April 24, 2025 • 34 mins
What happens when traditional education fails to ignite passion and creativity? Dave Martelli, a visionary in STEM, shares his groundbreaking journey from struggling in conventional schools to becoming a leader in educational innovation. Learn how embracing failure and defying the standard mold can lead to revolutionary teaching methods like micro-credentialing and skill-based learning. These approaches offer fresh pathways for neurodivergent individuals and those from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, proving that standard education is not the only road to success.
Discover the transformative power of Guild Hall Learning, an innovative platform reshaping personalized education. By tapping into the power of AI with the Guided Universal Intelligent Learning Device (GUILD), Guild Hall Learning creates tailored educational experiences that resonate with each student’s unique needs and interests. The challenges and triumphs of rolling out this initiative during a global pandemic highlight the importance of flexibility and creativity in education. Explore the integration of the arts into STEM, evolving it into STEAM, and how this fusion not only makes learning more engaging but also expands its reach globally.
Join us in celebrating the vital role of collaboration and the nurturing of entrepreneurial spirit in education. Hear about the significant support Dave receives from his wife in balancing ambitious dreams with reality, and the crucial role of collaboration in achieving groundbreaking results. As we explore the evolving role of AI in education, we consider its potential to enhance practical learning while cautioning against its use where personal reflection is key. This episode is a tribute to the power of entrepreneurship in education and a call to embrace change for a brighter future.
ABOUT DAVID
David Martelli is a pioneering force in STEM education with over 20 years of experience in developing innovative learning environments and programs. As Founder of Guild Hall Learning and president of
Global Educational Advancement, he works to revolutionize education by empowering institutions with forward-thinking tools and strategies. His expertise lies in anticipating technological advancement's impact on education and designing experiential learning methodologies that integrate multiple disciplines. Martelli's crowning achievement is creating and operating a state-of-the-art makerspace serving hundreds of students, featuring computer-centric design, game development, virtual reality, and robotics facilities.
As former Head of Computer Science and Engineering at a leading Massachusetts private school, Martelli spearheaded technology integration initiatives. His background includes technical program management with the Department of Defense and Northrop Grumman. A respected thought leader, he frequently speaks about the future of education, STEM integration, and creating inclusive learning environments, driven by his commitment to nurturing the next generation of innovators.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what is up?
Welcome to this episode of theWantrepreneur to Entrepreneur
podcast.
As always, I'm your host, brianLofermento, and you all already
know how much I loveentrepreneurial stories that
truly make the world and societya better place, and that's why
it's no surprise to me that thisyear, we are featuring so many
incredible entrepreneurs withinthe educational space, because
(00:21):
that is deeply meaningful andimportant work for all of us,
because the downstream effects,the upstream effects, it impacts
the way that our world works,and that's why I'm so excited to
introduce you to an incredibleentrepreneur who's doing very
important work in this realm.
His name is Dave Martelli.
Dave is a visionary leader inSTEM education with over 20
years of experience designinginnovative facilities, creating
(00:43):
transformative programs andbuilding platforms that prepare
students for the future.
As the founder of GuildLearning, guild Hall Learning
and president of GlobalEducational Advancement, david
is on a mission to revolutionizeeducation by equipping
educators and institutions withthe tools, strategies and
foresight needed to meet thedemands of today's learners and
(01:04):
prepare them for theopportunities of tomorrow.
And I would imagine, in a worldwhere AI is rapidly progressing
and technology is going crazy,dave's job has become even more
important in preparingtomorrow's leaders, so I'm
excited to learn from him.
I'm excited to hear how hisentrepreneurial mind works.
So I'm not going to sayanything else.
Let's dive straight into myinterview with Dave Martelli.
(01:25):
All right, dave, I am so veryexcited to be joined by a fellow
New Englander here in today'sepisode.
First things first.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me Super cool
opportunity.
Hope it'll be a funconversation, heck, yes.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And when you get two extroverts together, who knows
where the heck we're going to go.
So first things first, take usbeyond the bio.
Who's Dave?
How'd you start doing all thisimportant work?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So my background as a kid actually was I was really
good at being bad at basicallyeverything.
So, as you imagine, in atraditional school system that
means that I failed almost everyschool I've ever attended.
Once I got beyond kind of thestandard grade school, high
school, starting to get intocollege, I really started having
(02:15):
a passion both for buildingbusinesses because there's
something that I could do kindof on my own, and it's something
that I had.
It was an interesting problem tosolve how do you get the people
that you want to find that youcan help the best, and then how
do you make the resourcesavailable to them in a way that
they understand and that theycan really take action on?
(02:36):
Over the time, I ended upgetting a bunch of interesting
jobs everywhere, from high levelpositions at startups all the
way to, eventually, northrop andthe Department of Defense, and
what I was noticing is I failedquite a bit of my educational
experience, but I was havingpretty good outcomes and a lot
(02:57):
of the people that were muchbetter off in school system were
having not quite as niceoutcomes and they were a lot of
times very sad with their life.
So I thought that was a reallyinteresting question.
So I decided why not structurea lot of my life around trying
to figure out why that is andhow I can maybe help with it?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I love that overview, especially because you
start with failure, and that'ssomething that we all need to
embrace as entrepreneurs.
It makes me think.
I think so frequently.
I think think it's an AlbertEinstein quote where he said if
you judge a fish on its abilityto climb a tree, it'll live its
whole life thinking it's anidiot.
And, dave, you and I, we'reentrepreneurs at heart.
That would never be able to betaken out of us, and I know that
so many people feel that way aswell.
(03:35):
I wish I was introduced tothese.
It's funny saying alternativepaths, because it has become
much more popular now, but Ifeel like we were only told one
way forward get a job, work for40 years after we get a
bachelor's degree.
There were like so many rulesthat we were taught on that.
Not everybody fits that mold.
So I'm super curious to hearyour perspective on the
(03:57):
entrepreneurial level, but alsowith that educational hat on of
what's the state of theeducational space today.
You clearly want to make itbetter.
What does that look like to you?
On of what's your what's thestate of the educational space
today?
You clearly want to make itbetter.
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
a.
So I've had a lot ofinteresting conversations
recently with universities andnonprofits that are trying
really hard to get kids thatdon't necessarily have the the
greatest outlooks based off ofeither socio, either
socioeconomic status or justwhat they have around them.
Maybe they're neurodivergent,all those things.
And when talking to some of theuniversities there's a lot in
(04:36):
micro-credentialing that's goingon right now.
So alternative pathways, right,so you can get certifications,
you can go over and get badges,coursera, all of those kinds of
things to kind of level up yourown personal skills.
Colleges traditionally seem tobe against a lot of that, at
least the majority of the kindof indentured ones, and the
(04:58):
reason ends up being is becauseCoursera and all these other
things are accessible toeveryone.
Coursera and all these otherthings are accessible to
(05:20):
everyone and that means thatkind of they feel the type of
student that's getting in thereisn't traditionally what they
would believe to be of a highenough standard.
The other problem that they'rehaving is that it's
traditionally schools arelooking for kind of competencies
versus skills.
So if I get a computer sciencedegree that shows that I have
some competency in computerscience, but it's very, very
hard to track back the skillpathway that led me there and
it's obviously very diversedepending on what school you go
to and kind of what pathway youtake within your school.
So all of these kind of thingsthat are popping up.
(05:42):
With skill-based versuscompetency-based, a lot of the
universities are saying I wantpeople to be able to work really
hard towards the notnecessarily practical knowledge,
but work really hard towardsthe theoretical knowledge so
that they can build moreknowledge.
And if you want to be aresearcher, that is amazing,
(06:03):
like there needs to beresearchers in this world right
now.
