Launching The Innovation Gap Year with Jeanette Cheah of Hex

and Australia. As CEO and founder of hex she is dedicated to transforming young people into the innovators The world needs tomorrow and seeing the next generation of talent thrive. Hex prepares students for the fast changing global workforce. With the tech and design skills they need to close the future skills gap and the entrepreneurial mindsets employers want using programs that are immersive, seriously fun and academically aligned.

Previously, Jeannette spent 14 years building innovation solutions, marketing strategies, and digital products for some of Australia's corporate giants, including ANZ, XA, ANP and origin energy. Jeanette Cheah welcome to Ed Tech insiders.

complete stereotype. But I think what I can when it came to watching hex, I drew on probably two key experiences in my life. And one of those was a memory of being 14, and having to choose my electives for year nine, which I think it's kind of maybe a sort of a sophomore year in the States. And I was paralyzed with anxiety thinking that if I chose the wrong subjects at that young age, I was going to be tracking myself on the wrong path for the rest of my life.

And so I do have a strong memory of kind of being afraid of making that wrong choice at a young age. And then again, once I was working at one of my bank roles, I was so excited about the idea of kind of entrepreneurship and exploring different things. And I had a supportive manager at that time, who gave me what I now refer to as startup parental leave. So three and a half months of you know, unpaid leave to go and like breakfast, that with the job security that I could come

back and go back to my job. So I mean, those two kinds of experiences really led me to more checks, you know, having that fear of a linear career path, and then kind of the, the ability to go and explore something with a safety net.

And I read that, as you know, creating opportunities for social impact entrepreneurs, is that correct? Or break that down for us in our listeners? Yeah, absolutely.

And how far can you go? So our mission really, is to sort of empower these next generation leaders because I get out of bed in the morning wanting to see a different kind of leader in tech, in business in politics. And I think one of the ways to do that is to get a more diverse cohort of students understanding the impact they can make through entrepreneurship, understanding the cool stuff they can do if they get into tech early, and understanding that you don't actually have to be in tech to

be in a tech adjacent career. So So yeah, so in terms of empowering that those leaders, there's definitely impact thread through there as well. And I think that's a real trend we're seeing in young people today.

in those cities. Because we wanted students to experience what it was like to be in that fast paced environment, to unleash their entrepreneurial dreams, etc. What we have now evolved to, especially with the restrictions on travel that we're all very familiar with, we've evolved with this

innovation gap year. And what it is, is this combination of giving students that space to explore tech innovation, future ethics leadership, while also giving them the safety net of academic credit towards their degrees. So we're focused very heavily on the high school leaver market, and also possibly University Gap Year students or university dropouts, they want something else they want to the space to explore. But they don't want that to mean that they're falling behind in their studies.

gone. These days, we need to be able to equip students for a future where they could be moving left, right diagonal up down, all through their careers or be on multiple paths at once.

driven. You know, they one survey staff, they said that 84% of Gen Z workers say they'd like to do more purposeful work than they already do. They want to make impact on the world. But it also seems like they're not always finding that kind of purpose, a different poll that shows that more than half of workers that are 18 to 24, are planning to switch jobs in the next year. And that was actually

before the pandemic. So you have people who are really want to make an impact, but they're not seeing it in their current work. You know, I'm curious, you know, you spent a lot of time with young entrepreneurs and idealists, how do you see that desire to find purpose and make a positive impact on the world playing out?

can you harness that energy? How can you help connect your you know, your workforce has passion with the mission of your organization and sort of add that purpose driven piece into into their roles? And I guess what we're seeing I mean, it, it takes forms in many different ways, Alex, like, sometimes you'll see a student finish a hex program, and then maybe it's six months later, maybe it's a year later, maybe it's straightaway, but they'll launch

a social enterprise. So we've definitely seen students doing everything from you know, launching, maybe maybe a great eco crockery and cutlery kind of brand, which is, you know, all made out of recycled plant material. There's a really interesting startup out of Tasmania right down the bottom of the world, where young young students actually want to one part of the Elon Musk XPrize to support his work in turning old oil rigs into seaweed farms to help reduce fish in the ocean.

