October 29, 2023 • 29 mins
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down for an engaging video chat with Rehan Allahwala, an innovative educator based in Karachi, Pakistan. Rehan runs a unique school focused on empowering underprivileged youth through access to technology and skills-building centered around artificial intelligence.
The students come from one of the poorest areas of Karachi, with family incomes under $100 per month. Yet Rehan provides each child with a computer and internet access, encouraging self-directed learning. Traditional subjects take a backseat to problem-solving, public speaking, and content creation using tools like AI assistants, video editing software, and social media.
Already, the results have been promising. Students conduct dozens of interviews each month in languages like English, learning communication skills. They write scripts, record voices, and edit videos daily using AI. Within a few short months, some began picking up bits of new languages just from interviewing fluent speakers online.
Rehan believes this model cultivates the sorts of soft skills increasingly important for success - communication, networking, confidence. And it's not just theory; he's seen first-hand how acquiring in-demand digital skills can help overcome poverty. One factor in Rehan's school is that students must solve a major problem in their community using technology and their skills.
While traditional schools struggle to keep up with rapid technological change, Rehan is tackling head-on how to educate youth for a future shaped by AI, internet access and digital platforms. His school offers a glimpse of what's possible when education embraces new opportunities instead of resisting them. With visionaries like Rehan, there is hope that even greater numbers of young people worldwide can access education empowering better lives.
🚀 Ready to elevate your digital game? Tune in and let's disrupt the status quo together!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi everyone today we are with Chris Kruger and Rihanna Lawala and Chris is in Vancouver,
(00:10):
Canada and Rihanna is in Karachi, Pakistan and over to you Chris.
Hey what's up internet it's Chris Kruger and I'm checking in here from my studio in East
Van and I'd like for you to introduce yourself there Rihanna.
Hi Chris thank you for the opportunity I am a humble human being who is trying to understand
(00:37):
life and a teacher I have been an entrepreneur most of my life I have been in the business
of computing since age of 13 and I've done over 150 projects or companies in my life
in seven countries and now I have retired 12 years ago trying to end poverty from my
(01:00):
country and my latest venture is my school which is designed based on the post AI and
post internet era post YouTube era because none of the school in the world are I have
ever seen are taking the advantage of AI and internet they're all like stuck in biology
(01:26):
and chemistry and physics and cutting up the frog and all that kind of stuff so I started
this school where I wanted to take advantage of the young minds time because to be just
I don't even want to comment I mean they're doing what they can so I right now I don't
(01:46):
go to school I don't go there myself I have a team of around 22 teachers with 40 kids
and it's an interesting experiment I'm doing where it's in a slum area of Karachi where
(02:08):
the kids families earn less than $100 a month so we started giving them computers and the
internet and cell phone like six months ago and now they have started to learn English
on their own everything is on their own we only have facilitators we don't teach them
anything literally we just discipline them that you have to come on time go on time and
(02:30):
all that kind of stuff and there is no biology chemistry physics math science it's all AI
it's all chat GPT for them to learn whatever they want to learn we also give them a problem
to solve so one of the problems they have to solve is one their own poverty which is
(02:51):
they have to learn at least $500 a month and second sorry I muted you out just you want
just one second my friend there's no need for you to tell the whole story in one we
can have a bit of a conversation here so thank you very much for introducing yourself I just
(03:11):
met you today but I decided that we needed to get on to the video chat here and record
a conversation I met one of your students yesterday they tracked me down somehow on
the internet and they asked me to do an interview for their for their class for your class for
their podcast and so that was alien and and I did that podcast with him this morning and
(03:33):
it was in the process of getting to know him and talking to him a little bit I learned
about you and about the school and became intrigued and that started a conversation
between you and I thank you for the opportunity yeah and so yeah do tell us a little bit more
about the students and where they come from and your and your vision for this so as I
(03:57):
said the the school is in a slum area their families earn less than $100 a month combined
income and it's kind of hard to live in that kind of money so we teach them basic technologies
freelancing and stuff and then the also the reason I made school was actually to solve
(04:17):
problems using their time if you want to become a swimmer you start at seven if you want to
become a baseball person you start at nine you you start early so why not why not start
become a Malala why not become a Greta Thunberg at the age of 10 right so we give them one
problem one that it could be water solar energy gutter streets whatever and then there that's
(04:45):
what they do for the next six years so they have to solve the water problem how did they
solve the water problem so they watch one TED talk every single day on water and then
they make their own TED talk what whatever their understanding is from that TED talk
into a video and then they post it on their YouTube Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Instagram
(05:07):
and second they tag the original TED talk speaker and then they request them for an
interview yeah the original TED talk speaker so they are supposed to do this for six years
so the rest of their academics so they know everything there is to know about water the
problems the solutions the inspiration the network the funding and everything yeah second
(05:31):
thing they have to do is they have to interview one person a day every single day of their
school day third thing they have to do they have to make a video on their subject every
single day using AI so they have to write the content using AI they have to create the
script using AI they have to use AI to make voice they have to use Canva or CapCut to
(05:56):
make the video edit it up and then post it on the internet and then that's it that's
it so that's all they have to do as a school day and right now is the first year so we
