Last week Andrew Smith Lewis, Cerego Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, had the honor of speaking at SXSWedu — one of our favorite education events every year. If you weren’t able to attend you can listen to the audio of the presentation and view the presentation.
Education is a mission-driven industry. There’s no doubt about that. If you work within the education ecosystem, we’re willing to bet you’ve put some thought into what drives you to do what you do; your “why”.
We first explored the concept of “why” during a talk we gave last year at the EdTech Europe Summit. Sparking off of Simon Sinek’s perspective in Start With Why, there’s a lot more to explore on what the future of EdTech entrepreneurship and development can look like if we focus on this question first.
“Why” really excites the possibilities and creates emotional engagement with people. And we think there’s a lot more to explore on what the future of EdTech entrepreneurship and development can look like if we focus on this question first.
“Why” isn’t about economics, it’s not about money. “Why” is about a deeper purpose, something much more important. If you talk about “why” instead of “what”, then you are really communicating with that limbic brain and the emotional mind. That’s where you get people excited. In a mission-driven field, the “why” is actually incredibly important.
We are in a mission-driven field, and that mission requires the ethical practice in what we are doing.
It needs to inform everything that we do in EdTech because it is the fundamental layer of WHY we are doing this. That higher mission of education, beyond the technology, is really to create prepared minds. That is a tremendous responsibility, but I would also argue that it is a tremendous opportunity.
At Cerego, we encourage everyone to truly think about and find their WHY. If we are focused on the right WHYs, then it can truly transform the future before us. If this resonates with you, we’ve love to hear from you.
