You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. So our next guest, we'd last talked to him at what was a really rough time, was more than a year ago. Here's someone who has brought innovation to education, really changed the space.
Socn is the founder of con Academy. It's a nonprofit that set out to provide a great education to all students around the globe and with more than one billion children worldwide impacted by school closures because of the pandemic, kN Academy, we saw them step up in a big way and providing their free resources. Sal is back with us on the phone in Mountain View, California, South. It is so nice to have you back. How are you. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Well, it's good
to have you here. We did talk to you in May. Tell me what's been going on with you and con Academy since then? Yeah, back last year. It was one of those moments where we look left and look right and realized that uh, this was us something to get them through all of the school closures and the disruptions keep them learning. Over the summer, and we saw our traffic go about three xx of normal. Normally we see about thirty million learning minutes per day. We saw that
grown about eighty five nine. The pandemic kept going longer than folks expected, uh, they continued to lean on it. In twenty we saw twelve billion learning minutes on conic Academy. About half of that six billion as students and families coming on their own. Six billion has been what we call teacher directed teachers getting students to use it, and we've just been trying to keep up with the demand. We've accelerated a whole series of course. Is we're gonna
be launching science within the year. We've always had science on con Academy, but this is comprehensive practice assessment, feedback, middle school, high school, early college, chemistry, biology, physics, econ
other things. UM, So we're excited about that. And on top of that, as part of the pandemic response, this time last year, we we started a prototype another nonprofit called Schoolhouse dot World to give everyone free tutoring, and since then that's grown, that's gotten some film tropic funding behind We've had a bunch of states signed on because everyone's talking about tutoring, but no one knows really how to scale it. And the way we're scaling it is.
We're getting high quality, vetted volunteers from all over the world to tutor people from all over the world. It's incredible the network that you've created. You were founded, I think right back in oh seven, I remember doing a piece on you as you had kind of started out. What's changed in terms of the work that you're doing, the groups that you're reaching, and how people are looking at you and your role in education. Yeah, I means you mentioned back in two thousand seven. You know, there's
multiple possible starting points for con Academy. Is two thousand four I started tuting family, two thousand five, I started making soft before them, two thousand six I started making videos. And so two thousand seven was the very early days of con Academy. I was still working as my day job as an analyst at a hedge Funds and um By. You know, it wasn't until two thousand nine that I quit quit that day job, and in two thousand ten we got our first real film, tropic funding to become
an organization. But what's changed in the mac grow environment is, you know, some of these ideas that learning should not be bound by time or space, or that personalized learning or that you could get really high quality learning and practice on the internet. Those were avant garde ideas in two seven. Now those are mainstream ideas, and the pandemic
accelerated it. Another big I would say condition that has changed is in two thousand seven, it was unusual even for reasonably well resourced schools to have a decent Internet access and devices. Over the last ten years, at least in the school setting because the programs like e Rate, you've actually seen that close within. The pandemic has put a spotlight on the digital divide at home, but hopefully it's accelerated people wanting to address that in terms of us.
You know, in two thousand seven, it was me and my closet doing it as a hobby. And you know, now we have a twenty million registered users. There's there's fifty six languages. We're trying to cover all those subjects and grades. We're thinking about even ways that masteryon Kon Academy can help you get into college or or help you get a job. And and you know, we're continuing to expand the number of subjects. We're going into tutoring
with that related entity called Schoolhouse. So yeah, there's a lot going on. Well, you know, it's stuck out to
just many things. But you also talked about the digital divide, and I think it's interesting on a day where we had President Biden come out and you know, hopeful about his physical infrastructure plan, you know, and that includes, you know, the digital infrastructure that's in our country, how much from what you are seeing, the schools you're talking to, the individuals you're talking to, how much of that creates a
real obstacle when it comes to learning in this country. Yeah, well, you're not going to be able to engage in the types of things that we're talking about, leverage econ Academy, leverage of school house, dot world unless you have some access. And we saw this during the pandemic that it was hard for schools to figure out even how to create a hybrid learning program or a distiss learning program. But it was that much harder if you're in a urban
school district where students did not have sufficient access. And even in cases where people might have had a computer at home or a cell phone, you you still would have had a situation where five family members would have to share that same device, or students didn't just have the right supports at home, their parents might have been essential workers. And so I think, uh, you know, by putting a spotlight on that where people have done some
pretty heroic efforts at trying to solve it. Hey, what I want to ask you too is summer programs, summer school We see some school districts providing learning over this summer as a way to catch up from some learning missed as a result of schools being shut down by the pandemic. One point two billion in federal funding has been allocated for what they are calling evidence based summer enrichment programs. What summer programs, what summer schools? What summer
learning makes a difference in your view? I think with all things, it's something where one you have to do it regularly, You almost have to create a habit of it. And for us, if you can, if students can engage, you know, the technical terms is in their zone of proximal development, which is a fancy way of saying they're learning edge. If it's too hard, they're not going to be able to learn much. And if it's too easy,
they're not going to be learning much. And what technology and what kind of academy has always been focused on is how do we help a teacher, How do we help an educator or a parent, or even a student on their own. How do we help them practice and finish any unfinished learning right at their learning edge. So we have camp con which is a summer program. Anyone can use it around the world. It's free, it's all
not for profit. Where we're saying, hey, come spend twenty minuts a day, build that habit, learn at your at your learning edge. We have what's called get Ready for grade level courses if you want to bone up and refresh the things you need going into the next year, or you can go into the grade level courses and get a head start on things. If you do that, and I recommend that to anyone I meet, I try to do that with my own children. You're you're going to have a leg up when you get back to school.
