Aaron Rasmussen is an American

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especiall ...

and

game design Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

er. He is a co-founder of

MasterClass Yanka Industries, Inc., doing business as MasterClass, is an American online education subscription platform on which students can access tutorials and lectures pre-recorded by experts in various fields. The concept for MasterClass was conceiv ...

, an online education platform, USMechatronics and

Harcos Laboratories Harcos LLC (Harcos Laboratories) are the makers of caffeinated novelty energy supplements and consumables. Harcos Laboratories operates out of Santa Monica, California. Company history Harcos Laboratories was formed in 2007 by Aaron Rasmussen a ...

and the founder of Outlier.org, a college level education platform that offers online college courses. In 2012, he and co-creator Michael T. Astolfi created and crowdfunded BlindSide, a survival/horror adventure game, which was a finalist at

IndieCade IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. IndieCade is known as "the video game industry's Sundance."Fritz, Ben"IndieCade, the video game industry's Sundance" Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009, accessed July 21, 2011 ...

2012. In 2005, while a student at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original c ...

, he invented a robotic

sentry gun A sentry gun is a weapon that is automatically aimed and fired at targets that are detected by sensors. The earliest functioning military sentry guns were the close-in weapon systems point-defense weapons, such as the Phalanx CIWS, used for dete ...

Early life

During a chemistry class in high school, Rasmussen was involved in a chemical explosion from a combination of

red phosphorus Elemental phosphorus can exist in several allotropes, the most common of which are white and red solids. Solid violet and black allotropes are also known. Gaseous phosphorus exists as diphosphorus and atomic phosphorus. White phosphorus White ...

and

potassium chlorate Potassium chlorate is a compound containing potassium, chlorine and oxygen, with the molecular formula KClO3. In its pure form, it is a white crystalline substance. After sodium chlorate, it is the second most common chlorate in industrial use. It ...

, which resulted in his being temporarily blind; this temporary blindness later inspired the creation of BlindSide.

Career

Rasmussen co-founded the online education platform

with David Rogier in 2012, and was responsible for its style and production processes. In 2018, Rasmussen founded Outlier.org, a university-level education platform that allows students to take online classes for college credit that are accredited by the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasmussen, Aaron Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American inventors American video game designers Boston University alumni American businesspeople