I’m Veronika Covington and I am your #STEMPRO

This week on the #YOURPRO series, we speak to Veronika, co-founder of Little House of Science, a company that organizes Children’s Science Education including Holiday Camps and weekend STEM clubs, After-school Club, Workshops and Outreach (live and video) and Publications.

Current job: Co-founder Little House of Science 

One word that best describes how you work: passionately

My role model: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

My greatest success: having my two kids

My favourite school’s subject: I loved all; English was one but , Biology was probably my all time favourite in high school.

My biggest fear: at the moment is what climate change will have in store for us and the future generations.

My life dream: I am very happy with my life and how it has turned out so far. I have two beautiful children both of whom I am extremely proud of and a wonderful husband. Also, I dream of a future which will be environmentally stable and where our planet will be able to recover again.

 My favourite food is – I am pretty much plant based in my diet but I do love goulash and wiener schnitzel

First of all, explain to our reader what STEM stands for and when your love for scientific subjects started, giving later the idea to found Little House of Science 

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. When I was at university I took several science subjects but I ended up graduating with a business degree. My husband is a physicist and mathematician by education- and we ended up becoming very involved in supporting the UK science community many years ago (he was Chair of the UK’s mathematical research institute in Cambridge, The Newton Institute, Trustee of Science Museum, Chair of The Alan Turing Institute) and I realised although there is so much for adults to be involved, there was nothing for children outside of the school curriculum to learn more about science. Along with my wonderful business partners Liliana – and Elisabeth we decided to set up Little House of Science to fill this gap. We now teach thousands of children each year. I am working on our start in publishing, where we are launching our first book “This Book is full of Brains”- coming out in October, which you can pre-order at Waterstones. 

What is exactly Little House of Science  and in what is different from others way to learn science? 

Little House of Science is a science education company which specialises in after school clubs, holiday camps, science weeks, outreach programmes for children aged 3 to 12 years (live and now also live video classes since COVID). We teach over 4000 kids a year with a very hands on approach demonstrating that science is everywhere around us. We teach in a project based way and every week children will have a new topic selected from for example biology, chemistry, physics, engineering. We integrate maths wherever its applicable and also offer workshops on Artificial Intelligence and Computing.
With Little House of Science  we are able to give back and nurture childrens knowledge in understanding the world around them. We hope to equip those we teach and the next generation with a wider and deeper scientific understanding and appreciation.

How is it challenging to engage with students so young?

Kids are amazingly bright. They are by nature extremely curious and they are natural scientists – they ask so many questions about how the world works and they try to figure out the answers and solutions to problems. It is very engaging to teach young children. We teach each of our workshops, camps and programmes based on our pupils age groups. Our nursery students may have different demonstrations and take homes then when we are teaching year 6 for example. Our teachers at House of Science are fantastic at working with different age groups.

When I took my Master in Electronic Enginnering we were only 7% female students, do you believe that lately there is a change in thinking that girls are less ‘gifted’ for STEM subjects? 

My personal opinion is that girls generally have always been just as gifted or good in science as anyone else. It is just that there seems to have been a stigma and stereotyping attached to it which has made some girls feel like they should be studying something else or that they are not as good. This takes some time to change along with re-education and spreading the message that girls are great in STEM subjects!

Before people were so concerned about climate change and pollution, you had already supported and worked with Client-Earth, how did it all begin? 

My husband and I have been supporting and working with Client Earth, a leading environmental law firm and charity with 200 lawyers and offices in London, Berlin, Poland and China using the power of the law to protect life on Earth, for over 8 years. We also set up the Development Board back then to help grow Client Earth and get the word out. I am on the Development Board and my husband Howard is Chairman of Client Earth .  When we started to become involved, climate change was not a topic so many people thought about as the world felt much more stable. It felt very distant to many. However, the scientific research behind the changes – ie increase in CO2 emissions, loss of biodiversity, chemical and air pollution, the warming up and acidification of the oceans was already there. Scientists were trying to make themselves heard. It was already very clear that countries, companies, individuals needed to make changes urgently to how we live and operate on this planet. 

There is a project of Client Earth that you are particularly proud of?

Client Earth covers many areas including protecting forests, transitioning to clean energy, eliminating fossil fuels and use of plastics to name a few. Air pollution is also a very big area. 90% of children globally breathe toxic air- leading to smaller lungs, asthma, increased mental health problems to name a few. Millions of people die globally as a result. Client Earth has sued the UK government successfully in ground breaking court cases here in the UK, pushing for ambitious action. It is also doing this across Europe. The lawyers work extremely hard to make our cities and planet a better, cleaner place.

