Join us for this week's episode of W3B’D that we’ve recorded live at the annual ASU (Arizona State University) + GSV (Global Silicon Valley) Summit in San Diego, California. The ASU + GSV Summit connects leading minds focused on transforming society and business around learning and work. The goal of this summit is to ensure that all people have equal access to the future. Join host Sheila Lirio Marcelo as she speaks to Amen Rahh, Founder of K12 Crypto; and Ebony Brown, Partner at Rethink Education as they talk about all things education and blockchain.
Host:
Sheila Lirio Marcelo,Co-Founder & CEO of Proof of Learn and Founder of Care.com
Guests:
Amen Rahh, Founder, K12 Crypto; and Ebony Brown, Partner at Rethink Education
This podcast is being provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 00:00
Welcome to the W3B'd podcast the newest source for the crypto curious that unblocks the mystery of blockchain and teaches you the A to Z of NFTs. I'm your host, Sheila Lirio Marcelo, an entrepreneur, educator, founder of Care.com, and CEO of ProofOfLearn my first venture disrupted web1 and grew with web2. Now I'm out with another mission-driven adventure of learning and growing in web3. Crypto is a big, exciting and to many of us, bewildering world. Let's explore it together. We created this podcast to simplify and celebrate the ins and outs of the new economy, and decentralized web. On each episode of W3B'd, I'll guide a conversation between someone who's been to crypto land and someone interested in going there. You can think of me as your bridge to the metaverse. I know you'll enjoy the ride. And yes, we'll explain what the metaverse is too. I'm delighted to be joined IRL by two special guests who are here with me at the ASU and GSV Summit in San Diego, California. I know we've been introducing you to lots of new acronyms here. So let me break down what those letters mean and why we're here recording this podcast on location today. Arizona State University, (ASU) and Global Silicon Valley (GSV) have brought together the leading minds focused on the future of digital learning and skills. The goal of this summit is to ensure that all people have equal access to the future. Think of it as a global think tank with 1000s of some of the brightest leaders in innovation ed-tech career planning, learning and more. Which is why I'm even more excited to introduce all of you to principle Amen Rahh and Ebony Brown. Amen Rahh is a principal, speaker and amazon best-selling author who is paving the way toward an educational revolution. He's also the founder of ed-tech startup, K12 Crypto the first DeFi protocol that allows students to earn cryptocurrency based upon metrics they meet in school. Ebony Brown is a partner at Rethink Education, a venture capital firm focused on education technology, she invest in opportunities that transform how people of all ages learn and unlock their full potential. Ebony is crypto curious. Amen Rahh is crypto confident. Amen and Ebony, thank you so much for being here to talk with us about being crypto curious and crypto confident while we have a conversation about education and blockchain. So principal Rahh, Amen!
Amen Rahh 02:54
Absolutely Sheila. Thanks for having me. First and foremost.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 02:57
Of course, tell us a bit about how you started K12 Crypto?
Amen Rahh 03:01
Well, I would say K12 Crypto started from a kid from Compton that didn't see the relevance in school didn't see the relevance in education, trying to find my way. Then fast forward becoming the youngest founding principal in LAUSD history. I opened my school, around 28 years old, opened up a high school. And through an enrich based model incentivizing education, we yielded 100% graduation rate in our first year, and on pace now this year to have another 100% graduation rate. And at one of the most challenging communities in the entire country. There's four rival gangs that come to my school. So how did this transcend to K12 Crypto was that I had a kid graduate from high school that didn't have a safety net. What I call is a pipeline of power for economic upward mobility in our communities, through tech, through finding out these different ways. So that was the birth of K12 Crypto I had an idea....Man, what if I provided my students with a secure crypto wallet that allowed them to earn cryptocurrency and other digital assets upon metrics that they meet in school, that they can learn anything from anywhere, and get a proof of learn, right, but to get monetary value for it, and then they don't get access to it until they graduate from high school? Right? And this becomes a launchpad for their life. And I always say, and you'll hear me say it all the time is that, you know, for me, coming from where I come from, kids have to survive. But our K12 Crypto puts them in a situation where they can thrive. And that's what we really want to do.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 04:23
That's amazing. But now, what, you know, inspired you why crypto and kids?
Amen Rahh 04:30
Yeah, first, crypto was fun. Crypto is like, cool. And the kids right now, like my daughter is six years old. She's understanding robots right now, like, oh my God, how do you do that? How do you understand? They're already understanding a token economy, it may not live on chain, but they understand the value of points they understand the value of input output mechanisms. So crypto allows for it to live on chain for it to be transparent, afford to be automated, right? And that is when I realized that this as a tool can revolutionize education and kids are already engulfed in it righ? Through YouTube through all these different ways of technology. Now we need to understand if we're talking about the future of education, who's the future? Our kids are the future, right? So they must learn about it. So we can level the playing field.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 05:15
So you've been called the revolutionary principle.
Amen Rahh 05:18
Yeah.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 05:19
You, you wrote this best selling book, Revolutionary School Culture: The 6 Principles Of Unlocking Your School's Hidden Treasure. Absolutely. So what is that hidden treasure? And why crypto specifically in under resourced communities?
