Personalizing the Future of Language Learning with AI with Diana Al Dajani founder of eduTechnoz

In this episode of Pulse, Aldo sites down with Diana Al-Dajani, founder and CEO of Edutechnoz. We explore how AI is transforming language learning and more particularly learning Arabic. 

We discuss why Arabic requires a different approach from traditional language learning apps, how AI can personalize learning while supporting teachers, and how Edutechnoz is building a scalable platform for learners all over the world. 

We also talk about entrepreneurship, resilience, and the habits that have shaped Diana's amazing journey to date. 

Sincerely hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Diana Al-Dajani from eduTechnoz. 

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlphaWireHQ

This episode was brought together by AlphaWire: https://alphawire.xyz/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Duolingo is an amazing gamified experience that probably works for English, French, Spanish, the Latin-based languages. But when it comes to Arabic, you can't just take a Latin-based language model, change the letters and slap Arabic to it. Arabic has its own nature. Everything with Belt is modular. So today we are ready to scale to other languages, and the infrastructure is ready to scale to other subjects as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Welcome to Pulse by Alpha Wire, the podcast where science and education meet cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence. My name is AlderPop, and each week I sit down with innovators, thinkers, and doers who are working to change our world for the better. Together we explore their journeys, uncover the lessons they've learned, and take entrepreneurial pulse that drives them on their path to success. In this episode of Pulse, I sit down with Diana Aldajani, founder and CEO of Edu Technos. We explore how AI is transforming language learning and, more particularly, learning Arabic. We discuss why Arabic requires a different approach from traditional language learning apps, how AI can personalize learning while supporting teachers, and how Edu Technos is building a scalable platform for learners all over the world. We also talk about entrepreneurship, resilience, and the habits that have shaped Diana's amazing journey to date. Sincerely hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Diana Aldajani from Edu Technos. Yes, and we are live with a new episode of Pulse. It's a lovely Friday afternoon, late Friday afternoon in the UK and early Friday afternoon in Canada. And I have the great pleasure to speak to Diana Al Dajani, a great friend, but an even greater tech entrepreneur, specifically in education. A very warm welcome to you, Diana.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Thank you, Elder. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

It's always a pleasure. I always enjoy talking to you. That doesn't have to be with a record button. We speak to each other every now and then. We were part, for the listener, we were both part of the Wise Accelerator back in 2016, 2015. I don't know anymore anymore.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Wow, look, it's like almost 10 years, although we've been we've known each other for over 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yes, and look how well we've aged. Let's start there. We're still look exactly alike. Yeah. Yeah. But I always had the greatest respect for you, Diana, because you have this fire in you, which is an incredible fire to do well as an entrepreneur, but also as a mother, as a human being on all levels. And I thought, well, I I must have Diana on the show. So here we go. For the listener. For the listener, you are the founder of Edu Technos, which is a language learning platform or language learning system, even. And you're gonna tell us a little bit more about it specifically for Arabic. And you've got users from all over the world. Uh, you just won some prizes, so I want to hear about that. And it all came from this passion about not being able to learn for people not being able to learn Arabic properly. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

