EdTech Startup Showcase

Eric Makelky: Welcome today to today's episode of the EdTech Startup Showcase. This is your host, Eric Mikielski. Every school starts with someone deciding that the ones that already exist aren't good enough. Today, I'm talking to the two people who decided that for Cresconova. Welcome to the show, Barbara and Yen

Yen: Hi, Eric. Thanks for having us

Barbara: Thank you for this really, great opportunity to explain, ourselves and what we're trying to do

Eric Makelky: Yes. Excit- excited to have you on today's episode. we've got to meet your team at Cresconova, both Global and Labs, and so I'm excited to have the founders of the school, talk a little bit about their vision, in both founding and looking forward for Cresconova. And so what I wanted to start with, Yen and Barbara, what was the actual moment you decided your kids and other kids like them needed something that didn't exist yet?

Yen: Yeah, I think the moment happened when our firstborn, our son, was about close to one year old. he was just very active and very precocious. When he doesn't get his curiosity satisfied, it's just a, a very, very much a handful. We try to think about all kind of, education system that's available. and Barbara was researching a lot into different schools. We hire people to do research for us, and we also do investment ourself. When we look at the world in the future, we are like, that's a very different world from the world that, school is preparing the kids today. and at that time it was, 2016, 2017. it was not the AI age yet. Sounds like a century ago. but technology, you could see that the way the technology was coming together, the convergence of various different technology. we started investing in a lot of, what we call smart technology or analytics technology, which is the precursor to like the AI today. and then you see the, the technology was improving at a compounding rate, and it's not hard to imagine that the world in the future will be very, very different. So I think both driven by the how precocious, our firstborn was, and our desire to look at a first principle of what learning is, what education is, and then ask ourself, what can we do if we have the opportunity to start fresh in the green field? what would we construct the learning experience of our child from the bottom up? At that time, he was not even one, so there's no need to send him to school yet. But we did try to look ahead, not in the format of a school, but in a journey of learning. so started, reading about many different books. I think she can talk about that. but for us is that moment where we start wondering to ourself, what are the first principles of learning for a child building or her personality, character, skills, vision for the future, et cetera. So there was that, when he was probably about 11, 10, 11 months old.

Eric Makelky: Yeah. I love how you were thinking about it when your child was just that age. I can tell you at 10 or 11 months as a father, I was still in the keeping them alive, keeping them fed stage. I wasn't focused on their education yet. but Barbara, can you tell us a little bit about as, as you and Yen were thinking about future education for your firstborn, what made you think that it was worth coming up with a new way o- of building educational opportunities as opposed to finding existing ones for your child?

Barbara: we did a really comprehensive analysis all the good schools in, in our-- the country where we were residing, I didn't see anything that was close to what I thought would be good for someone like our son that value creativity, individualized pace or learning. So then I go and read the big, educational ideas and theories.

I read, Maria Montessori's own writing. I read about different kinds of education philosophy. And then I realized that the current school system was a product post-World War II to a large amount of educated workforce to fulfill the promise of industrialization. It was starting already before World War II, to be honest. But then you accelerate after World War II, and, and the idea is to have efficient, standardized education that can produce large amount of educated population scaled, scaly. And so thought, okay, so the idea of current school system was not on individual self-actualization. was not on creativity. It was based on efficiency. It was based on a societal need. So what if we start from the scratch board and said, if based on what the students need, what each child need, would that look like? And then I couldn't, we couldn't find anything that, that looked like that. And so that's why we think maybe we could do something different, it wasn't really based on a, a very fantastic education philosophy that we have. The current system is a product of pragmatism, and, and then a product of, of efficiency, and it's also a product that you need the population to be at a minimum reaching this level of literacy, capability and da, da, da.

And so you tend to have a medium floor and a low ceiling. so that's where you're sandwiched, and everyone become very uniformed. And then some school then prioritize getting smarter student, higher score, but that's still a very narrow benchmark. And so I think that's where when we study the whole landscape, the philosophy that came, that shaped the education system and the practical need of the society as history evolve, we see that there is a gap into what truly could be meeting the children's own needs and let them have flourished on a personalized basis.

and, and that's why we think we could do something different.

