My Vision for the Future of Education
I left home when I was 14. I grew up in a small town in Brazil, from a poor family. There were days I couldn't afford to eat. I went to public school, my grades were good, but I never felt like I was learning anything. I was memorizing things to pass exams without understanding why any of it mattered.
For a long time, I didn't think this world was for me.
I never thought I could become an engineer or a scientist. Those things felt distant, like they belonged to other people. Smarter people. People born in the right places, with the right support, with the right kind of life.
Not me.
When I was 10, I bought a book called "How to Create Websites." I didn't have a computer, so I wrote code by hand on sheets of paper and paid for 30 minutes of internet at a local cyber cafe to test things. That's how I made my first website, about Dragon Ball.
It was a huge deal for me.
Not because I thought it would become a career. It didn't even cross my mind. It mattered because, for the first time, I was making something real.
A few years later, I started working at a computer store and bought my first computer. I built an online encyclopedia and community about Formula One. The community around that project meant a lot to me. People cared. They supported me. And the first time someone paid me for something I built on the internet, it was mind-blowing. That website helped pay my bills in college.
Even then, I still didn't think of myself as someone who could really build things.
Later, when I was 22, a friend and co-worker started talking to me about science. That was the first time something clicked. Not in a dramatic, movie-like way. Just a slow realization: science is actually fun. Maybe I can understand this. Maybe I can learn this.
That feeling stayed with me. At 25, I left my job and moved to the Netherlands to study artificial intelligence. Even then, I still didn't believe I could become a software engineer. When I started looking for work, I wasn't even applying for software jobs. Eventually I got a frontend developer role and, slowly, over time, it started to sink in: I can actually do this.
There was no single breakthrough moment. It took me more than 20 years to realize I could build things and shape my own life.
When I look back, that's what stays with me most: not just how much I learned, but how long it took me to believe I was allowed to learn it in the first place.
That's why Zoonk exists.
A lot has changed in the world since I was a kid. But outside tech bubbles, too many people still grow up feeling the same way I did. They feel like this world isn't for them. School doesn't connect to their reality. Learning feels distant, boring, and passive. They don't see how knowledge fits into real life. They don't realize they can build things. Sometimes they don't realize that until much later.
AI is changing things, but that isn't enough
AI is making it easier than ever to learn and build things. But that doesn't automatically solve the problem.
Learning needs structure. It needs guidance. It needs context. It needs to meet people where they are, especially when they don't yet have much confidence or agency. We need tools designed specifically for learning. Not tools that just answer questions, but tools that help people understand, practice, connect ideas to real life, and build confidence step by step.
That's the future I want to help build.
What education should feel like
Education should feel accessible.
I don't just mean cheap or available. I mean understandable. I mean using everyday language, practical examples, and explanations that connect to people's reality. Complex ideas shouldn't feel reserved for a small group of people. Quantum Physics and General Relativity shouldn't feel intimidating if they're taught in a way that actually makes sense.
Education should feel personal.
People have different goals, different interests, different paces, different motivations. If someone had connected what I was learning to things I cared about when I was younger, everything might have felt different much earlier.
Education should feel engaging.
Most learning experiences are still boring, static, and passive. Too much of it is just the old model in a new format. A lecture becomes a video. A textbook becomes a PDF. The language stays academic. The experience stays distant. You sit there consuming information and still come away feeling like maybe you're the problem.
I don't think the problem is people.
I think the problem is that we still haven't built learning experiences that feel clear, hands-on, and connected to the real world. Great learning should make you feel like you understand something and can use it. It should make you curious. It should make you want to keep going.
Long-term, I imagine learning becoming much more immersive too. Maybe one day someone explores the world through missions, with smart glasses helping explain the physics, biology, and chemistry behind everything around them. That may sound far away, but I think that's where we should be heading.
And education should lead somewhere real.
For me, education wasn't just about knowledge. It was a path out of poverty. It changed my life. That's why I don't want learning to end with a certificate or a completed course. I want it to open doors. I want it to help people build skills, find work, start projects, discover what they care about, and connect with others to build the future together.
The role of teachers
I don't see this as replacing teachers or schools. I see it as giving them better tools.
Teachers do far too much work that shouldn't depend on their time and energy: preparing materials, organizing lessons, managing grades, creating exams, trying to keep everything aligned with curriculum standards. In places like Brazil, a lot of effort goes into making lessons compliant with requirements like BNCC. That work matters, but it also leaves less room for the part of teaching that matters most.
Teachers should be mentoring, guiding, opening minds, and helping students see possibilities they can't yet see for themselves.
I imagine a future where a teacher can type a curriculum code into Zoonk and get high-quality lesson materials right away. Students complete activities, Zoonk helps evaluate progress, and teachers get clear reports showing where the class is struggling and where each student might need help. Schools can finally see patterns, support students earlier, and discover talent that might otherwise go unnoticed.
That future won't happen overnight. But I think we can move in that direction.
Open by default
Zoonk is open-source, and that isn't just a technical decision.
I believe openness helps society move faster. We learn from each other's work. We learn from each other's mistakes. We build on top of what already exists instead of hiding everything behind closed doors and starting from zero over and over again.
I care deeply about this vision, but I don't need to be the only person building it. If Zoonk doesn't succeed and someone else takes what we've done and pushes the idea further, that's still a good outcome. I just want this future to exist.
We have to start somewhere.
Where we're starting
In the coming weeks, we'll launch the first version of Zoonk.
It will be simple: tell us what you want to learn, and we'll create an interactive course with step-by-step guidance, practical examples, and everyday language.
That's a small beginning compared to the long-term vision. But small beginnings matter.
Maybe someone finishes a few lessons and realizes a subject they once found intimidating is actually interesting. Maybe they decide to study it seriously. Maybe they use an idea they learned at work the next day. Maybe, for the first time in a long time, they start to think they might actually be capable of more than they thought.
That kind of shift matters.
Because this has never just been about content for me. It's about helping people feel less stuck. Less hopeless. Less like life is something that just happens to them. It's about helping people see that they can still learn, still grow, and still build something meaningful from where they are.
I don't want other people to spend years feeling the way I felt.
I don't want them to wait 10 years to realize they can build things. I don't want them to feel dumb because the way something was taught made no sense. I don't want them to assume the future belongs to other people.
Our motto is learn. build. shape.
Learn the skills. Build your ideas. Shape the future.
If we're successful, a kid in a small town, writing code on sheets of paper, won't have to wait 10 years to realize she can be an engineer. She'll know much earlier. Not because she's a genius, but because someone finally showed her that she doesn't need to be one.
And if we're really successful, maybe one day Zoonk won't even be necessary anymore. Maybe great education will be accessible to everyone. Maybe more people will have the confidence, skills, and opportunities to build better lives and help move the world forward.
That's the future I want to help build.