The whole thing actually, I'll just started with my son. Uh long, long time ago, uh, he used to hate Arabic and prefer English because it was easier and more fun for him. And this is when there was nothing else in the marketplace to help him practice in a fun way, games and stuff. So this is when I used my computer engineering training and built him Arabic games. It worked. And but I had my full-time job in FinTech. And then when other parents and teachers started asking for it, then the whole thing started. So started by turning these games into a gamified platform where students can play, learn, and fall in love with Arabic. The problem was Arabic is hard. So we tackled that it's hard because they didn't master it, because they didn't practice, and we need to make practice fun so that they stick to it long enough until they master it. But then our success actually, with all the numbers, the improvement in uh grades, 34%, even the 90% mastery for the local curriculums and everything. The problem was the data showed that even despite of all this success in the grades and everything else, uh curriculum mastery was not really translating into reading fluency. And so we had to dig deeper, then we analyzed the problem, we figured out structural gaps, we created our Arabic learning model.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Diana, that's an incredible journey. Let's start there. And also this personal frustration around Arabic being extremely difficult and there not being enough resources around you. Because I the way I look at it, it's like almost a dual problem. It's a very difficult language, and the methods that were out there for kids to actually learn it weren't also optimal. So even if you were in a situation where you could learn it as a second language, it was quite dry, right? So I what I very much like in your story is also this gamification of the language.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Well, Aldo, I'm just gonna shock you right now. There was a study, and actually I got exposed to this study uh twice. Uh the author of the book was presenting it. I can't I can't remember the name, but the study says that they put people under the MRI and all these things, just they wanted to figure out which is the most complex language to learn and which was the easiest language to learn. And Arabic was the top five easiest languages to learn, and it is even easier than English, the complexity on a brain and a neural level. Arabic is easier to learn. But the problem is, and this is where like we started with resources, digital resources, that's the problem. There is no enough game, but then we figured out that there is the pedagogy, the way it is being taught, it's full of like trauma. It traumatizes students, and it's it's the pedagogy had a lot of gaps, right? And then after that we fixed the pedagogy, but then there was another deeper gap. The curriculum itself. It ignored the fact that today, if a student like we have 28 letters in Arabic, but the way with the permutations with the vowels and everything else, students need to memorize around 2,000 symbols. Like imagine yourself, like you need to memorize not just the ABCs, you also need to memorize the A with the O vowel, the A with the A vowel, all these permutations, and also have another complexity that Arabic letters they connect with each other. So for even a little one to learn Arabic reading or writing, it's like learning capital letters, small letters, and cursive all at the same time. So these in the past was not a problem. Why is it a problem right now, the curriculum? Because today the digital student does not have the same attention span, that doesn't, it's different. The kids are different, the environment is different, the environment is not all Arabic anymore. Back then we did a study, the students start getting exposed to a second language as early in the schools, as early as in KG and grade one. So Arabic is no longer okay, master Arabic, and then you study something else. No, it's uh it's a mishmush, and the students are getting lost. So this is where Ediotechnos came in. We stepped out of just games and we provided this new Arabic way of learning. And because I'm a computer engineer, I designed it basically to be AI enabled. This is how I figured out the problem of the 2000 symbols algo. We were trying to program something AI and to AI the curriculum, and I realized the 2000 symbol is not an efficient database for a computer. We need to make it faster, more efficient. And there was a pattern that we did not factor it in. So we asked the students just memorize instead of understand the logic and apply the pattern. So that's what we did differently. And everything we've built is modular. So today we are ready to scale to other languages, not just Arabic, and the infrastructure is ready to scale to other subjects as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

That's exciting. Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask, because when people say like language learning online, there's one name that always comes up, which is Duolingo. How would you kind of position yourself to other language learning tools out there? Like is there a difference? What would you say is kind of your niche? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Duolingo is amazing, gamified experience that probably works for English, French, Spanish, the Latin-based languages. But when it comes to Arabic, you can't just take a Latin-based language model, change the letters and slap Arabic to it. Arabic has its own nature. As I was explaining at the curriculum, uh how we teach it, it's different in the format. And the short answer was the difference between Luga and Duolingo. When it comes to Arabic, Luga works. And I would challenge anybody, go today to Duolingo, start learning Arabic. And 10 minutes, what would you learn? And 10 minutes in Luga, what would you learn? In Luga, the app, it's named Luga from Luga, which is a language in Arabic, and we made it Luga so that it can adopt any other languages. But we will start the expansion with Farsi, Urdu because they're similar and they're also underserved. So in Luga, in three weeks, reading, fluency, and accuracy increases by 20%. And today we have over 30,000 learners on Luga. The other thing is it's not just reading and writing. We have dialects, and the dialects are not AI generated. It's actually our tutors are there. And through Luga, if you are struggling with something and you want to speak with a tutor, you can either message the tutor or you can book one-on-one time with the tutor who you are learning from. And then there is one also about the Quran. There's a huge population of Muslims who read the Quran, but they don't understand it. So we help guide them how to understand the foundation from language perspective. And the way we did it, we collected the high frequency words in the Quran and we started from there. So this is that just the luga and duolingo comparison.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah. Also, I know you've outgrown that, but you started also specifically for kids, right? So there's also the children's element that the pedagogical elements for the kids, which is Duolingo, is not necessarily kids, right? Uh if I if I'm reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