Eric Makelky: Yeah. Oh

Yen: that, I think we have a few guiding principle in that sense. we are not, education expert, we were not teachers. but I can say that we are products of the education system. we grew up in different education system. We've been through many different edu-education system. so we had the luxury, unlike someone who run education system, we had the luxury to start from the first principle and ask ourself, without any, burden of the legacy system, can we do from scratch, right? What can we do from the ground up? and also we believe that it shouldn't just serve our child or, our...

At that time we have one, but our children, it's not just for them, it's for thinking about how do we have a new way of learning, and personalize at scale. think there are a few things that we believe the current school system didn't really, can't really, couldn't really deliver something that we hold very dearly.

I think Barbara mentioned one, which is personalization. And so for different child, their needs are very different. How do you personalize that? you can easily personalize that by just, them one teacher and then each student had one teacher, but you can't do that at scale. and also you have a global problem because schools are only limited by the parameter that you can serve. You can have a great school, but if you are 10 miles away from a, a child, that school is not particularly useful for that child, right? And knowledge in, in today's day and age, it's just one click away from all the knowledge in the world, right? with large language model, you really can just one click and one prompt away from tremendous amount of knowledge that has spent, human has spent thousands and thousands of years trying to accumulate. So with our vision about the first principle of learning and also seeing what technology is doing to our society and what would that society look like in the future, I think combining two together, that we felt that we had a vantage point of creating something that would be very different and something that we are not thinking about, we were not thinking about competing with the school.

We're just thinking about what can we create that, in our view, can represent both our belief in the first principle of learning as well as what the future will look like, and hence the system can thrive in the future.

Eric Makelky: Yeah, and I have a follow-up for you, Barbara and Yen. One- once you decidedthat's what you wanted to build and make available to other families, w- why did you decide to start with elementary age children?

Yen: I think the, the main reason is because at elementary age, generally, rightly or wrongly, parents are more open-minded. they are not being into that specific route of deciding that their kids are gonna be lawyers or doctors or go into particular high school or, or university. I think they're generally more open-minded. they're more willing to experiment with different things, try out different things. and also it's easier to start the, the, the learning journey because the kids are still relatively a blank, piece of paper, and their inclination, et cetera, has not been shaped that much by the society yet. So by having a more personalized education at that level, we hope that the kids can get the most out of it rather than you try to personalize at the later level. We are a product of the different path that we walk, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.

we try to give the best probability for the kids to be the best version of themselves, like what Barbara say, self-actualization. that's our guiding principle, that we all have our unique blueprint. How do we self-actualize that? The earlier you can start the process, the better. And also, I think we underestimate kids. are a lot more able to decide what they like and what they want, at a younger age than, than we give them the credit for or give them the freedom to. As long as we are in a, with a r- with a good guardrails and with, the, the choices that we can give them in a personalized way, I think that starting young might reap us the most benefit.

Eric Makelky: Yep

Barbara: I also agree with Yen that's where you are most moldable. where you're most receptive to new ideas. That's where the exam entrance system, GCSE or A-level or whatever hasn't kick in. And then I think that's where kids are most creative. and once the habit got formed, you mold into something, it's much harder to shape after that

Yen: And

also I have to say that underlying all these things, of all the qualities, personalization, et cetera, that we want to, promote in, in, in the, our children is that of all the qualities that we thought are extremely important from the first principle basis, the most important one from our perspective creativity. And when we mean creative, we don't just mean be an artist or, or be a innovator per se, but creative thinking is something that we all should apply, should be part of our DNA, in whatever that we choose to do. And, you look at human society, we have been through many ages of enlightenment, knowledge age, information age, et cetera, et cetera. I think we are going into a creative age, creativity has always been driving human to overcome tremendous difficulty. Our survival probably was very low during the Ice Age, during various different wartime, during the Black Death period, but our creativity help us to survive and thrive. But the creativity as a, of an underlying factor, but more as a overt ability everybody can wear on their shoulder and say, "I have this creative power." I think that is what we probably champion the most. If I have to choose one quality that I say we want to promote the most amongst many others, is creativity. And child is born creative. you see your kids doing something you thought, "Wow, where did they come up with that ideas?" And then as they grow older and older, they l- taper off a little bit, until they are lucky enough to get a job whereby they say, "Be creative," right? And how many of us get to be creative every day in our life? And every single child is creative. So what if we can harness that and really make them feel like I can be creative with all this guardrail, with way to channel their creative energy to something that you find to be very empowering and fulfilling. if we can do that, I think we will probably can achieve a large, part of our mission, but we have to start young. We have to trust that children have that creativity in them. We just need to upskill them so that they know how to channel that creative energy, rather than burning the house down.