You follow so many projects, how do you find the right work/free time balance in your day?

Its always tricky balancing family and work and limited time. I do most of my work when my kids are at school and my business partners, Elisabeth and Liliana, are also wonderful to work with. I am very lucky as we all work very closely together and one of my roles is collaborating with schools in London and their club and education programmes. Due the pandemic, we now teach live video classes and clubs across the globe without commuting saving precious time with our family. 

Last but not least, as #Stempro, what are the Little House of Science courses you suggested every child should do to make them passionate about Science?

Children love so many of our classes- some of the topics include – Chemical Reactions, Fascinating Frogs and Amphibians, Forces and Flight, Cell life and DNA, What is Biomimicry?, Galileo’s Big Ideas, Our beautiful Oceans, Engineering and Architecture, the list is long.

Now please fill the gap about your 5 pro tips: 

1. Best subjects of Science for beginners- Children can start our clubs or camps at any time-they are independent sessions each time. But some great topics to learn about and some of my favourite are Miraculous Microorganisms, Amazing Chemicals, Optical Illusion, Who was Archimedes, Beautiful Bees to name a few!
2. Best place for summer holiday- There are so many beautiful places to go to! We love being on our farm in Sussex and for the summer holidays we spend as much time as we can in Austria to be in the mountains and lake district- which we love as a family.
3. A sport to keep you fit. I love yoga and try to get better at it all the time- and I love running.
4. A game for your brain- trying to learn bridge!
5. A book to read One of my favourite books Wilding by Isabella Tree  

You can follow Little House of Science on Instagram

At Wegiveit we help businesses to navigate digital transformation by studying your google analytics and media insights,  adjusting your Brand Strategy. and offering advice on how to implement your cause marketing into your overall marketing strategy. Contact  Sara to learn more.

I’m Alex Hatvany and I am your #EDUCATIONPRO

This week on the #YOURPRO series, we speak to Alex Hatvany, co-founder of Atom Learning, an innovative educational platform that is revolutionising the way of teaching using Artificial Intelligence algorithm.

Location: Soho, London

Current job: Co-founder Atom Learning 

Your role model: Charlie Munger

My biggest fear: Churn

My favourite movie: The Social Network

First of all, tell us about you and  your background 

I met my co-founder, Jake O’Keeffe at university, where we lived together. Jake went into finance and I went to law school. I privately tutored throughout law school and when I started my Training Contract at a US law firm, I suggested to Jake that we begin a tutoring company. Every weekend, we put flyers through letterboxes in affluent parts of London to get the business going, offering our unemployed friends from Oxford as tutors. Jake worked on the business early in the morning and I helped at night after work and we’d both work on it over the weekend. As soon as I qualified as a solicitor, I quit my job – Jake had quit slightly earlier.  the tutoring business allowed us to quit our jobs but we both knew we wanted to use the money we made from tuition to bootstrap a technology company.

When did you become passionate about education and get the idea of Atom Learning? 

I’ve been interested in education since realising what a profound impact great teachers have had in my life. From the inspiring English teacher to the teacher who gave me the confidence to apply to Oxford, it all compounds into something very significant over time. The idea for Atom Learning came through operating a private tuition company. We determined Key Stage 2 (ages 8 – 11) is this incredibly important time in a child’s education in terms of laying the right foundations for future success. This area was almost entirely overlooked by ‘edtech’ that had traditionally focussed on older students. By combining the highest-quality teacher-made content with the technology that adapts to the individual child’s level, it is possible to automate the role of a private tutor, at least from an academic perspective. This is also far more scalable and has the potential for a genuinely positive impact on a massive scale.

Atom Learning uses an algorithm based on Artificial intelligence, how can this make a difference in education?

Put simply, it’s impossible for a human to determine the optimal learning path for an individual pupil and even more challenging in a class of many students. On Atom platform, our questions are initially graded on a difficulty scale by a professional teacher but questions are then re-graded by the hundreds of thousands of users to determine the questions actual difficulty level. This way you get a much more accurate understanding of a question’s difficulty level.

Atom will quickly understand the optimal probability a student should have of answering the next question correctly or incorrectly. We want students to be pushed but not to the point where it’s demotivating.

The results of adaptive learning are profound and not really discussed enough in my opinion. I believe even now, children are at a significant disadvantage from an attainment perspective if they’re not engaging with an adaptive learning platform and this will play a major role in the future of education.  Below are some CAT4 data comparing Y5 and Y6 performance pre and post Atom at a leading prep school. I have permission to share this data but not the name of the school:

You are offering Atom Prime for schools and Atom Nucleus for parents, what is the Brand Strategy behind this?