So I mean, they can take many different forms and the probably the other fun thing is seeing people go back into their what you'd maybe consider a traditional corporate career or, like inverted commas, normal career, but flex that impact muscle in in that role. And I think that's kind of what excites me it's seeing seeing these young folk go into different different spaces, and kind of agitate for change no

matter where they go. And I see my job and our job at hex is kind of helping them get enough confidence enough new economy, communication skills, and also just enough self reflection so that when they are in those Jonathan, they've got these opportunities, they don't feel like they need to wait 15 years in their career before they speak up, I'll do it straightaway.

and don't feel like they have to sit in the back and just to whatever, whatever the company tells them, I'm sure that's very empowering. Yeah, it's

contribution to that change. By sending these sending these students out to the world with a hell of a few few more skills and more confidence.

them into the ecosystem. Tell us a little bit more about how in a COVID world in a, you know, with this innovation gap here, how are you helping them build those communication skills and that industry knowledge, even without having them have to get on a plane and get off it? In Singapore or Palo Alto?

what am I going to do next? And the way that we've kind of approach that, that problem is probably twofold. And one is to really recognize that the global work environment, like our network didn't disappear, you know, our friends in different cities and countries didn't disappear. And actually, the students were really, really hungry to sort of get to know

their peers in other markets. So we very quickly put together a couple of experimental programs, we launched something called the great global challenge, which connected I think it was 300 students across 17 time zones, in cross cross cultural teams to give them the chance to almost do a relay race around time zones. And we designed that for

academic credit as well. So you ended up with this group of students that were having to not only learn innovation and build something together as a team, but they were learning new workplace skills on the fly at the same time that every professional on the world was learning them, how to communicate remotely, how to do great sort of virtual whiteboarding sessions, how to build stuff and give each other feedback when you're working in

different places. So, you know, approaching it from a real workplace challenge perspective is something we do regularly. And I guess the other thing that we we've done is kind of combined learning with community. So we definitely see asynchronous learning, as you know, we see the value in like purely asynchronous learning. But we're also strong believers in go together, and you're

stronger. So we've built out hex Ed, which is the learning kind of environment, which has the great content that we provide around tech and innovation. And then we also have hex world, which is more of the community space where they get to hang out with mentors from great industry partners, they meet each other from around the world, they can have a bit of a chat, there's a bit of social stuff. So we want to make sure that they're practicing those skills that

way. And we do find that the mentorship and just having industry in the room and seeing the students holding their own in that space, it just makes all the difference to their confidence, the fact that they sat in a broom virtually, with a professional or PC or something. And it does it does wonders for the confidence

believe are female. But the majority of founders, including the majority of founders, we've talked to so far on this podcast, as well as operators, and certainly investors are still male. And I'm curious if you feel like this is beginning to change? And if so, what factors do you think are are beginning to change this or which factors are maintaining the gender imbalance in edtech?

women in teaching roles. And I just, I wonder whether or not there's something, there's something in the mix of education calls a lot of women to that to that sort of industry, that technology still tends to call, a lot of men are just putting this out there, it's, it's a bit of a heartache.

I wonder if it's kind of like the ed ed piece, it checks, you know, the female, the female leaders, whereas the anyway, we can cut that out, because I just rambled quite a bit a bit of a tunnel heartache there, I just, I just wonder whether or not there is some kind of we're just seen the long tail of implicit bias that told girls that they should be great teachers and boys have to be great engineers.

