technology with the love of learning, just made sense and I set out to build my career in figuring out how technology and education could intersect in new ways to advance how we teach and how we learn.

Follow Mike Belcher at @cmikebelcher on Twitter.

This content was created by and paid for by HP. The editorial staff of The Chronicle had no role in its preparation.