You're absolutely right. We started with the games for the kids, and then we figured out there was a problem. We found the solution, the Arabic learning model, we've tested it, we piloted, we have the data to back it up, and then we took that model with everything and we put it in Dual and Go, but not for kids. It's for adults. But we've noticed w after we've been uh doing it, that's actually students who are like teenagers, they do share similar um frustrations with adults, which is time. And uh Luga teaches you in microlearning, so that works. So our games is for the kids, then we have Luga. And because it worked, and we enable the teachers to use it in schools as well, and it's hands-free for the teachers. Teachers just give them Luga, and Luga will fix whatever gaps they have in Arabic. But we've noticed there was a huge gap also and demand from teachers' perspective, where they were really, really struggling with differentiation complexity. You have bigger classes, how to group the students. So we created the enterprise platform. It's called the L-I-M, Arabic Literacy Innovative Model, where the structure of the lesson will be dynamically allocated based on the progress and the level of the students in the class. And then it will automate the differentiation for the students to group them and all that based on the data generated from the students when they use the platform games and resources, the digital resources that we've already started with, but we're expanding right now. And because Luga and Alim share the same modular infrastructure, then they can talk to each other, even institutional level, they have real-time meaningful insights and analytics, like so that the Ministry of Education can figure out where to do interventions. So interventions actually improve. There, even investment in the intervention improves. And that modular infrastructure took so long to get to where we are right now, but it is so modular that we can also integrate it with robotics. We can also expand it to other languages, as I said, subjects or even curriculum. So that's why it's this infrastructure, and we're doing this through ahalim. Luga can be B2C, B2B, enterprise, but ahalim, it's only enterprise because there's a lot of intricacies that it doesn't make sense just for the school to use it. It has to be coming from ministry, from a a group of schools. The investment is bigger in alim than Luca.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Wow, there's a lot in there, and thank you for explaining that in detail. I want to take a closer look at Arabic as a language, because we're talking modern standard Arabic, and I know that even though there's a general alphabet, it also has all these variants spread over so many countries, right? So I know that the Egyptian Arabic is often spoken in the movies. They have like the biggest movie industry, so when you hear Arabic, it's from Egypt, whereas it's very different from Arabic spoken in Jordan, for instance. So how do you deal with that? Just for people who are just genuinely interested, like it's not necessarily like English, I would say, right? There are very specific components dependent to the country you're in. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yes. So we have the written language and we have the spoken language. The written language is always, always, always modern standard Arabic. The official language in the governments, the official language writing books, the official language in TV newscasts, whatever, it's always Arabic Standard Arabic. Arabic standard Arabic is understood by a hundred percent of all of the Arabic countries despite a dialect. Now but that's the written, what you read and write. But when it comes to the dialects, the spoken one, it's it's different depending on where you are. So the Egyptian dialect is different than Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi, you name it. Moroccan is completely different. Like for me, if I've um I had an interaction with a Moroccan uh uh teacher who teached with us, and she always speaks with me in the modern standard Arabic. And I was like, my dear, come on. It's it's I I doubt it's gonna be that hard for me to get at uh your dialect, just speak. And then she started speaking in her diet, and I was like, okay, I'm sorry, I corrected this go back to standard Arabic.

unknown 16:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

But the cool thing is you do understand the modern standard Arabic. Now, what is the connection between the modern standard Arabic and the dialects? This modern standard Arabic is the foundation. All the dialects share that foundation, and maybe 70, I would say 70 to 80 percent, only a small piece, like 20 or 30, that would be different. But if you understand this and your ear is used to, like for example, the letter ja in uh Egypt is ga, right? And the soft jah maybe in the Palestinian but very strong j in uh Iraqi Kuwaiti. So if you want to say camel, for example, in uh in Fusha, it would be jamal. In Egyptian, it would be gamel. In uh Syrian or Palestinian, it would be jamal. For Iraq, Jamal. And even Morocco it has to be even more. So if you can see there are variations, but they're not huge. You start with foundation. Uh okay. For kids, we start with foundation. You cannot just learn dialects without learning the reading and writing the modern standard. Because even if you learn some phrases and everything, learning the modern standard Arabic, the MSA, this is where you learn how a sentence is actually structured. You know the proper way of how to understand the context of the sentence and all of that. So all these are transferable skills. We have learners who start with the dialects, but at some point they plateau and then would be like you need to start learning reading and writing so that you keep improving.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Nice. Thank you for explaining that, Diana. It's it's fascinating. And I have to confess, when I started university, so I started studying liberal arts, and then I needed to study language, and I registered to study modern standard Arabic. Uh, it was like an introduction thing and whatever, so I didn't do very well. It was too complicated at university.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

