Matt Dalio is the founder of Endless Network, a visionary initiative dedicated to empowering youth to become creators of technology rather than passive consumers. His work spans three pillars: Endless Studios, a youth game-making studio; Endless Access, which tackles device affordability and connectivity; and Endless OS, an education-focused operating system designed to teach coding and digital skills through games.

Matt’s journey began with formative experiences in China, where he founded the China Care Foundation as a teenager to support orphans—an early signal of his lifelong commitment to equity and empowerment. He’s also the son of Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, and credits his father’s ethos of purpose-driven work as a guiding influence, while forging his own path in education and technology.

In 2024, Matt announced a major partnership with Arizona State University to launch the Endless Games and Learning Lab, a $5M initiative aimed at scaling personalized, game-based learning for millions of students worldwide.

Links:

Media Kit / Bio:https://kitcaster.com/matt-dalio/

Social:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattdalio/

Website:https://www.endlessstudios.com/

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Dr. Julia Stoyanovich is Institute Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Associate Professor of Data Science, Director of the Center for Responsible AI, and member of the Visualization and Data Analytics Research Center at New York University. She is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and a Senior member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). Julia’s goal is to make “Responsible AI” synonymous with “AI”. She works towards this goal by engaging in academic research, education and technology policy, and by speaking about the benefits and harms of AI to practitioners and members of the public. Julia’s research interests include AI ethics and legal compliance, and data management and AI systems. Julia is engaged in technology policy and regulation in the US and internationally, having served on the New York City Automated Decision Systems Task Force, by mayoral appointment, among other roles. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Columbia University, and a B.S. in Computer Science and in Mathematics & Statistics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Links:

https://engineering.nyu.edu/faculty/julia-stoyanovich

https://airesponsibly.net/nyaiexchange_2025/

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Guest Diane Levitt shares how Cornell Tech, in collaboration with the City of New York, is reimagining computer science education through an equity-first approach. From pilot programs that stumble to systems that scale, this episode explores how institutional iteration—especially when it fails—can lead to more inclusive and impactful CS learning.

Links:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2024-state-of-computer-science-education-highlights-growing-investment-from-policymakers-continued-gaps-in-access-302282502.html

edc.nyc/press-release/nycedc-and-cornell-tech-advance-new-new-york-initiative-establish-new-york-city

edc.nyc/program/pilot-new-york-city

par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10101543

https://tech.cornell.edu/about/

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7344464344660811780/

https://csteachers.org/what-is-the-state-of-cs-education-in-2024/

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In this episode of No Such Thing, I talk with Laura Slover, Managing Director of the Skills for the Future initiative—a joint effort by ETS and the Carnegie Foundation. We explore what it means to move beyond the century-old Carnegie Unit and toward a system that captures the full spectrum of what learners know and can do.

From internships to outdoor leadership, from dashboards to transcripts that actually reflect growth—this conversation is for anyone thinking about how we build a more human, equitable, and future-ready education system.

Links:

1. Sasha Bruce Youthwork https://www.sashabruce.org/
2. https://aschoolwithoutwalls.org/
3. https://www.hightechhigh.org/
4. ETS's official Skills for the Future page – This outlines the initiative’s goals, including competency-based learning and skill recognition, backed by ETS’s expertise in educational measurement.
5. Carnegie Foundation’s Skills for the Future initiative – A deep dive into how the program is shifting education from time-based to competency-based learning, with a focus on essential skills beyond traditional academics.
6. Indiana State Board of Education report – A detailed research paper discussing the transition from time-based education models to skill-based insights, highlighting the empirical evidence supporting this shift.
7. Explainer on modern skills-based assessment – A paper from Carnegie Foundation discussing the limitations of traditional assessments and how Skills for the Future is innovating measurement techniques.
8. ETS & Carnegie’s framework for durable skills – A breakdown of the essential skills identified for success across life domains, emphasizing developmental skill progressions and personalized learning.
9. https://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/carnegie-unit/
10. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1057177
11. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=38
12. https://www.nagb.gov/news-and-events/news-releases/2025/nations-report-card-decline-in-reading-progress-in-math.html
13. https://christophegaron.com/articles/mind/how-do-kids-change-during-the-summer-insights-on-summer-growth-in-children/
14. https://www.tulsakids.com/brains-on-break/

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Exploring how simulations are shaping education research and practice, with insights from the book Promoting Equity through Approximations of Practice in Mathematics Education. It examines how approximations of practice can help educators sharpen their skills while keeping equity at the forefront. It’s not just about improving instruction; it’s about ensuring that all students, regardless of background, have access to high-quality learning experiences.

