L-R: Jordan Matter, Michelle Khare, and Samir Chaudry are advisors in Bedford, a new educational platform for creators.
Matter: Frank Micelotta/Disney via Getty Images; Khare, Chaudry: JP Yim/Getty Images for The Asian American Foundation (TAAF)
Top YouTubers are throwing their support behind a new school to train the next generation of creators.Jordan Matter, Michelle Khare, and Samir Chaudry are among the advisors for Bedford, which bills itself as an AI-enabled learning platform built on mentoring and mastery of skills, Business Insider exclusively learned.Bedford was cofounded by educational entrepreneur Ben Newton and investment firm Strand Equity, whose cofounder, Seth Rodsky, launched Hello Sunshine with Reese Witherspoon in 2016. Heights is the lead investor. Bedford is targeting people at all professional levels and influence, and companies that want to make their teams more digitally visible.Its name comes from the word for river crossing, as Bedford sees itself as helping people surmount the challenges of creatordom."Creator economy skills, like public speaking, is something that is very hard to get started," said Newton, who's also the school's CEO. "And so we see an opportunity to help students cross that river or those rapids and develop a sustainable practice."Students won't actually get personally mentored by the likes of Grant or Khare. Instead, instruction will be done by professional coaches. For an annual tuition of $3,750, they'll take a six-week course where they'll spend two to four hours a week learning to build a content plan, evaluate metrics, and translate engagement into revenue.Bedford, which is unaccredited, aims to enroll 100 students when the school opens widely in July, with a goal of growing to 200 by the fall.