And so potentially, there's something which we can we can change there in terms of, you know, and that's part of the work we do is try to let people know that just because they don't necessarily know how to code Python doesn't mean they can't be a technology founder. I mean, I've myself, I'm not an engineer or a coder. But I see myself as being tech fluid, tech, adjacent, a tech startup founder, because I use the power of technology to achieve my mission and achieve my, my

business goals. So yeah, so I mean, I would love to see see the shift? And I think it is, it's a really tricky question, because it is completely systemic. I mean, I could go off into a very long tangent about the fact that only 3% of VC money still goes to women founders. And I think that that is a complete loss on the part of the investors. I mean, what a, what an underrepresented and what I am what a lost opportunity to make some great

money. So that I would like to see, you know, and I think as I said, before that change in leadership, you're only going to see it when what people feel that they have, you know, the power and the knowledge, and the skills and the support to actually put their stick their head above the parapet and watch something, build something. So I see it as a very personal thing that I am visible. Sometimes it's uncomfortable to be have your photo and media or to be on stage or to do panels or even

talk to you today. But I just see it as a very, I mean, not that this is an uncomfortable conversation. You know, I think I just see it as very much part of my role to be a visible woman in a tech leading in this field, because I think I would like to think that I'm showcasing to others, what goes What's possible

insolvent. So even those very micro moments in children's lives, where they, they see that interaction happening, even from the start, I think, can lead to lead down the track to these things that have broader systemic issues that we talked about. So I mean, I would like to see, yeah, I would like to see sort of, I think, really aware of even those micro moments, all through education and through life, and, you know, through media, but that's, that's not the conversation.

all different backgrounds. I know that you have a project going with the tech company, Atlassian, which is one of the largest productivity tool companies in on Earth, I believe. And I know that part of that thinking is How can companies really do what they how can they really help the next generation of founders and how do they start to be on the right side of this equity discussion? Talk to us a little bit about how you make sure that your your cohorts are are equitable and what you do with

companies? Yeah,

women representation. So we just want to make sure that when students are coming through these programs, they are seeing someone who kind of reminds them of themselves on stage during doing the thing. When it comes to, I guess, working with companies, it's great to find mission aligned partners, we were so happy to partner with the Alaskan Foundation, as part of their mission to really empower millions more students who might not have access to great technology and an

education. So Atlassian came on board for in a couple of different ways. One is that they actually helped to validate, I guess, the content that's being put in front of students to make sure it is right up to date. And it's the kind of content that they would want their future employees to be to be learning as well, which, you know, I think, is a good industry signal for the kind of stuff that we

would that we teach. And then in terms of the equitable perspective, like they've also come on board to provide a bunch of scholarships to students. So we've currently got 50, left to give out to students from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds, to make sure that technology and innovation education isn't just something for the privilege. So I think it's great to find partners like that. And it's a really good testament to their

mission as well. In Australia, I think we we try to bake in purpose to you know, we're quite proud of that a unicorns, I mean, you'll get like the Canva Canva example, we're quite proud of our tech companies that speak loudly about change and an impact. So Atlassian, kava, they kind of good beacons of business language, and Tech for Good here in Australia.

sociology background. And one thing that I'd love to dig down and ask you about is this sort of concept of cultural capital, you know, you mentioned that some of the outputs of your hex students are that they gain confidence, you said that they, you know, they can hold their own in rooms with professionals that they can feel, you know, comfortable, and they can speak the language and communicate.

And, you know, in a way, these are all soft skills, and they're all soft skills that are sort of associated with exposure, you know, some some students grow up in Silicon Valley, or they have parents or friends in, in the tech world, and they learn to speak that language or they learn, you know, what turned us very young, and others have never had a family member in that in that world, or have

never been in that world. And crossing that gap to actually be able to speak the language of tech is and be confident doing it is a bit is very daunting. So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about how that works, and how that sort of plays into the idea of, of supporting disadvantaged groups.

translating. I mean, even little things in the startup world, and I'm sure some of your, your listeners will relate to this, that when I first started learning about what a seed round and a Series A round, I was just like, This sounds so technical and complicated. And then you're just like, Oh, it's just like round one, round two, round three, like when you can kind of like not, you know, no, no shade, to the wonderful

investors. But I think, you know, sometimes when you can really when we challenge ourselves to think about what jargon we're using, thoughtlessly, or kind of just casually, and really understanding that from the perspective of someone who might not have grown up with it, it's can be really powerful, that trend, that translation role.