Now everything isn't just about the academics. We know that we just got out of a pandemic. People have felt socially isolated. So also the more time, especially younger kids can get outside with friends now that the restrictions are starting to listen, that's going to be really important as well. We've been talking a lot about the learning loss and the academic stuff that matters, and I've called that a disaster recovery projects going into the summer and next year.
But I think that social emotional side is also not getting enough attention. You know, it's interesting to con and I mean, sal, I wonder your your take on this, because you, I mean, my daughter used Academy, loved it for whether it's math or science. You know, just a great resource to understand sometimes really complicated things. You've figured out really how well to connect with students in the
online world. We know the online learning experience so especially for younger kids, wasn't Ohay's so productive and didn't work so well during the pandemic. So what's the key to getting it right, to getting it or to doing it wrong? Well, I think and well, I think there's a couple of pitfalls that people get into when they think about online
or technology use. A lot of times they think about the technology first and they say, Okay, let's just use the technology, just do something modern, and that's the that's that's the backwards way of looking at it. You say, what's your pedagogical goal? Here is your pedagogical goal to allow for personalization to let students learn at their own time, and pays to let them finish any unfinished learning they
might have had. Then think about what tools. The tools might be chalk, it might be the human being in the room, or it might be software. It might be a kind Academy or something like that. I also think a lot matters on the implementation of the idea or
of the technology. It was a blessing that Kind Academy started off as a project for me tutoring my family that allowed me to bring up I would say, an eccentricity and informality authenticity to the content, whether it's the software of the videos that wouldn't have come natural to a large company um and even now as we've grown and scaled, I try to maintain that with our team.
I remind folks that when when you have a distance between yourself and the learner over time and space because of the technology, it's even more to let your It's even more important to let your humanity shine. Most people do the opposite. As soon as the cameras on, they start talking like a robot or a GPS device. It's even more important when you're doing a video or when you're writing software, that you're passionate about it, that it shows in the work. If you don't sound excited, the
students not going to be excited. If you don't let yourself be low stress and comfortable and laugh at yourself, well then it's going to be stressful for the student. If you're not interested, the students not going to be interested. So how do you how do you believe that the educational system well entrenched in this country? And I know you work on a global basis, but I'm just curious about the u S where we know there's tons of money spent, but depending on where you live and your access,
you can get a much better education than others. How is it can something like kind of academy and how are you working with schools that are maybe undersourced under resourced as well that can kind of up the game for the kids who are are at those schools. We've seen over the last ten years there's fifty efficacy studies
done on con Academy. I believe we're the most researched technology and technology platform out there that if students are able to engage in their zone, approximal development in their learning edge for even thirty five minutes a week that they're growing faster. But we realize that it's great that all of these teachers on their on their own, hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents and students have decided
to use it in a grassroots way. But if we really want to serve all students, we have to work more formally with districts, and we have to integrate with other things that they're doing. We have a partnership with n w e A, which is a standardized testing body administer something called the MAP Growth Assessment. It's taken by twenty of students. Historically, one of the biggest critiques of standardized testing is, Okay, it's great to measure where you are,
but then what do you do with that? So our partnership with the n w e A is all about, hey, you take that standardized test and then that can inform what your learning edges, that can inform a personalized learning plan on con Academy. And that's what we've been doing
systemically with districts. Our partnership with the College Board around the s a T, where the official practice partner for the s A T. We've seen a lot of school districts want to also use that once again, they're integrating these different pieces that have always exists as the map, growth test, the s A T. But now they're integrating that with personalized practice so that they can really meet
these kids where they are. I'm thinking about the parents that are listening uh and thinking about their kids over this summer. What's your advice for parents and caregivers on what they can do with their kids this summer. I would say, depending on the age of your child, target thirty to ninety minutes a day of continued academic learning. The summer is always an opportunity to refresh and maybe even get ahead, but this summer is going to be that much more important. Take a look at con academy
dot org, take a look at Schoolhouse dot world. If you have younger kids between the ages of three and seven, check out our app. It's available on Android and iOS con Academy Kids. It has hundreds of books. It has active the social emotional learning, math, reading, writing. But on top of that, you build that habit every day and ideally continue that habit as you go into the school year.
Thirty minutes of math and science on con academy, do some reading together, do some journaling, get into the habit of writing, have something interesting to talk about every day at lunch or at dinner. And then on top of that, just make sure that that the kids are getting back into the pattern of social socialization, getting time outside, getting their blood flowing, uh, which you know kN academy doesn't do,
but it's just as important as the academic. Well, I'm always hopeful when I listened to you, what's next for you just got twenty seconds here? Where else can you take this? We continue to expand into you know, fifty plus languages where you have the science push the schoolhouse. Dot world just released something called Series where people can join essentially a class for multiple sessions over the summer.
I encourage people to check that out. And you know, I think it's not as delusional to imagine a free world class education for anyone anywhere. It's so great. You just kind of mind blowing when it comes to education. SALTH thank you, Soll Con He's the founder of con Academy. Jutting us on the phone in Mountain View, California,