Episode 7: Raya Bidshahri on Building Future Talent, Rethinking Education, and Preparing for an AI-Driven World

In this episode, Lucy sits down with Raya Bidshahri, founder and CEO of the School of Humanity, to explore how education needs to evolve for the future.

Raya shares her journey from frustrated student to education innovator, explaining why traditional learning models no longer match the needs of today’s world. She introduces a fresh approach centered on real-world, project-based learning that helps young people discover their strengths and prepare for emerging careers.

The conversation dives into the intersection of education, technology, and future talent — and why developing skills like curiosity, adaptability, and purpose-driven thinking is more important than ever. Raya challenges conventional ideas about schooling and offers a compelling vision for how we can better prepare the next generation.

If you’re interested in the future of education, work, and how we develop talent in a rapidly changing world, this episode offers a thought-provoking and inspiring perspective.

Learn more about our work:
Visit our website: https://intechsearch.com

🤝Connect with Raya:
linkedin.com/in/rayabidshahri

🤝 Connect with us on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/lucyrayden/

linkedin.com/in/chris-thiel-insight/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello. Today I am joined by the wonderful Raya, founder and CEO of the School of Humanity, an innovative project-based interdisciplinary school rethinking how young people learn and how they discover the jobs and industries of the future. Raya's work sits right in the intersection of education, technology, and future talent, exactly the issues many tech leaders are grappling with today. So welcome, Raya. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me, Lucy. I'm very much looking forward to our discussion. We've had a conversation before, and um it was very compelling. So I wanted to share it with the world because I think you have a lot of interesting um backgrounds and insights into the world of education and how that relates to the jobs of the future. So my first question for you, Raya, is um how did you get to where you are today? And what experiences shaped your belief that learning needs to change?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Well, my journey into education uh came out of my own frustration as a learner primarily. So I was lucky enough to be a young entrepreneur, and I had the experience of learning by doing when I was in high school by working on entrepreneurial adventures. And I then went on to university to study neuroscience, and it was while working on my neuroscience degree that I felt even more frustrated with my experience with formal education. And specifically, I was frustrated with the emphasis of memory on memorization towards exams, the standardized curriculum, the uh siloed uh subject-based way that we were learning things as opposed to interdisciplinary explorations that were possible, especially with something like neuroscience. And um, it was that frustration and desire to uh create a more inspiring learning experience for the world that uh drove me into the education space. And my first uh phase of professional work in the education space really came from a more extracurricular supplementary background. So uh with my first uh EdTech organization, we were creating uh a platform that would teach the next generation 21st century skills through microlearning and project-based learning, but it was still very much extracurricular. And while working on that, it gave me the opportunity to work with both private and public education sector in trying to bridging this curriculum gap. And I saw very quickly that taking uh the challenge from the supplementary kind of uh uh uh perspective was really um not the way to tackle the root cause of the problem because learners would still go back to traditional schools and memorize for tests and take exams. I mean, we're just a kind of a band-aid on the wound. And that was around the time that this was around 2020, 2020, 2021, when I was starting to think about what it would look like to actually create a fully alternative model of education, something that would be a full-time alternative, drawing inspiration from the innovative schools that were emerging around the world, but hadn't necessarily scaled to all the families globally. And so this has been a summary, I guess, of of my journey so far and what led me to ultimately starting a full-time high school.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Wow. I mean, I'm really impressed that you used those experiences that you had yourself in such an entrepreneurial way. And you touched on it a minute ago that you had the opportunity when you were younger to be in a sort of an entrepreneurial position. How did that come about?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Uh, it really came about having an environment in my school where we were um, you know, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to work on uh national level events, and uh we were running science festivals, and uh my school had a TEDx really early on before having TEDx youth was really cool, and having the environment essentially incubate those kinds of social venture ideas uh really cultivated it. Uh, I think I also always, even though I was passionate about science, I've always had an interdisciplinary set of interests. Uh, and um being able to tackle real-world issues was one way that I was able to apply that interdisciplinary interest outside of my kind of subject-based experience in schools. So I think those two things really cultivated uh uh my desire or uh path towards becoming a young young entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

And I think it's incredible that you know, using that experience and how you felt about education and how you were being educated to think something needs to change here. Um, because it's a big mission, you know. You're you're you know, the world is systemized in each country, everyone has their way of teaching and educating their population, and to come in with something new and different is I imagine quite a scary prospect when you start out because it's such a huge um part of the world, right? So, where do we even start with something like this?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Well, you know what's remarkable about what we do, and I this is not to undersell how hard of a challenge it's been, is we didn't actually invent any of this. So, to give a bit of context on School of Humanity, we are an innovative online school and we have a basket of different types of pedagogies that we apply. We have courses that are challenge-based where learners are engaging, investigating, and acting on global challenges like maintaining global peace, food, water, energy, security, and so on. And we also apply personalized learning, every learner has their own personalized curriculum. We replace standardized exams with project-based assessments. And so there's all these innovative approaches to education that we've applied in creating School of Humanity. And we didn't really invent any of them. And my point there is that there's been decades of advocacy and work and uh micro-experiments and in different communities around innovative or uh new ways of teaching and learning that are more engaging, that lead to more meaningful outcomes for today's world. The challenge was actually a systems-level challenge, both in how do you then change this education system with all these different nodes and incentives that exist to keep the status quo, and then alternatively, how do you create a new education system that actually creates the incentives to drive the development of these feature-ready skills in the ways that we find so much more meaningful and engaging? And so I always tell our team it really ultimately comes down to execution is how do you bring these systems together to create a new education system for our world. And that's that's really where the core of the challenge lies.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