But it um I I invite you to use Lug then.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, no, I will, I will definitely, I will definitely. It's definitely on my bucket list, and it's also on my wife's bucket list. We always had this dream of doing that, but there's a time and a place for everything, right? When when when we have time again. Yes. I want to talk about artificial intelligence because uh when we spoke your, so you're a computer engineer uh by background, so you know it very well, you understand compute very well, and in kind of building up to this interview, we had a quick conversation as well, and you said, We're already doing this, we're already the AI, we've already been there, and and now it's finally there, and it's you know, and and just now you've hinted, they're not even ready for us. You would need more than than what it can give you. So, do I take it correctly? You're an optimist, you're an AI optimist when it comes to edutechnos.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Absolutely. And when it comes to AI, I always technology, the way I see it, technology is a tool. Like this pencil is a tool. It's how you use it. You can write beautiful things or you can write bad stuff. So it's how are you gonna use that tool? AI would never ever ever and should never ever replace teachers. There is that human bonding experience, this is that mentorship, there is an element of in Arabic we say at her biawatalim, it which means the the raising, the nurturing part, and then the education. And we always put the nurturing part ahead of education, the subject itself. So it's very important to keep that human. AI, however, should give teachers superpowers. That's it. And that superpower is what we're trying to do with literally empowering the teacher. It's AI to serve the teachers instead of spending hours trying to assess each student or do some guesswork and then spending days preparing activities for each group and doing all that with a push of a button. The teachers can see the groups based on the data we have from their performance. And based on that, the teacher can provide them activities, doesn't have time, no problem, push a button, and all the proper activities will be assigned automatically to the students. And the differentiation, these are the students who master, so they would be assigned something more either to apply or something harder. And these are the students who require more practice, who they get assigned something that is proper. And these are the groups you actually need to spend more time with instructions with them. The way we use AI at IG Technos is heavily in diagnosis and data analysis and the insights. We have over seven million data points, and we use that to analyze the learner's behavior, to understand how they learn. And the data actually revealed that the students, we have chunks of students who start a game but never finish it. Then we have students who keep playing the same game over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. If you're still playing the same game that tackles the same skill over and over because you like the game dynamics, then you're not progressing with the skill. And this is where we came in and we created this infrastructure where students can play any game they want. They can start and stop and do anything they want, but we keep track of what they have learned. And then we will introduce the skills that they need to learn next. So after we do the diagnosis, we are able to say what is the path for them to master it. And the diagnosis can go even as deep as foundational gaps, not just, oh no, we didn't understand this, didn't understand that. Foundational, where's the root cause? And then we have the path. And now the extra layer we're adding now, combining AI and gamification to personalize even the gamification, to understand the game elements they responded to and how we personalize the gamification, not just the education. So it's very exciting time. We always double check. We see this and we always have to verify to make sure that okay, everything is fine. Because sometimes you need the story, right? It tells you this is what's happening, this is this, this is this. But what is the story behind this data? And that's what's important. This is where the insights are important.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

So much I like what you say, like, because I recognize that so much my daughter, she has a maths game that her school actually says she needs to do. And it is true, she evolves in her numerical knowledge by playing that game. But there's the game and then there are the numbers. And of course, she likes the game more than the numbers. So at some point she's too much in the game and she just wants to get to the game part rather than looking at the numbers. So it is true that she won't choose to evolve her learning because she just wants to get on with the game. So you do need to keep an eye on that because people are just, you know, they're incentivized by their own fun, and the numbers are not going to be fun.

unknown 24:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

So I think it's very clever that you kind of say, okay, maybe we should do a game and kind of the next step of you know Arabic language learning so you can keep up, right? Because otherwise, you're right, you won't evolve because you just want to play the same game.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

There you go. And every student also learns differently. That's also where AI can help identify the learning style for each student, and then to adapt the path based on that learning style as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah. Going back to when we were both part of the wise accelerator in Qatar in Doha, and that we met, and I remember we both had this beautiful moment because we were both mentioned in the Financial Times. Uh we felt we felt like kings and queens, and kind of, you know, it was like, oh, we're so we're so happy. But you've you've been doing this for over a decade. What would you say is has been the biggest challenge?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