Right, there's medical research, there's AI research is an
entire class of people that wantto have a technical skill level
.
They want to be able to go andkind of get right to the point
(06:32):
of saying this is kind of what Iwant to do, or maybe I don't
want to know what I want to do,but I want to be able to start
moving and playing around withit so that I can really start
understanding what theselandscapes look like from a
practical, skills-based workingenvironment.
And that's what's lacking alittle bit right now.
But what is the biggest demandseems to be for right now, and
(06:53):
colleges are having a hard timekeeping up with that for a lot
of reasons.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, I would imagine that they are and I would argue
I'm obviously very biased here,but I would argue it's because
amazing entrepreneurs like youare bringing real life things to
the marketplace faster thantraditional educational
institutions can.
So, dave, I would love for youto introduce Guildhall Learning
to our listeners becauseobviously I've seen the work
that you're doing.
You kind of tease a little bitabout your different programs
(07:17):
and, more practical, I'm alsogoing to interject.
I love that STEM has becomeSTEAM these days science,
technology, engineering, artsand mathematics.
So, dave, introduce listenersto Guildhall Learning.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So Guildhall Learning was kind of my
throw-out-there-to-the-worldtesting platform to figure out
how a new model of educationcould exist that keeps skills
and student individuality at theforefront.
So a little bit of background.
(07:49):
I used to be the head ofcomputer science and engineering
for a school, but the schoolwas from three years old up to
high school, right, so it wasyounger kids and one of the
things that I tried doing as anexperiment with them and they
were very much on this causethey were very forward thinking.
Uh, school was how do I make itso every single kid has a
completely um individualizedcurriculum pathway.
(08:12):
Not all of them doing the sameprojects, not even all of them
are learning the same thing, butI can still track that Right Um
.
Me as a person was able to dothat for at least a little while
up until COVID striked andtrying to do all of that over
zoom turned out to be veryimpossible.
I just didn't have the toolsnecessary to just look at all of
(08:33):
their, look at all of theirprojects and whatnot.
So that sounded like a greatsoftware startup.
So, as you do, I built up asmall team of software engineers
and we started building asoftware.
So Guild itself actually standsfor Guided Universal
Intelligent Learning Device.
It's meant to be an AI systemthat individualizes each system,
(08:55):
finds out all of the resourcesthat they have available to them
to continue on the pathway,learning what they are the most
into, while still hitting all ofthe rubrics and all of the
requirements to be able to saythat they're working.
In our STEAM class, our computerscience and engineering class,
we ended up releasing it afterabout six months to about six
(09:17):
countries, about 12 differentschools testing, and it worked
in about 20% of them, which wasactually a little bit more than
I expected.
One of the problems was thatthere are too many variables for
us to be able to control.
In Argentina, school hasdifferent resources and
(09:38):
different limitations than aUnited States school.
So right at the end of theCOVID pandemic, my wife actually
runs schools.
She runs daycares andelementary schools.
So we're like, hey, why don'twe take our resources, put them
together and make kind of anenclave for us to be able to
test these things and limit ourvariables, figure out how what
systems actually could work andthen kind of expand from there,
(10:01):
right?
So we started off building outthe software and the hardware,
making a big shop that's gotwood shop, metal shop, it's got
VR and AR, jewelry labs, 3dprinting all this cool equipment
that kids can come in and weindividually interview every
single kid that comes in and say, hey, what are you into, what
are you terrified of and don'twant to touch with a 10 foot
(10:21):
stick?
And then how do we figure outyour pathway and over time we
give them the resources to beable to bend their pathway to
their will, while we're kind ofmaking sure they're continuing
to go forward.
I was kind of the beginning ofit.
Now we've gotten to the pointwhere we've structured that.
The main question that I hadwas I know I can run it, can
(10:43):
other people.
So we hired, hired a bunch ofinstructors and I got out of the
teaching seat for a littlewhile and started looking and
doing more like podcasts anddoing more outreach to other
schools and whatnot.
It turns out that otherteachers could also successfully
do this.
It wasn't just me, I'm not thatspecial.
And then now we're working onbringing into other schools.
(11:03):
So now we work with educationalinstitutions to train people on
this methodology.
We work with large nonprofits tohandle massive events of
hundreds and hundreds of kidsall doing STEM related
activities and I love that youbrought up that they're bringing
in art STEAM, because I canhave the best app in the world,
(11:24):
but if it doesn't look good andit doesn't feel good and
intuitive to me as a human towant to use, then I will
probably never use it.
So therefore, having that artcomponent in there really brings
the humanities and the humannature into the engineering work
that we do, so that peopleactually want to work with it,
right.
So we put all of that into ourapp design that hopefully the
kids will go out, use and beable to make their own learning
(11:47):
paths on their own in their ownspare time and then come to us
also right.
So right now we're reallybuilding it out, trying to get
in front of as many largeorganizations as we can to test
more and figure out more how wecan help as many kids, as many
types of kids, as possible, andso far it's been super
successful.
People have been now finding us, which is cool.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I love this honestly so much.
To me, this is thequintessential view of how
entrepreneurship positivelyimpacts the world, because it's
deeply meaningful work that youdo.
I obviously always have mybusiness hat on and I can't help
but think in business terms,and I'm hearing you talk about
so many different stakeholderswho are all aligned in your
(12:31):
mission, which is the studentsprobably get so excited.
Gosh, I wish you were operatingin Massachusetts when I was a
kid.
I imagine that the teachersit's so rewarding for them to
see their students doing thingsthat light them up.
I would imagine thateducational institutions that
want to provide this experiencefor their students this is a
match made in heaven and, ofcourse, the nonprofits who share
these missions as well, canhelp you bring this to life.
(12:54):
Then, where my head goes fromstakeholders is the so-called
competition.
It's the one concept inbusiness I've never really
agreed with, because I don'tthink we really have competition
.
But who is viewing it ascompetition?
Are the schools totally onboard?
What are those conversationslooking like?
Because I would also imagine,dave, that this is a bit
disruptive of an approach thatyou're bringing.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yes, what's kind of fun about it.
So, personally, I don't believein competition.
It's a weird thought that Ihave when you're dealing with
children, right.
Right, it's hard to think likea business person.
Because you care about thesekids, right?
So you'll make like what Iwould consider probably pretty
(13:34):
dumb financial decisions to makesure that you can support those
kids.
At the other half of it, youhave to make sure that you have
a viable product that cancontinue to grow and continue to
iterate, right?
So having the kids involved init, that helps.
They know that they're havingan active role in developing the
business right, and I encouragethem to help and come to me
(13:57):
with ideas and what's working,what's not.
As best as I can, as much asthey are comfortable with it.
So that's helping For me.
So, with that vein, I want morecompetition, because that means
that it will get out theresooner and the surrounding
(14:18):
ecosystem to support this sortof stuff will be more readily
available.
So I'm building out AI tools.
I don't have the time todevelop all of the
infrastructure that NVIDIA hasbrought out to be able to train
systems on everything that Iwould need them to do, so the
fact that they exist helps memove forward faster.
(14:39):
If more curriculum companiescome in involved and start doing
this.
That helps me because there'smore test data going out,
there's more proof, so that morepeople feel confident and
comfortable seeking solutions,such as myself, right?
There is an unimaginable amountof people in this world, right?
(15:00):
So I'm not so worried about mehaving a problem with
competition.
I'm more worried that notenough people are aware that
this is even an option, or notenough people feel confident
taking this as an option,because they need the notoriety,
they need the proven examples,right, so I hope more people get
into it.
We've been working.