That's it's incredible, and I think, you know, on a couple of things that you've said already, they really hit home with me. Um last year, I mentioned to you I put my daughter in a school in Costa Rica for three months, and I saw a very different um education system to the one that we were used to here in France. And um, I saw an inspired bubbly child coming home from school every day, um, and it was a delight to see. And when I dug into that to find out, you know, what's changed, what's different. And I said to her, what's different about your school here in Costa Rica to what you're used to in France, in the school that you're in here? And she said, Well, mum, when I'm sitting in my classroom in France, the teacher talks at me and I write things down most of the time. And I was like, okay, and what happens here in Costa Rica in this school, which was run in a very much an American-style um environment. She said, You know, well, mum, my favorite lesson right now is STEM, um, you know, science, technology, engineering, and maths. And I was like, Oh wow, how come? And she said, Well, we get to build stuff. We're building a roller coaster and it's fun. And we work in projects in teams and we work together, and I'm learning how to work in a team. And I thought, wow, this is really interesting because some of these things we take for granted, depending on where you've been brought up, the type of school you go to, because every school is different in how they they teach. But I realized that this type of education for her was much more energizing than memorization, and that's what she does a lot of the time in France. And, you know, uh that is a it's just my experience of two schools, right? I mean, that I'm sure there's many other schools in France that do things differently, but it made me realize that the importance of where we start for our children and how they learn, how they understand, is going to be carried forward in life. And one of the issues I see with tech companies is there's not enough women, there's not enough people coming through into these very specific technology roles. And um, what can we do about that? And all I ever think about is my daughter's experience in Costa Rica because I'm thinking, well, if you make the STEM lessons fun, if people are building, creating understanding, then more people are going to be interested in how things work and what happens. So I think um, you know, I I'm really um I'm really impressed by the fact that you're on this mission. And I'd love to know more about, you know, what would be your ultimate uh mission in your career now, in the situation you're in now, if you could make something, well, you've already made something amazing, but if you could get it to where you wanted it to be, what would that look like?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I really, I really appreciate your the story that you've shared because it goes to the core of how we incentivize learning, not just what and how we learn, but why do we learn in school? And for far too many children around the world, it's we assume the incentive should be better grades exams, right? Like that's what's driving so much of it. But what if the incentive was to change the world or to solve the problem and it just reframes the entire learning journey when you're able to do that? It seems like the school in Costa Rica did that really well. Um, for us, the ultimate vision is to become a globally recognized alternative education system and one that puts the flourishing of people and planet at its core. So uh, and if I dissect that a bit further, the global recognition piece is part of the grand challenge of what we're trying to solve for. Because when you create a new kind of diploma or pathway, you're also creating a new kind of credential, and credentials in the education space are like currencies. You have to work on getting this new kind of currency recognized. And so that's part of it. And the flourishing of people and planet is really kind of, I guess, setting an agenda to why we do what we do, it's not just to prepare the next generation for uh the workforce or for um university, of course, that's one part of it, but going even deeper to actually um creating the kind of world that we want to live in. So uh I think it is uh Zo Wilde, the um the amazing founder of um Institute of Humane Education, who said that the world becomes what we teach, and she's done a lot of work on this. So our the team and I, when developing our core curriculum, asked ourselves what kind of a world do we want to live in, and then trace backwards from there into our core curriculum. So hopefully that gives you a sense of our vision and mission.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, you know, I I really like that because, you know, we we need to be looking at the future and what that world can look like if we're educating in the right way. And um, in a lot of respects, you know, technology plays a big part in this as well, because technology can be used for so much good if it's if if if it's used in the right way. And I think that that intersection between what you're teaching and the core principles and values behind that can be really nicely matched with technology and how we're going to use that. Um maybe maybe you know it's a bit of an off-the-wall question. You see, see what you think of this one. Um, from what you see, why aren't enough young people choosing complex technology paths? And what do you think technology leaders may under misunderstand about the kind of pipeline problem?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Oh, that's a really, really brilliant question. I would I I think there's a couple of things at play. One, I think a lot of young people assume that if you get a certain to a certain point, let's say you get to 10th, 11th grade, and if you don't already have a certain foundation in coding and programming, then it might be too late. Almost like learning a language at advanced level, right? You assume, okay, if I haven't already learned German or French up to this point, and I want to now become a machine learning specialist, uh, maybe that path isn't open to me anymore. And of course, we all know a lot of cases of um uh programmers or even computer scientists that you know started later. So I think maybe it really to tackle that, starting even younger, starting uh with basic computational thinking skills and uh programming languages really earning the journey so that every learner understands that that path is, they have a basic language that they can build on. Um, I also think that people only tend to look at the pipeline from a deep technical expertise perspective, whereas I do think that there is a lot of interdisciplinary applications. I know Google, OpenAI, they all hire for tech ethicists nowadays, um, even though you know we what we all want to see a lot more of that. Uh, there's a lot of angles from the humanities as well into deep technology roles that I think uh young people may not recognize. Um and I also think there's also a lack of awareness of the um new kinds of roles emerging. So a lot of uh people think about uh STEM STEM careers as engineer, medicine, maybe scientist, uh, but you can become a self-driving car specialist or a drone engineer, or you know, there's like all these VR architect, there's all these new titles emerging that I don't think a lot of young people realize could become uh future careers. So those are some of the things I think are that are at play.