We're living in the most remarkable

moment in the history of education.

AI can now tutor you in calculus. It can

write you a semester-long study plan.

I even had one of our students tell me

that they instructed their AI to teach

computer science the way Gordon Ramsay

runs Kitchen Nightmares.

AI is seriously changing the education

game.

It's making knowledge more accessible,

more personalized, and more intuitive

than we ever thought possible.

But ask any student what has changed

their life the most, and they won't tell

you about a technology.

They'll tell you about a person.

A teacher who believed in them before

they believed in themselves.

A friend who kept showing up even when

things got hard.

A mentor who saw their potential before

they could see it themselves.

We're investing billions into making

sure we put the very best AI tools onto

every screen on the planet.

But with all this technology at our

fingertips,

why aren't we investing just as urgently

into making sure every student can

connect with the people who will change

their life?

>> [applause]

>> I've been grappling with this question

quite a bit over the last 4 years while

working on something called peer

tutoring.

It's a simple concept, students teaching

other students.

Imagine any classroom that you've ever

been in, right? 20 students all learning

the same thing.

A concept might click for one student,

but trip up another.

Now if you match those two students,

something beautiful happens.

One tutors the other.

The tutor builds confidence and

reinforces their own learning.

The learner gets personalized support

from someone who just figured it out

themselves.

This peer-tutoring concept is the

foundation of Schoolhouse, the nonprofit

I lead that connects high school

students around the world for peer

tutoring over Zoom.

Today, nearly 200,000 students have

received tutoring from 30,000 incredible

volunteer tutors, adding up to over 100

million minutes of learning all

completely for free.

>> [applause]

>> And so as AI reshapes this world around

us, I believe that our need for the

genuine human connection has never

mattered more.

And I've seen proof in the most

unexpected places that we can build it,

scale it, and change lives with it.

This man lost his father when he was in

high school and dropped out to support

his family.

His name is Carl, and for his entire

adult life, he hid the fact that he had

never graduated.

Until at 52, when he decided to go back

for his high school diploma.

But Carl needed help.

Algebra terrified him, and so he looked

to Schoolhouse for a tutor.

Across the country,

Sachin, a 14-year-old in the Bay Area,

signed up for Schoolhouse to help out

other kids his age.

He certainly wasn't expecting Carl, who

is noticeably not his age, in his first

tutoring session.

But he quickly realized that Carl was

someone he could help.

Every Sunday for over a year, they

showed up for tutoring.

An adult learner in Mississippi, a

teenager in California.

And yeah, Carl was learning algebra, but

more importantly,

he was learning to believe in himself

again.

Here they are, just one week before

Carl's exam.

>> That's P multiplied by two, right?

>> Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's P

divided by two.

>> All right, well, let's see. There you

go, Nick Carl. Nice job.

>> All right, then. Sex. Thank you.

>> How are you feeling? How do you think

you're going to do on the real test?

>> My confidence begin to kick in. I can't

get weak in the algebra now.

>> Yeah.

>> [applause]

>> They're awesome.

Carl took his exam

and he scored highest in algebra, the

subject that once terrified him.

That's nice.

Here's what sticks with me about that

story, though.

Carl was 14 when he dropped out, the

exact same age as Sachin.

If Carl had had a Sachin when he was 14,

we could be looking at a very different

life trajectory.

We talk a lot about making sure students

can get access to the right tools and

the right technology, but we also need

to make sure that every student can

access a Sachin.

Someone who can provide the connection

and motivation that only another human

can.

Along the way, we discovered something

else.

We saw that this peer tutoring wasn't

just teaching students how to learn

concepts. It was also teaching them how

to better understand one another.

This realization led us to create a new

program called Dialogues, where we would

pair students who had different

perspectives on often complex or

controversial issues like immigration or

gun control or abortion.

There was no moderator, no scripts, just

two students talking over Zoom.

And I'll be honest, I was kind of

skeptical at first.

For example, we were going to be pairing

Joseph in China with Brian in America to

discuss free speech versus hate speech.

Like, what could possibly go wrong?

But luckily, were able to get permission

to share a few highlights from these

conversations. Let's take a look.