haven't been able to get to their and it's a free school and they have to pay us when
(06:18):
they reach the 500 mark so we charge 25% of their income as our fees and the reason I
think it's interesting is because when we are able to do this and achieve there are
around 24 million school just two children in Pakistan who don't go to any school so
this will give the private schools a interesting and amazing business model for them to copy
(06:44):
and then they can kind of do the same thing for other children so that's kind of what
I do very interesting you were kind of critiquing education in general at the beginning of this
conversation by saying there's not a lot of schools that are kind of working with AI and
stuff and I've thought about this quite a bit because like I don't really envy the position
(07:04):
that a lot of academic institutions and teachers and stuff are in I mean this stuff's changing
every day so quickly it's like how do you without starting a whole new university or
a school like you're doing and reinventing education from the ground up including the
business model and the finance it's like how do you even you know educate students these
days the way we learn how I process information even my own concept of my creativity and my
(07:30):
intellect and what's possible has changed significantly in the last three months
I agree yeah so I mean I think that you're on to something and I don't envy the other
schools and it's almost hard to critique them I mean one thing that's easy to critique is
you know schools and professors that are using AI only to determine if their students papers
(07:52):
are written by other AIs or something like this is just such a surface level yeah yeah
so how many students you have in the program right now 39 excellent and they're all in the same
(08:14):
demographics as Allian who I met earlier
age-wise or how yeah exactly same neighborhood like you were saying same age you know yeah they're
on all in the same neighborhood same age similar ages not exactly the same yeah similar ages yeah
I use some new AI tools that I've been experimenting with to to make a video for your class
(08:40):
an introduction to myself in Urdu did you did you happen to have a video of me talking about
Urdu did you did you happen to see that I think that's pretty awesome if I ever left your
permission to post it on my wall you get like thousands of people wanting to follow you just
by watching that oh man I would love it if you posted that to your wall and I'll even post a
(09:02):
follow-up there as well to this conversation mentioning you by name and stuff so we'll
we'll really we'll open that up you know maybe maybe I'll even experiment with how to translate
this conversation as well sure I don't see why it's not possible like we can do the the voice
cloning and the translation and I think we can do the video part so that'd be a fun little experiment
(09:26):
that would be great and what do you use for voice cloning are you using 11 labs or something else
yeah I'm using 11 labs and I've been experimenting with the the overdub function in the script as well
and I'm on the beta list for the Adobe new podcasting suite that's coming out but I haven't
gotten to mess under the hood too much other than the they have like a magic you know audio filter
(09:52):
that essentially uses AI to detect not just background noise but other artifacts and stuff
and it's amazing you can like record in your iPhone in a windstorm and it makes it sound like
studio sound in the end it's very incredible we have been playing with the filter and all but
if the studio comes out I'm sure that it has more amazing you know gadgets and tools to play with
(10:16):
that'll be cool yeah um what's life like in Pakistan these days
Pakistan is um is an amazing country it's 250 million people so it's like you know seven times
the size of your population but the um the size wise it's not really that big
(10:39):
uh majority of the people are um uneducated majority of the people earn a lot very little money
um less than less than three dollars a day uh but we do have an amazing internet service
everywhere we have amazing smartphones really cheap 40 bucks for a smartphone
four dollars a month for unlimited bandwidth unlimited phone unlimited text wow uh really
(11:04):
cheap housing uh you can buy a we can rent a amazing house one of the teachers which moved
in from uh Washington DC moved into Karachi to be at our school she has rented her own four bedroom
house with furniture for 130 a month um so it's really low food is really low you can get a big
(11:28):
mac with meal like dollar one dollar 80 cents uh from McDonald's uh so it's the price wise is really
low if you actually earn the US and spend in Pakistan it's awesome and it's really the
country people are very hungry for for making more money um and internet opens up the door but
(11:50):
there's they don't know how to do it they don't know how to communicate they don't know how to
network they're all into skills skills skills and they don't understand that no matter what you
learn you will end up not really using it in six months time or a year's time right right and how
to learn instead of just like software applications or something like this correct and and I teach
(12:13):
them my so I've been doing a lot of self analysis and I have these courses I've made um um on the
internet and I don't charge anything but um I'm going to be focusing more now on the networking
teaching and self confidence self belief art and um that's kind of my forte now and I think if you
(12:38):
build the right network um the money comes and finds you once you build the trust once you once
you really like the people you're working with you find a way you can learn how to do it and
the way you can learn you can learn a new software you know a day or a week or a month but you can't
make make a lifelong relationship takes a lifelong time that's right I mean in the time you invest in
(13:04):
those things those relationships in the network they do continue to pay off over time I uh I
spent the pandemic living rurally on an island close to here and essentially it had no communication
professionally with my network or you know my clients just everything had just dried up
completely and so in the last little while like the last two months I just moved back to Vancouver
(13:24):
and uh I've been putting myself back out there reconnecting with old colleagues and stuff and
it's just amazing how much like potential energy is still contained within that that network you
know it's like people are very happy to see me back they remember you know the the things that
we did together and and what it what it's like what it feels like to work together and it's been
(13:47):
um it's been awesome it's been a really warm reception and uh and so like I can't thank those
people enough and I think you're really barking up the right tree to uh teach people these kind of
