We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christie Pang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christie below.
Christie, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
This is the story of how the Yeti Confetti Kids app, the purpose-driven AI learning platform for children founded by me and my brother, was born – in the middle of Covid, out of Silicon Valley, with a dream to make personalised learning accessible to all, from families around the US, to refugee children displaced by war, and all those in between across the world.
At the height of school closures due to the pandemic, moms, dads, grannies, big-brothers-big-sisters everywhere had to, one way or the other, “home-school” their children while many worked-from-home at the same time. The ‘new normal’ it was called. Well this new normal created an incredible amount of stress for families. The US Census Bureau published an article in August 2020 that detailed many statistics showing the transition to online schooling, and stay-at-home orders required at least one adult in the home to focus on the children — helping them with schoolwork and supervising them all day. This meant that there had to be someone to take the role of full-time teacher, family doctor, and counselor in the house; in fact, 1 in 5 working-age adults said they stopped working because the Pandemic “disrupted their childcare arrangements”. Parents were trying to get their children to sit for “Zoom school” for hours while keeping their kids away from the iPad or TV, because – they’re told screen time is “bad”, but what else was there to do?
Parents, in particular working moms, were among the unsung heroes of this crisis. They have adapted their households and juggled work, children’s schooling, and other household needs. Even in homes with extra hands to help, mothers bore the brunt of the tantrums, fought against learning loss by becoming personal tutors, teachers, and playmates all in one.
This was the case across the more affluent parts of the world such as the United States; meanwhile, those in the most impoverished corners of the world not only worry about learning loss and school closures, but are dependent on the very few mission-driven NGOs that are innovative enough to think of creative ways to make remote-learning available against all odds. One such NGO in 2021 was Jusoor, which partnered with the World Bank EdTech Hub to offer an award-winning WhatsApp-based remote learning solution, “Azima” for displaced Syrian refugee children who cannot safely travel to the makeshift physical classrooms they once had access to for fear of catching Covid.
“Working with our students during Azima proved to us that our students are capable of using technology to learn at home despite the pandemic and displacement, especially if their families are given guidance. Thinking of creative and fun ways to reach out to the children will enhance their educational journey and encourage them to not give up”, says Suha Tutunji, Head of Refugee Education at Jusoor. “Ever since 2021, we have been using the lessons learnt from the Azima experience to teach refugee students who cannot attend school due to disabilities or other challenges, such as lack of proximity or affordable transportation to school.”
Around the same time, before the general public widely adopted ChatGPT, my co-founder Clement (an Artificial Intelligence veteran who happens to be my genius older brother) and I (a mother of 3 working around the clock from home while taking care of 3 toddlers) caught ourselves asking how it was possible that Silicon Valley had all of this new technology at its fingertips, and yet no one focused on how it could help families and teachers. The people tasked with raising our future generations were teaching in the same ways with the same styles while being asked to make the transition to virtual classroom literally overnight. What if we could use some of the AI advancement to solve one of the longest standing and deeply impactful access gaps – access to quality, consistent education – which were widening and exacerbated during and after Covid?
We decided that if Big Tech wasn’t going to do it (or do it right), that we should assemble ourselves the most capable, knowledgeable, and most importantly, the mission-minded in ethics and early childhood education to do it together – to take a long bet on society and take a stab at shaping how shiny new Generative AI and LLM capabilities can be used purposefully to deliver learning materials at a significantly lower cost with greater effectiveness. I quit my banking career and Clement stepped down from his Principal Engineer role at VMWare, and spent 3 days in 2020 holed up in a conference room to dream up an AI-directed learning “pretotype” (to quote Alberto Savoia). Within a week, dozens of families decided to bring their children in-person to our office (in N-95 masks and with repeatedly-sanitised hands obviously) to try out this “pretotype” – yes, it was wacky and wire-framed. What we did was manually scour the internet for some of the best teachers’ teaching YouTube videos on English and Math skills, and created some simple assessments to test a child’s understanding and mastery of the skills before and after.
Rather than simply adhering to standardized test levels, we built the infrastructure to first observe whether kids master topics in any predictable, linear, curriculum-aligned fashion. We quickly observed that they do not. The data confirmed what most teachers in classrooms already know – that students did not learn at a uniform, steady consistent pace the curriculum expects them to. Even though videos and games in apps do transfer knowledge, how they are sequenced to “scaffold” knowledge, what combination of multi-modal content is optimal, and the dependency on step-by-step oral instruction (not textual, as most students we serve aren’t readers yet) are of significant importance.
EdTech platforms and Educational TV shows didn’t seem to be tackling this. That is a hard issue to solve even in standards-aligned resource-adequate classrooms where teachers can’t differentiate instruction as much as they would have wanted to. Personal tutoring is arguably the most effective supplement, but it is incredibly hard to deliver at scale and quality.
We set out to tackle this issue head-on as we built our platform; it defined our problem statement and the pain-point of the target audience we wanted to serve. And we set out not only to serve the mass audience that could afford the technology; we went straight to Jusoor and the refugee children displaced by war. If we wanted to prove our model’s efficacy and strength as the first-ever expert language model, capable of delivering learning outcome change “against all odds”, we need to start with where the widest gap exists.