And so we do really practical things sometimes like teaching students how to write a double opt in email introduction, like just asking for a coffee catch up, can be so fraught with anxiety for students. And yet most of the professionals I know would absolutely jump at the chance to have a 20 minute zoom call or coffee with a student who was curious about the

industry. So I think it's just removing, removing the perceived barriers, giving them just enough, I guess, digital etiquette to know how to interact with professionals in this space. And at the same time, I think the good thing is that professionals were also starting to move kind of down the down the ladder a bit in terms of our the way we communicate on Slack, the way we

communicate on Twitter. So if we're giving students a bit of a leg up, and then professionals are starting to capitalize their language, I'd like to think there's a great space in the middle where where we can connect more with young people and help them come into the

world of work quicker. So I mean, they've got a lot to teach us to be interesting to sort of see how communication evolves in the next five to 10 years as as we change the way we Communicating, you know, who knows whether or not there'll be entire entire board papers written in means I wouldn't put it past some of my students? I think yeah, I probably just completely aged myself. But I think you know, I think that's the bottom line for both sides.

of the part of the vibe. And so even just telling an international student who was doing interviews in Australia, for tech companies, that actually turning up in a full suit for that interview is

incorrect digital etiquette. At this time, like, it's such a strange and small thing to tell someone that I would challenge any hiring manager out there to think about how they would react, if a student rocked up in a full suit for a tech role, but then immediately go, oh, they don't know the culture, they

don't understand. And so I think that it's those little, again, it's the micro moments, I think all of this is just incremental, changes, and just helps all of us to communicate better and understand each other and give each other more chances.

different cultural norms. You know, I remember in my years teaching online to various global cultures, it really is fascinating how those that sort of formality in education sometimes plays out in unusual contexts, like You're like the suit, where sometimes students don't want to ask questions of instructors, even an online class or something that's, or even have a TA, there's sometimes this feeling of overly respecting or being thinking that it's, the person has an

authority, and you can't ask us.

have I done? What it actually does is it you know, it reduces the barrier, it makes us a bit more approachable. It makes them realize that yes, we might be like, award winning professionals, technology, people with you know, but like, at the end of the day, we're human. And I think, you know, we sort of have this ethos of seriously fun learning, like, we want to really inject joy and humor, and surprise into things that we do on our, on our

programs. And in our product. I mean, there's a there's a link in one of our in one of our courses, that says very important, like exam preparation, even though we don't do exams. And I'm pretty sure it's a Rick Roll, like, you know, that link changes regularly. So we try to, you know, add in these little sprinkles of fun and surprise, because students, you know, they're sophisticated digital consumers, they don't want to just be sitting in a boring LMS.

So anyway, that was just a little a little moment of how we tend to break that down. Yeah, we call it like, the backwards mullet approach to online learning. This is a very Australian ism. But it's like potty in the front and then business at the back. military precision at the back for them. Yeah, make it look like a party.

formal. And I on April Fool's Day, I gave them a sort of pop quiz about Greek mythology, which is what we were learning and explained to us. And the questions were all like, incredibly, just just things you would never know. One was like, how many snakes are on Medusas head, right? Things like that. There's no way they would know.

And halfway through the test, I said, Oh, by the way, take the first letter of each question and put them all together you get extra points and it said April Fool's Day, you know, and it was like it was. And I remember, I still remember it is probably 20 years ago, the feeling of sort of, as you say, looking ridiculous and having them sort of feel worse, but also trying to deflate that feeling that education has to be very, very serious and very,

very assessment driven. And I still don't I just traumatized a couple of kids.

YouTube. That's the energy I want for the courses that we put out, like I want them to look forward to engaging with the stuff that we do that way, because that kid's probably not doing their marketing one on one reading. So you know, there's, that's if you kind of understand what I mean, between the difference between like that self directed, and looking forward to it versus someone told me I had to do this thing.