like soft skills English trust uh self-confidence the networking
(14:07):
yeah so so our curriculum for the sixth grader is to make 200 or 300 faceless videos using
so that basically teaches them how to use AI how to use chat gpt how to use canva how to use the
internet they've never experienced it so basically I'm just trying to get them friendly with their
(14:30):
computers with their with the internet they're so scared of it and their parents are scared of it
so that's why they think the internet is evil uh my principle I introduce him for one year he would
just cut off the internet every time I would put it in and every time we would physically cut it
(14:52):
physically cut it off he would just not let us use the internet at school I wasn't I don't go
physically there so he would just think it's evil he would never use phone he would never use facebook
it's like evil um it's just you know you're not you're just you're always scared of stuff that
you don't know about yeah um so you have lived in Uganda but you know somebody was not he would be
(15:18):
like why are you going there and it's all kind of weird people over there so you know it's just like
that and so it took me a year and a half just to get school on board to my vision right uh and then
slowly um some of the people who who knew me they started migrating to our city uh just to be in our
(15:40):
school uh four families migrated um to admit their children in our school and those are the
pillars of my school right now because their parents were on board and so then I hired some
of the parents to come and stay at the school as a facilitator teach them teach the children
(16:00):
um it's it's an interesting process and I think that I'm happy that I did it in a slum or like a
poor area because they don't argue as much once they trust you it's like easier um so let's see
um it's uh basically as I was saying about the curriculum is to interview 300 people a year
(16:24):
and then they have I mean their conversation becomes phenomenal their listening skills become
better um their speaking skills become better alian has done 170 so far 100 or so in english uh
and their english is improved in four months they started speaking english and I was I was watching
you interviewing him and he he was kind of scared to speak because basically they use chat gbt to
(16:49):
come up with questions you were you were enjoying the questions because they he didn't come up with
them clearly yeah so but he he takes your bio and he plugs it into chat gbt and it comes up with
amazing questions and they're just nodding and they're just listening and they're like but they're
listening and it's going in that's how we learned our mother tongue so now they're in listening
(17:10):
english after 50 or so interviews they started doing this in turkish and swedish in other
languages using chat gbt I was like what's going on it's really interesting I was talking to my
friend in Japan last night and he was talking about how I did one of these videos for him in
Japanese and he said my my vocabulary was really interesting and Japanese people were gonna find
it really interesting because most the white people there that speak Japanese are former
(17:36):
Mormons and they all learned out of the same how to learn english book or whatever and so everybody
talks the same who speaks Japanese who's white and speaks Japanese and I was when I was talking to
your student this morning you know I was I was thinking like I use so much idioms and cloak
wheel talk and even the questions that he had pulled from my bio like they're not like even
(17:58):
people that speak english don't know what some of those things are that he was asking me about you
know and so like it was just they're fascinating questions and uh I was clear that the gpt wrote
them but I was uh I was happy to talk about some of that stuff anyway very interesting
and I'm really happy to talk about that. Yeah I encourage you to do a few more uh these kids are
(18:19):
very smart they have they're becoming extraordinary kids I as I said the so the way they were they do
Turkish and other language interviews is they don't they don't use AI to to to do the voice like you
did they actually read uh the other languages in Roman text and then they're just they're just
(18:40):
practicing pronunciation and the other guys are speaking their own language and they're just
nodding oh yes oh yes oh yes and and then they end up learning a little bit of it and I will like
I would I think in future I would experiment for them to go out and do another languages also like
do 100 of them and see how much language do they pick up just by doing 100 interviews but it's kind
(19:06):
of hard to find the guest because um not everybody gets it that why is a 12 year old child messaging
me for an interview where is he where is he is this some kind of scam is something new so it's
just why the soft skills part the the language and the confidence and the networking is so
important because uh you know me and your student had to work through that as well like we had to
(19:30):
figure out who he was and like can I trust you and what's going on here you know and stuff and uh
I mean I'm pretty open but I felt like that's definitely one of the obstacles that that you
have to overcome and that like you know I'm going to be doing some mentoring with you so I'll use
the we that we have to overcome is like how do we help these students like uh cut through that
(19:51):
initial skepticism that doesn't really have anything to do with them in particular but has
to come is like stigma against the developing world against Islam against Pakistan like all
these things like start to come into people's minds you know and uh and so it's it's a lot to
deal with when you're a 13 year old kid just want to do an interview with someone in Canada on the
(20:12):
internet you know so I have opened up my network to them uh initially they were just talking to my
friends so they trust me I have been uh you know I have a lot of people on Facebook around 14 million
so I have a lot of friends among them I met them so they trust me so they were ready to
do it but uh we try I've been trying to do it for a year but their English was not good enough for
(20:38):
doing it so we tried multiple times multiple times and I lost a lot of soldiers I would say
friends who I can't talk to this kid he's not really understanding what I'm saying but but in
the last one month they have been hunting themselves and that's been really cool and then
they have been requesting their guests to refer them to someone else and that's been interesting
(21:02):
I've met a lot of soldiers in Los Angeles who has been opening up his roller decks for them and he
has been connecting them and they're getting all kind of amazing speakers and then one of the guys
it's just I think it's just going to take time but it's happening it's already happening
