Building a company is never an easy task. Things that look so easy outside are most likely to be the hardest ones. The journey of building a company from an idea is the way to chase a dream leaving your comfort zone behind, taking risky decisions with the goal to control your destiny and change the world.
Who are those people? What do they have they believe will help to achieve their dreams?
Those people rise from bottom to top. They may not necessarily have the skills that entrepreneurial journey demands from them but what is that that they have? These people have passion, a strong internal drive that converts their idea into a venture with time. Each business idea is born out of passion and inspiration.
CleverBooks was born out of a deep passion for the education and technology of an inspiring leader and the founder of the company – Dr. Darya Yegorina. She truly believes that each individual is in charge of changing the way we educate our kids. Dr. Inna Armstrong, Co-Founder of CleverBooks joined the leadership team as a senior executive at the early stage of the company development. Inna’s desire to empower students learning through a strategic application of most innovative EdTech.
Today, CleverBooks influences Digital Transformation in the Education system worldwide. Present in 62 countries, with over 17000 students and 4200 teachers using CleverBooks STEM EdTech products based on Augmented Reality (AR) technology that bring learning to life where kids can see, hear, and touch the knowledge. CleverBooks has been featured in multiple international media including Forbes and Inc. Magazine, Reimagine Education as a Bronze Winner 2020, enrolled in one of the biggest EU funded projects HORIZON 2020 and Erasmus+ to participate in the research on the topic of AR in Education.
Has this all happened overnight? Was it so easy as it sounds?
Two determinate leaders behind this idea made it a reality. Why? Because they had passion and strong internal motivation to bring their idea to reality, make a change and leave footprint behind. CleverBooks is a company who breaks through the education industry with innovation – the application of Augmented Reality for educational settings and making this technology affordable, promoting quality of content and equality in education from all income families around the world, all special needs kids around the world.
It all started with Darya’s dream to influence the change and help transform education. Darya wanted to become a teacher never thinking that in five years upon graduation during an internship at school, she would be face a brutal reality of been pushed to teach with the same books she had at school herself. This made her always think that “Education is the product of time” because the main goal of education for each generation is to have people who are able to adopt to the world around them. This realization that education system is struggling forced a dramatic shift in her carrier. So, she set herself on a mission to find the way to disrupt the education.
Today, Dr. Darya Yegorina is a TEDx top global thought leader on a journey to disrupt the Digital Transformation in the Education system. She inspires new generation from early childhood to develop necessary skills using immersive EdTech to help them survive the digital era, thus shaping a sustainable future society and influencing future economic growth. Darya believes that the major global issues (climate problems, poverty, fear of innovation and tech) are coming from lack of their understanding, i.e. support from the side of education. Education is the key creative force to deal with the problems that humanity faces.
Darya is the winner of Digital Female Leaders Award in the category of Entrepreneurship in 2018, named as Innovator by Irish Times in 2018, awarded Young Irish Entrepreneur in 2016, Women in IT 2019, Young European Leader in 2020/2021 (#EYL40), Top Thought Leader in B2B, AR/VR by Thinkers 360 (2019, 2020) featured in Inc.com, Forbes and other global media as a promoter and facilitator of education technology for the best future of the kids in the world.
“A dream is just a dream until it’s put into action”
Inna on the other hand, had begun her career path as a Law Student never thinking that in couple of years, she would exchange it for a «Gipsy» expat life around the world. She worked at International schools in Switzerland and Japan. Her adventures continued in Austria, Germany, and China in the international schools’ expat community and eventually brought her to a professional field of international business development aiming to help companies in their journey to successfully expand their business to the global market.
Today, Dr. Inna Armstrong is a Thinkers 360 (2020) Top Thought Leader in AR/VR together with Darya helps educators to embrace 21st-century teaching. She envisions a world where educators are empowered to help kids to develop the necessary skills through strategic use of technology, breaking old-fashioned pedagogical barriers, building bridges between teaching and tech focused on increased engagement of students in the classroom with an interactive and immersive learning environment.
What the stories of two co-founders can’t teach us? Is there any advice they can give? Here is a short summary of advice from passionate and innovative co-founders of an edtech venture:
- Get used to rejection and “no”, don’t take this personal
- Help people to grow. By helping others, you grow too.
- The feeling of regret is way worse than not trying
- Face the risks and fears
- Think of your success, be relentless for growth
- Be passionate and innovative on projects that align with who you are as a person.