Thank you. So you know, we've talked about this a little bit, but you're the first Australian guest we've had on ad tech insiders. So I'd love to talk a little bit about your on the ground perspective about the ad

tech landscape. Down Under, you mentioned Canva as a Australian unicorn in the design space, there is one Australian edtech unicorn, which is go one a learning development platform for enterprises, but only one and the investment team has been relatively, you know, modest pre COVID With with not that many large funding rounds. That said, Australia is a hotbed of innovation, all sorts of things are happening. There are almost 1000 ad tech companies at least listed in the space at least.

And many companies that are that are brewing and doing really interesting things sort of waiting to grow and expand some of the ones that have crossed my radar for thread and forage and compass, Terra stem punks, which is about my favorite enter, like Steampunks I love that. You've been in this world for quite a

while. Tell us about what it's like being in the Australian ed tech scene, some of the founders and companies that may have caught your eye and sort of what what that experience has been?

audio tech sector? Well, you know, go one is, is an incredible company, they're very inspirational for a lot of us, you know, that the deals that they've done with the corporates, the rounds, a raise from Microsoft, I mean, and the founders are just great people, they pay it back, and they pay it forward, speaking, speaking on panels and sort of sharing

their knowledge. So I think that's a real trait of this ecosystem is that even though we're, we can see each other kind of out of the corners of our eyes, some of those other ones that you said, Were coming up, I think we're all kind of excited for each other, because we understand that this is such a big space, and there's so many different parts of the problem

that each of us can own. I mean, you know, you mentioned for thrive, they're doing some great work in that more b2b space, like supporting the universities directly with their learning, development for ages doing amazing work connecting students to virtual internships. So you know, kind of kind of playing in a similar space to ask that, you know, with a different focus, so we're going to give them more hands on hands on experience with like, like large companies

like a PWC, or something. I don't actually know if that's one of their clients. And maybe I can check that before. Put that out. And I mean, you know, I want to call out, like, there's a great company called entry level, which is churning out great online courses around product management, kind of those, there's a new new economy roles that maybe don't have a

lot of causes for them yet. So things like growth, marketing, product management, etc. But I mean, the sector has doubled basically, in the last five years. So when I first came in to this space, like I didn't identify as a niche, a founder, I was like, Hey, I'm doing a thing. I'm doing a business.

That's great. And then as I started to get to know, you know, what else was going on and start to really get more immersed into understanding the problems that were being faced by you university sector and our teachers, I mean, you know, we've had some really really significant lockdowns as I'm sure the rest of the world has. But Melbourne in particular has been, we were pretty, pretty

locked out. And I guess one of the real challenges I've seen from an attack space is our uni sector missing our international students. So Australia has so such a big reliance on international students coming into our market, like students from all around Asia Pacific around the world joining joining

our universities. So that's been a big loss for, I guess, the, you know, just even walking around the city and missing the unis university students, but it's really driven change and a need for fast change from the, from the universities themselves. So some have responded, you know, very quickly, others have struggled more love working with our university partners, but I like to think of us as kind of that annoying friend that gives them an elbow in the ribs occasionally to say, Hey, come

on, we're going this way. You know, I think from an ad tech perspective, it's been a great opportunity to show confidence in what you're offering, and to solve a problem that's different for industry than it was, you

know, a few years ago. But yeah, I mean, you know, very supportive of all of the ad tech founders in this local market, if any of them ever listen to this, come and say, hi, let's get a coffee that, you know, I think what's what's happening over in the in the States, I mean, you know, it's it's really exploding, we look to the States a lot for inspiration. Companies like outlier. And on Jack, I mean, we're keeping an eye on those guys to see what they're doing next.

has finally hit its stride. You know, with COVID, as you mentioned, with coping and all the disruption, the decrease in university enrollment, especially international enrollment, the schools, the forcing of students online, all up and down the

schools and universities. I mean, they've been working so hard. They've kept it. So lots of lots of sending lots of love to the educators.