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah, and I I think that's such an important point because awareness of um what's actually out there, you know. I remember when I was a kid, um we had a careers room in our school, and it was a small room, and it had lots of little leaflets, uh, you know, pamphlets, leaflets, whatever you want to call them. Um, and I kind of went in, looked at a few leaflets, it didn't really tell me much, and I walked back out again. Um, and you know, when kids are not aware, they're only normally going to be aware of um maybe their their inner circle, what their parents do, what their friends' uh parents do. And so they're not necessarily aware of all these different kinds of jobs outside of that. And often the the kind of discussions I've had over my career with um people who work within semiconductors photonics who are at the forefront of technology, right where it starts, and that goes into everything electronic that everyone uses. When they try to talk to their friends about what they do, or if someone asks them what they do, people don't understand. And it's not just that people don't understand, but they automatically have this assumption of, like, oh, so you work in IT, and most of them just say yes for simplicity because it's it's complex and they don't understand it. But I think this awareness is absolutely critical. And um, how do we get kids to understand that there is all these great companies and great opportunities out there? Um, and that you don't have to just be a lawyer or a doctor or you know, an engineer to do well and have a career that is impactful in your life. And I think that you know um it comes from not just parents and what parents teach their kids, um, but also school's responsibilities to to take a look at what's going on in the world now and um what are all these companies? And often it's the ones that nobody's heard of that we need to be looking at a little bit more. Well, what does that company do and what does that mean? And can we show our kids why a you know a career in this type of company could be really interesting and where could that take you? You know, I think obviously the the big names, and I've spoken to people who work for some of you know the Googles, the Apples, all of these companies, everybody knows who they are, everybody wants to work for them, but there's so much that goes on behind that. And if we can make uh kids more aware, we open up a whole load of opportunities for them. And as you said previously, you don't necessarily have to be the best engineer in the world, but you do need to understand that if we want a better world, the humanitarian side of it and the other values to bring into that development of technology, and that's where the crossover is so important. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And I think it's really important to bring the exposure and experience directly into the core school curriculum. By exposure, I mean, you know, simple things like bringing in guest speakers from these career paths to speak to learners. Uh, we have an industry mentorship program from ninth grade where we actually bring in, you know, people who are working full-time in these industries to mentor our learners. And even beyond that, um, we've built a micro-internship program and into the high school program. So we bring in uh organizations that give professional assignments to our learners, our learners work in teams and present back to the organizations. And the power of experiences like that is it actually gives young adults, especially, a chance to experience what it's like to work for such an organization, even if it's just for a few weeks. And that then opens their minds to all of the things that are possible. Uh, to share just a few examples of the impact of this. If a few years ago, I had a guest speaker session where I invited a sustainability consultant to speak to our learners, and none of none of the none of the group had heard of this particular role. By the end of it, a lot of them were actually really keen on maybe this is a career path I can explore. Recently, we have uh one of our uh graduating uh uh learners this year. She's going to take a gap here, but then she's interested in applying into degree programs on future studies, uh, which you know is again another domain that uh she she got exposed to through our programs. But I think it's just about giving them that exposure, but also allowing them to experience these different roles so that they can find the one that is the right fit for them.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Yeah, and I think that's so important. There's two things there that I want to kind of reiterate. You know, it's partly the school's responsibility, but partly um, you know, industry responsibility. If you have a company um getting involved in internship and mentoring programs for young people, so they get this exposure, and that's going to create more employees of the future. But if they're not aware of you, your company, what you're doing, um, how can how can we grow that that pool of people who want to work in that? I think that's super important. And the other thing um that you touched on there is just um having that exposure to different types of roles. So, for example, when you're 18, 16, 17 years old, you don't always know what one, what you're really good at, and two, what you really enjoy, what turn, you know, what really um ignites your passion. And sometimes without having that exposure to different types of roles, it's very hard for kids to make decisions. What do I study at university? And once you start down one path, can you ever move out of that path or not? You know, it depends on where you are. You might start down it and then you realize it's not for you. And one of the things I always say is um, you know, you should really look at what you're good at. It doesn't have to be what you love. You know, we'd all love jobs where everything that we do, we love about it. And some people are lucky enough to have that, but not everybody can be. But to think about what are my core skills? What am I good at? You know, am I good at communicating? Am I good at programming? Am I good at bringing teams of people together? Am I good with numbers? What are the things that you're good at and where do they fit into the working world? And by giving kids and young people exposure to, you know, maybe go and work in a marketing department or a finance department or an engineering department, but seeing how these different people work and what that day-to-day job means and what the opportunities with that for impactful work in the future actually are. So there's a lot to be done, I think. And it starts with education and industry getting their heads together and um seeing how we can do this. And I know a lot of companies do this and a lot of organizations do this, but I don't think it's enough.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