05:32
Amen Rahh 05:32
Yeah. So, shoutout to The Alchemist, my favorite book, it changed my life.
Ebony Brown 05:36
That's my favorite book too.
Amen Rahh 05:36
Yeah The Alchemist is my favorite book, the story of Santiago finding their hidden treasure. What's helped me be a principal is that I believe every single person has a hidden treasure. But I feel like in schools, we're all born as creators and explorers. But it's not until we get to some schools where it's suppressed, where they say walk on a line be quiet and you forget to dream, right? And crypto is a way for kids to now get critical hope to be like, wow, I can gamify my learning, but I can also get permission to dream. And that's what we want to do. We want to provide every student with a pathway to find their hidden treasure their purpose in life, because when you find your purpose, you find your relevance. And then that's when continuous learning exists.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 06:17
I love it. You know, you call it a hidden treasure and I refer to it as everyone has a superpower. Yeah, exactly. And if you can find that you can really just see people soar. So Ebony, obviously you look for the superpower within founders and companies, which is super cool. So as an investor in ED, how much focus do you think you should be dedicated for web3? And how much of your time do you spend on it? And what are some of the trends we're seeing between education and web3?
Ebony Brown 06:45
Yeah, as an investor, it's my job to learn and explore a large market opportunity and think through the implications that could have on education, which is the sector that I focus on. And it's always forward-looking. What does learning look like in the next decade and who's building frontier technology today, that will be mass adopted and mainstream in the future. The adoption rate of blockchain over the last decade has been over 100%. And it's been much larger than even thinking about the internet as an exception. So it's something that we all should be focused on. As far as trends and education is still a very nascent space. But things that we're seeing early on is around credentialing, learners, and acquiring skills that are stored in a ledger on the blockchain, and can act as a skills-based resume. Umm learning and earning and communities through DAO similar to ProofOfLearn and K12 Crypto. And a lot of education is helping people understand what is web3? Like this past podcast for the crypto curious.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 07:51
Right.
Ebony Brown 07:52
Currently, web3 is full of early adopters. But in order for this to become a transformative platform, as big as the internet, you have to onboard the masses to web3, which may serve to be the largest educational opportunity of this era.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 08:08
That's amazing! And so I just want to unpack you used a phrase called the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), right, just wanna make sure our listeners understand what that is, you can certainly look it up on Google. But that's where a community actually owns an organization. And they partake web2, for example, Facebook, Google, these large companies, people would go on their website contribute socially onto their website but never had a chance to actually own part of the company. In web3, the power that we're talking about here is the potential for the community, every person from all walks of life, to actually partake in the ownership and growth of entities that we support and grow. That's pretty powerful. And that's the definition of web3 and DAO. So really excited about that. So when we think about the inspiration of the fact that Amen, Principle Rahh is working in these underserved communities and thinks about the power of youth, and how cool it is, and it's fun, and it's gamified. And then we look at the adoption of 100% growth in blockchain even more so than the internet. Why youth, Ebony? Like, why, why why do you think that that should be our target given the complexity of crypto and the technology and it's hard to understand?
Ebony Brown 09:25
Well, you hit on a lot of the major points, Sheila, we've all grown up as adults on web 2.0. We've built careers and established industries, but our youth, they'll be web3 native, and it has the potential to permeate every aspect of their lives, how they use an invest money, how they acquire skills and get jobs. Web3 may be vital to economic mobility in the future. And they're the ones that are going to build and shape what that future looks like.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 09:54
Amazing. And you want to add on that note?
Amen Rahh 09:56
Yeah, I think is really important for us to understand that crypto is more than just a currency. It's a culture. It's a community. It's education. And it's technology. Right. And it provides doing technology, it provides access to a currency that can build community and transcend the way we work in our world, right? And for us to really leverage that, we must really educate, right? If we, if we educate well, then that's the pathway to a better world.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 10:27
Amazing and no appropriate scene around how to make web3 more well adopted, then at ASU & GSV on the power of education, and how we can really make a difference for people to have access. And I want to end on the note of what you just emphasize, Principle Rahh, but I'm always like loving to say Amen. But really on the note that crypto is about culture, it's about this sense of openness and transparency. And as you pointed out, Ebony meritocracy of credentialing, it doesn't matter what where you went to school, there are no labels. It just is about the truth in the software that represents people. And it's just incredible to move that power so that it can be accessible to all just that power that technology. I want to thank you both for joining me today. It's incredible. And you know this, this experience with W3B'd and how we can all educate people. Thank you for joining me in this journey and being my kindred souls. Thank you.
Amen Rahh 11:32
Thank you for having us.
Ebony Brown 11:33
Thank you for having us.
Sheila Lirio Marcelo 11:35
This has been so awesome. Thank you, Amen and Ebony. It's amazing what we can learn from one another. I can't wait for all of us to see how crypto and education continue to evolve in the future. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of W3B'd. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please continue to check us out on all of your favorite streaming platforms.