Osman Rashid is a

Pakistani American Pakistani Americans ( ur, ) are Americans who originate from Pakistan. The term may also refer to people who also hold a dual Pakistani and U.S. citizenship. Educational attainment level and household income are much higher in the Pakistani-Am ...

businessman in Silicon Valley, California. He has worked in enterprise software and consumer products. He was co-founder and CEO of three companies, an online textbook rental and student hub Chegg, remaining involved in it until early 2010 after growing the company from its inception in 2005. He was co-founder and CEO of

Kno Kno, Inc. was a software company that worked with publishers to offer digital textbooks and other educational materials. In November 2013, after raising nearly $100 million in venture capital, the company was acquired by Intel. The website was ...

, Inc., (acquired by Intel in November 2013) a digital education platform company.

, Inc. has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital,

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

, FLOODGATE and GSV Capital, while Chegg was funded by KPCB, IVP, Gabriel Ventures and others. He founded Galxyz Inc., in 2014, which was an educational software company focusing on creating next generation language arts and science enhancement products for Primary and Middle School students. Currently, Rashid is managing two companies. He is the CEO of Convo Corp, an enterprise software company that focuses on in-context collaboration that is used as a conversational tool at work. His most recent venture is SOAR Education, of which he is the co-founder and chairman. His aim is to spread this network throughout the country in pursuit of his passion to providing access to transformational education to the children of developing countries.

Personal life

Osman Rashid was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, did his early schooling in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

and finished Middle and High School from Islamabad,

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. He later moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

where he received his Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1993.

Professional career

Before founding Galxyz, Chegg and Kno, Rashid also started Gravitywell, an ASP based customer service solution, and worked at Venturian, a subsidiary of ATIO Corporation, where Osman served as VP of Business Development and Marketing. Between start-ups, Osman was Director of Business Development at Chordiant Software, Inc.

Awards

He was awarded Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award in 2009 for Consumer Products in Northern CA. He has also been recognized as

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

Impact 15 for 2012 and as Inc.’s Immigrant Edge: 9 Wildly Successful Entrepreneurs.

Philanthropy

Osman helped spearhead Chegg for Good program which plants a tree for every rental made, and to date has helped plant over 6 million trees. At

he developed a partnership with DonorsChoose.org to donate $1 of every sale made to help classrooms get school supplies. Osman is actively involved as a board member at ChildLife Foundation Pakistan which is bringing critical care and prevention of diseases to millions of young and needy children in Pakistan through a network of Urgent Care Clinics. He plans to set up an Endowment Fund to provide quality education to the financially disadvantaged, of which the platform is SOAR STEM Schools.

References

External links

Leadership page at Kno official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rashid, Osman American computer businesspeople Businesspeople in software University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering alumni Living people American expatriates in Pakistan 1970 births