(15:20):
I had a conversation with a NewHampshire University last week
and they know, on the digitalbadging front, right, the
micro-credentialing front whatwould really help the students,
but they're such a largeorganization that they're having
a very hard time convincingtheir stakeholders and the
uppers of the university.
(15:41):
To even be able to say yes towhat they all know and believe
would be a great way forward,just because the proof isn't
there yet, right?
So more competition would benice.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That's maybe weird to say, but that's kind of my
opinion on that, yeah, honestly,dave, it's part of why I admire
your work so much, because Iadmire the entrepreneurial
mindset behind all of it.
Of course, it's an abundancemindset rather than scarcity,
and I think that this is part ofthat.
New wave of education islearning that.
It's one of the earliestbusiness lessons I've learned.
(16:12):
I started when I was a freshmanin college.
I was in classrooms during theday where my professors would
tell me to be wary of ourcompetition, and then in the
evening, it was my competitionthat was accelerating my success
and giving me access to things,and I think that that's such an
important entrepreneuriallesson Continuing down this
business path, because I lovethe fact that you also equally
love business Such a cool partof the way that you think who's
(16:34):
your customer.
When you plot out the biggestway that you can make a change
in the educational world, whoare those key stakeholders that
you're talking to that have thatability to sign off and say
wait, hold on, dave, pleaseimplement this.
This is going to serve ourstudents.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So during COVID it started off as teachers.
Very specifically everyengineering teacher, that
encoding teacher, was havingtrouble teaching what they were
doing because they couldn't bein front of their kids.
So when we put out the feelerto get a dozen or so schools out
, we filled up our spots and Ithink it was two days or
(17:10):
something like that and weweren't even really trying right
.
So that was our initial After.
We realized that we had somework to do before we could get a
product out that would be asuseful to them as what we
believed it should be.
We turned it into almost likean afterschool program so that
we can test more.
(17:30):
So with that phase we're likeour primary goal is to get as
many students in here aspossible.
The easiest way for us to dothat, as it turns out, has been
approaching nonprofits andBoston public schools and
libraries and everything likethat, because we ourselves can
bring in I don't know like 50kids a day or something like
that to our programs and we havememberships so they can keep
(17:51):
coming in.
But we can impact the mostpeople by going out to where
those kids already are, which isobviously in schools, libraries
and programs.
So our target market veryquickly shifted into finding as
many large organizations thatwere doing good work with a
variety of types of kids sodifferent nonprofits for
(18:13):
different types of kids usuallyand then reaching out to them
and saying, hey, we love whatyou're doing here, right, and we
do research them to make surethey're doing good work, that
they're reputable, you know, andthey're not just like trying to
grab money from every placethey can possibly go.
They have a mission that theycare about, right like trying to
grab money from every placethey can possibly go.
They have a mission that theycare about.
(18:34):
Right, we love that you're doingthis work.
You have a gap in what you canoffer right here because you
don't have anyone in yourorganization that specializes in
that.
We would love to come in andsee if we're a good fit so that
we can enhance your program inthis way, which will, from your
perspective, make it so thatyou're offering more things that
are in the need right now STEMand STEAM is huge right now,
(18:56):
especially with the amount of AIresearch and discoveries that
are happening in just in thelast two years.
So we help them by giving thema massive capability that they
can then market to gain morekids that will be aligned with
what they're trying to do, andthen we also benefit because we
(19:16):
find more kids that are intowhat we're trying to do, and
then we recruit them into ourprograms as well.
With that Over time, now isstarting.
We're trying to get intoschools also, but that's the
next step.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, dave.
Adding onto that, you broughtup the word mission, and I'll be
fully transparent with you herewhile we're together on the air
.
Is that?
Even before I had the chance tospeak with you today, one thing
that was very clear to me isthat you are a big thinker and I
think that you have a uniqueability.
I interview entrepreneurs for aliving, and so I see work every
single day.
It seems to me from the outsidelike you have a really unique
(19:57):
ability to zoom in and also out.
It just seems like you have avery big vision for your
business but at the same time,you're able to make those small
steps, and I know, as anentrepreneur for 16 years now,
how paralyzing big visions canbe, because we want all of the
things and we want to do themright now and we all are crazy
workaholics and we have theability to act on so many
different things.
Talk to me about your executivemindset.
I want to get into that founderbrain of yours and understand
(20:18):
how you think about that bigpicture and that big mission
that you have, the big dreamsthat you have, but balancing it
with the day-to-day and theexecution.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So I'm going to give credit where credit due and
bring up my wife for a moment.
So my wife I laugh.
We both started our firstbusiness type things when we
were about 12.
So she grew up in Russia, movedhere about 20 something, 30
something years ago and shestarted a syndicated, actually a
television program for forfollowing kids that are making
(20:52):
big waves in their community.
And I started a printingcompany where I made business
cards and stuff like that, rightso, and by the end of it every
single person, including all thesuperintendents of the schools,
all had my business cards andstationary Anyways, the.
She is the kind of grounded,aggressive, day-to-day side of
(21:17):
what we do, whereas I'm a lot ofthe big vision of what we do.
To tell you how much this runsdeep within our relationship, on
our third date we foundedGlobal Educational Advancement,
the nonprofit you mentioned, andwe kind of went from there.
(21:37):
So we grew as a relationship,as also business partners at
exactly the same time, in tandem.
For me I tend to think ofvectors of growth.
So I in my mind see ascaffolding required to make it
so that there is educationalopportunity and resources for
(22:03):
all types of learners that havethe ability to individualize
based off of each special case,that is, each student, right,
while also looking at where'sthe industry is going and you
know what will likely be neededin you know, five years for our
skills, right?
So what I try to do is look atthat big overarching thought,
(22:28):
right, and I will it down towhat I have access to right at
the moment, right?
So when I was a teacher, thething I had access to was kids
directly in front of me.
All right, so let's starttesting what I have from there
and, as it grows, I say, okay,the next big step that I need is
to see if other people can dothis, right, other teachers.
So now's the time to start aphysical location and hire a
(22:50):
bunch of teachers to see if theydo it.
Okay.
And the next step on that iscan those teachers then go out
into other programs that are notours?
And then, what is required forscaffolding for other schools or
other libraries or whatever, tobe able to run the kind of
programs that we're trying tobuild.
And we just build thescaffolding out as the, as the
(23:10):
reach increases, right, as faras the, the real, like day to
day, the, the bio that you readright all of that.
My wife partners with me for alot of those things to be able
to make sure that you know, kindof slapped me in the back of
the head a little bit to say,hey, I know you want to build
out this big AI system that willbe able to gamify the entire
(23:33):
process as a two-year programand we have rent tomorrow, so
let's see how we grow ourprogram to make sure that we
have the money to be able tosupport that.
And from a from a business andspreadsheet kind of kind of
perspective, I've never metanyone that is more, anyone
that's faster at making gooddecisions than her, right?
(23:54):
So, yeah, so that's been, thathas been.
I would.
I would argue that anyone thatwants to build anything big,
it's impossible for you to beable to do that on your own.
So I would find a co-founder,find a person that can be the
opposite side of your brain,where you both have the same
vision, right, but you canbalance each other out and be
(24:17):
okay arguing with them.
It's, you know, because that'sall a part of it, but know that
you, you're really trying toachieve the same thing, right,
and that those skirmishes andall of the happiness and
together.
That's all a part of it, right?
And yeah, that's it.
It's just starting with whereyou are and then tracing the
path to where you want to be andbeing okay, wiggling around as
(24:41):
you go as opportunities presentthemselves.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, really well said, dave.
I can't tell if you weretalking about business or
marriage there, because, luckilyfor you, you've got both.
Huge shout out to your wife.
