bina

A serial social entrepreneur, Noam, founded bina, a blended (decentralized, synchronous) elementary school. After psychology studies, Noam's current research interests include educational methods, developmental and cognitive psychology, and the application of neuroscience to education. She has extensively traveled to visit elementary schools globally, interviewing students, parents, teachers, and administrators. 

She began her career as a highly regarded culinary chef in Israel. Having founded an innovative catering company at the age of 20, she successfully sold the business five years later. 

She was admitted to Tel Aviv University at the age of 16 and studied the philosophy of Science and Technology. As a student, she worked for "Physicians for Human Rights Israel," helped establish the free clinic for foreign workers, and fought for prisoners and detainees' medical rights. 

Noam was born in Jerusalem, now resides in Berlin, and is raising two children in a quad-lingual, highly mobile setting.

Though incredible innovations in education are happening, incremental changes aren't enough. Elementary school does not currently reflect today's society; schooling is rigid, but our lives are fluid. Desperately creates gaps and inefficiencies. 

bina is a digital native educational model built for today's families. It is an adaptive elementary school that combines the benefits of bespoke home education with the support and rigor of international schooling.
We are building a world where no child goes without quality education, and no parent has to choose between career and family. We are working towards increased adaptability and personalization of the global early education system at scale. We will significantly improve the quality and equity of early education, offer better work-life balance for parents, and improve school and workforce diversity.

Incremental changes to the education system aren't enough. We collected global pain points from every group of the early-education ecosphere. The gap between how mobile life has become and how static education remained form both pain and resource wastefulness. In different voices globally, Parents say, "Having to choose between our careers and our children is endlessly painful." Students say, "I know I have to go to school, but I don't know why." Teachers worry, "We don't have the time nor means to tailor learning. Out of date standards and technologies prevent us from doing our best work."

Most of the schools today heavily invest in infrastructure, while the teacher's time is underutilized and the curriculum non adaptive. The global expenditure on private primary school is $2.5T. The weekly cost of public primary school (2016 OECD avg): 221€ (the weekly price of bina: 225€). The international elementary schooling market ($49.9B ) is our initial community because they can bear the financial load of building bina (being highly demanding- so we make an excellent product). We are targeting 5.5k students by 2025. Then, use the tech and methodology developed to make digital-native education accessible everywhere. 

bina is a digital native educational model built for today's families. It is a comprehensive, adaptive elementary school. We combine the benefits of bespoke home education with the meticulous rigor of international schooling. Learning with bina has three pillars;
1. Digital
Active, collaborative, live lessons with tiny student/teacher ratios. We use state-of-the-art, adaptive learning tools to create an interactive web-scape designed for kids. We split the teaching profession into two; teachers that teach the subject matter and guides that actively work with students on life skills. 
2. Experiential
- Locally curated activities for the school community to meet. Bite-size parental suggestions and child logistics coordination. 
3. Physical
- Plug and play hubs in designated areas at partner office spaces and cultural institutions with in-person care trained by bina (with a senior citizens program). 
We are building a complete, comprehensive global school priced mid-range at €800 monthly tuition, with an eight-year customer lifecycle. This week, in one class, students from the UAE, Israel, Kenya, Germany, and Sweden learn together daily. This is bina. Beyond the 10% of students on scholarship and our commitment to diversity (neuro/culture/race/age/gender/religion/orientation), we aim to be working with diverse global populations shaping bina to serve best at zero cost to families. 

(*Snippet from an email that came in a few weeks ago-

We are just finding ourselves in a situation where we would need Bina school for our son (he's turning six soon) for the next school year. For family reasons, we will need to move to France, and after that, we're planning on moving to Canada. Is Bina school already live? Are you running early tests? We're very interested!
Cheers,
Jan van der Crabben
CEO & Founder
Ancient History Encyclopedia
https://www.ancient.eu)

bina emerged from qualitative six-year research interviewing students, teachers, and scholars globally. Our CAO (academics) is an education scholar (and a walking talking edu-literature encyclopedia). Our work at this phase, both in tech and curriculum, is curation and integration. The components of the bina offering are proven. We are combining these into a comprehensive system. We serve; students who need tailored learning; parents who want to "not miss their childhoods;" organizations who seek to improve workforce diversity, loyalty, and work-life balance. 

