Our Story

Athena began with a realization: the field of education has no professional memory. Doctors have a shared knowledge base. Lawyers refer to hundreds of years of precedent. But teachers reinvent the wheel every day.  In the digital age, teachers should have a place not only to share and collaborate around our work — the questions, activities, and assignments we use year in and year out — but also a robust social network for teachers built around that shared knowledge. Teachers need a global department office: a place for both community and practice.

In 2013, seeing a gap in the online landscape for teacher sharing and collaboration, two teachers worked together to build a prototype, and in 2014,  support from the Robertson Foundation enabled a more robust iteration.  Soon thereafter, further support by the E. E. Ford Foundation -- matched by donations by Choate Rosemary Hall, Deerfield Academy, the Lawrenceville School and Phillips Academy -- enabled the development of the platform currently in use today. Now, the Athena platform is used by over 2,000 pilot teachers around the world.

The summer of 2017 marked the first Athena Summer Fellowship, which brought teachers together from around the United States for an online, asynchronous, six-week professional development experience. Summer Fellowships have grown and now include teachers from around the world and across a number of schools and organizations.

In 2018, Athena began its partnership with the College Board and the African Diaspora Consortium (ADC). The ADC developed an AP Seminar course that introduces students to the history of the global African Diaspora. Athena became the hub for over 100 teachers at 80 schools around the world to share resources, collaborate and engage in professional development.