Links:

Lee, C., Bondurant, L., Sapkota, B., Howell, H. (2025). Promoting equity in approximations of practice for mathematics teachers. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-1164-6

Benoit, G., Barno, E., & Reich, J. (2025). Simulating Equitable Discussions Using Practice-Based Teacher Education in Math Professional Learning. In C. Wilkerson Lee, L. Bondurant, B. Sapkota, & H. Howell (Eds.), Promoting Equity in Approximations of Practice for Mathematics Teachers (pp. 165-200). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-1164-6.ch008 

Shaughnessy, M., Boerst, T. A., Garcia, N., & Claiborne, B. (2025). Orienting to Student Sense-Making: Using Simulations to Support the Development of Equitable Mathematics Teaching. In C. Wilkerson Lee, L. Bondurant, B. Sapkota, & H. Howell (Eds.), Promoting Equity in Approximations of Practice for Mathematics Teachers (pp. 253-276). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-1164-6.ch011 

Howell, H., Shaughnessy, M., Stengel, B., Lee, C., Bondurant, L., Sapkota, B., Benoit, G., & Lai, Y. (2025). Editorial insights: Reflections on the volume and charge to the field. In C. Lee, L. Bondurant, B. Sapkota, & H. Howell (Eds.), Promoting equity in approximations of practice for mathematics teachers (pp. 395-414). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-1164-6.ch017

Ataide Pinheiro, W., Kaur Bharaj, P., Cross Francis, D., Kirkpatrick Darwin, T., Esquibel, J., & Halder, S. (2025). An Investigation of Gender Biases in Teacher-Student Interaction in Mathematics Lessons Within a Virtual Teaching Simulator. In C. Wilkerson Lee, L. Bondurant, B. Sapkota, & H. Howell (Eds.), Promoting Equity in Approximations of Practice for Mathematics Teachers (pp. 201-228). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-1164-6.ch009 

MIT’s Teacher Moments digital simulation platform: https://teachermoments.mit.edu/ 

Becoming a More Equitable Educator https://openlearninglibrary.mit.edu/courses/course-v1:MITx+0.503x+T2020/about 

Reich, J. (2022). Teaching drills: Advancing practice-based teacher education through short, low-stakes, high-frequency practice. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(2), 217-228. https://doi.org/10.70725/023707spaywm 

Bima’s lit review: https://doi.org/10.1080/14794802.2023.2207088 

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For decades, the conversation around youth and technology has been dominated by powerful voices—media, researchers, and word-of-mouth warnings—painting a picture of digital tools as the looming threat to young people’s well-being. But what if that narrative isn’t the whole story? What if, instead, we favored the spectrum of possibilities in the digital present and future, instead of a good or evil binary. It would take a a vibrant counter-movement, led by passionate advocates and young people themselves, determined to reclaim the digital world for good. And good news, there is one.

This episode was recorded live at Sesame Workshop, bringing together a true who's who of leaders and do-ers in the world of “Digital Wellness for Young People.” At the heart of our conversation is Young Futures—a startup initiative funding projects through the crucial lens of digital wellness. Young Futures is empowering the next generation to create, innovate, and advocate for a healthier digital landscape, supporting ideas that prioritize well-being over profit.

Joining us are visionaries from the Scratch Foundation, the organization behind the world’s largest free creative coding platform for kids, empowering millions to express themselves and solve problems through technology. We’re also honored to welcome leaders from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a research and innovation lab that advances learning in a digital age, inspired by the pioneering spirit of Sesame Street.

Links:

https://www.youngfutures.org/

https://joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/ritec/

https://www.scratchfoundation.org/

https://joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/well-being-by-design-fellowship/

https://www.gamesforchange.org/

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Roderic Crooks is an associate professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. His research examines how the use of digital technology by public institutions contributes to the minoritization of working-class communities of color. His current project explores how community organizers in working-class communities of color use data for activist projects, even as they dispute the proliferation of data-intensive technologies in education, law enforcement, financial services, and other vital sites of public life. He has published extensively in HCI, STS, and social science venues on topics including political theories of online participation, equity of access to information and media technologies, and document theory. He is the author Access Is Capture: How Edtech Reproduces Racial Inequality, published in 2024 by the University of California Press (https://www.ucpress.edu/books/access-is-capture/paper). 

Access is Capture 

Racially and economically segregated schools across the United States have hosted many interventions from commercial digital education technology (edtech) companies who promise their products will rectify the failures of public education. Edtech's benefits are not only trumpeted by industry promoters and evangelists but also vigorously pursued by experts, educators, students, and teachers. Why, then, has edtech yet to make good on its promises? In Access Is Capture, Roderic N. Crooks investigates how edtech functions in Los Angeles public schools that exclusively serve Latinx and Black communities. These so-called urban schools are sites of intense, ongoing technological transformation, where the tantalizing possibilities of access to computing meet the realities of structural inequality. Crooks shows how data-intensive edtech delivers value to privileged individuals and commercial organizations but never to the communities that hope to share in the benefits. He persuasively argues that data-drivenness ultimately enjoins the public to participate in a racial project marked by the extraction of capital from minoritized communities to enrich the tech sector.

Links:

1. Amazon listing for Access Is Capture
2. University of California Press page for Access Is Capture
3. Author's personal website
4. Talks and events from Civics of Technology featuring Roderic N. Crooks
5. Article co-authored by Crooks discussing intersectional themes in feminist formations

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Sylvia Martinez was an aerospace engineer before becoming an educational software producer and vice president of a video game company. She spent a decade as the President of Generation YES, the groundbreaking non-profit that provides educators with the tools necessary to place students in leadership roles in their schools and communities. In addition to leading workshops, Sylvia delights and challenges audiences as a keynote speaker at major conferences around the world. She brings her real-world experience in highly innovative work environments to learning organizations that wish to change STEM education to be more inclusive, effective, and engaging.