Eric Makelky: Yeah. And I think that creativity, Yen, is a stark contrast from the traditional education model where we've been training kids to complete tasks and check boxes and do a job as opposed to think big and be creative. And I heard that, as a former teacher, I heard that from students all the time.

"Well, I'm just not creative."

Yen: really that is a skill that we can teach and develop and build the confidence in young people. you mentioned your mission. Yen, so I was gonna ask you, Cresconova's mission to truly personalize learning and reimagi- reimagine education. W- what does that actually look like in a Cresconova classroom versus a traditional school model?

Yeah. So there are two, form factors of Cresconova Classroom. One is that Cresconova Global, which is an online class, and then one is Cresconova Lab, which is a in-person center. Right now we started in London. Um, number one is that the, the classes are very small, so it's about 4 to 10 kids. I think the most important part of it is that there is a lot of conversation and dialogue between, the kids and the teacher, and also among the kids as well. And the kids are really, being asked questions that they will ask themself further questions. And with that question, with the Socratic method, they try to dig in more and more the layer of truth that may not be self-evident, or even if the level of truth is self-evident, what are the composition below that? once you peel through that, then you realize that there's so many levels of knowledge and truth beneath it. And also encourage the kids to be, collaborating with each other. I think to be able to work with kids of your similar background or even from a more diverse background, but with similar interests, similar curiosity, similar drive, I think that's hard to find.

If you take any sort of classroom, or people from different background together, it's great that they all have different background, but how do you find kids who have different background but have the same keenness for knowledge, the keenness of learning? That's not always a given. some kids may get it later in their life, some kids may get it early in their life, but it's, it's, it would be ideal if kids at a similar age who have similar drive, who have similar earnest for knowledge, for question, for, just deep discussion can come together and start diving into various different topics.

So we give that room for the kids to ask lots of question. they are never gonna sit back and say, I'm just gonna listen to whatever you're gonna download to me." You can do that on YouTube. YouTube is a great learning platform for you to just listen for hours, but here you do things that you otherwise can't do, because how do you find like-minded teachers and student together?

Whereby... even when we meet a friend that we just met, in the middle of nowhere, if you have a similar interest, you have a similar mindset, you get together, you can have conversation for hours. if you can do that for kids? And it's not just happen to be their neighbors or people who live in the same neighborhood. If you can like-minded people around the world, get them together. But most importantly, we also choose our teacher very carefully. in this master teachers, kind of program, so we get teachers who are extremely experienced in their respective field, but who may not want to teach in schools anymore because of the administrative burden in school, or who may be at the age whereby they are too old to teach in schools. Many of our teacher are in their 70s.

Eric Makelky: They are incredible teachers. Some of... I wish I had taken classes with them when I was kids. I don't even mind taking classes with them right now. one of our teacher, Peter Koehler, incredible teacher. I was just talking to him about how simple equation is being applied to AI right now, equation that has been around for 2,000 that, we never really thought how that take... is just a simple observation and beautiful equation of the world, and how it's being used extensively in AI model right now. And so you have teacher like that, he's in his 70s and, for him, going to school and teach is a, is a trouble. And yet we can find students from around the world who are deeply interested in math, who can take amazing math classes from him from anywhere around the world.

Yen: That's why we have student from Korea, from Singapore, from, Libya, from, UK, from the US, all taking classes together. these are rare opportunities that kids can get to do that. And I think the master teacher that we select giving the best possible kind of classes for them is a prerequisite for the student to be able to get the most out of it. And if you're a master teacher, you're also able to personalize to different t- students as well. this is something that I think we believe, Barbara and I believe very strongly. I don't care how good AI is, they are never replacing the best teachers. best teachers are rare breeds. They're able to not just, know the students well, but able to prioritize different teaching that can bring out their best, and yet whatever they are not good at, able to scaffold it up. And that is a rare skills. So we believe that, the great teachers are rare to find, and we need to cherish them, and we need to give them a platform whereby they can teach as long as possible. We encourage them to even come up with classes that school may not even allow them to teach, So we went to a M.C. Escher art exhibition. We were blown away by the convergence of art and mathematics. So I just talked to our platform of master teacher and say, "Can you teach something that combine art with, mathematics?"

