CEO's You Should Know: Laura Boccanfuso Smart Robot Tutor

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to CEOs. You shouldknow today we're talking with Laura Bocanfuso.
Correct h, thank you teacher,and today we're talking about teaching because your
company is Van Robotics v AN.That's the umbrella company. Give me the
web page smart robot tutor dot com. Are you from South Carolina by chance?
I'm not originally from here, butI've spent the majority of my life

(00:23):
in South Carolina. Okay, well, where were you born? I was
born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan in Canada. Yeah, I lived there for about
six months before moving to the States. I was raised in upstate New York,
and then spent some time in Virginia, in Maryland, Ohio, Florida,
and eventually made my way to SouthCarolina. What was the impetus for

(00:44):
you coming to South Carolina? Ajob move? My husband accepted a job
here at the university. It washis alma mater at the time and is
now obviously my alma mater. Also, our three kids all graduated from schools
here, so good Cox. Yeahexactly. Now are you and a as
well? So I'm assuming your husbandis unless he's in administration. No,
so, my husband actually was anadministration with the university. He since started

(01:07):
his own company's own nonprofit. Hewas working in the sponsored program's research office
at the university, helping the universitywith partnerships and business development. At the
time, we had three young kids, so I was actually staying at home
before I started grad school. Whenthe youngest went to school, I went
back to school, went to getmy PhD, and with the full intent

(01:30):
of becoming a teaching professor, righta research professor, you are now heading
up smart robot tutor dot com.Actually, there's a little turn to that
story. So after I had finishedmy PhD here, I took a post
stock at Yale University and moved therefor three years did research scientists work up
there, which was all building sortof the foundation for the company I started

(01:55):
in twenty sixteen. And so thethree years I spent at Yale, I
was working with mostly with people fromthe Child Study Center who were studying things
like developmental psychology, cognitive science,autism, intervention, and so we were
building technologies as a researcher and studyinghow they worked in the field. So
we were really kind of kicking thetires on how something like this could work

(02:16):
in the field in the real world. And so twenty sixteen, when I
was in my first year as anassociate research scientist, I decided to leave
and start the company in your researchand you saw the void where you could
either fill a need or you're bettersuited as a company for that need.
Your end user is, in factthe school system. Correct. Yes,

(02:36):
in a classroom setting, then doesa smart robot and does they begin it
Abby? Now? Is it ahe or a she? Or that we
call AB a she? Okay,but a lot of classrooms except ABI is
their own classroom mascot, and itit can be a boy, it can
be a girl. They dress itup and they give it a different name
such a great Obviously they like it. They like to interact with it.

(02:57):
So when you go to smart robottutor dot com you can see Abby.
Now, does ABBI become like ateacher assistant? Or is Abby like a
pad? Where's a game? Greatquestion. Abby was intended and designed specifically
to support students during independent learning time. So there's always this time during the
day in the K through five classroomwhere teachers have completed their whole group instructions,

(03:20):
so they've taught the whole class they'veeither launched a new lesson, a
new idea, a new concept forstudents, or they're reinforcing one. After
that time, kids are typically workingfor forty five minutes to an hour by
themselves. Bobby was designed to workwith them during that independent learning time,
which is for the most part,unsupervised learning. And what happens during that
time is sometimes kids will get stuckon a problem, they'll have additional questions,

(03:44):
they have to wait for the teachersure, or they'll get distracted,
they'll start talking to their peers rightand so Abby is genuinely designed to help
support the teacher by providing more personalized, more supervised learning while the students are
intended to be working by themselves.So it really helps as a whole with
classroom management because teachers can focus onworking with a small group or a couple

(04:06):
of students while students are working independently, and those students aren't getting stuck.
They're being kept on task because ofthe robot making sure that they stay on
task. But also the robot isproviding additional explanation when kids get stuck on
a problem. I remember that independentfree time and I always played paper football,
But Abby would keep me on trackexactly. I really could have used

(04:29):
Abby. Your company took an interestinglittle twist because just as you were ready
to launch, COVID hit and youwere actually featured on Shark Tank for a
slightly different version than what we seeonline now at smart robot tutor dot com.
Yeah. Back in twenty nineteen,I had just finished the Tech Stars
Accelerator in Austin, Texas, andthey posted on a website all the ten