Sylvia is co-author of Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, often called the “bible” of the classroom maker movement. She runs the book publishing arm of CMK Futures, Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, to continue to publish books about creative education by educators.

Ken Kahn has been interested in Al and education for 50 years. His 1977 paper "Three interactions between Al and education" In E. Elcock and D. Michie, editors, Machine Intelligence 8: Machine Representations of Knowledge may be among the first publications on the topic. He received his doctorate from the MIT Al Lab in 1979. He designed and implemented ToonTalk, a programming language for children that looks and feels like a video game. He has developed a large collection of Al programming resources for school students (https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/). He recently retired as a senior researcher from the University of Oxford.

Links

1. https://constructingmodernknowledge.com/about-the-cmk-hosts/
2. https://sylviamartinez.com
3. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/garystager_ken-kahn-speaks-with-sylvia-martinez-about-activity-7303865110035341313-BcUl
4. https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ken-kahn-997a225

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Dave Edwards, PhD (ABD), MAT, is a queer person and career educator who has served in almost every role in preK-12th grade school communities. 

After getting started as a special education paraprofessional in an Autism classroom in Saint Paul Public Schools, he served as a special education teacher, middle/high school classroom teacher, special education coordinator, Dean of Students, and Assistant Head of School. From 2015-2018, Dave made the jump to higher education as lead instructor for the nontraditional teacher licensure program in Emotional Behavior Disorders at the University of MN Twin Cities.

He was an undergraduate and graduate professor in the teacher preparation program at Hamline University from 2018 to 2020 before devoting his efforts full-time to Gender Inclusive Schools. 

Dave is the proud parent to a transgender daughter, and his family's experience with the discrimination she experienced in kindergarten directly informs his vocation of helping school communities create safe learning environments.

Dave serves on the board of the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition and his family is heavily involved with Transforming Families MN.

Gender Inclusive Schools provides parent and educator training to proactively create safe learning environments for LGBTQ+ young people. We specialize in facilitating full-staff professional development sessions on a variety of equity topics, providing small group consultations, collaborating on support for individual students, and school-board policy development.

During the 2023/2024 school year, Gender Inclusive Schools supported educators in over 75 different school communities across the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia.

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/gender-inclusive-school/

https://www.graduateprogram.org/2024/10/making-your-classroom-more-gender-inclusive/

https://www.genderinclusiveschools.org

https://www.mapresearch.org/news/policy-spotlight-conversion-therapy-bans-release

https://www.notion4teachers.com/blog/fostering-gender-inclusivity-educator-strategies

https://www.highereddive.com/news/trump-executive-order-diversity-equity-inclusion-colleges/738052/

https://www.genderinclusiveschools.org/educator-pd

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Moombix is an all-in-one solution for online music education that includes a vigorous marketplace with profiles for each teacher, a booking and payment system, a timeline that charts all communications and shared files, a calendar, lesson-planner and a learning platform that is tailored for the online lessons with all the basic tools within reach.

Margret Juliana is an Icelandic serial entrepreneur and the founder of Moombix. She is a professional musician herself, a singer, pianist and a composer with a varied experience that ranges from jazz to rock and classical music. Margret Juliana graduated with honours from the Royal Academy of Music in London where she performed and taught music after graduation. After returning to Iceland she made a swift change in her career and founded her first startup. Along with her team she created the award-winning application Mussila, a musical game that teaches children the basics of music. Margret has received many awards as an entrepreneur. She was the Founder of the Year in Iceland at the Nordic Startup Awards 2017 and she has been recognised by Forbes as one of Europe's most promising entrepreneurs. Moombix, her second tech startup, is aimed to provide tools, and a platform for personal, real-time music lessons.

Links:

Heyr himna smiður, þorkell Sigurbjornsson, Schola Cantorum Reykjavicensis, Hörður Askelsson https://open.spotify.com/track/7rAxhJu2iS9WyjWiCzk9EJ?si=5c3c6fab2fd7464c

https://techfundingnews.com/moombix-scores-1-9m-to-bring-online-music-learning-platform-to-the-uk/

https://www.boomplay.com/episode/8572218

https://www.eu-startups.com/2024/10/reykjavik-based-moombix-raises-e2-27-million-to-scale-its-online-music-learning-platform/

https://thefoundermedia.com/moombix-raises-2-46-million-in-seed-funding-to-revolutionise-music-education/

https://www.moombix.com/about-us

https://www.hugverk.is/en/newsroom/news/trademarks/moombix-a-mix-of-music-beat-and-a-bit-more

https://musically.com/2024/10/18/music-education-startup-moombix-raises-1-9m-seed-funding/

https://www.financial-news.co.uk/moombix-secures-1-9m-to-revolutionise-music-education-in-the-uk/

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