1/ In my early 20s, I was obsessed with improving the education system. I joined an ed-tech company, hosted one of the largest startup weekends for education in sf, joined the board of an early literacy nonprofit and the SF Creative Arts charter school and taught in my free time.
2/ I thought “fixing education” would have the largest impact on the world. I’ve since learned that impact is relative. Is working on improving an app in an ed-tech company that serves thousands of students any more impactful than mentoring 1 child from a young age until college?
3/ One year, I signed up for a conference called Hive, that put 150 people from 30 different countries together for a weekend. There, I met Ajit George, son of the founder of Shanti Bhavan and their Director of Operations.
4/ Shanti Bhavan is a boarding school concept in India that seeks to break the cycle of poverty in India’s lowest social caste, the untouchables. They take one child from each untouchable family and board/educate them for free from childhood until they get a job.
5/ They’ve done incredible work and many years later, Netflix has created a docuseries about them called Daughters of Destiny. Please watch it if you have the time.
6/ At the conference, I told Ajit my personal mission at the time: I wanted to help create a personalized learning environment for every individual.
7/ Upon hearing this, he laughed. “Kevin, you live in a first world country. In India, if you come from the slums, the last thing you care about is a personalized education. Kids there are just trying to survive.”
8/ “It’s one of the core reasons why Shanti Bhavan houses each child and takes care of shelter, food, safety, and more. If you don’t feel safe at home with food on the table, education is never a priority.”
9/ I’ve thought about those words for a long time. And since then, I’ve grown, experienced more of the human condition, and begun to better understand what impact really looks like.
10/ These days, I’m interested in a broader personal mission: Accelerating the pace at which people move up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
11/ As Ajit wisely pointed out years ago, humans cannot prioritize higher levels of the stack (self-fulfillment, psychological needs) without first establishing the foundations for the lowest parts of the hierarchy.
12/ I’m lucky and privileged to not have worried about basic needs in life. And that has given me the mind space to think about self actualization and develop a growth mindset, which has propelled me much further than I ever thought possible.
13/ I still care deeply about the education system / online education and I still love teaching. I have no doubt I’ll teach for the rest of my life.
14/ These days, I’m interested in the lowest stacks of the hierarchy, particularly in improving our healthy food options and the impact that had on chronic health conditions in America.
15/ A lot of this is driven by slowly growing older and seeing my family’s health deteriorating from bad nutrition and diet habits. My body has also started wearing down faster than before. I’m constantly reminded that without our health, nothing else is possible.
16/ Regardless of the focus area, I’ll keep pushing to accelerate humankind’s movement up the hierarchy of needs.
17/ It’s a broad topic but I’d love to chat with anyone with a similar mission. I’m also interested in hearing other opinions around whether Maslow’s Hierarchy is still a relevant framework. Society has changed a lot and our next generation may not value the same things. DMs open