I think that that's a greatexample of true in-house talent
that you have at your disposal.
So huge kudos to both of youfor the way that you think and
the way that you executetogether.
That is so at the core of allthese things that you're sharing
(25:04):
with us today.
I knew that time would fly by,but we have to talk about ai, so
I do want to bring that up intoday's conversation, because
anytime I talk to, I've got aseven-year-old niece and nephew
and they have computer class andI always wonder when they're
going to be introduced to thiswonderful world of AI, aside
from just talking to the appsthat I let them play around with
from there.
But I would imagine middleschool, high school, college
(25:25):
those have changed so muchbecause of AI.
Talk to us about where the heckwe are in the world of
education with AI.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
A lot of people are very scared about it.
I'm not in full transparency,there's not a lot about it, that
kind of freaks me out, but Ialso try to work with it on a
daily basis.
From a student perspective,there's some things that I think
AI probably shouldn't be usedfor.
So if I have a essay that says,write about your opinion about
(26:00):
Christopher Columbus orsomething like that, right.
If I go directly to ChatGPT andI say, write me an essay about
that and I hand it in, I am notbeing honest.
That's not my opinion, that'sChatJPT's opinion, right.
If I scaffold something and Isay, hey, this is all of my
thoughts about it, can you makethis more elegant, right?
Maybe that's okay, depending onwhat you're going for.
(26:23):
But for, like, when a studentis asked to speak from their
experience in their heart, intheir place, I think AI
shouldn't necessarily be usedfor that, outside of maybe
researching a couple of datesthey might not remember.
Where it should be used and beused more is for the practical,
(26:45):
skill-based projects.
So I think it is less valuablefor me to teach you a
programming language and thentell you to make the same runner
game or Flappy Bird game that Ihave made and you will now
learn how to make this oneFlappy Bird game.
(27:06):
I think that's really goodteaching you a couple of basics
about programming language thatwill likely change soon, anyways
and it teaches you that onespecific programming language
that you probably might not usein your actual career if you
chose to right.
It'll only teach you how to dothat one kind of enclave thing.
Right.
Ai is really good and allows meto be able to go to a student
(27:27):
and say hey, I want you tocreate a video game.
I don't care what you use forprogramming language, I don't
care what tools you use in orderto create this, I only care
that you figure out how to do it.
I, as a teacher, will be herewhen you get stuck and I want to
help you along that.
But this is turning into anexercise of how do I ask the
(27:49):
right questions, how do I findthe tools that I need to be able
to make the thing that I wantto make Right?
And then how do I gain theresiliency when it doesn't work
the five times the first fivetimes I try to make it right.
So in that case, ai knowspotentially where to go.
I can ask it.
Hey, how do I make a databasethat can hold all my top scores
(28:10):
for my game?
Right, and that allows eachstudent to, instead of learning
a programming language, allowseach student to learn how to
create something that happens tobe using a programming language
, right, and that is more likewhat they'll likely see in the
world moving forward.
(28:30):
So, just like an encyclopediais a tool to look up some
information, right, and thatencyclopedia holds the
information that I need for thespecific question that the
teacher is asking me.
Now the teacher has the abilityto ask a substantially more
broad question and you can useAI to research the specifics of
(28:51):
that question without worrying,if you have the right type of
book or encyclopedia or whatnothanging around, right for that
kid to access, so it reallystarts bringing it.
What the kids really should betraining in, in my opinion, is
how do I start asking goodquestions?
How do I start breaking down myproblems into modular steps so
(29:11):
that I can figure out how tobuild things step by step?
And then how do I solveproblems using this technology
that wasn't available two yearsago, right, and the difficult
thing that educationalinstitutions are going to have a
hard time with, a difficultthing that teachers are going to
have a hard time is figuringout where that line is between.
(29:32):
I want the kid to tell me andspeak from the heart, and speak
from their experience, rightVersus.
I need this kid to learn askill.
How do I teach them how tolearn that skill on their own
right?
Technology is moving so fast.
They can't, possibly right now,especially in grade school.
They can't teach the kids whatwill be relevant and needed by
(29:52):
the time they graduate highschool.
It's impossible, right.
So everything worksexponentially from growth on
that right.
So use the tool as a tool right.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, dave, they probably can't even teach what's
going to be relevant six monthsfrom now by the time they go on
to the next grade.
So super interesting hearingthe way you think about these
things.
I hope that every singleeducator is listening, and I
know that they are through whatyou're doing with Guildhall, so
I'm excited to drop those linkson listeners in just a minute.
But before we get there, I wantyou to put your entrepreneurial
hat on, because not only areyou a subject matter expert, you
(30:24):
are one of us, you are a fellowentrepreneur.
So, with that hat on, what'syour best piece of advice?
Knowing that we're beinglistened to by both
entrepreneurs and entrepreneursat all different stages of their
own business growth journeys,what's that one piece of advice
you want to leave them withtoday?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Just do the thing, Don't worry about messing up.
You're going to mess up nomatter what anyways.
So figure out the minimumviable product.
Figure out the smallest thingthat you can do and get it out
in front of people as fast asyou can.
As you just mentioned, youcan't even predict what's going
to happen six months from now,right?
So, like the technology willjust grow so fast you can't keep
(31:03):
up with it, A customer's needswill grow so fast that you can't
keep up with it.
If you don't get something outthere as fast as you can, you'll
just keep rewriting andrevisiting the exact same thing
over and over again and you'llnever get it out there.
Right, Be okay and know thatmessing up in iteration and
feeling bad right, that's partof the process.
(31:25):
No one cares if you're scared,right, Except for you.
So just put it out there.
That's the only way you'll helppeople and everyone here, every
entrepreneur, right, they'reout there to help people, right?
So not doing that is selfish.
I'll not even go that far,right, so you owe it to yourself
and everybody else.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, I love that advice.
Listeners, just to give youfull transparency on how much
Dave embodies this in his ownlife and in his own business, we
always ask our guests before weget together.
We always ask them what's yourzone of genius, what's something
that you're really good at?
That's part of your secretsauce, Dave.
(32:06):
I love how much it'sencompassed in the advice that
you're leaving our listenerswith, and I'm very excited for
listeners to see the work thatyou're doing with Guildhall, not
only because I'm biased and Ilove the fact that you're doing
it throughout my home state ofMassachusetts, but because
seeing it is really powerful,Seeing the kids behind the
computers envisioning things,building things.
You've said the word buildquite a few times during our
(32:28):
conversation today and I thinkthat that's so inherent in
entrepreneurs and literallyanyone who changes the way or
changes the world in positiveways is that builder spirit.
So for listeners who want tosee this stuff and be part of
the amazing work that you'redoing, drop those links on us.
Where should listeners go fromhere?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
You can find more about Guildhall Learning at
guildhall G-U-I-L-D, h-a-l-l,learningcom.
You can find more informationabout me on the socials at Dave
Martelli, d-a-v-e,m-a-r-t-e-l-l-i on X, on
Facebook, on Instagram, on allthose, and Guildhall Learning on
(33:05):
all the same.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yes and listeners, you already know the drill.
We're making it as easy aspossible for you to find all of
those links down below in theshow notes, no matter where it
is that you're tuning intotoday's episode.
Super easy,guildhalllearningcom.
You can click right on through.
We're also linking to Dave'spersonal LinkedIn in the show
notes, so definitely click righton through from those links
down below.
Otherwise, dave, on behalf ofmyself and all the listeners
worldwide, thanks so much forcoming on the show today.
(33:29):
Thanks so much for having me.
It was great.
Hey, it's Brian here.
And thanks for tuning in to yetanother episode of the
Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneurpodcast.
If you haven't checked us outonline, there's so much good
stuff there.