>> In China, free speech is not something

that people participated with.

>> I think if the politician does use hate

speech,

then I'll show it at the voting booth.

>> I learned a lot today. I I've had to

consider things I never would have

otherwise considered.

>> Friends know I don't talk about

politics. I think like humility is so

important when coming into these issues.

>> I may be wrong, you know,

I need to do my research.

>> I was I was born in India. There it's a

very like very rough income inequality.

How would they feel like saying some of

their equity from the business they

built up just has to be taxed away to

some person they barely know.

>> And I think I've generally changed my

mind.

>> This is such a wonderful conversation.

You you kept bringing in like your

science nerd knowledge.

>> [laughter]

>> It's striking to me just how genuine

these conversations are.

Students show up with passion and

conviction,

and then they do the thing that many

adults are starting to forget how to do.

They listen.

Brian said it perfectly.

He had to consider what he's otherwise

never had to consider.

That is what makes education human,

not just the transfer of knowledge, but

the ability to understand others and use

that to shape your own perspective.

It can only happen when there's another

human on the other end, and it's on us

to make sure that every student can

engage meaningfully with those who see

the world differently.

I've been able to see the impact of this

human connection, but often in contexts

that were hard to scale.

In college, I tutored for a program

called Amphibious Achievement, where we

taught Boston public students how to row

crew

and prep for the SAT.

That's what we were doing on the

surface, but our main goal was actually

to help every student build an

unrelenting belief in themselves.

And if you're wondering why belief,

well,

belief is in every student.

It takes a lot of hard work to unlock,

but once it's there,

it can completely change what a student

believes is attainable.

And so I saw when my belief in a student

would become their belief in themselves.

I would see it take root, first as a

rowing personal best, and then as a

college acceptance letter, and soon you

would see that student's entire

personality come to life.

But I also saw the limitations of this

program model where

there would be students that we want to

help, but the proximity or the timing or

the number of tutors just wasn't there.

But see,

that's what's so unique about this peer

model.

It can scale.

Every phone or laptop becomes a portal

to a trusted human.

At a global level, students can learn

around the clock.

And we were surprised to discover that

the solution to our tutor shortage was

actually right in front of us in our

very own learners.

Right? Cuz once a student masters the

material, they can go on and teach it to

somebody else.

And we're seeing that already with one

in five of our tutors actually starting

their Schoolhouse journey first as a

learner.

The most exciting part about all of this

is that institutions are starting to see

the value of peer tutoring, too.

We had a student in rural Arkansas,

first generation, looking for a way to

explore his passion in teaching.

He found Schoolhouse and he ran with it,

tutoring over 150 sessions in algebra,

precalc, the SAT, and he was

consistently rated in the top 5% by his

peers.

All of his contributions showed up on

his Schoolhouse portfolio, which he

submitted in college applications.

Now, when admissions officers saw this,

they didn't just see a letter grade.

They saw proof of something deeper.

That the student was adaptable.

That he could help others in a way that

was warm, and patient, and engaging.

And that he had already solved real

problems with students from 40 other

countries.

His name is Emmanuel.

He's at the University of Chicago now,

and he recently told me that he wants to

build his own education startup to pay

it forward.

Yeah.

>> [applause]

>> Everyone's talking about the skills that

AI is going to replace.

But the skills Emmanuel demonstrated,

the ability to care, to collaborate, to

communicate, these are deeply human

skills.

They've always been important, but in

the age of AI, they are the skills of

the future.

And this doesn't just end with college

admissions. We're hearing the exact same

thing from employers.

The skills that they need most are the

ones that you cannot automate.

All of these stories are proof of what's

possible when the authentic human

connection is made accessible to

everyone.

But every year, we graduate another

class of students.

And every year, AI gets exponentially

more powerful.

If the goal is to optimize productivity,

then yeah, AI will win.

But if we aspire to build a better

society,

then we must deliver the human

connection, and develop the human skills

that our young people are going to

increasingly need.

That is how we navigate the AI

revolution in education.

To create a more connected world,

more capable students, and a more human

future.

Thank you.

>> [applause]