continue to change. This concept of an innovation gap year of taking time away from formal education without losing your place in formal education is really very exciting. You know, to me, it feels like something I would have loved to do when I was a university or high school student. And that I feel like would resonate very, very strongly with with the millennial generation as well, that is not looking for a super traditional career, linear

career at all. I'd love to hear how your students have reacted to that pivot to the gap year, what did they tell you about this concept of stepping away, but being able to earn university credit?

jumping degrees, right? I think if like up to 80% of, of students, like will change majors or swap degrees or something like that. There's a lot of a lot of time and money and energy I believe wasted in those years of being unsure or choosing the wrong thing, or just taking what you got into and then slipping into something else. What we're hearing is that students want to maybe get to know themselves a bit better,

maybe dabble in a few things. So the use case, like you know, these kids that I'd like to see is a student saying to their parents, Hey, Mom, Dad, I want to go backpacking around Bali. But don't worry, I'm going to do hex ad on my phone and my life talk while I'm away. And when I come back, I'll go to the University of Technology in Sydney and get a semester of credit, I want them to be able to do heck that while they are bartending, I want them to do

it. While they're gaming half the day, I want them to be able to do it while they're doing other things. So I think the delivery being online, but also with enough in real time engagement, to keep them kind of going through the cohorts and hitting their, their milestones, it's a fine balance between giving them just enough space, and then giving them the the

learning outcomes. And I think one of the little thing that makes it even more engaging is that we actually do encourage them to work on things that they're already passionate

about. So the very first unit is called the you, you know, it's literally about them, you know, your communication style, your leadership values, things that I think students didn't necessarily get a chance to learn straight up, especially those from maybe underprivileged backgrounds, they wouldn't get the luxury of reflecting on themselves necessarily and what they love, then we actually give them a money unit, basic financial literacy, your money, the world's money, new money,

What won't you know, what is crypto like? So there's a little bit of just understanding the flow of business models and how it can affect them and, and how it could be fun and interesting. The technology units, just how workplace tech, low code, no code tools, we want them to walk away with the understanding how to use real things that they could use in the workplace. Innovation is the sort of the entrepreneurship piece or getting them really upskilled and how to put together a pitch

deck and do design thinking. And then finally, my favorite one is the future unit, which is all about understanding, I guess, your place in the world of tech and your obligations to people planet society, thinking about the ethics of what you're about to build, thinking about, you know, the people around you. So you know, I think all of that together, it's almost like a new undergraduate course, delivered online in a fun way. It's co designed with young people and CO designed with industry

partners like Atlassian. And they can do it from the beach. That's, that's kind of my goal. So I want them to be able to have that exploration. And then when they're ready, if they want to roll the credit back over to something that could be their university degree.

like. And I guess in going through this, I'm hoping that we then surface, you know, that generation of leaders that when they do choose to go and do their science degree, or their law degree, or if they go into a social enterprise, they've got a better understanding and grounding of who they are, and what their will the impact they're gonna make.

episode with two questions. The first one I'd like to ask you is what is the most exciting trend that you see in the EdTech landscape right now that you think our listeners should keep their eye on?

necessarily anything new. But I'd like to understand how we can better predict and personalize that, that peer based cohort based learning, I think that's something that will be very interesting. In the future, especially as students, you know, they start to build stuff together from a very, very

early age. And another trend that I'd love to, you know, see emerges, especially in the in the higher education space is kind of a virtual campuses, like how are we going to see the concept of the campus and all the great things that we do on the quad and, you know, when you go for drinks and when you go to like all of your student clubs and societies, how are we going to translate that for our global population of students who might be learning with their peers around the world who may or may

not get on planes to go to an international university? I'd like to really see some creative thinking and innovation in the virtual campus space. So a couple of things I'm looking at.

key people are. I mean, I've got a couple of great right hand humans, Jack and Chris, who I couldn't do anything without, and it talks about, you know, falling in love with your problem and really sort of thinking through the creativity of your product solution. So I mean, nothing to do with education, but a lot to do with entrepreneurship. And I think if people are curious about getting into startups, I mean, that's a must read. But yeah, I assume you've probably already already