and six months old the whole I asked I gave everybody a laptop in March that's not even six
(21:26):
months so I gave just everyone a laptop I said you know what here you go here's one go break it and
I found out today that 10 of them were broken and we had to change them again yeah so I'm going to
keep on doing it I'm not going to you know worry about it just you know it's it's it's worth the
experiment it's part of the you know process I really think you're on to something um I was
(21:51):
telling your student about this guy I met last night called Abdul and he won a pitching contest
that I was at and you know he runs these three online coursework you know master class type
things that he sells online and he made 50 million bucks last year selling signups and tickets and
registrations for these courses and he's from Pakistan and you know I think he'd be a really
(22:15):
interesting guy for for you all to talk to and you know I definitely think there's a lot of opportunities there
yeah I sent him a message on LinkedIn I sent you his link also uh for a podcast um I don't think
it aligns with my schoolwork right now but um I think I will be happy to introduce him to my
network and then he can actually go and sell his stuff to other coaches in in our country in other
(22:40):
parts of the world in my network so you know when I when I um when I was thinking of it uh I thought
of it for a couple reasons one is that um you know he's not I don't think he's looking to sell into
your network but the the one reason I thought about it was like he's an inspirational guy I mean he
gives people an idea of you know what's what's possible or whatever but then um he's looking to
(23:02):
like take his much like you much like you who's willing to do a bunch of stuff for free for six
years and then take 25 percent of the students like income after that or something or 25 percent
after 500 a month or whatever it is um he's looking to invest 200 grand in 10 content creators
he's calling them like ceos or whatever of their own little uh educational course building thing
(23:28):
and um and then he's going to apply his model you know he's all of his like you know sales funnel
bullshit and his uh you know coaching stuff and um so I don't know it's just kind of interesting
it's an interesting opportunity for a bunch of young people who are interested in this
opportunity for a bunch of young people who have uh these skills to you know talk to this guy maybe
be like either own ceo sure it'll be awesome if that can happen yeah yeah he was a really
(23:53):
he was a really interesting guy so uh what else do you want the world to know
um nothing much um if the world your world is interested in having conversations with young
people and just having a conversation for the having for the sake of having a conversation
(24:14):
without any monetary returns on either side I just encouraged building the connection just
meeting a random stranger out of the blue and having the talk and you never know what comes
out of it you know it's not a it's not a speed dating it's a 30 minute date as you just spend
30 minutes on that and that gives them confidence that I can have friends in Canada I can have
(24:40):
friends everywhere I can just talk with them they're like me they have two ears and two eyes
and one nose you know I'm just like them and that took me a while to learn it took me I was extremely
under confident human being and um I had to spare you know rewrite myself many many times
(25:00):
to be able to speak with you and I think if I can do it they can do it too so it shouldn't be a
problem um and that's right now that's all we're seeking we're not seeking any financial help or
anything like that we're just looking for some friends and who can just chit chat with these
kids and just make them feel just a kid and if they can if I could partner with some school
(25:27):
back in Canada or wherever to to do this with the kids because that you know then it's a
get-to-get relationship it's fast so I think that they will they will they will be able to learn
much faster and the reason they're not able to earn right now is their belief system nothing else
it's they're really technically amazing but they don't have the place to sell they don't have the
(25:51):
beliefs to sell and I think it's a it's it's just going to take some time and then all of a sudden
they will get there just like your Abdullah who guy did it so anybody else can do it yeah it's
not going to be long before your students realize the skills they already have that you've already
given them uh are at least as good as the ones that are people are selling out there on these
(26:12):
marketplaces I mean um they're they're they're doing really good man they're pretty far ahead
versus lots of people I hire on Upwork and Fiverr and stuff like that yeah I think so too so it's
it's it's going to pay off soon six months year maybe maximum it's just uh it's just dealing
issues we're dealing with right now it will be over well I look forward to staying in touch with
(26:36):
you but let's do another one of these in a year and let's celebrate some of the successes sure
maybe if you'll go to Nanaimo and do it over there oh man I uh I just came from Vancouver Island
that was where I hung out during the pandemic so uh it's it's cool to hear the words Nanaimo roll
off your lips yeah I I had a wonderful friend back in 1996 who I connected with online and then
(27:05):
he was one of the first person on the planet to offer a web-based email service actually believe
it or not out of Nanaimo and um he was way before Hotmail and Yahoo and all those stuff
and I was selling his services um everywhere in Pakistan for an arm and a leg back in the day
(27:26):
it was 97, 98 and then I went to see him in 99 or 2000 I came and I went to see him spend a day or
two with him uh it's a really beautiful place I have not been there again um but yeah I would
love to go there again it's a really nice place I think cool hey I really really appreciate your
(27:48):
time you're doing great work thanks for sharing with me it'd be nice to be in touch thank you for
giving time to our students yeah man my pleasure okay over and out from Canada all right how do
you do those effects I have no idea it only does it at the end when I have no idea
maybe it's like bone in something it maybe I just back I was shy it tried hello hello where are you
(28:18):
Ali and tried the same thing and I was surprised when it happened there too I have no idea where
it's coming from because it happens in zoom and other places too so
all right all right would you um I'll send you my email so you can give me that file and I'll
get it on my I really appreciate it man you're so cool to meet you guys thank you thank you same
(28:38):
here take care all right
(29:08):
um
Hi everyone today we are with Chris Kruger and Rihanna Lawala and Chris is in Vancouver,
(00:10):
Canada and Rihanna is in Karachi, Pakistan and over to you Chris.