(04:51):
companies that had been selected for theaccelerator, and I received an email from
one of the executive producers on theshow. They had invited us to apply
for Shark Tank, which, ofcourse I immediately brushed off as a scam
because how would they possibly writ Imean, come on, So that email
got deleted. Two weeks later,I got another email from the same executive

(05:15):
producer and he said, Hey,I'm not sure if you got my first
email, but we would love foryou to apply to be on the show
because it seems like you have agreat product and I think it would make
a good candidate for the show.So, long story short, About eight
months later, I was flown tola we taped the show, and essentially
we were getting ready to just launchin a couple of months after that,

(05:35):
and January came the news of COVIDstarted to circulate widely. By March,
all the schools had closed and ourrobot at that point was only designed to
deliver math instruction and specifically for schools. That was our first market. And
so when the news came about COVID, we got together as a team and

(05:58):
we said, you know, andwe've got to do something. We've got
to maybe pivot and create a homeversion because this is not going to bode
well. We're going to have toput this on hold for schools for a
little while. And so we createda home version and made that pretty quick.
Six weeks later we had a functionalhome version. And it was just
a few weeks after that that Igot an email from Shark Tank saying that

(06:18):
our episode was going to air forthe first time. Wow, so may
I think it was May sixth?Yeah, the episode aired and it was
perfect timings. Like you said,we had parents that had emailed us in
volume right, because I'm sure theywere so concerned their kids were home.
They didn't have the resources to reallyspend a features how to get instruct how
to get them focused, I don'tunderstand the materials sometimes exactly. So that

(06:42):
summer was really kind of saved bythe fact that we had this foresight to
pivot create a home version, andthen fortunately Shark Tank just happened to air
at the right time. You know. It was one of those things where
the circumstances just kind of wove togetherin our advantage, and within I would
say, nine months after we lunchthe home version, we were supporting a
lot of families. We were providinga lot of technical support, we were

(07:04):
developing curriculum that would help them.We were constantly getting feedback because we knew
that this was going to be devastatingfor students. Even the highest performing students
were going to struggle if they didn'thave instruction, formal instruction for a long
period of time. So that wasa good niche that we filled for that
time. But when schools opened upagain, a lot of those schools were

(07:27):
then sort of the recipients of allof that fallout from kids not being in
school. You can imagine the trickleeffect that had not just on the students,
not just on the parents, butalso on the teachers and the administrators
of those schools that had to figureout, how are we going to deal
with such a diverse population of kidsthat all need different things. Some of

(07:48):
them really need more social help becausethey haven't been in a classroom for a
year. Some of them strictly needacademics, some need a mixture of both.
And so what we did was wesaid, we're going going to focus
back on serving those schools as bestwe can with the technology that can support
teachers and relieve some of their stressby helping those kids during independent learning time.

(08:11):
We're going to help those kids becauseall of the lessons are highly personalized
to each student, and we're goingto help them with the social skills because
we partnered with a national curriculum providerfor life skills basically conflict resolution skills,
which was in high demand at thetime, and so we rolled out all
of that new curriculum to schools andit was very very well received. You

(08:33):
know, our goal is always tosupport the learning process and that involves a
lot of stakeholders, everyone from thestudent through the parent, the teacher,
the administration. So I think,you know, one of the things that
demarkets our company the most compared toother technology companies is that we're probably the
most people focused company you'll ever meet. We spend a lot of our time

(08:56):
working with in partnership with the peoplewe can cosider, our school partners and
our customers. As a parent,now, in particular with social media and
the access to the Internet through phonesand tablets, a lot of parents are
hyper sensitive to companies collecting data ontheir children. How do you answer that
question or is that ever becoming apushback for some teachers or for parents.

(09:16):
We fully respect the concern about data. Since the beginning, we've always been
very cognizant that you should only collectthe data necessary to do the job at
hand, and for learning, thereare some things that we need to collect
in order to be able to servethe student and to provide adaptive instruction for

(09:37):
that student. There are a lotof things we don't need to collect.
We don't need to collect images,we don't need to collect video, we
don't need to collect voice. Andso we've spent a lot of time making
sure that we're both compliant with allthe federal and state requirements ZIPA for PA
COPA compliance to make sure that we'recompliant with all of those acronyms, but

(09:58):
we also spend a lot of timemaking sure that we make decisions based on
necessity and not is this a coolfeature to have? Right? I think
there's a continuous tension for technology companiesto want to always be on the bleeding
edge of new features and new functionality, but you always have to balance that
with what's in the best interests ofthe people you're working for, because essentially