Check out the show's websiteand all the show notes that we
talked about in today's episodeat thewantrepreneurshowcom.
And I just want to give a shoutout to our amazing guests.
(33:50):
There's a reason why we are adfree and have produced so many
incredible episodes five days aweek for you, and it's because
our guests step up to the plate.
These are not sponsored episodes.
These are not infomercials.
Our guests help us cover thecosts of our productions.
They so deeply believe in thepower of getting their message
out in front of you, awesomewantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs
(34:13):
, that they contribute to helpus make these productions
possible.
So thank you to not onlytoday's guests, but all of our
guests in general, and I justwant to invite you check out our
website because you can send usa voicemail there.
We also have live chat.
If you want to interactdirectly with me, go to
thewantrepreneurshowcom.
Initiate a live chat.
If you want to interactdirectly with me, go to the
wantrepreneurshowcom.
Initiate a live chat.
It's for real me, and I'mexcited because I'll see you, as
(34:37):
always every monday, wednesday,friday, saturday and sunday
here on the wantrepreneur toentrepreneur podcast.
Hey, what is up?
Welcome to this episode of theWantrepreneur to Entrepreneur
podcast.
As always, I'm your host, brianLofermento, and you all already
know how much I loveentrepreneurial stories that
truly make the world and societya better place, and that's why
it's no surprise to me that thisyear, we are featuring so many
incredible entrepreneurs withinthe educational space, because
(00:21):
that is deeply meaningful andimportant work for all of us,
because the downstream effects,the upstream effects, it impacts
the way that our world works,and that's why I'm so excited to
introduce you to an incredibleentrepreneur who's doing very
important work in this realm.
His name is Dave Martelli.
Dave is a visionary leader inSTEM education with over 20
years of experience designinginnovative facilities, creating
(00:43):
transformative programs andbuilding platforms that prepare
students for the future.
As the founder of GuildLearning, guild Hall Learning
and president of GlobalEducational Advancement, david
is on a mission to revolutionizeeducation by equipping
educators and institutions withthe tools, strategies and
foresight needed to meet thedemands of today's learners and
(01:04):
prepare them for theopportunities of tomorrow.
And I would imagine, in a worldwhere AI is rapidly progressing
and technology is going crazy,dave's job has become even more
important in preparingtomorrow's leaders, so I'm
excited to learn from him.
I'm excited to hear how hisentrepreneurial mind works.
So I'm not going to sayanything else.
Let's dive straight into myinterview with Dave Martelli.
(01:25):
All right, dave, I am so veryexcited to be joined by a fellow
New Englander here in today'sepisode.
First things first.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me Super cool
opportunity.
Hope it'll be a funconversation, heck, yes.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And when you get two extroverts together, who knows
where the heck we're going to go.
So first things first, take usbeyond the bio.
Who's Dave?
How'd you start doing all thisimportant work?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So my background as a kid actually was I was really
good at being bad at basicallyeverything.
So, as you imagine, in atraditional school system that
means that I failed almost everyschool I've ever attended.
Once I got beyond kind of thestandard grade school, high
school, starting to get intocollege, I really started having
(02:15):
a passion both for buildingbusinesses because there's
something that I could do kindof on my own, and it's something
that I had.
It was an interesting problem tosolve how do you get the people
that you want to find that youcan help the best, and then how
do you make the resourcesavailable to them in a way that
they understand and that theycan really take action on?
(02:36):
Over the time, I ended upgetting a bunch of interesting
jobs everywhere, from high levelpositions at startups all the
way to, eventually, northrop andthe Department of Defense, and
what I was noticing is I failedquite a bit of my educational
experience, but I was havingpretty good outcomes and a lot
(02:57):
of the people that were muchbetter off in school system were
having not quite as niceoutcomes and they were a lot of
times very sad with their life.
So I thought that was a reallyinteresting question.
So I decided why not structurea lot of my life around trying
to figure out why that is andhow I can maybe help with it?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I love that overview, especially because you
start with failure, and that'ssomething that we all need to
embrace as entrepreneurs.
It makes me think.
I think so frequently.
I think think it's an AlbertEinstein quote where he said if
you judge a fish on its abilityto climb a tree, it'll live its
whole life thinking it's anidiot.
And, dave, you and I, we'reentrepreneurs at heart.
That would never be able to betaken out of us, and I know that
so many people feel that way aswell.
(03:35):
I wish I was introduced tothese.
It's funny saying alternativepaths, because it has become
much more popular now, but Ifeel like we were only told one
way forward get a job, work for40 years after we get a
bachelor's degree.
There were like so many rulesthat we were taught on that.
Not everybody fits that mold.
So I'm super curious to hearyour perspective on the
(03:57):
entrepreneurial level, but alsowith that educational hat on of
what's the state of theeducational space today.
You clearly want to make itbetter.
What does that look like to you?
On of what's your what's thestate of the educational space
today?
You clearly want to make itbetter.
What does that look like to you?
Speaker 2 (04:09):
a.
So I've had a lot ofinteresting conversations
recently with universities andnonprofits that are trying
really hard to get kids thatdon't necessarily have the the
greatest outlooks based off ofeither socio, either
socioeconomic status or justwhat they have around them.
Maybe they're neurodivergent,all those things.
And when talking to some of theuniversities there's a lot in
(04:36):
micro-credentialing that's goingon right now.
So alternative pathways, right,so you can get certifications,
you can go over and get badges,coursera, all of those kinds of
things to kind of level up yourown personal skills.
Colleges traditionally seem tobe against a lot of that, at
least the majority of the kindof indentured ones, and the
(04:58):
reason ends up being is becauseCoursera and all these other
things are accessible toeveryone.
Coursera and all these otherthings are accessible to
(05:20):
everyone and that means thatkind of they feel the type of
student that's getting in thereisn't traditionally what they
would believe to be of a highenough standard.
The other problem that they'rehaving is that it's
traditionally schools arelooking for kind of competencies
versus skills.
So if I get a computer sciencedegree that shows that I have
some competency in computerscience, but it's very, very
hard to track back the skillpathway that led me there and
it's obviously very diversedepending on what school you go
to and kind of what pathway youtake within your school.
So all of these kind of thingsthat are popping up.
(05:42):
With skill-based versuscompetency-based, a lot of the
universities are saying I wantpeople to be able to work really
hard towards the notnecessarily practical knowledge,
but work really hard towardsthe theoretical knowledge so
that they can build moreknowledge.
And if you want to be aresearcher, that is amazing,
(06:03):
like there needs to beresearchers in this world right
now.
Right, there's medical research, there's AI research is an
entire class of people that wantto have a technical skill level
.
They want to be able to go andkind of get right to the point
(06:32):
of saying this is kind of what Iwant to do, or maybe I don't
want to know what I want to do,but I want to be able to start
moving and playing around withit so that I can really start
understanding what theselandscapes look like from a
practical, skills-based workingenvironment.
And that's what's lacking alittle bit right now.
But what is the biggest demandseems to be for right now, and
(06:53):
colleges are having a hard timekeeping up with that for a lot
of reasons.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, I would imagine that they are and I would argue
I'm obviously very biased here,but I would argue it's because
amazing entrepreneurs like youare bringing real life things to
the marketplace faster thantraditional educational
institutions can.
So, dave, I would love for youto introduce Guildhall Learning
to our listeners becauseobviously I've seen the work
that you're doing.
You kind of tease a little bitabout your different programs
(07:17):
and, more practical, I'm alsogoing to interject.
I love that STEM has becomeSTEAM these days science,
technology, engineering, artsand mathematics.