Yeti Confetti Kids started delivering this for families on App Store and Google Play, and in pilot classrooms globally in March 2023. Since then, we have been delivering over 10,000 hours and counting of AI-piloted lessons to 2,500 families in the US, Canada, UK across a broad range of English Literacy, Math and Social Emotional Learning skills. Southeast Asian needs-based schools are using the app to bridge ESL gaps in Thailand, and going live soon with Jusoor, which has served over 15,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon since its inception.
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“Our refugee education team are thrilled to be partnering with Lirvana Labs in this pilot,” says Dr. Alexandra Chen, Interim Executive Director of Jusoor, UN & World Bank Advisor and Child Trauma Psychologist.
“As educators, we are aware how global standards for learning are still informed by a relatively narrow dataset. Technology can be an equalizer, if informed strategically. Thus our hope is that the data that emerges from our pilot will not only give nuance to the AI app on the diversity of learning disadvantages in crisis contexts, but also potentially uncover areas of learning resilience that can be capitalised on when educating children in all contexts. In a world where over 468 million children – one in six on our planet – are living in a conflict zone, the potential for what we at Jusoor call the multiplier effect is enormous.”
Christie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Yeti Confetti is the first-ever Preschool-to-Elementary personalized learning companion, delivered via mobile app, powered by expert AI frameworks. It was created by Lirvana Labs, a startup with mission-minded engineers, designers, and content creators who are parents or caregivers themselves. At the heart of Lirvana Lab’s vision is the concept of “Learning Nirvana,” a term we coined to represent the transformative “gap-closing” power of quality, personalized education that motivates each child to discover their own learning journey.
We utilize the advancement in large language models to explore what exactly makes any particular child understand, apply, and master a concept well, be it reading, writing, mathematical reasoning, or social emotional skills. The model then delivers curated materials (videos and assessments) via a mobile device to the child, and generates on-demand oral instruction in any given language to help a child recall concepts they’ve learnt, put strategies into practice, and prove to the child that they can grow and attempt increasingly more complex problem sets. In parallel, Yeti Confetti powers the “nurture ecosystem” surrounding each child through recommendations that are simple enough to action even for the busiest parents and teachers.
We are studying how educators teach and how parents nurture in the most diverse range of settings possible, with the help of Stanford professors, literacy experts, and child psychologists (our experts). By comprehensively understanding these dynamics, we aim to finetune a model capable of delivering personalized learning at a fraction of the cost and eliminating access barriers for quality education. And we are sharpening our vision in the most resource strapped corners of the world – in make-shift classrooms serving children displaced by war, in needs-based rural schools, and hand-in-hand with teachers and content creators from the most underrepresented and underserved communities.
During the earliest stages of the app’s creation, one inspiring memory stood out and truly defined Lirvana Labs’s mission. As we held playtest sessions for families across East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Oakland who came for free “daycare” (aka our co-working space) and give feedback to the app, children started asking how many assessments they’ve completed and what their “score” is each time. We quickly created a “Yeti Coin” system to reward every child for trying hard to solve problems. We asked every child whether they would like to donate their “Yeti Coins” to support a refugee child similar to their age without any school resources. All our playtesters from 3 to 9 year-olds unanimously chose to give away all their coins to support a child in need of a learning companion just like Yeti Confetti they’ve come to love, in another corner of the world.
“Such expressions of love from other children with a shared passion for learning are enormously precious and empowering in a context where refugee children can often feel forgotten by the world,” says Dr. Alexandra Chen, Interim Executive Director of Jusoor, UN & World Bank Advisor and Child Trauma Psychologist.
You can imagine how moved our team was by the simple yet unquestioning empathy these young children possessed! While leaders around the world continue to struggle to agree on whose lives are worth saving more in crisis situations, the youngest among us never held back when it came to a whole-hearted response of generosity. Even with something as simple as a mobile app, children can come to appreciate the value of education and immediately respond by making sure it can be shared without question.
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Our mission at Lirvana Labs is deeply personal. It is rooted in gratitude for the educational opportunities I received as a child and a commitment to paying it forward. Our team is sketching what the future of accessible, empowering and inclusive learning technology should look like. We know it cannot be done without empowering families and inspiring our children to pay it forward as well. Back to our story – our common inspiration was our mother. She had parenting knowledge and most importantly (but at great socio-economic cost), she quit her job as a doctor to be a full-time mom for 10 years. Most families in the world cannot afford to have a parent stay at home. Working parents are tired, resource-strapped, and often paralyzed when it comes to helping their children if they struggle at school or need attention. Tech seems to always have a bad rep of making things worse – with social media, addictive visual stimulation, causing more harm than good to mental health for our kids.
We have to reverse the trend and create purposeful products with purpose-driven people in Silicon Valley. As technology evolves, it’s crucial to ensure that it serves humanity, especially in the realm of education, where the impact is profound and far-reaching.