Because pattern essentially is what nature is, right? Nature is pattern underlined by mathematical formula. and they say, "This is amazing." So they came up with many different classes will make mathematics come alive for the students because they can observe that. They can observe in the beauty of the pattern that they see in nature, and then they say that there's mathematics behind that. that's the kind of, classes in Cresconova Global. And Cresconova Lab, because we get the opportunity to be face-to-face in a classroom setting, we can do something that, maybe Cresconova Global or other school can't do. one is that we have lots of this equipment that we bought, to facilitate ability to really put your creativity into an actual product. it's great that we are creative. we scribble on a piece of paper, but what if we can make them prototype them, right? So we have lots of cutting-edge 3D printer. We have very expensive laser cutter, and we have, VR, we have, robotics, et cetera. It's a 6,000 square foot place that we bought in London, and we furnish every single classroom with different equipments. So our goal is when they come into our class in Cresconova Lab, they are not just learning deep knowledge about a particular subject because we believe that creativity is a ultimate form of mastery. You need to master before you can become creative, right? So even young kids can come in and say, "I don't know anything about this particular subject." I spend a few lessons learning about it, and then I can add creativity on top of it. example would be a biomimicry class. So in that biomimicry class, we will look at, cactus. Cactus is this marvel of nature whereby they can absorb water like, like nothing because once a year in a desert, they will... the rain will come, and that's it. So you need to use that one window to absorb as much water as possible. So the kids will be spending few classes learning about how cactus, based on their biology, that much water And then they need to think about the world problem, which is climate change. how do we make water more recyclable, right?

How do we conserve and preserve water as much as possible? So they need to figure out how to make tools on what they learn from cactus design to print out tools, to laser cut tools. They can mimic that and they can put it in their backyard, and they can collect water as much as possible. So that is how we take it to the next level, really on the learning, the deep learning they have, and apply design thinking and system thinking on top of that methodically that they can understand what it takes to be creative.

You have to keep failing, and the design thinking force you to try, prototype, fail, go back again, go back again. System thinking require to think about not just your singular product, but how you fit into the system itself. And on top of that, the kids are partnered with another kid to work together. even though we go to school, all of us went to school, I don't think we truly learned how to work with other kids. we have school project, but, it, it's still a bit more like a, a social project than like a, a truly putting your brains together and say, "This is the problem that we are solving. Let's split out the work." So we had hardware, software work. So this week this kid would be working on hardware, the other kid would be working on software, and then they would switch next week. so they would have that, the opportunity to try different things, but eventually they would recognize the value that another kid can bring to the table. I think when we talk about ability to work with other people, diversity, if you can see the value that other kids, other team member can bring to the table, that's where you truly are s- receptive and accepting of diversity and the value that a teamwork can bring. that's one aspect that we truly emphasize, in the lab setting.

Eric Makelky: Yeah. I'm curious if the parents listening have gone to the Cresconova website and looked at your course offerings, they may be surprised by the, the topics and the names of your courses. They're very different than a traditional, enrichment program or, a, a parent or family looking for specific resources to teach students very narrow skills.

so you- you've talked a little bit about this, but could one of you elaborate a little bit on the, the focus being teaching students to ask questions as opposed to memorizing facts?

Yen: Yeah. so when we design, each classes, we have a few things in mind. one is that it has to be multidisciplinary, because we think that the subject division in school is a bit artificial. why do we divide between biology, chemistry, and physics? They overlap, in a crazy way, right? And why do you divide between social sciences and humanities and science? they are all coming together. I think the world is very beautiful, so there's some sort of artistic, element that comprise the s- the science, and somehow the science builds something very artistic. I find the whole Fibonacci, sequence to be very artistically beautiful.

I find fractal to be extremely artistically beautiful. So why should we divide them, right? And especially we want to train our kids to think about the world not in an abstract way, but in a world that is personal to them. So these are things that they can relate to, that they can understand, "Oh, these are either subject that I am deeply interested in or that I care about." either one of those two. And once they know that, the subject matter become much more interesting to them. It's not something that are not even asking the question, "Would I ever use this?" So many kids school ask the question, "Would I ever use this?"