The biggest challenge is managing my psyche because every time I think we solved it, another problem or another challenge reveal itself. And I'd be like, okay, I reached to the top of the mountain and was like, oh, there's a bigger mountain. And my biggest challenge is how are we gonna change the curriculums for all the Arabic world and internationally, all the world for KG and grade one. That's it. And there will be no more Arabic is hard. And I do have a strategy. We started implementing the strategy, and the strategy is always you cannot impose a change on a ministry level just because you know it works, right? Even when you do this, it's part of innovation, when you invent something, it cannot be 100% new. You have to meet it where the market is. There has to be some familiarity as well. So what we did is with ILM, we work with their curriculum. We identify the gaps in the curriculum so that the students still get the grades and they still get the analysis and everything else, the analytics. But we added a layer of identifying the foundational gaps that we know that our model will only solve it. And then we activate the path integrated with what they do so that that foundation is fixed so that they can prosper and move faster in the local curriculum. And only then, when they see the data, then we will start doing the piloting, hopefully, with the KG. And the cool thing is our model is uncontextualized, so it can be contextualized to any other curriculum. It's a model that can be adapted to any context. Once we get that, then I'm done. Mission accomplished.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

But it's very admirable. I mean, I would describe you as a fiery, feisty character. You've put everything in there, you made sure it works, but you know, there are also the awards and the rewards because we started this conversation. You said I just won the scale-up award in Canada, which is which is amazing. And I remember back in the day, you also got all the awards, of course, for for what you were doing. So I know that it's just a part of it, and I know that you know it's not about those things, but I I I I can imagine that the appreciation every now and then helps to keep you going.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

100%. Actually, yesterday in the car, coming back from the awards ceremony, I had an epiphany and I was shocked. At the beginning, when you're a startup, uh it depends on you as the founder. You have to deliver. It's always about the entrepreneur. Uh, yesterday, Aldo, anything that you can imagine that might go wrong and should not go wrong went wrong, and I have three minutes to pitch, and they didn't reset the timer, that they that something wrong with the clicker, something wrong with the presentations was, and and it's just like, oh gosh. And I had to deliver. I was flustered. I didn't have time to go over the whole thing, and I was like, not over like what I wanted to say. I just made sure that the journey makes sense, the product makes sense, and when it came to the business items, like the most important thing I spent the time, and then in five seconds, five slides. Just that's it, let's do it. And I remember I went to the room after that, and I was like, oh gosh, that was terrible. It was terrible. And I was like, I was like even messaging my husband, like, I want to disappear. And I don't think I did well. I think I did often. But the business won the first place. And when I came back in the car, I was reflecting and I was like, wow, right now editechnos stands on its own legs, it does not need the founder to be like that perfect founder, you know, to win the first place. The business is strong, and for me, that was the award for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

That was an award. It wasn't just dependent on your performance, it's just that the the product is there, people know how it works.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Exactly. And it also said to me that because you know, we we have the what do you call it, imposter syndrome. Uh from the get-go, from the get-go, I'm not an Arabic teacher. From the get-go, I'm a computer engineer. I'm out of this uh whole field. So you always have that at the back of your head. And with every award, you get that validation that no, you're on the right path, keep going. And yesterday, the validation that I got that Idiotechnos is a Canadian business. It has its own place in the Canadian uh ecosystem. To actually also impact the economy of Canada to have its own weight because we're gonna start it, we're already started, now we're gonna, we're already started like exporting, like to add the innovation, the AI development level. It's not just Arabic. We started with Arabic. Now we are able to do other languages, other subjects.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yeah, well, you would like it to be like a a very big company that does very well in bringing an economic impact back to Canada. And that doesn't only have to be with Arabic learning, it could be with any type of learning, just using your your tech, actually.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah, and right now it it's called idotechnos because it's the technology in education. I wanted to be able to create technology in education. I did not know that the Arabic problem is that hard to solve. Yeah, and it's gonna take that long. And yeah, honestly, if it wasn't for my boys, I promise you, I would have not lasted. It was so hard, but I'm seeing them slipping from me, and I need this to be there for them, and that's what pushed me. It's super hard. But now, like we started play, learn, and fall in love with Arabic. Now it's like play, learn, and fall in love with learning. Literally, you can learn anything teaching.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

I I remember I just I just have this moment that we had that we were in Madrid and we had a lunch, remember, with with the Sheikha, and it was such an amazing moment, and you were asked to sit next to her, and I remember you were like, and you said, Oh, don't leave me alone! Like it was too like you were like you were in shock. So we're like, Oh no, don't leave me just sitting here and say, Stay calm. Yeah, I know. There were so many of those things, so so many of those beautiful moments. Um, yes, whereby, yeah, I can imagine what you just said about um presentations, like you you you continuously feel like you need to perform, like there's this continuous like, okay, people are gonna ask, I need to, and and it needs to sound like a billion dollars and it needs to work, and you know, that's that's been a lot of our lives, right? We're like continuously trying to impress.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

