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Elijah Mayfield – LightSide Labs

By Michael on September 28, 2015

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Elijah Mayfield is the founder and currently the CEO of LightSideLabs. LightSide offers an automated essay scoring service, which allows students to receive computer-generated feedback on their writing.

Mayfield completed his master’s degree in language technology at Carnegie Mellon in 2011 and is currently completing a PhD there  in language and information technology. LightSide was founded in 2013, and other than Mayfield, the company’s website lists two cofounders: David Adamson and Rajiv Enan. Adamson is also a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon and has worked as a teacher, while Enan has a previous background in ventures and is responsible for sales. Mayfield has published a number of academic articles in the field of language and technology.

The company seems to have been fairly successful in a short amount of time because it was acquired the following year (in October, 2014) by Turnitin, for an undisclosed amount of money. While the acquisition by Turnitin happened in October, a few months earlier, in June, Turnitin’s holding company, iParadigms, was acquired by Insight Venture Partners (a private equity company) and GIC (a sovereign wealth fund owned by the government of Singapore).

In short, Mayfield used his educational experience at CMU and his own skills to quickly found and then sell a new venture. A bit of luck and timing is at play here—Mayfield founded the venture just before Turnitin had the cash to make a purchase. Turnitin, a company that has long offer plagiarism-detection service, is now able to offer automated essay feedback to clients.

Mayfield’s personal website has not been updated in a couple of years, so it doesn’t offer any hints about his plans and whether he will stay at LightSide in the near term or long term. Reporting by EdSurge indicates that LightSide will continue to operate its own offices in Philadelphia. I’m not sure what to think of that because the company’s Twitter feed has not been updated since the Turnitin acquisition. The same goes for its Facebook page. Turnitin’s website now offers the Turnitin Scoring Engine, which is likely the technology integrated from LightSide. I wouldn’t be surprised if LightSide’s online presences such as its website and social media accounts close in the near future, given that Turnitin seems to want to deeply integrate the LightSide technologies. Whether LightSide really will continue to operate a separate office in the long term seems unclear.

If you’d like to learn a bit more about AES, stay tuned; I’m writing a market analysis about this sector for Assignment#1.

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4 Oct Posted on Elijah Mayfield – LightSide Labs

One year between start-up and acquisition--great accomplishment for Elijah Mayfield. He was in the right place at the right time...with the right product, I was a little disappointed to see that the original student-centered software had been adapted or integrated into the "scoring engine" to assist instructors in marking papers . However, helping teachers complete their more tedious tasks is always going to be popular, and likely a much more lucrative market.

4 Oct
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Mary S @grey44

One year between start-up and acquisition--great accomplishment for Elijah Mayfield. He was in the right place at the right time...with the right product, I was a little disappointed to see that the original student-centered software had been adapted or integrated into the "scoring engine" to assist instructors in marking papers . However, helping teachers complete their more tedious tasks is always going to be popular, and likely a much more lucrative market.

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29 Sep Posted on Elijah Mayfield – LightSide Labs

Plagiarism has been around for a very long time. Many types of end users require help when they write-even when creating blog posts, there is software available to help the user to change the way the post reads. In terms of competition, none were cited. The fact that it was quickly taken over, perhaps, LightsideLabs, had luck and foresight on their side. It will be interesting to see where the growth for Turnitin will be. Whether they expand into other markets outside of term papers. If they can increase their market, their worth will definitely increase.

29 Sep
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roma kohutiak @romak

Plagiarism has been around for a very long time. Many types of end users require help when they write-even when creating blog posts, there is software available to help the user to change the way the post reads. In terms of competition, none were cited. The fact that it was quickly taken over, perhaps, LightsideLabs, had luck and foresight on their side. It will be interesting to see where the growth for Turnitin will be. Whether they expand into other markets outside of term papers. If they can increase their market, their worth will definitely increase.

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28 Sep Posted on Elijah Mayfield – LightSide Labs

Another brilliant mind effectively and productively changing the world. Elijah is a good example of what happens when you stick to your academic plan, attend a prestigious Northeast American university, have great mentorship in your research and networking opportunities. And publish as often as possible. Not only did he found a technology startup, his company was acquired by the right partner - Turnitin. Natural language processing and data mining are huge areas right now with much work being done in Big Data. I see that Elijah was awarded an enviable IBM research fellowship and also worked at the IMB Watson labs. Elijah is now featured on the Management page of TurnitIn: http://turnitin.com/en_us/about-us/management-team/elijah-mayfield

28 Sep
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Kate L. @katehand

Another brilliant mind effectively and productively changing the world. Elijah is a good example of what happens when you stick to your academic plan, attend a prestigious Northeast American university, have great mentorship in your research and networking opportunities. And publish as often as possible. Not only did he found a technology startup, his company was acquired by the right partner - Turnitin. Natural language processing and data mining are huge areas right now with much work being done in Big Data. I see that Elijah was awarded an enviable IBM research fellowship and also worked at the IMB Watson labs. Elijah is now featured on the Management page of TurnitIn: http://turnitin.com/en_us/about-us/management-team/elijah-mayfield

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