Hey what's up internet it's Chris Kruger and I'm checking in here from my studio in East
Van and I'd like for you to introduce yourself there Rihanna.
Hi Chris thank you for the opportunity I am a humble human being who is trying to understand
(00:37):
life and a teacher I have been an entrepreneur most of my life I have been in the business
of computing since age of 13 and I've done over 150 projects or companies in my life
in seven countries and now I have retired 12 years ago trying to end poverty from my
(01:00):
country and my latest venture is my school which is designed based on the post AI and
post internet era post YouTube era because none of the school in the world are I have
ever seen are taking the advantage of AI and internet they're all like stuck in biology
(01:26):
and chemistry and physics and cutting up the frog and all that kind of stuff so I started
this school where I wanted to take advantage of the young minds time because to be just
I don't even want to comment I mean they're doing what they can so I right now I don't
(01:46):
go to school I don't go there myself I have a team of around 22 teachers with 40 kids
and it's an interesting experiment I'm doing where it's in a slum area of Karachi where
(02:08):
the kids families earn less than $100 a month so we started giving them computers and the
internet and cell phone like six months ago and now they have started to learn English
on their own everything is on their own we only have facilitators we don't teach them
anything literally we just discipline them that you have to come on time go on time and
(02:30):
all that kind of stuff and there is no biology chemistry physics math science it's all AI
it's all chat GPT for them to learn whatever they want to learn we also give them a problem
to solve so one of the problems they have to solve is one their own poverty which is
(02:51):
they have to learn at least $500 a month and second sorry I muted you out just you want
just one second my friend there's no need for you to tell the whole story in one we
can have a bit of a conversation here so thank you very much for introducing yourself I just
(03:11):
met you today but I decided that we needed to get on to the video chat here and record
a conversation I met one of your students yesterday they tracked me down somehow on
the internet and they asked me to do an interview for their for their class for your class for
their podcast and so that was alien and and I did that podcast with him this morning and
(03:33):
it was in the process of getting to know him and talking to him a little bit I learned
about you and about the school and became intrigued and that started a conversation
between you and I thank you for the opportunity yeah and so yeah do tell us a little bit more
about the students and where they come from and your and your vision for this so as I
(03:57):
said the the school is in a slum area their families earn less than $100 a month combined
income and it's kind of hard to live in that kind of money so we teach them basic technologies
freelancing and stuff and then the also the reason I made school was actually to solve
(04:17):
problems using their time if you want to become a swimmer you start at seven if you want to
become a baseball person you start at nine you you start early so why not why not start
become a Malala why not become a Greta Thunberg at the age of 10 right so we give them one
problem one that it could be water solar energy gutter streets whatever and then there that's
(04:45):
what they do for the next six years so they have to solve the water problem how did they
solve the water problem so they watch one TED talk every single day on water and then
they make their own TED talk what whatever their understanding is from that TED talk
into a video and then they post it on their YouTube Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Instagram
(05:07):
and second they tag the original TED talk speaker and then they request them for an
interview yeah the original TED talk speaker so they are supposed to do this for six years
so the rest of their academics so they know everything there is to know about water the
problems the solutions the inspiration the network the funding and everything yeah second
(05:31):
thing they have to do is they have to interview one person a day every single day of their
school day third thing they have to do they have to make a video on their subject every
single day using AI so they have to write the content using AI they have to create the
script using AI they have to use AI to make voice they have to use Canva or CapCut to
(05:56):
make the video edit it up and then post it on the internet and then that's it that's
it so that's all they have to do as a school day and right now is the first year so we
haven't been able to get to their and it's a free school and they have to pay us when
(06:18):
they reach the 500 mark so we charge 25% of their income as our fees and the reason I
think it's interesting is because when we are able to do this and achieve there are
around 24 million school just two children in Pakistan who don't go to any school so
this will give the private schools a interesting and amazing business model for them to copy
(06:44):
and then they can kind of do the same thing for other children so that's kind of what
I do very interesting you were kind of critiquing education in general at the beginning of this
conversation by saying there's not a lot of schools that are kind of working with AI and
stuff and I've thought about this quite a bit because like I don't really envy the position
(07:04):
that a lot of academic institutions and teachers and stuff are in I mean this stuff's changing
every day so quickly it's like how do you without starting a whole new university or
a school like you're doing and reinventing education from the ground up including the
business model and the finance it's like how do you even you know educate students these
days the way we learn how I process information even my own concept of my creativity and my
(07:30):
intellect and what's possible has changed significantly in the last three months
I agree yeah so I mean I think that you're on to something and I don't envy the other
schools and it's almost hard to critique them I mean one thing that's easy to critique is
you know schools and professors that are using AI only to determine if their students papers