It's great, but it it also takes a lot of energy, and a big responsibility as well, because now there is a team, I'm there representing everyone in the team, and I need to do this properly. So, like after we did the when literally, I cannot say I won. It's we won, we did it, you know. It's it's a more evolved feeling. It's um I wanna say I'm I'm very at peace right now with the evolution of Idiotechnos and where it is right now, and I'm very super excited and full of wonder where it's gonna go next. I'm very excited about the next chapter of this journey, extremely.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah. Beautiful, uh Diana. I have always two last questions because I appreciate your time. And one is my own little study as an amateur researcher around morning routines. So every guest on this podcast, I ask, do you have a morning routine? And if so, would you care to share?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

So uh I'm self-diagnosed ADHD. I'm an entrepreneur. I try to have a routine. My ideal routine would be wake up, have breakfast and coffee, and then start your day. But that doesn't always happen, right? Yeah, I do not have exercise in the morning. The one actually, no, there is one thing that is non-negotiable, and my day cannot start without the morning prayer. This is non-negotiable. My day with if I don't have that morning prayer, my day goes south. It's the time where uh it's very meditative state because when we pray, you ask for God's help, and I find myself ask for God's help of what needs to be done today. And the bigger picture, micro and macro. So it sets the intention for the rest of the day. That's the one that is non-negotiable. No morning prayer, the day is is completely off.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yeah. Then everything goes the other way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, but with a morning prayer, things go smoother than without. I'm not gonna say smoothly because that's not reality.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Yeah. I like what you said, it is meditative. I can completely understand that. The reason why I'm asking is I'm trying to develop a morning routine myself, right? So that's what I was like, I'm doing I'm doing cherry picking. But I like the meditative state, um, the prayer, like you know, taking that moment to let things sink in. Uh specifically if your day is such an overload of digital tools, right? I think that's that's just always enormous. Like, you know, and I really need to take those mental breaks. It must be my old age, but I can't continuously be on on the apps or whatever because it's you know, just gets too much. Yeah. Um hundred percent. And then for my very last question, that is around reading. So for people listening, and they say, wow, this journey of Diana Al-Dajani as a computer engineer, as a mom of two wonderful sons, but also as the founder of EduTechnos, which is this great company in Arabic language learning and beyond even in Canada, has there been any reading that has inspired you on your path?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Allah. Um as a mom and and an entrepreneur and trying to do work-life balance, the one book that is amazing is called The One Thing. And uh reading that and putting my own philosophy in it after my reflecting was life is like a seesaw. If it's balanced, it's not fun. It has to go up and down. And according to them, you have if you focus too much at work this week, then next week you need to balance it out more with family. It has to be uh it has to go up and down. I do find it challenging for me to find a routine. It has to go up and down. Life it's an adventure, it's excitement. The second takeaway, it's basically the concept that one domino, I feel that I mentioned that before in your podcast. I'm gonna mention it again. So this is how profound this uh concept is. One domino can knock off another domino that is double of its size, and this one can knock off another one that is double of its size. So if you put them all together, like after 75 dominoes, you can knock the Eiffel Tower. For example, a domino as tall as the Eiffel Tower. And your job is not to find that domino that will knock off these dominoes, these things straight. You need to find which domino will get you that exponential effect, and your job is to keep flicking at it until it falls and then voila. So a lot of times I find myself yes, get whenever I get caught with operations, I have to stop myself. I have to recharge, but then I have to revise everything and try to confirm is this that domino or is this something else?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Wonderful. And I mean, thank you so much. I love the domino, but I also love the CISO. I hadn't heard that one.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Um that's my my terminology.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

And I like it when you said, like, I I have already said this on your podcast. And it is true, I've interviewed you, but with with our Wise Accelerator group, the podcast that I started out with, we which which is another show than this one. So, dear listener, uh, this is not the first time I interview uh Diana, but uh, as you might have heard, there's loads of reason to uh have her on the show because, again, she's an absolute hurricane and a wonderful human being. Thank you so much, Diana. Undoubtedly, we're gonna hear a lot more about your journey and the journey of Edutechnos. I wish you all the very, very best, Diana Aldajani.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Thank you, Aldo.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

You've listened to Pulse by Alphawire, produced by Natalie Piles and Amela Feizel. With great music, The Optimist, written by Holly Hamel, performed and produced by Alo. Episodes hosted weekly by me, Aldo DePau.