Academic Connections was founded by a globally diverse team of educators: Kara Mac Donald, Noemi Castelo-Veigo, Huong Dang, Sayed Rafiqul Hasan Milon, and Jonas Vilaire, whose lived academic and professional experiences across Australia, Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, South Korea, Mexico, Spain, Vietnam and the United States,revealed shared challenges around access to affordable learning opportunities beyond their local community, both domestically and internationally.

​

Through their work separately and collaboratively, they witnessed how geography, finances, and institutional structures often limit students’ ability to participate in meaningful global education. United by a commitment to equity, language-inclusive pedagogy, and intercultural collaboration, they conducted pilot projects to connect educators for professional development opportunities and students for non-credit course-like opportunities.

​

From this, they founded Academic Connections to reimagine international learning through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), with a focus on English as a means of instruction and learning (i.e., English Medium Instruction (EMI)) situated around academic specific disciplines and/or general humanity topics. The objective is to foster the establishment of accessible pathways for academic mobility without mobility (i.e., travel and required associated funding) and to empower students and educators worldwide to engage in high-quality, connected learning regardless of circumstance.