(07:52):
are written by other AIs or something like this is just such a surface level yeah yeah
so how many students you have in the program right now 39 excellent and they're all in the same
(08:14):
demographics as Allian who I met earlier
age-wise or how yeah exactly same neighborhood like you were saying same age you know yeah they're
on all in the same neighborhood same age similar ages not exactly the same yeah similar ages yeah
I use some new AI tools that I've been experimenting with to to make a video for your class
(08:40):
an introduction to myself in Urdu did you did you happen to have a video of me talking about
Urdu did you did you happen to see that I think that's pretty awesome if I ever left your
permission to post it on my wall you get like thousands of people wanting to follow you just
by watching that oh man I would love it if you posted that to your wall and I'll even post a
(09:02):
follow-up there as well to this conversation mentioning you by name and stuff so we'll
we'll really we'll open that up you know maybe maybe I'll even experiment with how to translate
this conversation as well sure I don't see why it's not possible like we can do the the voice
cloning and the translation and I think we can do the video part so that'd be a fun little experiment
(09:26):
that would be great and what do you use for voice cloning are you using 11 labs or something else
yeah I'm using 11 labs and I've been experimenting with the the overdub function in the script as well
and I'm on the beta list for the Adobe new podcasting suite that's coming out but I haven't
gotten to mess under the hood too much other than the they have like a magic you know audio filter
(09:52):
that essentially uses AI to detect not just background noise but other artifacts and stuff
and it's amazing you can like record in your iPhone in a windstorm and it makes it sound like
studio sound in the end it's very incredible we have been playing with the filter and all but
if the studio comes out I'm sure that it has more amazing you know gadgets and tools to play with
(10:16):
that'll be cool yeah um what's life like in Pakistan these days
Pakistan is um is an amazing country it's 250 million people so it's like you know seven times
the size of your population but the um the size wise it's not really that big
(10:39):
uh majority of the people are um uneducated majority of the people earn a lot very little money
um less than less than three dollars a day uh but we do have an amazing internet service
everywhere we have amazing smartphones really cheap 40 bucks for a smartphone
four dollars a month for unlimited bandwidth unlimited phone unlimited text wow uh really
(11:04):
cheap housing uh you can buy a we can rent a amazing house one of the teachers which moved
in from uh Washington DC moved into Karachi to be at our school she has rented her own four bedroom
house with furniture for 130 a month um so it's really low food is really low you can get a big
(11:28):
mac with meal like dollar one dollar 80 cents uh from McDonald's uh so it's the price wise is really
low if you actually earn the US and spend in Pakistan it's awesome and it's really the
country people are very hungry for for making more money um and internet opens up the door but
(11:50):
there's they don't know how to do it they don't know how to communicate they don't know how to
network they're all into skills skills skills and they don't understand that no matter what you
learn you will end up not really using it in six months time or a year's time right right and how
to learn instead of just like software applications or something like this correct and and I teach
(12:13):
them my so I've been doing a lot of self analysis and I have these courses I've made um um on the
internet and I don't charge anything but um I'm going to be focusing more now on the networking
teaching and self confidence self belief art and um that's kind of my forte now and I think if you
(12:38):
build the right network um the money comes and finds you once you build the trust once you once
you really like the people you're working with you find a way you can learn how to do it and
the way you can learn you can learn a new software you know a day or a week or a month but you can't
make make a lifelong relationship takes a lifelong time that's right I mean in the time you invest in
(13:04):
those things those relationships in the network they do continue to pay off over time I uh I
spent the pandemic living rurally on an island close to here and essentially it had no communication
professionally with my network or you know my clients just everything had just dried up
completely and so in the last little while like the last two months I just moved back to Vancouver
(13:24):
and uh I've been putting myself back out there reconnecting with old colleagues and stuff and
it's just amazing how much like potential energy is still contained within that that network you
know it's like people are very happy to see me back they remember you know the the things that
we did together and and what it what it's like what it feels like to work together and it's been
(13:47):
um it's been awesome it's been a really warm reception and uh and so like I can't thank those
people enough and I think you're really barking up the right tree to uh teach people these kind of
like soft skills English trust uh self-confidence the networking
(14:07):
yeah so so our curriculum for the sixth grader is to make 200 or 300 faceless videos using
so that basically teaches them how to use AI how to use chat gpt how to use canva how to use the
internet they've never experienced it so basically I'm just trying to get them friendly with their
(14:30):
computers with their with the internet they're so scared of it and their parents are scared of it
so that's why they think the internet is evil uh my principle I introduce him for one year he would
just cut off the internet every time I would put it in and every time we would physically cut it
(14:52):
physically cut it off he would just not let us use the internet at school I wasn't I don't go
physically there so he would just think it's evil he would never use phone he would never use facebook
it's like evil um it's just you know you're not you're just you're always scared of stuff that
you don't know about yeah um so you have lived in Uganda but you know somebody was not he would be
