Joanna Smith is the CEO and founder of AllHere, an edtech company improving attendance and student success with mobile messaging powered by AI. Before founding AllHere, she taught middle school mathematics and served as Director of Family Engagement at a charter school in Boston. Joanna joins Mike Palmer to talk about the problem of low student attendance in K12 and how she and team are building AllHere to create a scalable way to begin to address it. What’s the best way to design an ecosystem that is available 24/7 and allows its teachers to focus on the highest-yield human activities? How has the pandemic impacted this problem? How did the team at AllHere listen to the community to respond quickly to needs around food insecurity? In what other ways might chatbots help improve educational experiences for students and families? We cover all of this and learn where Joanna gets inspiration outside of the world of education. We also hear her advice for educators and potential entrepreneurs in an engaging and informative conversation that kicks off the sixth season of Trending in Ed. If you’re enjoying what you’re hearing, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more great content like this!