Atom Prime is our school platform and this allows teachers to create lessons, homework, run mock tests and get performance insight. It is entirely free to use in school.  

For parents who want to do additional work, they can use Atom Nucleus, our home platform, as a viable, school-supported and much more cost-effective alternative to a private tutor.

Where a platform is already used and endorsed by a school, this provides parents with the confidence to trial Atom Nucleus.

With that said, parent word-of-mouth travels even faster than teacher word-of-mouth. Many of our parents sign up directly to Atom Nucleus and are not part of the Prime community.

What Atom Learning wants to achieve in the next two years?

Atom has grown to around 100 employees and is still bootstrapped – we haven’t needed to raise any external investment yet and we’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

We believe we can 5x the number of incredible people we work with right now in the next 2 years so that we can continue building great features, enter new markets and pull away as one of the UK’s leading startups.

Digital is shifting the way to learn and teach, do you believe pen and paper are going to disappear? 

I personally still like good old-fashioned pen and paper and I’m sure, I’m not alone in that but when I was at primary school, Snake on a Nokia 3310 was the latest in mobile gaming tech so I suspect the children using Atom today will be quite different.

A digital platform can be very useful but it lacks human connection, what do you think?

After a year of COVID, I’m very aware in-person is often nicer than remote. With that said, remote really does allow for much greater efficiency. A balance is the answer.

On Atom, if you’re ever missing a human connection, our incredible teachers James and Jono, are always available through our evening and holiday clubs. Many of their lessons are completely free to attend and we can have thousands in a single class. They’re incredibly good fun!

Tell us your trick to have a good work/free time balance in your day. 

I haven’t got this right yet and COVID isn’t good for any workaholic! I think ultimately balance might be the wrong word. I’d like to achieve a work-life integration or harmony (like Jeff Bezos talks about) where one energises the other. The most important thing is that you love what you do and it’s giving you the energy to be a better person outside of work too.

Last but not least, a piece of advice to keep children academically engaged?

Absolutely, sign up for one of Jame and Jono’s free lessons – they’ll love it, I promise! https://app.atomlearning.co.uk/atom-clubs

Now please fill the gap about your 5 pro tips: 

1.  A golden tip for a tech start-up: Don’t raise investment too early. Bootstrap for as long as possible – this will also force you to understand what your customers actually want.
2. A sport to keep you fit: semi-embarrassing but I’m loving the Peloton at the moment.
3. A game for your brain: start a company.
4. Kindle vs PaperBook: paperback.
5. Your favourite social media: I prefer to stay away but LinkedIn seems useful

You can follow Atom Learning on Instagram

At Wegiveit we help businesses to navigate the digital transformation by adjusting their Brand Strategy.  Contact us to learn more.

I’m Claudia Curran, and I am #YOURCOACHINGPRO

This week we are interviewing Claudia Curran, founder of The Inner Impact, executive and life coaching business. An accomplished Finance Executive with over 20 years in the industry, Claudia decided to become a certified Executive and Life Coach to help people to get the best of them.

Business description: helping people get results – drama-free and stress-free 

Current job: Executive & Life Coach

One word that best describes how you work: curiosity

My greatest success is: turning a life-controlling burden into a gift

My role model is: Sarah Blakely, CEO of Spanx

My favourite movie is: The Notebook

My comfort food is: Ben & Jerrys Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Best place to recharge: Kamalaya in Koh Samui, Thailand 

First of all, tell us a little about your background and how you got the idea to found The Inner Impact

12 years ago, my husband was diagnosed with leukaemia, and three months later our baby passed away on her due date. I didn’t know how to process the grief; I thought moving forward with life and being strong would be the way. Little did I know that I was actually avoiding pain and that it would eventually show up. And it did, through anxiety. It started with occasional panic attacks and grew into chronic anxiety over the next 8 years. 

There are so many different services and products out there for anxiety that I didn’t know where to start. I would try various ways, some of which might help for a short while before anxiety would return stronger than ever before. At first, I didn’t realise that I was combating the SYMPTOMS of anxiety, but not the ISSUE itself – which was my mind. I was extremely fortunate to come across an amazing life coach. She taught me the power of thought management and understanding how your brain works. It was life-changing. Our brain is arguably the most important asset we have, and yet we are never formally taught how to manage it. Whether it’s anxiety, relationship issues, or wanting to work on confidence, I then realised that once you learn the skills of supervising your mind, you can apply it to any aspect of your life. You then have this powerful life-changing skill with you always.