Eric Makelky: thing about Pythagoras theorem, if you understand that how vectoring is so important in large language model and how Pythagoras theorem is central to that vectoring process, then you realize that theorem is not something that they came up with 2,000 years ago and say that's world, right? So would make them feel like they have a stake in the world. I think for children to be truly empowered, they must believe that the world to them and they belong to the world. those two thing must be coming together. So the classes that we want to, set up, we must be multidisciplinary, also must be very interesting and relatable and dear to the kids that they can feel excited about taking those classes. think most importantly, there must be way that we can raise the ceiling I think the high ceiling element is very important. So this is where the personalization comes in, right? So we set a, a, a certain entry point for the kids. They come in, they all are interested in different areas of it, but how do you let them go as far as they can, you look into a, a, a river to fish and say you can only catch one fish. I don't care how good of a, a fisherman you are or how good fishing skill you are, but what if another kid figure a way to, catch 10 fish, right? You're not gonna stop that kid from catching that 10 fish. So I think you must create an environment whereby the ceiling can be raised for different kids. I think that's where each one of our subject also had that very high ceiling element, that if this one kid say, "I want to take it so far," right? can. Another one say, "Oh, I want to take it in a different direction. Maybe not ceiling-wise, but I want to take it in a different direction." They can do that, too. So it must allow that flexibility for them to get both. and also it must be a subject that our master teacher feel greatly excited about,

Yen: that they can teach this class that they otherwise can't teach, in a normal school. So again, the teacher and the student element, you can't take one away from another.

They are two wheels of the same bicycle

Eric Makelky: Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that, Jen, because a lot of that is built around the, the course design, but you need the master teacher that feels confident that kids can take those left turns and bl- and blow the top off the ceiling because tr- traditional inexperienced teachers really want that sense of control over the s- the student learning.

So that's a challenge to find even the right teachers that can lead that type of learning. you mentioned the personalization. So that is very expensive to deliver just based on the staff-to-student ratio, and the specific offerings that Cresconova delivers to students in the program.

So one question for you, h-how do you keep that quality personalization as Cresconova grows as a program?

Yen: Yeah. it is not easy. That's why education is expensive. I agree that education will always be expensive, of our society, but which is also I believe that this has to be a nonprofit venture. when you put a profit, motive on this, it just screw up everyone's priority.

you can make money from this if you want to, but then, it's like trying to plant a, a, a whole backyard full of trees and all expect them to meet certain target

Eric Makelky: every single year. You can't do that. Trees grow in their own different way, and different trees grow at different pace. and you need an ecosystem for that to work together. This is not a machine that you press a button, they just produce how many things, in one day. You can't do that. So number one is this has to be run as a nonprofit. and number two is that you have to get rid of what we believe, are area of bureaucracy that, that I think a lot of school kind of settle with, right? those are understandable, because they are running a large scale school. but maybe we can start thinking about other ways, right? Instead of la- running a large scale schools, you can think about breaking that part into smaller parts so that it's not a big bureaucracy anymore. think for us, even up until 10 per class is, is 10 to 12 kids is the max that we will go. and we are not forecasting this to be profitable venture, but we want to be able to sustain it with the kind of kids who are looking for something more, and they can come in, and then we can match them with the best teachers, but we get rid of the bureaucracy in the middle. You're not coming here to learn about sports. You're not coming here to learn about, to do swimming, to do golf, to be a, a, a

Yen: varsity players. You're not doing that. So are... You're not doing music band here as well, right? so we do target, a specific group of students who want more. I'm not, we are not trying to replace schools here. I think schools still serve very vital role for the society in general. But I think that there are a lot of kids who are not able to serve by the school in the best way possible, and we offer that alternative. So we will probably not be a mainstream school or mainstream kind of like a form factor, for a long time, but we can be a complementary one, to the school system, whereby if they can't do something, then we can serve those, purpose for them

Eric Makelky: Yeah, and

Barbara: think that to specifically answer your question, we keep small class, and that's how we're able to personalize. why the economics is not favorable, why it has to be nonprofit.