In the first 6 months of launching Yeti Confetti Kids, 17,000 families visited our app page, and over 2,500 families began actively engaging with AI-delivered content tailored to their children’s needs and abilities. We are speeding up delivery and partnering with NGOs like Jusoor to bring this solution for free to displaced refugee children across the world – we’ve got a lot of children in California to whom we are accountable for making it happen!
Be part of change today. Support Jusoor’s Pilot @www.yeticonfettikids.com/
Our Mantra:
1. Tech needs to empower families (not isolate)
2. AI needs to be built inclusively (not with bias)
3. Personalised learning is a right (not a positional good)
There is an East Asian idiom – “A Great Teacher Teaches Well, Regardless of Where The Student Came From”. We need to empower teachers and caregivers with tools like AI to make that amazing job they’re doing, easier and better executed.
Our journey is not just about creating an app; it’s about building a brighter, more inclusive and educated future for generations to come, regardless of background or economic strata.
Have you ever had to pivot?
As much as some technologists believe AI can write the next best-selling novel or create art that inspire us, most of us would agree that we are far from being there (and even before we get there, ethical and legal issues have already begun to surface, and rightfully so).
We trained our model to understand cognitive development research and curriculum theories, and then set it out to wade through and curate the vast amount of existing multimedia content made for kids out there on the world wide web. We built the delivery system to prescribe the content and craft a unique learning experience for every child, but the content itself has to be human, original works. They include the incredibly original phonics songs by Gracie’s Corner, or Scratch Garden’s hilariously engaging videos about adding and subtracting, or Jack Hartmann rapping number bonds, to name a few.
Not all kid content is wholesome and educational. These amazing creations had to be unearthed from oceans of toy-unboxing videos and addictive 3D animations touted as “educational” that have flooded YouTube. The indie creators (many of whom are teachers) that release some of the most pedagogically appropriate and innovative content are never breaking out; 1 in 5 videos targeting young children circle back to CocoMelon simply by sheer volume. We could not rely on existing media platforms to inform our model of what is “good” content. That would only widen gaps and deepen biases. We had to pivot.
We went through months and months of research with a diverse team of media, child psychology, and social-emotional learning experts (representing 15 ethnicities), and decided that we need to create our own representative, inclusive, developmentally appropriate content that presents real-life situations where children had to problem-solve.
Instead of contracting studios, we went across the Bay Area, to College Track and the Kapor Foundation to find young people that have traveled an incredible amount of “distance” – born and raised in underserved, low-income households and Title I Schools, fighting their way through ceiling after ceiling to attend the top colleges across the nation – and asked them to write stories that would inspire and encourage 3 to 9 year old children. Their stories highlight the emotional vocabulary, their resilient inner voice, and social awareness that was critical to their own pursuit of growth and character development. The content centered around 5 pillars – “Emotion and Feelings”, “Family & Better Together”, “Self-Care”, Growth Mindset” and “Preserving Resources”.
The pivot to inviting 15-20 year old underrepresented young people (24 in total, more than 60% of overall staff) craft stories to teach Social Emotional Skills proved to be one of our best moves. Their stories were unconventional, original, and featured characters that hit very close to home. My favorites include the biracial child that brought a “different-looking” lunch to school and getting nervous about what others may say; the hard-working pony that wore a unicorn horn every day because only unicorns are worth billions (in Silicon Valley); the Moon who had to unlearn societal standards of beauty to truly appreciate it’s bumpy surface. We employed the same young people to produce short videos from each story script, and released these videos on the Yeti Confetti Kids YouTube channel. Within the first 3 months, we gathered 6 million impressions, 150,000 views, and created jobs in tech and media for underrepresented young people.
We are now training a specific language model that allows children to decide what each character should do and to turn every narrative into a Critical Thinking, multi-ending story playground in-app, in partnership with Stanford.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
We quote Alberto Savoia’s book, “The Right It – Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed”, a lot when we talk to investors, our internal team, as well as our users. Clement and I were firm believers of Savoia’s motto, which is “Make sure you are building The Right It before you build It right.”
Back in 2021, we asked potential users to try out a “pretotype” in person at pop-up locations, which did not have all the bells and whistles of even a formal “prototype” app; after asking the same family to come 4 times to test, we presented them with a Stripe link to see if they would pay to bring the “pretotype” home. We defined our own “Market Engagement Hypothesis” which was that 20% of pretotype testers will pay a full year subscription to bring the pretotype home.
Close to 90% of families paid a full year subscription to bring the app home, exceeding our 20% Market Engagement Hypothesis. That’s when I quit my banking career and moved my family to Silicon Valley to build Yeti Confetti Kids with Clement.
Contact Info:
- Exclusive App Access: www.yeticonfettikids.
com/download - Website: www.yeticonfettikids.
com - Youtube: www.youtube.com/@
yeticonfettikids - Join Our Quest: www.yeticonfettikids.
com/support-jusoor - Our Experts: www.yeticonfettikids.
com/#experts - Our NGO Partner, Jusoor: www.jusoor.ngo/
Image Credits
Jusoor & Enrique Guzman