You have been able to transform your anxiety episodes not only in a strong resilience mindset but in a business, what were the challenges you faced in the first year of The Inner Impact?

Learning how to be comfortable with the fact that I am the product / and therefore the brand. I have always been rather shy about being in the public eye, so there was a bit of self-coaching to be done here! I had felt that if I didn’t share my story, then I wouldn’t be vulnerable. But now I know: When you are authentic, you are vulnerable. When you are authentic, people connect to you and trust you. When people trust you, the magic happens and you can help them.

We are living in an unusual time, how has the pandemic affected your business? 

I work with a great number of people in the corporate world who were normally having meetings in person.  The shift to Working From Home required some getting used to. Whilst a few were initially resistant to this idea, many today appreciate the benefits of this new style. It’s far more efficient in terms of time, but also, in some cases, it permits people to be more “vulnerable” (open) as they are in their familiar “safe” surroundings, so it’s easier for them to reflect inwards. The pandemic has taken my business almost 100% online now; previously all my clients were based where I was located, now my clients are GLOBAL. Now, people look for the right coach for them, rather than for a coach located near them.

How do you see The Inner Impact in 2 years?

Currently, all the coaching is done on a 1:1 basis. Next year I will be launching group coaching programmes. I envisage that in 2 years’ time, most of what I offer will be coaching on a group level. Group coaching allows people to uplevel themselves by being within a carefully curated group of like-minded peers. You get to access other people’s ways of thinking, expanding your limitations to what’s possible and causing you to grow yourself to new levels, all within a safe and confidential container. It is the most powerful thing ever. The first group will be launching in the middle of next year and the programme will be running every 6 months thereafter. I will still be offering 1:1 coaching, but to a far smaller, selected base.

What is the coaching service you would like to suggest to everyone and why? 

With my coaching programme, we zero-in on your strengths, change behaviours, and work to create a specific plan to actually get the results that you want. In just 6 months, 45 minutes per week, WE DIVE DEEP to get clear on what’s holding you back, what you really want, and make a plan for how to achieve it. I teach you proven techniques to manage your mind. You will leverage your problems to work for you and create new results. I help you become a person who achieves what you want.

How do you find the right work/free time balance in your day?

It all comes down to planning. A lot of people think planning your entire week out is very restrictive, but it’s actually the opposite. The key is to make sure you plan for all your free time in there FIRST. And from there, plan around it.

As #COACHINGPRO, what is your advice to maintain our mental wellbeing during this stressful period?

Be kind to yourself. We live in extraordinary times where there is so much uncertainty in all aspects of life.  Take this opportunity to get to know yourself, and really understand WHY you feel the way you do. Get into the habit of taking 5 minutes in the morning to write down everything that is on your mind, no filter, no edit and without judgment – a brain dump of what’s in your head. We have 65,000 thoughts a day, and most of them are subconscious. Writing is a good way of helping you bring them to the conscious surface. When this happens, you understand yourself a bit better. You are then able to consciously decide if you want to continue thinking this way, or whether you want to do something about it.

Now please fill the gap about your 5 pro tips: 

1. Your golden rule to stay positive: the opposite actually! I embrace that life is not always going to be positive, that it is normally going to be 50:50, and that this is ok. This is how you grow, learn and know to truly appreciate the times when they are glorious.
2. How to achieve your goals: Always understand WHY you want to achieve that goal, and HOW life will change for you once achieved. Let this be your motivator. Most important is spending time with yourself.
3. A good exercise for your mind: Asking yourself “Why is this an issue for me?” at least four times to get to the real underlying root of the matter.
4. A game for your brain: Taking the facts of the situation, and coming up with a completely different narrative to what you are currently telling yourself, to push yourself to see a different perspective.
5. A book for your soul: Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. My most recent discovery that I am sharing with everyone, from children to adults.

You can follow @theinnerimpact

I’m Massimo Cassani, and I’m #YOURNOVELISTPRO

This week we are interviewing Massimo Cassani, a well known Italian fiction writer, Journalist, and professor at ‘Bottega di narrazione’, a Creative Writing Academy. founded by Giulio Mozzi. Massimo speaks about his passion for writing and what is his opinion about digital transformation.

Location: Milano, Italy

Current job: writer, journalist and editorial director at “Ambiente&Sicurezza”.

One word that best describes how you work: quick, quick, quicker!