No, you're right. It needs there needs to be a cultural change around um all of us recognizing the role we play and shaping that. And I love what you just said because there's also a big difference between studying something and working in the industry. And I think that's another mistake that a lot of young people make. It's one I made. I loved learning science, and I thought that translated to wanting to become a scientist. And I worked in a lab for a year and realized I that's when I realized what being a scientist actually entailed, and that it wasn't actually my calling. And so there's this gap between the academic experience and the actual industry experience as well. Um, but we uh you mentioned uh prioritizing what you're good at. Uh, one of my favorite frameworks for purpose is the Ikigai framework. Uh ikigai, the Japanese concept for framework, which lies is your purpose or ikigai. Guy lies at the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, what can make you money, and what the world needs. So it's that the fourth criteria is a Venn diagram, and the intersection of that is your purpose.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah. And that's brilliant. And everyone should be doing that to help them navigate where they need to go. Just to pivot a little bit, what do you think actually works to get kids genuinely excited about STEM, especially the hands-on learning by doing, things like building robotics, experimentation? What do you see with the kids that you work with to get them excited? What works?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

A couple of things. Firstly, I mentioned challenge-based learning. I think really with any theme and topic, it's a brilliant way to recontextualize why we're learning this. So to give you an example, one of our interdisciplinary challenges that we did last academic year, uh, sorry, last term, was designing space habitats. And learners first engaged with ideas from physics, chemistry, but also psychology and history to understand the history of space habitats, how we can design habitats, not just applying physics and mathematics, but also lessons from psychology for it to cater to the well-being of astronauts, um, and so on. And so you create that that engagement. And then in the investigate and act phases of the challenge, learners then choose uh sub-challenges that they'd like to investigate further and create their own projects. So one learner might say, Okay, I want to figure out how to create oxygen on Mars, and another one might want to create a space tourism platform, and so they take it in their own directions from there. The beauty of the challenge is you're framing the STEM concept around a grand global challenge or a human or human problem, and that just reframes the entire learning experience for everyone. The second piece is that interdisciplinarity I spoke about, because for the learners that you know think, okay, I'm more interested in humanities or the arts, having an interdisciplinary journey allows them to see how that's still relevant to what they love. So we're in the process of designing a middle school uh challenge called Nature as Arts, and it involves drawing from you know, biomimicry concepts, but also looking at nature's patterns and innovations to inspire works of creativity, whether it's poetry or artistic works. And that really helps bridge the gap for learners that feel closed off because they're like, you know, we for some reason or another, a lot of us end up bucketing ourselves at a young age and thinking I'm not a science person, I'm an arts person. And it just helps bridge that gap and make allow them to see that actually you can connect to this to this theme from a different angle. So those are two things I've seen be very impactful with young people.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

I like that. And I think another thing that um stood out to me there was the whole element of creativity, right? Because we're in a world where um kids are have more and more screen time. Everyone, everyone sees this all the time. And I have this exact discussion with my daughter at the weekend when she would love to just watch TV all weekend. She's tired, that's what she wants to do. And the conversation always goes like this I say you have a choice, you can create or you can consume. If you stop creating, then your brain will not grow and develop in the way that you need it to grow at this age, because that's gonna give you opportunities in the future. So if you spend all your time consuming, it's not gonna get you very far. And it's a bit of a battle. But I say to her, I don't care what you create. If you want to draw something, if you want to bake something, if you want to build something, I don't care. Go and use your mind. And you know, and then we have these funny conversations where she'll say, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna do some sewing and I'm gonna create a cushion. And I'm like, fine, she has no idea how to sew, really. I've never really taught her. But I let her go on and try and see what she does, and then we look at it and go, okay, well, how could we have done this better? Let's try again. Um, but this creative part of the mind is so important in every job of the future. And I think what we have to be careful as as parents and educators is allowing the consuming of information to take over to an extent where this creativity just disappears. Um, and it's a big problem. I think it's a big problem. Um, you know, it's a it's a battle for me as a parent, I won't lie, um, to pull that device away, whatever device that is. Um but you know, this creativity element is in everything. And we need our kids to be thinking so much more now because the world problems are so much more in our faces, they're so much more apparent. Um, and if kids can get creative, and I I love all the the projects and the challenges that you're setting your children because they're real world possibilities and things, and getting them to think in such a large scale, I think, is is incredible. And it must be very motivating for those children as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Absolutely. I I think you're on point. One of the things I always tell parents when the screen time question is a question we always get, is not all screen time is equal. Time spent using the screen creating or even learning, I would treat very differently than time spent consuming and doom scrolling mindlessly. And the creativity is also, as I'm sure you'll agree, goes way beyond art. Um, and I don't think enough school curriculum treats it that way. Um, for us, for example, in our creativity literacy of the core curriculum, it's broken down, yes, into you know, creative expression, but also idea and product building, futurist thinking, uh, you know, literary and visual analysis, like those all kind of come together, and it's rarely a skill to be treated standalone. You can then teach it in connection with with others. So um, yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think uh encouraging creativity in a world where there's so much uh information hijacking our brains is is a is a good shield to have.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and I think another thing that's important is confidence actually, and building that in schools. And I have to say, the school where my daughter is here in France is very good on the confidence. You know, she will stand up and read in a different language in front of her class, and she feels confident because they're used to this kind of situation. And I love that, I love seeing that because you know, if we can encourage our kids to be confident, to use their voices, to not feel afraid of you know what's gonna come back on them, then we can move things forward. If they're all as afraid of what people think and what people say, nothing changes. So, again, I think that's another important thing. Um, another question for you: where do you think traditional school systems hold students back from skills maybe technology companies need, whether that's teamwork or problem solving or learning from mistakes? What do you think um the main holdbacks are?