(15:18):
like why are you going there and it's all kind of weird people over there so you know it's just like
that and so it took me a year and a half just to get school on board to my vision right uh and then
slowly um some of the people who who knew me they started migrating to our city uh just to be in our
(15:40):
school uh four families migrated um to admit their children in our school and those are the
pillars of my school right now because their parents were on board and so then I hired some
of the parents to come and stay at the school as a facilitator teach them teach the children
(16:00):
um it's it's an interesting process and I think that I'm happy that I did it in a slum or like a
poor area because they don't argue as much once they trust you it's like easier um so let's see
um it's uh basically as I was saying about the curriculum is to interview 300 people a year
(16:24):
and then they have I mean their conversation becomes phenomenal their listening skills become
better um their speaking skills become better alian has done 170 so far 100 or so in english uh
and their english is improved in four months they started speaking english and I was I was watching
you interviewing him and he he was kind of scared to speak because basically they use chat gbt to
(16:49):
come up with questions you were you were enjoying the questions because they he didn't come up with
them clearly yeah so but he he takes your bio and he plugs it into chat gbt and it comes up with
amazing questions and they're just nodding and they're just listening and they're like but they're
listening and it's going in that's how we learned our mother tongue so now they're in listening
(17:10):
english after 50 or so interviews they started doing this in turkish and swedish in other
languages using chat gbt I was like what's going on it's really interesting I was talking to my
friend in Japan last night and he was talking about how I did one of these videos for him in
Japanese and he said my my vocabulary was really interesting and Japanese people were gonna find
it really interesting because most the white people there that speak Japanese are former
(17:36):
Mormons and they all learned out of the same how to learn english book or whatever and so everybody
talks the same who speaks Japanese who's white and speaks Japanese and I was when I was talking to
your student this morning you know I was I was thinking like I use so much idioms and cloak
wheel talk and even the questions that he had pulled from my bio like they're not like even
(17:58):
people that speak english don't know what some of those things are that he was asking me about you
know and so like it was just they're fascinating questions and uh I was clear that the gpt wrote
them but I was uh I was happy to talk about some of that stuff anyway very interesting
and I'm really happy to talk about that. Yeah I encourage you to do a few more uh these kids are
(18:19):
very smart they have they're becoming extraordinary kids I as I said the so the way they were they do
Turkish and other language interviews is they don't they don't use AI to to to do the voice like you
did they actually read uh the other languages in Roman text and then they're just they're just
(18:40):
practicing pronunciation and the other guys are speaking their own language and they're just
nodding oh yes oh yes oh yes and and then they end up learning a little bit of it and I will like
I would I think in future I would experiment for them to go out and do another languages also like
do 100 of them and see how much language do they pick up just by doing 100 interviews but it's kind
(19:06):
of hard to find the guest because um not everybody gets it that why is a 12 year old child messaging
me for an interview where is he where is he is this some kind of scam is something new so it's
just why the soft skills part the the language and the confidence and the networking is so
important because uh you know me and your student had to work through that as well like we had to
(19:30):
figure out who he was and like can I trust you and what's going on here you know and stuff and uh
I mean I'm pretty open but I felt like that's definitely one of the obstacles that that you
have to overcome and that like you know I'm going to be doing some mentoring with you so I'll use
the we that we have to overcome is like how do we help these students like uh cut through that
(19:51):
initial skepticism that doesn't really have anything to do with them in particular but has
to come is like stigma against the developing world against Islam against Pakistan like all
these things like start to come into people's minds you know and uh and so it's it's a lot to
deal with when you're a 13 year old kid just want to do an interview with someone in Canada on the
(20:12):
internet you know so I have opened up my network to them uh initially they were just talking to my
friends so they trust me I have been uh you know I have a lot of people on Facebook around 14 million
so I have a lot of friends among them I met them so they trust me so they were ready to
do it but uh we try I've been trying to do it for a year but their English was not good enough for
(20:38):
doing it so we tried multiple times multiple times and I lost a lot of soldiers I would say
friends who I can't talk to this kid he's not really understanding what I'm saying but but in
the last one month they have been hunting themselves and that's been really cool and then
they have been requesting their guests to refer them to someone else and that's been interesting
(21:02):
I've met a lot of soldiers in Los Angeles who has been opening up his roller decks for them and he
has been connecting them and they're getting all kind of amazing speakers and then one of the guys
it's just I think it's just going to take time but it's happening it's already happening
and six months old the whole I asked I gave everybody a laptop in March that's not even six
(21:26):
months so I gave just everyone a laptop I said you know what here you go here's one go break it and
I found out today that 10 of them were broken and we had to change them again yeah so I'm going to
keep on doing it I'm not going to you know worry about it just you know it's it's it's worth the
experiment it's part of the you know process I really think you're on to something um I was