So, dave, introduce listenersto Guildhall Learning.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So Guildhall Learning was kind of my
throw-out-there-to-the-worldtesting platform to figure out
how a new model of educationcould exist that keeps skills
and student individuality at theforefront.
So a little bit of background.
(07:49):
I used to be the head ofcomputer science and engineering
for a school, but the schoolwas from three years old up to
high school, right, so it wasyounger kids and one of the
things that I tried doing as anexperiment with them and they
were very much on this causethey were very forward thinking.
Uh, school was how do I make itso every single kid has a
completely um individualizedcurriculum pathway.
(08:12):
Not all of them doing the sameprojects, not even all of them
are learning the same thing, butI can still track that Right Um
.
Me as a person was able to dothat for at least a little while
up until COVID striked andtrying to do all of that over
zoom turned out to be veryimpossible.
I just didn't have the toolsnecessary to just look at all of
(08:33):
their, look at all of theirprojects and whatnot.
So that sounded like a greatsoftware startup.
So, as you do, I built up asmall team of software engineers
and we started building asoftware.
So Guild itself actually standsfor Guided Universal
Intelligent Learning Device.
It's meant to be an AI systemthat individualizes each system,
(08:55):
finds out all of the resourcesthat they have available to them
to continue on the pathway,learning what they are the most
into, while still hitting all ofthe rubrics and all of the
requirements to be able to saythat they're working.
In our STEAM class, our computerscience and engineering class,
we ended up releasing it afterabout six months to about six
(09:17):
countries, about 12 differentschools testing, and it worked
in about 20% of them, which wasactually a little bit more than
I expected.
One of the problems was thatthere are too many variables for
us to be able to control.
In Argentina, school hasdifferent resources and
(09:38):
different limitations than aUnited States school.
So right at the end of theCOVID pandemic, my wife actually
runs schools.
She runs daycares andelementary schools.
So we're like, hey, why don'twe take our resources, put them
together and make kind of anenclave for us to be able to
test these things and limit ourvariables, figure out how what
systems actually could work andthen kind of expand from there,
(10:01):
right?
So we started off building outthe software and the hardware,
making a big shop that's gotwood shop, metal shop, it's got
VR and AR, jewelry labs, 3dprinting all this cool equipment
that kids can come in and weindividually interview every
single kid that comes in and say, hey, what are you into, what
are you terrified of and don'twant to touch with a 10 foot
(10:21):
stick?
And then how do we figure outyour pathway and over time we
give them the resources to beable to bend their pathway to
their will, while we're kind ofmaking sure they're continuing
to go forward.
I was kind of the beginning ofit.
Now we've gotten to the pointwhere we've structured that.
The main question that I hadwas I know I can run it, can
(10:43):
other people.
So we hired, hired a bunch ofinstructors and I got out of the
teaching seat for a littlewhile and started looking and
doing more like podcasts anddoing more outreach to other
schools and whatnot.
It turns out that otherteachers could also successfully
do this.
It wasn't just me, I'm not thatspecial.
And then now we're working onbringing into other schools.
(11:03):
So now we work with educationalinstitutions to train people on
this methodology.
We work with large nonprofits tohandle massive events of
hundreds and hundreds of kidsall doing STEM related
activities and I love that youbrought up that they're bringing
in art STEAM, because I canhave the best app in the world,
(11:24):
but if it doesn't look good andit doesn't feel good and
intuitive to me as a human towant to use, then I will
probably never use it.
So therefore, having that artcomponent in there really brings
the humanities and the humannature into the engineering work
that we do, so that peopleactually want to work with it,
right.
So we put all of that into ourapp design that hopefully the
kids will go out, use and beable to make their own learning
(11:47):
paths on their own in their ownspare time and then come to us
also right.
So right now we're reallybuilding it out, trying to get
in front of as many largeorganizations as we can to test
more and figure out more how wecan help as many kids, as many
types of kids, as possible, andso far it's been super
successful.
People have been now finding us, which is cool.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I love this honestly so much.
To me, this is thequintessential view of how
entrepreneurship positivelyimpacts the world, because it's
deeply meaningful work that youdo.
I obviously always have mybusiness hat on and I can't help
but think in business terms,and I'm hearing you talk about
so many different stakeholderswho are all aligned in your
(12:31):
mission, which is the studentsprobably get so excited.
Gosh, I wish you were operatingin Massachusetts when I was a
kid.
I imagine that the teachersit's so rewarding for them to
see their students doing thingsthat light them up.
I would imagine thateducational institutions that
want to provide this experiencefor their students this is a
match made in heaven and, ofcourse, the nonprofits who share
these missions as well, canhelp you bring this to life.
(12:54):
Then, where my head goes fromstakeholders is the so-called
competition.
It's the one concept inbusiness I've never really
agreed with, because I don'tthink we really have competition
.
But who is viewing it ascompetition?
Are the schools totally onboard?
What are those conversationslooking like?
Because I would also imagine,dave, that this is a bit
disruptive of an approach thatyou're bringing.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yes, what's kind of fun about it.
So, personally, I don't believein competition.
It's a weird thought that Ihave when you're dealing with
children, right.
Right, it's hard to think likea business person.
Because you care about thesekids, right?
So you'll make like what Iwould consider probably pretty
(13:34):
dumb financial decisions to makesure that you can support those
kids.
At the other half of it, youhave to make sure that you have
a viable product that cancontinue to grow and continue to
iterate, right?
So having the kids involved init, that helps.
They know that they're havingan active role in developing the
business right, and I encouragethem to help and come to me
(13:57):
with ideas and what's working,what's not.
As best as I can, as much asthey are comfortable with it.
So that's helping For me.
So, with that vein, I want morecompetition, because that means
that it will get out theresooner and the surrounding
(14:18):
ecosystem to support this sortof stuff will be more readily
available.
So I'm building out AI tools.
I don't have the time todevelop all of the
infrastructure that NVIDIA hasbrought out to be able to train
systems on everything that Iwould need them to do, so the
fact that they exist helps memove forward faster.
(14:39):
If more curriculum companiescome in involved and start doing
this.
That helps me because there'smore test data going out,
there's more proof, so that morepeople feel confident and
comfortable seeking solutions,such as myself, right?
There is an unimaginable amountof people in this world, right?
(15:00):
So I'm not so worried about mehaving a problem with
competition.
I'm more worried that notenough people are aware that
this is even an option, or notenough people feel confident
taking this as an option,because they need the notoriety,
they need the proven examples,right, so I hope more people get
into it.
We've been working.
(15:20):
I had a conversation with a NewHampshire University last week
and they know, on the digitalbadging front, right, the
micro-credentialing front whatwould really help the students,
but they're such a largeorganization that they're having
a very hard time convincingtheir stakeholders and the
uppers of the university.
(15:41):
To even be able to say yes towhat they all know and believe
would be a great way forward,just because the proof isn't
there yet, right?
So more competition would benice.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That's maybe weird to say, but that's kind of my
opinion on that, yeah, honestly,dave, it's part of why I admire
your work so much, because Iadmire the entrepreneurial
mindset behind all of it.
Of course, it's an abundancemindset rather than scarcity,
and I think that this is part ofthat.
New wave of education islearning that.
It's one of the earliestbusiness lessons I've learned.
(16:12):
I started when I was a freshmanin college.
I was in classrooms during theday where my professors would
tell me to be wary of ourcompetition, and then in the
evening, it was my competitionthat was accelerating my success
and giving me access to things,and I think that that's such an
important entrepreneuriallesson Continuing down this
business path, because I lovethe fact that you also equally
love business Such a cool partof the way that you think who's
(16:34):
your customer.