SPEAKER_00 29:06

I think it boils down to a narrow definition of success that is often determined by exam results. And those exam results, if you think about the skills that it takes to do really well on those tests, it's a very narrow set of abilities, largely focused, you know, built on retention of an incredible amount of information and maybe some analytical reasoning to apply that information to application-based questions. There are a whole set of competencies, skills, mindsets that we're just not treating as core goals of our education system. I mean, how many schools set graduation requirements that have to do with creativity skills that you have to have created a certain amount of works in order to graduate from our school, for instance? Or how many schools have progression from grade on grade that also include things like problem-solving abilities and or even, let's say, more technical skills like working with AI and so on. And I think until we revisit as a society what are those knowledge mindset skills that we absolutely want to prioritize and then fundamentally reimagine how we evidence and assess those capabilities, because it's not going to be always through a standardized test. We need to have a much more expanded view of how we evidence those abilities. Things won't really change, right? Because it's just you know that we have a set uh knowledge-focused uh curricula in most places, and then a specific way of assessing that knowledge. And so that's really the big, if I had to boil it down into two key things, that's what it comes down to for me.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Yeah, amazing. Thank you. And um, you've spoken about um sort of future technology leaders needing more than technical specialism. We've spoken about understanding humans, ethics, real-world context. What does that look like in practice?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Uh so it's multidimensional, but one of the core parts of our curriculum is our human flourishing uh curriculum. And for us, this is something that's core. It's not something that is an extracurricular thing. Learners actually have to engage with the human flourishing curriculum to move on year on year. And the human, for us, human flourishing encompasses emotional, semantic, and existential intelligence, and it involves workshops on developing skills in those domains. And then every learner in in high school, especially, uh, embarks on personalized flourishing areas. They might need to, they might feel like they need to work on understanding themselves and being more mindful. For other learners, it might be about managing the relationships in their lives. And so they set these flourishing goals for themselves. Um, and a middle school level, they have different quests that they go on. And so it comes from a combination of like building intentional curriculum, drawing on different philosophies, psychology concepts to help them understand themselves and others, creating interactive workshops for them to discuss through those uh concepts, and then actually give them a chance to focus on what they believe their flourishing needs are. I think the byproduct of that is that we are hopefully developing those human skills in a way that allows them to flourish in life, but also in the workforce when they enter it one day.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

You know, when I listen to you, Raya, I think every education system in the world could learn so much from what you're doing. And uh, you know, I I know that your your teaching is online, and um, I hope in the future that you know more people will listen to the way you're thinking about the education of our children and the way you're already putting it into practice. Because if we could just incorporate even just some of these elements of the way that you're teaching and getting these kids to think about things into the schools, you know, that may not be online schools, but you know, in-person schools, if they could just incorporate some of these elements, I think we'd see a big change in kids thriving and um growing into people that that are gonna change the world. You know, it it's really uh it's really groundbreaking work. I really like it, and I really hope that you know maybe someone will listen to this podcast and say, right, I need to get Raya in to teach us how to do this because um it sounds amazing. And I'm I'm really impressed with how far you've got so far. And I really hope that um this change starts to move more and more quickly in how we are addressing it. I think that some education systems are archaic. I think some of the ways um we're teaching kids are are not keeping up with how quickly the the world is changing and moving. Um, and we need to protect our children and protect their future, and it starts right here with how we educate them, not just what we're educating them, but how we educate them, how they learn. And, you know, I'm a big believer in you know, really finding what people's core strengths are, and everybody has strengths, and those strengths are all different. You know, one of the education systems that I've always found um really um appealing and interesting is actually in Switzerland, where um very early on they they look at whether people are maybe more academic or more vocational, and um but both are seen in a very positive light. So it doesn't matter what you are, but they will point you in the right direction from an early age, and they'll say, Well, we need people who can be electricians or plumbers or whatever else it might be, as much as we need scientists or engineers. There's not one or the other that is more important or more seen with more prestige. It's like this is what our country needs. Um, we're gonna put you in the direction of where we can see your flourishing and thriving already. And um I really like that because it takes away this kind of stigma. I talk to a lot of people who say, you know, I say, Oh, how did you get into engineering? And they'll say, Oh, well, my parents wanted me to be either a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer, you know. And it's like, okay, so so that's it. But but where does the person's skill come in, the person's ability come in, the person's creativity come in, and how can we best use it? So I'm always interested in trying to assess, and I do it with my candidates, you know, I'm I'm placing candidates into companies all the all the time. What do they bring to the table? What's their skill? What do they do better than anyone else? And how can that be utilized to better the world effectively? Um, so it's it's a really interesting, interesting space.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Um I really appreciate that perspective. I think sometimes the mistake we make is we set these benchmarks, learning benchmarks or academic benchmarks, sometimes at a national level. And you hear about things like no child left behind, and you want all our learners to get to this level of mathematics or English or whatever. And a better way of framing that is what if we helped each individual become the best version of themselves?