We also offer scholarship for student who can't afford, very expensive exclusive classes, because these things are mutually exclusive, small classes and, and widely af-affordable, but we trying to use scholarship to bridge that. So personalized education, because the course is designed with flexible module where you have a ceiling that is rather unlimited based on certain basics, fundamentals that each person has to complete on the project. But then you-- how you want to do it, how far you want to push is a little bit, limitlessness. and, and because it's so small each class, then each student get the attention and also get the room to create, rather than to conform. So I think that's where the personalized elements come in.

Yen: Yeah,

Eric Makelky: Yeah

Yen: said, it is expensive. It will continue to be

expensive. we do hope that, various different technology, et cetera, may, make the cost come down, but are not banking on that. and I think that ultimately, to a certain degree, we are internalizing the cost, that the society generally used to bear because when someone is not receiving the kind of highest limit they are looking for, when they go out to the society, it's much more of a game of chances, right? If they meet someone that, they are in the right environment, they may thrive, right? If they are given the opportunity to work on something that speak to their ability, speak to their unique, blueprint, then they might thrive. But why make it a chance? Why make it... Why not make it like lower their probability as much as possible? Why don't we create an environment whereby kids can be in a safe place, able to build their skills with the ceiling that they want, personalized way, and able to go out so that they know what they're looking for. So that is expensive, but we believe that, it's a cost that I think society should, when they are of, try to, bear that cost as much as possible.

Eric Makelky: Yeah. I think that's also one of the most exciting things about Cresconova and other online education models is your child's education is no longer dictated by where you live.

Yen: Exactly

Eric Makelky: even one generation ago, m- my opportunities were limited to where I was born and, and where I lived and what the local school was.

And this is a great way for parents that are interested to break down those barriers, connect their children with like-minded, curious, intellectuals and, and take that lid off the educational experience that so many of us had. we've talked a little bit about the, the parents listening that may be interested in signing up their children for Cresconova courses, but let's talk a little bit about the school partnerships that Cresconova, has began developing recently.

wh- why did you decide to open that door to schools to partner with Cresconova? and what can schools expect if they decide to, pilot a, a connection or relationship with the Cresconova program?

Yen: Yeah. I can speak to that a little bit. I think there are two aspect of it. One is Quest Number Global partnering with other school. One is Quest Number Lab also partnering with other schools. I think at our core, we are not to set up... We are not here to set up something to replace schools. We are here to do something that we believe from the first principle basis, the learning environment for kids. and while building that, we realized that we have something to offer to school, because part of how we approach the whole thing is to think about What are the structural advantage that might we might have? What are the vantage point that we might have that school might not have, hence we can offer something? that is something very advantageous to schools as well. For example, if school has some kids who are very advanced in math, who want more, from what their school can offer, it's hard for them to get such a channel to do that. And even if they get it, they might not know how to navigate around it.

So for us, we just want to have this platform whereby we screen the master teachers, we also have designed a program of very different curriculum of math, different subject, that the kids can come in and say, "I know the quality of Cresconova teacher is fantastic. I know that the class of design are infinitely interesting.

I know they have high ceiling." the school can say, five kids that need this," So we can partner with the school and say, "We can offer this to you." So I think that's one thing that we clearly can do for Cresconova Global, partners, and especially for public school, where funding is being cut everywhere, not just in the US but everywhere, right? It's getting harder and harder to run schools. And also that with the, the, the enrollment coming down across the Western world for elementary school, because of birth rate declining, it's harder to sustain the scale of having all these different teachers teaching each one of these schools. So by us coming in and say we offer the top quality, subject matters that, your children might not have the opportunity to take in your class, in your school, I think that's one way for them to offload some of their burden as well. And for Crest Cordova Lab, because we are offering this learning experience that most schools don't really offer, it's not just about having that 3D printer or laser cutter. having that multidisciplinary concept together. it's about really making something that is your conception, and then you want to solve that problem. It's not a hobby shop. It's not,

"Oh, I want to make something for my paperweight," right? Yeah, you can do that in, in, in a lot of maker space, but here, you're coming here to learn something to solve a world's problem, right?

Or a problem that you're very passionate about. So you're going through that, and then you can put it almost like a capstone project. And you can use that, as a potential, uh, a supplement to great education that a lot of these amazing schools are teaching. and or you can use it as some sort of application for university as well.