When you plot out the biggestway that you can make a change
in the educational world, whoare those key stakeholders that
you're talking to that have thatability to sign off and say
wait, hold on, dave, pleaseimplement this.
This is going to serve ourstudents.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So during COVID it started off as teachers.
Very specifically everyengineering teacher, that
encoding teacher, was havingtrouble teaching what they were
doing because they couldn't bein front of their kids.
So when we put out the feelerto get a dozen or so schools out
, we filled up our spots and Ithink it was two days or
(17:10):
something like that and weweren't even really trying right
.
So that was our initial After.
We realized that we had somework to do before we could get a
product out that would be asuseful to them as what we
believed it should be.
We turned it into almost likean afterschool program so that
we can test more.
(17:30):
So with that phase we're likeour primary goal is to get as
many students in here aspossible.
The easiest way for us to dothat, as it turns out, has been
approaching nonprofits andBoston public schools and
libraries and everything likethat, because we ourselves can
bring in I don't know like 50kids a day or something like
that to our programs and we havememberships so they can keep
(17:51):
coming in.
But we can impact the mostpeople by going out to where
those kids already are, which isobviously in schools, libraries
and programs.
So our target market veryquickly shifted into finding as
many large organizations thatwere doing good work with a
variety of types of kids sodifferent nonprofits for
(18:13):
different types of kids usuallyand then reaching out to them
and saying, hey, we love whatyou're doing here, right, and we
do research them to make surethey're doing good work, that
they're reputable, you know, andthey're not just like trying to
grab money from every placethey can possibly go.
They have a mission that theycare about, right like trying to
grab money from every placethey can possibly go.
They have a mission that theycare about.
(18:34):
Right, we love that you're doingthis work.
You have a gap in what you canoffer right here because you
don't have anyone in yourorganization that specializes in
that.
We would love to come in andsee if we're a good fit so that
we can enhance your program inthis way, which will, from your
perspective, make it so thatyou're offering more things that
are in the need right now STEMand STEAM is huge right now,
(18:56):
especially with the amount of AIresearch and discoveries that
are happening in just in thelast two years.
So we help them by giving thema massive capability that they
can then market to gain morekids that will be aligned with
what they're trying to do, andthen we also benefit because we
(19:16):
find more kids that are intowhat we're trying to do, and
then we recruit them into ourprograms as well.
With that Over time, now isstarting.
We're trying to get intoschools also, but that's the
next step.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, dave.
Adding onto that, you broughtup the word mission, and I'll be
fully transparent with you herewhile we're together on the air
.
Is that?
Even before I had the chance tospeak with you today, one thing
that was very clear to me isthat you are a big thinker and I
think that you have a uniqueability.
I interview entrepreneurs for aliving, and so I see work every
single day.
It seems to me from the outsidelike you have a really unique
(19:57):
ability to zoom in and also out.
It just seems like you have avery big vision for your
business but at the same time,you're able to make those small
steps, and I know, as anentrepreneur for 16 years now,
how paralyzing big visions canbe, because we want all of the
things and we want to do themright now and we all are crazy
workaholics and we have theability to act on so many
different things.
Talk to me about your executivemindset.
I want to get into that founderbrain of yours and understand
(20:18):
how you think about that bigpicture and that big mission
that you have, the big dreamsthat you have, but balancing it
with the day-to-day and theexecution.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So I'm going to give credit where credit due and
bring up my wife for a moment.
So my wife I laugh.
We both started our firstbusiness type things when we
were about 12.
So she grew up in Russia, movedhere about 20 something, 30
something years ago and shestarted a syndicated, actually a
television program for forfollowing kids that are making
(20:52):
big waves in their community.
And I started a printingcompany where I made business
cards and stuff like that, rightso, and by the end of it every
single person, including all thesuperintendents of the schools,
all had my business cards andstationary Anyways, the.
She is the kind of grounded,aggressive, day-to-day side of
(21:17):
what we do, whereas I'm a lot ofthe big vision of what we do.
To tell you how much this runsdeep within our relationship, on
our third date we foundedGlobal Educational Advancement,
the nonprofit you mentioned, andwe kind of went from there.
(21:37):
So we grew as a relationship,as also business partners at
exactly the same time, in tandem.
For me I tend to think ofvectors of growth.
So I in my mind see ascaffolding required to make it
so that there is educationalopportunity and resources for
(22:03):
all types of learners that havethe ability to individualize
based off of each special case,that is, each student, right,
while also looking at where'sthe industry is going and you
know what will likely be neededin you know, five years for our
skills, right?
So what I try to do is look atthat big overarching thought,
(22:28):
right, and I will it down towhat I have access to right at
the moment, right?
So when I was a teacher, thething I had access to was kids
directly in front of me.
All right, so let's starttesting what I have from there
and, as it grows, I say, okay,the next big step that I need is
to see if other people can dothis, right, other teachers.
So now's the time to start aphysical location and hire a
(22:50):
bunch of teachers to see if theydo it.
Okay.
And the next step on that iscan those teachers then go out
into other programs that are notours?
And then, what is required forscaffolding for other schools or
other libraries or whatever, tobe able to run the kind of
programs that we're trying tobuild.
And we just build thescaffolding out as the, as the
(23:10):
reach increases, right, as faras the, the real, like day to
day, the, the bio that you readright all of that.
My wife partners with me for alot of those things to be able
to make sure that you know, kindof slapped me in the back of
the head a little bit to say,hey, I know you want to build
out this big AI system that willbe able to gamify the entire
(23:33):
process as a two-year programand we have rent tomorrow, so
let's see how we grow ourprogram to make sure that we
have the money to be able tosupport that.
And from a from a business andspreadsheet kind of kind of
perspective, I've never metanyone that is more, anyone
that's faster at making gooddecisions than her, right?
(23:54):
So, yeah, so that's been, thathas been.
I would.
I would argue that anyone thatwants to build anything big,
it's impossible for you to beable to do that on your own.
So I would find a co-founder,find a person that can be the
opposite side of your brain,where you both have the same
vision, right, but you canbalance each other out and be
(24:17):
okay arguing with them.
It's, you know, because that'sall a part of it, but know that
you, you're really trying toachieve the same thing, right,
and that those skirmishes andall of the happiness and
together.
That's all a part of it, right?
And yeah, that's it.
It's just starting with whereyou are and then tracing the
path to where you want to be andbeing okay, wiggling around as
(24:41):
you go as opportunities presentthemselves.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, really well said, dave.
I can't tell if you weretalking about business or
marriage there, because, luckilyfor you, you've got both.
Huge shout out to your wife.
I think that that's a greatexample of true in-house talent
that you have at your disposal.
So huge kudos to both of youfor the way that you think and
the way that you executetogether.
That is so at the core of allthese things that you're sharing
(25:04):
with us today.
I knew that time would fly by,but we have to talk about ai, so
I do want to bring that up intoday's conversation, because
anytime I talk to, I've got aseven-year-old niece and nephew
and they have computer class andI always wonder when they're
going to be introduced to thiswonderful world of AI, aside
from just talking to the appsthat I let them play around with
from there.
But I would imagine middleschool, high school, college
(25:25):
those have changed so muchbecause of AI.
Talk to us about where the heckwe are in the world of
education with AI.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
A lot of people are very scared about it.
I'm not in full transparency,there's not a lot about it, that
kind of freaks me out, but Ialso try to work with it on a
daily basis.
From a student perspective,there's some things that I think
AI probably shouldn't be usedfor.
So if I have a essay that says,write about your opinion about
(26:00):
Christopher Columbus orsomething like that, right.
If I go directly to ChatGPT andI say, write me an essay about
that and I hand it in, I am notbeing honest.