(21:51):
telling your student about this guy I met last night called Abdul and he won a pitching contest
that I was at and you know he runs these three online coursework you know master class type
things that he sells online and he made 50 million bucks last year selling signups and tickets and
registrations for these courses and he's from Pakistan and you know I think he'd be a really
(22:15):
interesting guy for for you all to talk to and you know I definitely think there's a lot of opportunities there
yeah I sent him a message on LinkedIn I sent you his link also uh for a podcast um I don't think
it aligns with my schoolwork right now but um I think I will be happy to introduce him to my
network and then he can actually go and sell his stuff to other coaches in in our country in other
(22:40):
parts of the world in my network so you know when I when I um when I was thinking of it uh I thought
of it for a couple reasons one is that um you know he's not I don't think he's looking to sell into
your network but the the one reason I thought about it was like he's an inspirational guy I mean he
gives people an idea of you know what's what's possible or whatever but then um he's looking to
(23:02):
like take his much like you much like you who's willing to do a bunch of stuff for free for six
years and then take 25 percent of the students like income after that or something or 25 percent
after 500 a month or whatever it is um he's looking to invest 200 grand in 10 content creators
he's calling them like ceos or whatever of their own little uh educational course building thing
(23:28):
and um and then he's going to apply his model you know he's all of his like you know sales funnel
bullshit and his uh you know coaching stuff and um so I don't know it's just kind of interesting
it's an interesting opportunity for a bunch of young people who are interested in this
opportunity for a bunch of young people who have uh these skills to you know talk to this guy maybe
be like either own ceo sure it'll be awesome if that can happen yeah yeah he was a really
(23:53):
he was a really interesting guy so uh what else do you want the world to know
um nothing much um if the world your world is interested in having conversations with young
people and just having a conversation for the having for the sake of having a conversation
(24:14):
without any monetary returns on either side I just encouraged building the connection just
meeting a random stranger out of the blue and having the talk and you never know what comes
out of it you know it's not a it's not a speed dating it's a 30 minute date as you just spend
30 minutes on that and that gives them confidence that I can have friends in Canada I can have
(24:40):
friends everywhere I can just talk with them they're like me they have two ears and two eyes
and one nose you know I'm just like them and that took me a while to learn it took me I was extremely
under confident human being and um I had to spare you know rewrite myself many many times
(25:00):
to be able to speak with you and I think if I can do it they can do it too so it shouldn't be a
problem um and that's right now that's all we're seeking we're not seeking any financial help or
anything like that we're just looking for some friends and who can just chit chat with these
kids and just make them feel just a kid and if they can if I could partner with some school
(25:27):
back in Canada or wherever to to do this with the kids because that you know then it's a
get-to-get relationship it's fast so I think that they will they will they will be able to learn
much faster and the reason they're not able to earn right now is their belief system nothing else
it's they're really technically amazing but they don't have the place to sell they don't have the
(25:51):
beliefs to sell and I think it's a it's it's just going to take some time and then all of a sudden
they will get there just like your Abdullah who guy did it so anybody else can do it yeah it's
not going to be long before your students realize the skills they already have that you've already
given them uh are at least as good as the ones that are people are selling out there on these
(26:12):
marketplaces I mean um they're they're they're doing really good man they're pretty far ahead
versus lots of people I hire on Upwork and Fiverr and stuff like that yeah I think so too so it's
it's it's going to pay off soon six months year maybe maximum it's just uh it's just dealing
issues we're dealing with right now it will be over well I look forward to staying in touch with
(26:36):
you but let's do another one of these in a year and let's celebrate some of the successes sure
maybe if you'll go to Nanaimo and do it over there oh man I uh I just came from Vancouver Island
that was where I hung out during the pandemic so uh it's it's cool to hear the words Nanaimo roll
off your lips yeah I I had a wonderful friend back in 1996 who I connected with online and then
(27:05):
he was one of the first person on the planet to offer a web-based email service actually believe
it or not out of Nanaimo and um he was way before Hotmail and Yahoo and all those stuff
and I was selling his services um everywhere in Pakistan for an arm and a leg back in the day
(27:26):
it was 97, 98 and then I went to see him in 99 or 2000 I came and I went to see him spend a day or
two with him uh it's a really beautiful place I have not been there again um but yeah I would
love to go there again it's a really nice place I think cool hey I really really appreciate your
(27:48):
time you're doing great work thanks for sharing with me it'd be nice to be in touch thank you for
giving time to our students yeah man my pleasure okay over and out from Canada all right how do
you do those effects I have no idea it only does it at the end when I have no idea
maybe it's like bone in something it maybe I just back I was shy it tried hello hello where are you
(28:18):
Ali and tried the same thing and I was surprised when it happened there too I have no idea where
it's coming from because it happens in zoom and other places too so
all right all right would you um I'll send you my email so you can give me that file and I'll
get it on my I really appreciate it man you're so cool to meet you guys thank you thank you same
(28:38):
here take care all right
(29:08):
um
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