SPEAKER_01 36:02

And absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

And each for each person, those benchmarks might be different. For one, it might be the leaning into their strengths with very strong human skills, and for someone else, it might be those technical skills and so on. And yeah, we need more pathways so that uh depending on whatever yet that that's that strength uh set is for you, that you can have a pathway that takes you to flourishing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

And and I think it's also um, you know, I I want people to feel proud of what they do, whatever that is, and to do it to the best of their abilities. You know, I don't want I don't like it when I hear I've had people in the past saying, I'm just a this or I'm just that. And I'm like, if I hear that, if I hear someone saying that, I'm like, don't ever say that to me, because for me, you're a very important person in the ecosystem that helps me with stuff that I don't know how to do. Um, so and I probably help you with stuff that you don't need to have. So nobody is just anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Well, ironically, these are the roles that are hardest to automate. So I think what we're hearing is blue-collar jobs are going to be the most difficult to replace with AI, especially with what's happening right now with all the disruption in the workforce.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Absolutely. Things are being turned on on the head. So it's it's an interesting time. And actually, looking ahead five or ten years, um, what does the ideal alternative pathway look like globally? So, how do you make sure students can still access top universities and tech careers through these coming years in in how you're you're educating?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Right. So I think there's two parts to that. One is that ideal, what's the ideal alternative pathway, and then what do you what do we do about the transition to higher education? So I don't believe in a one-size-fit-all model. I think a healthy education system should have lots of different options and pathways available. There's schools like us, uh the School of Humanity, that focuses on challenge-based personalized education, but then you have schools like the Green School in Bali, where it's a nature-based, sustainability-focused curriculum. You have schools like New View School in Boston. It's very based on the architectural studio model, and learners are working with their hands a lot and they're building things in these multi-week sprints. Uh, you have schools like New View and uh sorry, Agora School in the Netherlands, where um there are no classrooms, there are no teachers, there is no curriculum. Every learner has a personalized curriculum, the educators are coaches, and it's open learning environments. And you have hybrid schools, you have homeschooling pods. I could go on and on. And I think it's in an ideal educational landscape, we have the right regulations for each type of offering. And it's not just, you know, everyone has to meet this kind of a regulatory standard because you just have to contextualize it to the modality of education, and it also means families can find what is right for their lifestyle and for their children and their values. Now we need ways of quality assuring and accrediting and translating these new pathways in a way that universities will appreciate. And I think there's things that are already happening in this space. Many universities are already starting to not attach their um admissions requirement to specific qualifications and are willing to look contextually at each applicant and understand this their school curriculum and so on before. But um, I think accrediting bodies are already in the right place. There's a track record of international accreditation bodies accrediting uh schools like ours, and we are fully accredited. I think governments haven't kept up to the same pace. So, in some places, online school is still not considered a legal form of education, or homeschooling is not permitted, and so on. And so I do think there needs to be a regulatory catch-up so that the universities and higher ed can then you know recognize those paths of pathways in education. So that the recognition problem really needs to come from multiple angles. There's a benchmarking challenge to it, as well as a regulatory one, an accreditation one, and then there's the piece that just means waiting for more and more universities to change their admissions requirements.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

So change needs to happen in in many ways, I think. And you know, and as a parent, for me, you know, um, online school is not necessarily for for everyone. Um, you know, I have just one child and I need her to be mixing with people every day. And uh, you know, I run a business, so it'd be very hard for me to manage that. But I love everything that you're doing, and I hope that more of what you're doing can actually be incorporated to every school in the way of thinking and the way of teaching, because actually, when we do look around the world, like you said, there's many great things going on, but we have to open our eyes to that and actually go looking country to country, what's working here, what's doing well, and how do we incorporate that into our own system? Because we don't want to fall behind, no country wants to fall behind, and if we don't um move quickly um to make these changes, we we can't spend forever talking about it and the impact of this and the impact of that. And I think sometimes um, you know, in Europe, certainly, which is my main experience, we can be very guilty of that, and actually, change needs to happen. Um, rules need to come in and and and and we need to move quickly. I mean, there's no question about it for me. Um, the world is a different place, and the education needs to keep up with that. Um, a complete pivot now, a bit more about you as a CEO, because um you're building something very important. And I want to understand from you what support has mattered most to you as a CEO building this? Is it a board? Is it mentors? Is it networks? And also what have you learned about leading a mission-driven organization?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

I'm very fortunate to have an amazing board. Um, both Chris and Frazier who sit on board have incredible uh decades of experience. Frazier having run and launched many schools, and Chris, just as a leader, having led many large organizations and learning from people that have that expertise, both from an education perspective and a leadership and organization perspective, has been amazing for me. Um, also, the everyone needs the kind of support that they can go to with all their problems unfiltered and just vent and talk through it, right? I think that's really critical for any um leader and entrepreneur. What I've learned from leading a mission-driven organization. Um I think I've learned that it's the superpower to be a mission-driven organization. What I mean by that is I've always am constantly pleasantly surprised by the caliber of talents that we are able to draw around this mission. Um, it is authentically our mission. It's not like we're we're you know strategizing around this mission in order to draw the talent, but you know, we're a small uh social enterprise. Uh, even if we're not able to offer the most competitive packages, we're we've still been able to draw in um amazing human beings. And I think I've just learned having this, as they call massive transformative purpose that pulls everyone together is just a really powerful superpower to have. I don't think I would do it any other way. Uh my advice always to young entrepreneurs is it's so difficult, it's really not worth the hassle if you're starting a business just to make money or for the sake of it. But start it around a deep problem that is impacting society. And you'll just it'll it'll be a lot more meaningful for you, and you'll draw in an army of people who share that purpose and mission, and it will be a lot more exciting that way.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah, I I that's that's uh yeah, that really resonates with me. And I think that um that element of finding other people who share the mission, share the values is so crucial. Doing anything on your own, starting a business on your own is is hard, very hard. But if you can find like-minded people that um, you know, also are lit up by the the mission, then you're already, you know, setting off on the right foot, essentially. So no, that's that's brilliant. And um, if a CEO watching this wants to influence future talent today, what's one practical thing they could do in the next three months, for example? From me, from listening to you, if I were to answer the question, I would say yes, from listening to Raya. Um, these organizations need to be having these mentorship programs or internship programs, or they need to be more present and have um relationships with schools. Every organization needs to be doing it. And like you said earlier on, you know, perhaps um being a keynote speaker in front of a school, talking about different careers, getting kids really the awareness of what these companies actually do and showing them and involving them. I mean, I've just answered the question because you've given me so much to um answer it on. But is there anything you would add to that?