That's not my opinion, that'sChatJPT's opinion, right.
If I scaffold something and Isay, hey, this is all of my
thoughts about it, can you makethis more elegant, right?
Maybe that's okay, depending onwhat you're going for.
(26:23):
But for, like, when a studentis asked to speak from their
experience in their heart, intheir place, I think AI
shouldn't necessarily be usedfor that, outside of maybe
researching a couple of datesthey might not remember.
Where it should be used and beused more is for the practical,
(26:45):
skill-based projects.
So I think it is less valuablefor me to teach you a
programming language and thentell you to make the same runner
game or Flappy Bird game that Ihave made and you will now
learn how to make this oneFlappy Bird game.
(27:06):
I think that's really goodteaching you a couple of basics
about programming language thatwill likely change soon, anyways
and it teaches you that onespecific programming language
that you probably might not usein your actual career if you
chose to right.
It'll only teach you how to dothat one kind of enclave thing.
Right.
Ai is really good and allows meto be able to go to a student
(27:27):
and say hey, I want you tocreate a video game.
I don't care what you use forprogramming language, I don't
care what tools you use in orderto create this, I only care
that you figure out how to do it.
I, as a teacher, will be herewhen you get stuck and I want to
help you along that.
But this is turning into anexercise of how do I ask the
(27:49):
right questions, how do I findthe tools that I need to be able
to make the thing that I wantto make Right?
And then how do I gain theresiliency when it doesn't work
the five times the first fivetimes I try to make it right.
So in that case, ai knowspotentially where to go.
I can ask it.
Hey, how do I make a databasethat can hold all my top scores
(28:10):
for my game?
Right, and that allows eachstudent to, instead of learning
a programming language, allowseach student to learn how to
create something that happens tobe using a programming language
, right, and that is more likewhat they'll likely see in the
world moving forward.
(28:30):
So, just like an encyclopediais a tool to look up some
information, right, and thatencyclopedia holds the
information that I need for thespecific question that the
teacher is asking me.
Now the teacher has the abilityto ask a substantially more
broad question and you can useAI to research the specifics of
(28:51):
that question without worrying,if you have the right type of
book or encyclopedia or whatnothanging around, right for that
kid to access, so it reallystarts bringing it.
What the kids really should betraining in, in my opinion, is
how do I start asking goodquestions?
How do I start breaking down myproblems into modular steps so
(29:11):
that I can figure out how tobuild things step by step?
And then how do I solveproblems using this technology
that wasn't available two yearsago, right, and the difficult
thing that educationalinstitutions are going to have a
hard time with, a difficultthing that teachers are going to
have a hard time is figuringout where that line is between.
(29:32):
I want the kid to tell me andspeak from the heart, and speak
from their experience, rightVersus.
I need this kid to learn askill.
How do I teach them how tolearn that skill on their own
right?
Technology is moving so fast.
They can't, possibly right now,especially in grade school.
They can't teach the kids whatwill be relevant and needed by
(29:52):
the time they graduate highschool.
It's impossible, right.
So everything worksexponentially from growth on
that right.
So use the tool as a tool right.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yeah, dave, they probably can't even teach what's
going to be relevant six monthsfrom now by the time they go on
to the next grade.
So super interesting hearingthe way you think about these
things.
I hope that every singleeducator is listening, and I
know that they are through whatyou're doing with Guildhall, so
I'm excited to drop those linkson listeners in just a minute.
But before we get there, I wantyou to put your entrepreneurial
hat on, because not only areyou a subject matter expert, you
(30:24):
are one of us, you are a fellowentrepreneur.
So, with that hat on, what'syour best piece of advice?
Knowing that we're beinglistened to by both
entrepreneurs and entrepreneursat all different stages of their
own business growth journeys,what's that one piece of advice
you want to leave them withtoday?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Just do the thing, Don't worry about messing up.
You're going to mess up nomatter what anyways.
So figure out the minimumviable product.
Figure out the smallest thingthat you can do and get it out
in front of people as fast asyou can.
As you just mentioned, youcan't even predict what's going
to happen six months from now,right?
So, like the technology willjust grow so fast you can't keep
(31:03):
up with it, A customer's needswill grow so fast that you can't
keep up with it.
If you don't get something outthere as fast as you can, you'll
just keep rewriting andrevisiting the exact same thing
over and over again and you'llnever get it out there.
Right, Be okay and know thatmessing up in iteration and
feeling bad right, that's partof the process.
(31:25):
No one cares if you're scared,right, Except for you.
So just put it out there.
That's the only way you'll helppeople and everyone here, every
entrepreneur, right, they'reout there to help people, right?
So not doing that is selfish.
I'll not even go that far,right, so you owe it to yourself
and everybody else.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, I love that advice.
Listeners, just to give youfull transparency on how much
Dave embodies this in his ownlife and in his own business, we
always ask our guests before weget together.
We always ask them what's yourzone of genius, what's something
that you're really good at?
That's part of your secretsauce, Dave.
(32:06):
I love how much it'sencompassed in the advice that
you're leaving our listenerswith, and I'm very excited for
listeners to see the work thatyou're doing with Guildhall, not
only because I'm biased and Ilove the fact that you're doing
it throughout my home state ofMassachusetts, but because
seeing it is really powerful,Seeing the kids behind the
computers envisioning things,building things.
You've said the word buildquite a few times during our
(32:28):
conversation today and I thinkthat that's so inherent in
entrepreneurs and literallyanyone who changes the way or
changes the world in positiveways is that builder spirit.
So for listeners who want tosee this stuff and be part of
the amazing work that you'redoing, drop those links on us.
Where should listeners go fromhere?
Speaker 2 (32:45):
You can find more about Guildhall Learning at
guildhall G-U-I-L-D, h-a-l-l,learningcom.
You can find more informationabout me on the socials at Dave
Martelli, d-a-v-e,m-a-r-t-e-l-l-i on X, on
Facebook, on Instagram, on allthose, and Guildhall Learning on
(33:05):
all the same.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yes and listeners, you already know the drill.
We're making it as easy aspossible for you to find all of
those links down below in theshow notes, no matter where it
is that you're tuning intotoday's episode.
Super easy,guildhalllearningcom.
You can click right on through.
We're also linking to Dave'spersonal LinkedIn in the show
notes, so definitely click righton through from those links
down below.
Otherwise, dave, on behalf ofmyself and all the listeners
worldwide, thanks so much forcoming on the show today.
(33:29):
Thanks so much for having me.
It was great.
Hey, it's Brian here.
And thanks for tuning in to yetanother episode of the
Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneurpodcast.
If you haven't checked us outonline, there's so much good
stuff there.
Check out the show's websiteand all the show notes that we
talked about in today's episodeat thewantrepreneurshowcom.
And I just want to give a shoutout to our amazing guests.
(33:50):
There's a reason why we are adfree and have produced so many
incredible episodes five days aweek for you, and it's because
our guests step up to the plate.
These are not sponsored episodes.
These are not infomercials.
Our guests help us cover thecosts of our productions.
They so deeply believe in thepower of getting their message
out in front of you, awesomewantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs
(34:13):
, that they contribute to helpus make these productions
possible.
So thank you to not onlytoday's guests, but all of our
guests in general, and I justwant to invite you check out our
website because you can send usa voicemail there.
We also have live chat.
If you want to interactdirectly with me, go to
thewantrepreneurshowcom.
Initiate a live chat.
If you want to interactdirectly with me, go to the
wantrepreneurshowcom.
Initiate a live chat.
It's for real me, and I'mexcited because I'll see you, as
(34:37):
always every monday, wednesday,friday, saturday and sunday
here on the wantrepreneur toentrepreneur podcast.
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