(10:18):
that's what it comes down to.Now, at this point, you're a
South Carolina company, and given that, I'm sure this is a very competitive
area on the internet and in thepublic schools system. Was there a home
field advantage at all to being fromSouth Carolina as you would talk to different
school systems here in South Carolina versusKansas. That's an interesting question. I
mean, I think absolutely in thebeginning it was easier for us because we

(10:39):
were here. We're homegrown. Mythree kids have all graduated from school here.
Most of our employees have roots herein South Carolina. But I do
think the Abby robot is designed sodifferently from a lot of other technologies in
the market. It's the only adaptiveclassroom tutor that I know of in the
K through five classroom that's being usedpart of mainstream instruction every day. And

(11:01):
so when we launched and we startedtalking to other rural districts in Missouri,
for example, or Kansas, orin parts of Iowa for example, I
think they were really excited about theprospect. I think when you ask about
the home field advantage here in SouthCarolina, I think that holds true for
the more early adopters, people thatare like, Okay, we'll try this

(11:24):
out. They're in South Carolina.If this doesn't work, we know where
they live basically. But in thelast couple of years, i'd say probably
since twenty twenty one twenty two,we've started working with really large districts,
urban districts like LA Unified and NewYork City schools, and they are equally
enthralled by having a technology that canhelp their teachers this way. So I
think that we're just scratching the surfaceon what's possible with better classroom technologies,

(11:50):
and our classroom technology is still evolvingtoo, So I think it's interesting.
I think we're entering a new erafor what the classroom of the future is
going to look like. How isyour company doing so far as two things,
your growth for your students, orwhat your school districts are saying,
and your growth for your company.Yeah, the first question about growth for

(12:11):
school districts. You know they're stillstruggling with finding enough teachers, right,
I mean COVID had a devastating effecton teachers, both in terms of stress,
their mental health, and their desireto stay in the job. Right,
And so that I think is stillan ongoing struggle. Oh, it's
a challenge, it is. Andso there was a news article just recently

(12:33):
about the lack of teachers in anumber of school districts here in South Carolina,
but also nationwide. I think thatthat continues to plague a lot of
school districts and we can help toan extent, but the problem is pretty
vast. I mean, finding enoughteachers, finding enough administrators to really fill
the needs of the schools is difficult. So what we do is we say

(12:56):
we can provide this support. Thisis what you can expect from us.
Yes, we have spent a lotof time developing really good best practice protocols
for schools that want to adopt oursolution, because what we found is when
you have great communication with schools,they can do so much more than if
you have sort of this understanding thatwe're going to provide this product, the

(13:18):
service, we're going to drop itoff and sure we're going to go on
our way. And so how it'schanged us and how we work with schools
has been We actually provide a lotmore boots on the ground implementation support for
schools than we used to. Wehave a whole coaching program that is a
service we provide to our school partners. We send our people there best to
coach the teachers exactly. Administrators coachthe teachers, coach the administrators. They're

(13:41):
on the ground. They actually helpwith integration support within the classroom itself.
So as you see yourself being inthis area for a year after year after
year, have you seen of yourclients told you, I believe Abby's helped
us move our test scores to onepercent. We were just interviewed on CNN
actually about how We'll Learn in twentyfifty series and one of the schools that

(14:03):
was highlighted was a school in Missouriwho actually looked at their standardized test scores
year after year and they found thatkids that worked with ABI improved by twenty
percent more than these students who didnot work with ABI, and that's an
independent study. They have the robotsin their district now they have two in
all of their K through five classrooms, but they use them specifically to look

(14:24):
at math scores improvement. That wasreally exciting, right, because, like
I said, independent study using standardizedtest scores that are used by most districts.
So then of the business arena,that gives you the opportunity obviously to
show the results of students in differentdistricts and different states, varied environments,
backgrounds, or whatever, so thatyou can find yourself in a position to

(14:45):
have more conversations with other school districtsto grow your business model. Now,
in the state of South Carolina,you mentioned it gave you a little bit
of a home field advantage. Didyou find working with the South Carolina Department
of Commerce or other agencies that itwas beneficial in how Yeah, We've worked
with the South Carolina Department of Educationprimarily for the last six years, and
it's been tremendously helpful because they've designeda program called the Innovation Grant Award program,