SPEAKER_00 45:21

No, I think uh that's all of that is spot on. And um uh I would also add to that is rethinking the way that you recruit and hire as a CEO to go A, thinking about ability, not age, and experience. There are lots of young people who have the capabilities and hiring for potential, because then you're also creating the pathway for these young people to potentially work with you. And secondly, rethinking the requirement for degrees and the kinds of credentials you require to hire. I think those are also two direct ways that you can influence the education system, you can influence the university system by not requiring a degree. I mean, you can anyone can learn anything online these days, right? There's very few career paths where you truly do need some kind of a licensed, accredited, you know, license to perform, like being a doctor and lawyer and so on. Um, but there are many, many career paths where you just you can actually, there's no reason why a high school graduate can't enter and start working at an entry-level job. And I think as business leaders, as CEOs, we can all make that happen by being open and changing the way we write the job descriptions and changing the way we do recruitment to create those talent pipelines.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Yeah, I agree. I think that's absolute gold. You know, so many times I've sat with companies who have these super strict requirements. And I'm thinking, you know, actually in your organization, what you really need is diversity of thought. And diversity of thought comes from being open-minded to the backgrounds people come from, the skills that they bring, their motivations, their values, not purely based on a degree or a you know, a score for something that they've done. And we do need to absolutely be open-minded if we're to create certainly technology companies, but not just technology companies, companies that um evolve and grow quickly, because there is so many talented people out there. And um, you know, actually, this is one of the things I'm gonna say it now, that I have seen already a frustration with AI. Now, that frustration to me is that a lot of companies, big companies, are using AI to filter in and out the candidates that apply to them. And um, I spoke to a cybersecurity expert who's been absolutely top of his game for his whole entire career, and for whatever reason, he found himself out of a job, and he applied to more than a hundred jobs and didn't get an interview. And this is somebody who is absolutely top of their game, and he put it down to the fact that AI was filtering him out based on whether it what it was, I don't know, his age or whatever. But the fact that someone so experienced wasn't even getting an interview to me is horrifying. So I think companies look need to look very carefully about how they're using AI in their filtering, because essentially, at the end of the day, it's reading information, it's not understanding people, their values, their strengths, their skills, everything else that they can bring to the table. And I think companies need to be very careful with this. I I notice companies missing out on amazing talent because of how they're running their interview process or their filtering process and taking out the human element. So, yes, AI has amazing uses, but we have to be very careful that we're not actually shooting ourselves in the foot, right? Um, with with these uh with these extreme methods. So I think it's it's very important.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

And um And we know and we know that they're biased. We know that a lot of these algorithms mirror the biases of the humans that created them. And at the end of the day, we're hiring another human being, not a resume. And the only way you can get to know a human being truly is talking to them. And actually, and obviously, I understand at scale you can't talk to a hundred people, but you I would hope that a human mind would read a certain resume and pick up on things that a machine learning algorithm might miss out that might be a bit more creative, that might be more out there, that might have a oh, we have a hobby in common with me. Let me then you know have that first conversation. So much that you miss out on.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I saw this with uh with something recently I was hiring for a position where um somebody was going to be um in a manufacturing environment managing some manufacturing um plants, and they hadn't actually run manufacturing plants before, but they had been a consultant working with companies that had lots of different manufacturing lines. So they'd been exposed to it, they just hadn't run it themselves. And um I thought, well, you know, the the company kind of said to me, Oh, I'm not this is our concern, they won't be able to do it because they haven't done it before. And my response was, well, one, they've been exposed to it. And two, one of the questions I asked them was, What do you do in your spare time? What do you do when you're not working? You know, at the weekends, what do you do? And this guy said to me, Um, I take cars apart with my friends and I put them back together. And I said, Okay, so you're pretty curious about how things work and and how they function. And he said, Oh, yeah, I love that. And so I went back to the company and I said, Look, this is what he does in his spare time. So if you take him to a manufacturing plant and he's talking to each person in each stage of it, he's gonna want to understand how that works. And once he understands that, it's not gonna take him long because he has the kind of mind that is interested in it. Now, had they just gone, he hasn't manufactured, you know, he hasn't managed manufacturing lines, he wouldn't have got the job. Um, he did get the job, but it was based on these specific things that I could say, well, I think he can adapt. You know, he's shown adaptability in his past. And often when we're interviewing, um, and people are coming from slightly different um backgrounds than maybe the client originally asked for. I say to the client, you need to look for signs of adaptability. When have they had to learn something new? When have they gone from one environment to another? Because that is evidence that this person is capable of adapting if they then thrived in that environment, right? Rather than saying they don't have X, Y, and Z, therefore they're not going to work out. So it's it's being open-minded, um, which is gonna, which is gonna get people to to move, move forward.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Yeah. And that's the part that's hard to teach and train, right? Is the curiosity, adaptability, the values, the mindset of someone. You can bring them up to speed via an onboarding program on all the technical specifications, but you can't teach someone a you know personality trait or uh to to be more curious, they either are or they aren't. And that's why it's so critical you hire for those intangibles first.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