So we have a partnership with, of the top, pre-university, high school in London, whereby they have kids coming over, initially once a week for two hours, extended to a week, so four hours. they build whatever conception that they have in their mind, in that 12, 14, or even one-year period, they can build a portfolio for themselves.

And then when they apply for university scholarships or internship, they can say, "This is what we have done. This is what I have done." And by looking at student beyond just the standardized tests, they can see kids able to put their creativity together, their skills together, and most importantly, seeing how they started to where they end up in that six months, one year time, and how they grow.

You know that this kid has tremendous growth mindset. so those are the things that we believe that we can offer to schools, even for private schools that may not have the focus on this particular creativity side, they can partner with us to do this. And ultimately, our goal is not to compete with schools or to compete with, education system. Our goal is a mission that we want to promote personalized learning that school may not be able to offer. We want to promote creativity, collaboration, innovation, that school may not have the capacity to offer. We are not here to compete with them. We are here to complement them. So I think there are lots of room for us to partner with very different school in very different areas.

Eric Makelky: And I think that's one unique thing about Cresconova. It's not the replacement for a school program. it's a supplement for what the student needs, wants, or the direction the parent wants their child to go. so we're gonna switch gears slightly and talk about your vision, Barbara and Yen.

let- let's start with Global and Labs. Looking down the road, how do you see Cresconova Global and Cresconova Labs existing in the future? Do you see those two programs converging, or is your plan to deliberately keep those separate?

Yen: Actually, they are already converging. So even for lab, you still have that, geographical limitation of how big of a community you can

serve. So for lab, we actually have hybrid classes right now with online and, in-person elements. So for some kids who are-- who live maybe quite far away, the first maybe five classes, they will do it online.

They will say, "Okay, you know what? We are learning about biomimicry in cactus," so they will learn that online. But then they will come in on the seventh week and say, "How do we make something here in Cresconova Global Lab?" So instead of having to come in every week, they can come in once every six or seven weeks to do something here. So that is the kind of, that we always had from day one. So we believe that the two have tremendous synergy because both ultimately promote the same of a curiosity-driven, personalized, creative-driven kind of learning, and driven by the master teachers. So people will be excited about this kind of, learning environment. But how do you make them coming together in the best way possible? I think that online can offer lots of things that offline can't offer, but offline or in person can offer lots of things that online can't offer as well. So by marrying those two together, you can potentially broaden the kind of student that you can serve, right? And that's our ultimate goal as well, is not to limit to one location, is not limit to online. It's to be as broad as possible. So once we figure out how this hybrid work, our goal is to create as many of these center as possible. it's my goal to have... I grew up in a very small village in Malaysia.

If one day, my village can have a Cresconova Global Lab, I will die a very, very happy man because, I grew up without a bookstore or library in a small village. and if it justified to have a lab there one day, that means that we are, we are quite successful. We'll be quite successful at that point

Barbara: I think that it's the same philosophy, it's just different presentation, right? Like same philosophy to driving online and offline, it's different presentation, different experience, and online also is more borderless. it can get students and teachers from all over the world. offline get the hands-on experience that online doesn't have. So ultimately, they are complementary to each other and, and, and that, that's how we see the model evolve and grow going forward.

Yen: Yeah. And also by creating more availability to the students, they will start experimenting with this creative process that most probably wouldn't even have the opportunity to learn how to do so. and we hope that every child, no matter how m- many classes they take from Cresconova, whether it's Global or Lab, take something away from them. they, they understand the creative process. They understand that they have ideas that matters, that they can upskill themselves and put the idea into reality. And that's very empowering. So by n- learning how to do this, whether it's through online, whether it's through in person, they can start experimenting with different things in their life and start imagining what's possible for them. Ultimately, we don't want to just limit our student body to like those who believe that they can be creative.

Eric Makelky: to start letting children thinking that, "I can be creative. Anybody can be creative," right? Cresconova does have a space whereby we could maybe even one day partner with kids, who don't want to go to university who just want to make things, right?