(15:11):
which enables companies that are launching innovativeproducts or innovative services to really validate
and evaluate the impact that they canhave in South Carolina classrooms. That partnership
or that grant, and that collaborationwith school partners that have participated in that
research has been tremendously valuable. Ican say that all of the research studies

(15:33):
that we've done through the Department ofEducation here in South Carolina have not only
helped us with making sure that whatwe're doing is actually having a measurable impact
on student learning, but it's alsohelped our student partners be able to evaluate
and say, you know what,this is actually a good program. We
know that this works for our schooland our students without having to expend a

(15:56):
lot of money to do that,right because through those grants, they receive
those robots for free, and soit's a win win for innovative companies like
ours and for school districts that wantto make sure they're using their resources wisely
so they can evaluate the technology andsay, okay, it works, now
we'll actually maybe allocate some of ourfunding for that. You know, I've
had an opportunity to speak with manyCEOs you should know and maybe even do,

(16:21):
and a lot of the tech growthinside the state of South Carolina really
is surprising. When you start seeinghow many companies are growing around us,
and why do you feel that doyou have a larger circle of CEOs that
you do know that you can interactwith in the state of South Carolina.
Absolutely, I feel fortunate because I'vebeen involved in grow co for example,

(16:44):
is a great growing ecosystem of startups. The executive director is Caroline Crowder,
and she is one of those peoplewho is a force in the state who
is helping bring high tech companies tothe state but also growing with in the
state the resources and the infrastructure neededto be able to build those high tech

(17:04):
companies. I go to these events, I go to pitch nights, I'll
go to these coffee morning events tomeet some of the other CEOs in the
state. I'm always really impressed bythe caliber of people that we have.
I think Columbia is just getting startedwith being able to provide the infrastructure needed

(17:26):
to really grow the number of hightech companies that it can grow. I
think we're just getting started on thatfront. You know, South Carolina I
don't think is unique. And sinceyou work with districts all over the country,
you could tell me we seem tohave children not being fully engaged in
science, technology, engineering, andmath and any way that I think we
can find, and you would agree, I'm sure get these kids more engaged

(17:48):
earlier gives them the opportunity to geta leg up and then possibly fulfill that
not only is just a great study, but also an incredible life. Tell
me about your STEM program work.If you have things that you can point
to specifically, have it to dowith ABI. We actually have a new
program called Classroom to Career and itis designed specifically to bring in more non

(18:10):
traditional middle school and high school studentsinto the STEM field. And so what
we did was we actually created aprogram that teaches kids about what artificial intelligence
is, what robotics is from anon traditional perspective. Right, So a
lot of AI programs, a lotof robotics programs in middle school high school,
focus almost exclusively, if not exclusively, on coding and programming. And

(18:33):
we know that coding and programming isreally one practice or one activity that you
can use to understand the importance ofSTEM, but it's not the only one.
And so what our program does isit shows students, you know,
how AI is integrated in everything fromautomotive to agriculture, music, art,
and healthcare, and law enforcement,military, you name it, right.

(18:57):
That eight module pro goes through appliedexamples and activities that help students become familiar
with how AI can be used toadvance these different fields because they will be
experiencing these changes and regardless of whetherthey consider themselves STEM students or not,
what we want to do is openup their understanding of the fundamentals of how

(19:21):
AI works so that they're not closedoff to the ideas or maybe afraid that
they don't know how it works.So they understand. We're peeling back the
layers and showing them some of thedifferent ways that AI can be used and
how robotics are also used in differentfields. And at the end of that
eight week program, they actually builda fully functional ABBI robot and they deliver

(19:42):
that to their K through five peers. That's so we're creating this ecosystem,
right, And so these K throughfive kids then say, oh, that's
my you know, that's my brother'sbest friend, or that's my cousin or
the neighbor that lives down the street. They're building robots. They know about
this AI. They are older peers, and that opens up the possibilities for

(20:04):
kids who may think that that's nota possibility. The name of the company
is Van Robotics, Inc. Onthe web, as you mentioned, is
smart robot tutor dot com. Avery special CEO guest, doctor Laura Bokanfuso.
Thank you so much for being here, and thank you for your efforts
helping our state grow in high techadventures, but also helping our school children

(20:26):
perform better every day in the class. Absolutely, thank you so much for
having me on. Thank you,Vishing