Absolutely. And I mean, curiosity comes up time and time again in in my work, you know, uh it's such a core skill, but so many people don't have it. You know, how many times do you go to uh you know an event and you're standing talking to someone and they they have no questions for you, they have nothing to ask you, and you just think after a few minutes of raiding your conversational bank and you've asked them everything you can, they give nothing back. And it's painful, you know, it's really painful. And I think whether this comes from I don't know, education, schooling, parenting, I don't know, but it's such a crucial thing. The more curious and the more encouraging of um curiosity we can we can start our children's with, the much better they're gonna perform in in later life. Um, you know.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Well, I mean, to circle back to the education system, we spend so much time teaching children how to answer questions in an exam. How much time do we spend helping them ask questions? Right. And I can I'm not shocked that so many of us are wired this way.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Yeah, absolutely. It's a simple change, right? Teaching them how to ask questions and to be confident in asking those questions. You know, um, I am part of an organization that helps um CEOs with their challenges. And uh when we have new members join, I think one of the most important things is you know, you're sitting in a room with a lot of people with, you know, very skilled, experienced people, and it can be quite daunting. And one of the things I always say is, you know, no question is a stupid question. We can't all be experts in what everyone else is doing. Sometimes we're not gonna know the terminology, the language, and just put it out there, see, you know, and don't feel embarrassed about that. Um, but you have to learn to do that as an individual in life, because otherwise you sit there thinking, well, I don't know what they're talking about, and I'm just not gonna say anything. Um, and you don't learn, and also your expertise doesn't come through where actually it could be very helpful. Um, okay, a couple of final things for you, Raya, because you've spent a lot of time with me now and I really appreciate that. Um, but this is a this is an important one. What's one change you'd love European education systems to adopt tomorrow to compete more strongly, whether it's in technology or in other areas?

SPEAKER_00 54:28

I'm I'm uh trying to think of one that I would prioritize over the long list. Um move away from the requirement to have a standardized qualification and the university admissions system. So, a bit of context about this. A lot of the uh Wests of the Atlantic Ocean, like North and South America, are largely flexible in the diplomas they recognize. If you don't have A levels, A, P, I, B, they can still look at the curriculum of the school. They might require SATs, but there's this they'll look at the curriculum of the school, contextualize it, admit learners. Vast majority of European um higher education still looks for one of the five currencies that they recognize. So it's either the national curricula exams or one of those other international examination bodies. What that then does is it makes it so difficult for the school level to reimagine what they teach and how they teach and how they evidence learning. Even though there are lots of amazing innovative schools around the world, higher pathways to higher ed in Europe are tougher for them for that reason. So if there's one thing I would change is just open that up, open that requirement up, maybe look for any accredited diploma, because then you have that stamp of approval, but you're staying neutral of curriculum requirements, allowing schools to innovate.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

Yeah, I think that's absolutely crucial. And we need schools to innovate. Yeah, we absolutely need them to innovate, you know, um, and we need to be something that is present and moving and and change is happening. And you know, I see you as um someone that's that's pushing this change, um, and I think you're doing a fabulous job of it. And it's it's really inspiring to see because it's so important. It's so important for the world, it's so important for companies, whether they're technology companies or not, but to have these innovations in how we're teaching and then how we're we're giving people opportunities in their lives, in their careers, and actually building what the world needs, um, it's very inspiring, Raya. And um I I've really enjoyed um our conversation today. So, just one final thing for you before we we round up. If you could leave technology leaders and parents with one message about developing future talent for sort of deep tech or other companies as well, what would that be? What would the message be?

SPEAKER_00 56:56

My message would be to don't be afraid to pioneer something for the first time and do a radical moonshot. I think it's so easy on you know all dimensions of life, but especially in technology to follow whatever the trend is then and now. I mean, look at all the obsession with artificial intelligence and so many people fall chasing that, whether it's venture capitalists or tech firms. But yeah, think against the grain. Don't be afraid to be a first um uh adopter or the adopter and pioneer something that hasn't been done before. Um, I think if more of us did that, I I the world we'd live in would be even more exciting.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Yeah. Be brave, be bold, and just do it. Absolutely. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you so much, Raya, for being with us today. I've really enjoyed our conversation and I wish you every success with the School of Humanity. And I hope to see it appearing everywhere around me. I hope everyone is listening and taking on board your thoughts because they're very, very important to us in this ever-changing world.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

I really appreciate the platform. I mean, our mission, a core part of the mission, is changing narratives around education and opening up people's imagination to you know how we could be learning in schools and conversations like this allow us to do that. So I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Lucy.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Thanks, Raya. Thanks a lot.