Yen: that's one thing that will never be replaced by AI, is to make things, right? So what if we provide student an alternative and say, "I don't have to be a lawyer. I don't have to be a doctor. I don't have to be certain kind of people to be regarded as success. I can start making things myself." it's to really create that new way of thinking about who they could be, themself as creator rather than just consumer, see themself as just a passive learner, but active shaper of the world. by opening that option as widely as possible through online and through offline and combine them together, our mission is to create that mindset in parents and in children that I can be a creator. I think that's something that I think with right now with AI, AI being applied to the legal industry. AI being applied to the m- medical industry. You know that even if you're a doctor, even if you're a lawyer, you need to be a creator and not just a professional, diagnostic, diagnostician anymore. I think

that bar has been raised and the possibility has been raised

Eric Makelky: Yeah. And it's exciting to hear you two talk about that vision. I can tell how much passion you have, and I hope your village in Malaysia gets a lab. That would definitely be a full circle moment for you, Yen. so we're gonna zoom way out for our last question. if we fast-forward into the future when your children become fathers or mothers and start raising their children, what do you want Cresconova to look like for their generation?

Yen: I want it to be, something that we don't even have to convince people that being creative is something that you can do, you should aim for, It's like almost a given that, of course I've been creative, of course I've been... I can be a creator. I want everybody to think that kind of like just automatically.

It's almost like, back in, the hunter-gatherer time, right? Can you imagine if a kid believed that they cannot hunt something? They cannot smell a track, right? Can you imagine that, right? But ask that kids during that time that one day they'll be able to read lots and lots of document. They'll be able to write things. They would think that's crazy. I... There's no way I can do that, right? is it so hard for us to imagine that everybody ultimately think that to be human means that we are creator, we are not just consumer. To be human means that I can work with other people. I'm a collaborator. I'm a team, I'm a team member, I'm a leader. to them feel like the world belongs to them and they belong to the world, the world's problem is my problem, and I'm here to learn about the world so that I can solve the world's problem, so I can be a really meaningful member of the world, right? and to just think that automatically rather than being a passive consumers of, We are in the age of ultra consumerism. whatever we want, you go to every household right no matter rich or poor, they're filled with toys. I used to get toy once a year, and I play with that toy, cherish that toy for one year. Right now, whatever you want, you can buy it, right? And so we are in the peak, ultra consumerism right now. that's not great because I think kids should believe that they are creator. They can create stuff. kids, after being in Cresconova Lab for about one year plus, now when things break, when their own things break, looking to fix it first. first response is, "Okay, let's get a new one." They're like, "No, no, I can fix it," I'm like, "Really? Can you fix this?" they're already a huge improvement for me, whereby if I break something, my first response... Because I've not done this before, I never had a chance to do this, But just one year of classes at Cresconova Lab, my kids already think that I can fix this. I can make something. and I think that hopefully by that time, 10, 20 years from now, it will be a norm for the society to think that of course every kids are creative, every single kid can be creator. And if we can achieve that, we'll be very big. But to underlie that, we must create personalized framework because creative is a very personal thing. have an idea about the world, what it looks like. Yes, you get people to work with you to achieve that vision, people who share that vision with you. But you still have to start from this personalized ground. It's not a factory process that

everybody create the same thing, everybody think the same way. yeah, if you can do that, I think that, that, it's not just Cresconova, it's I think the world moving towards that direction. But if Cresconova can be a meaningful member in that journey, I think we'll be very, very happy

Barbara: I think when you think about the future, is, artificial intelligence is already at the doorstep, right? And if you continue to progress and accelerate, is the role of human being in driving our overall concrete, aggregate human experience and evolution and progress? And that must be something humans can still do better AI. And we believe that something is creativity. We believe that something is to have creativity grounded in the right values, connecting humanity and science. And that, that's what we hope our children, when they educate the future of their children, they will see Quest Cor Nova really embody that really push that frontier forward, and it become, like Yen said, a no-brainer, a global standard, something that everybody know and realize and agree that needs to be front and center of education rather than knowledge, rather than memorization or specific subse- subspecialized skills training or expertise training. Yeah. Because a lot of that will be displaced by AI.

Eric Makelky: Yeah. great. Thank you for joining us today on the episode, Barbara Nguyen. it was exciting to hear your passion and a little bit about the story behind the founding of Cresconova, and I really enjoyed our conversation today

Yen: Thank you so much.

Barbara: Thank

Yen: you.

Eric Makelky: Y-

Yen: We

Eric Makelky: be s--

Yen: as well

Eric Makelky: listener, listeners, be sure to check out the website Cresconova.org to see the latest course listings and full partnership opportunities