Can technology ever be good for youth? At Endless, we are hopeful for what the world’s youth will do with technology. But it won’t happen on its own. We must craft technology to build a great generation, a balance to those creating technology only to build great companies. The question is, what are those tools and who is building them?
True to how we see the world, we were founded with the premise that every kid, regardless of geography and income, should have access to the best educational technology. Our journey began with an initiative to enable kids globally to have the same tool that we send our kids to school with: a computer. The modern tool of education and business worldwide remains the PC, despite what evangelists of mobile want to claim. We need a large screen, mouse, and keyboard to create.
In my TED talk, you’ll meet Jimmy, a sparkling case study. In rural Guatemala, he learned English with Duolingo and changed his life.
The tech platforms we use have been built without understanding the consequences they would have.
The world has changed in the years since we launched Endless. Technology has evolved from a beacon of hope to a cause for concern. Let’s get real for a moment: Terrifying things have been spliced into YouTube kids videos. Screen time causes thinning of the prefrontal cortex? 145 million social security numbers have been hacked. Smartphone usage is linked to depression and suicide. The only way to solve these is to be honest about the problems. The tech platforms we use have been built without understanding the consequences they would have.
If you were to re-imagine technology with the sole intention of empowering youth, what would it look like? I'm in the unusual position of having been forced to think about that question. We built Endless OS to empower kids around the world. Designing it gave us the chance to re-imagine everything from the operating system to the internet. As Endless evolved, we found that many of the answers we built for kids globally were solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of parents in the USA. We had built a platform to deliver educational content to kids, safely. And we put creation, not consumption, at the center of everything that kids do.
We have put creation, not consumption, at the center of everything that kids do.
At the heart of what we do is a little word, “agency”. To have agency is to feel that our actions have impact. We learned from our users that having access is merely the doorway to an infinite realm of creativity. And we realized that coding is perhaps the greatest creative tool, unbounded in its possibilities. We live in a mobile world in which kids tap glass and it is called “education”. We want a world in which kids shape what’s behind the glass. Where they are the creators.
In the coming posts, I will talk about what we do, in the US and elsewhere, but this is bigger than that. This is a call to arms. In a world in which screen time, social media, and the web’s darker corners leave parents apprehensive of technology, we believe that technology is also the greatest tool of human potential. We must design intentionally, to improve lives, and we must democratize the skills involved so that everyone everywhere can participate in building the platform of their own future. Endless is just one case study. My hope is that some of you might read on and do something different - perhaps advocate a feature you know is right, push your product to people who need it, learn to code, choose a new career trajectory, advocate for less predatory business models, and demand more of the companies that build our technology. We need to build technology that will build a great generation.
If you want to join us on our journey, fill in your email in the form below. I won’t spam you. But I will do my best to inspire you.