My greatest success: seeing my novels published.

My biggest fear is: disappointing myself

My favourite writer is: there are so many talented writers, I will pick an English one, Jonathan Coe, as my way to thank you for having me on your blog

My life dream: to continue publishing novels one after the other

First of all, tell us something about your background and when your passions for writing started.

I studied classics and then I specialized in journalism. My passion for the written word was born very early, together with my passion for writing. But I only dedicated myself to it when I felt ready enough to do it. My first novel is from 2008; I was forty-two, not really a kid!

How was the transition from being a journalist to a writer?

These are two completely different worlds. As a journalist, I have always tried to develop simple, accessible writing. The journalist’s goal is, first of all, to convey information through the medium of writing. As a writer, however, I have to focus not only on the contents but also on how to evoke emotions, even in the descriptions of the characters and places. We can say that writing novels can and must be played on several levels, and various nuances; by contrast, writing journalism has to be direct, and the more direct, the better.

How did you manage to keep both careers and at the same time, to collaborate with the writing academy ‘Bottega di narrazione‘?

I try to manage all my journalist work over the week and spend my free time working with Bottega di narrazione. It’s not an easy task because free time is so rare, but I believe we all have this problem nowadays. As for writing novels, it’s something that always goes on in my head.

Can you tell us a bit more about ‘Il Commisario Micuzzi’, when and how the character was born? Was the character inspired by someone in your life or does he have anything in common with you?

Il Commissario Micuzzi was born really by chance. An international literary agent asked me if I was available to develop the plot of a kind gentleman – non-writer – who had a good story (a true story) to write. I should have been a ghostwriter. I hadn’t published anything at the time; I had just finished writing a children’s novel with a friend (a novel that has never been published). I was enthusiastic about the proposal and straight away wrote the synopsis for the story which was enriched with other invented characters, including a minor character whom I called “Micuzzi” because in Italy it is an uncommon surname. But my synopsis was rejected, so I cut everything from the plot that wasn’t mine and made this Micuzzi the protagonist of the first novel (“Sottotraccia”). Micuzzi has a fatal distraction, like me: sometimes I go around the house looking for my cell phone and asking myself desperately: “But where will I have put my cell phone?”. Now the series is stopped, I want to write other things. But in the future, we will see..

‘L’ ultimo ritorno‘ is a different kind of book. Why did you decide to move away from detective stories into another genre?

“L’ultimo ritorno” is a family novel, yes, very different from the previous detective stories. Writing this story, however, I realized that the mystery, the secrets, the double games “live” well even outside the typical genre novels. And in family stories they “live” very well … many families are not the paradise that some want us to believe.

As #NOVELISTPRO, what do you think about the digital transformation? Do you believe it’s a good change or is digital somehow polluting the nature of writing?

Nothing lives forever, but above all, things change. I don’t think the past is better than the present and that the future will be worse than the age we are living. Writing is no exception. Today we write in a completely different way than a century or two ago, and in a century or two, the differences will be just as marked. Let’s not forget that writing is a medium and objects (ink and inkwell, ballpoint pen, typewriter, writing programs …) are just tools to express it. Even in the web age, there are those who know how to express themselves very well and those who seem semi-illiterate. The instrument certainly changes the writing, but I would not speak of “pollution”, I would rather talk of “contamination”. And contaminations are always fertile, in my opinion.

Tell us your trick to have a good work/free time balance in your day. 

I really don’t have one! Unfortunately, there are no fences in my head, and everything gets confused. Sometimes it’s a resource, many other times it’s not. Maybe that’s why I’m so distracted.

Last but not least, tell us three books that you should bring with you on a desert island.

What a difficult question! I prefer not to mention the classics: they would be too many. I choose three novels from the ones I have read recently, and they impressed me: “Berta Isla” by Javier Marias, “Waiting for Bojangles” by Olivier Bourdeaut, and “What Happens at Night” by Peter Cameron.

Now please fill the gap about your five pro tips: 

1. Your golden rule in writing: let the stories grow inside my head, every moment, not just as I write.
2. Best place to recharge: there is no specific place, the important thing is to walk, walk, walk.
3. A movie to watch over and over: Ulysses’ Gaze by Theo Angelopoulos
4. A game for your brain: I love to imagine possible things.
5.  A bit of advice for an emerging writer: reading is essential, yes, but reading while trying to understand what are the mechanisms that govern the stories is even more important. Often these mechanisms emerge even in the most unsuspected novels, even in those that are not considered masterpieces.

You can learn more about Massimo Cassani’s book here