The improficiencies of the elementary schooling system lower the quality of both education and family life for all young families. High-quality, inclusive teaching is key to socioeconomic mobility. Workplaces that would include childcare will drastically increase the opportunity for the ones who do unpaid work.  

 
With the onset of the pandemic, the limitations of our education system became more apparent. According to UNESCO 600 Million children have been out of school due to schools' closures in light of the pandemic. And we hope bina can help at least a few hundred of those.

I have a background in activism (working with PHR). After selling my first company, I knew I wanted my next venture to be impactful and financially sustainable. I took a while to look at the verticals. I decided that early years education touches the populations I care most about (namely children and women) and in the long run, it is impactful on society as a whole. I also knew I know nothing about it. So, I decided I will ask. Globally. I lived nomadically and sat in hundreds of classrooms around the globe, talking to students, parents, teachers. The anguish caused by the divide between how mobile life has become and how static education has remained resonated everywhere. When designing an educational system, our role is to be able to prepare for participation in society. The way to start is to reflect the way the culture operates.

During one of my ground interviews, I met John Hall; I was astounded by his field expertise and his knowledge of the literature. I pursued him relentlessly :) he is now our Academics. Zach Bowen has been my close friend. He is a mathematician and is an ML megamind. He succumbed too.

I am a lady with a mission. Some people find a problem to solve and people that are haunted by a question. I am, of the latter. It is my social duty to leave this place marginally better than I entered- as I am relatively privileged. When my son studies with a Palestinian girl daily, I won. When her mother can work while providing personalized education and care for her nine kids, my region won. When there are thousands of students, my grandkids won.

bina is built to work around a family’s schedule. To give them the chance to spend quality time together and give parents the flexibility they need, both in their personal and professional lives. School shouldn’t have to be a hindrance. Ever.

The founding team of bina comprises decades of experience in entrepreneurship, teaching, research, and machine learning. We have the perfect blend of skill sets and expertise to take up this challenge. Our CAO (academics) is an education scholar (and a walking talking edu-literature encyclopedia). I had personally done six years of ground research on early education before I laid the foundation for bina. Our CTO, who has a master’s degree in Mathematics and has both teaching experience and machine learning experience, is developing the product with a team of cutting-edge web developers.

We have five highly experienced teachers on board and are in the process of recruiting two developmental psychologists to assist our students as well as their guardians.
The management team consists of Emily Hirschberg, Head of Marketing, and two full-time interns working with her, Lasya Ketha, a full-time intern in fundraising, and Jamie Morrow, a part-time volunteer in operations management. They bring with them an abundance of knowledge and experience in their respective fields.

On the first day of the launch of bina, the 9-10 year olds’ classroom crashed. It was at 2 AM CET, where we are headquartered. Instead of losing our heads over the panic of teachers and the tech team alike, we redirected the classroom to a different teacher and made the class a fun introduction to the functionality of internet and how to navigate tech problems.

This is not just a reflection of my problem solving skills but a resonance of the response effectiveness of my team as a whole.

When I was a child, the only game I played was telling stories to a group of kids so we could all role play. When I worked for Physicians for Human Rights, I was part of the open clinic's founding team. It was a storytelling role, both in the clinic's daily work. As we served the most vulnerable, we had to make sure they felt safe and were willing to receive medical help delicately and philanthropic fundraising. When I opened my first business, I was 20. I had no financial support, but I could wildly excite staff and clients by creating stories and bringing them to life. Even now, attempting to solve monstrous problems, I can tell a good story that is morally sound and find the best people to move mountains (it is my job to be the dumbest person in the room) and support their work and collaboration. 

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We have run a series of pilot modules using off-the shelf technologies to validate our business model. We ran a "breadboarded" classroom via Zoom, using 3rd party ed-tech integrated through browser tabs. We built our native platform based on the extensive feedback from these pilot modules.

A custom platform that will enable students to learn from anywhere in the world, while still enjoying the social benefits of sharing a digital classroom with their peers. Using synchronous video conferencing as a backbone for our classrooms, and highly-interactive lessons built with gamified educational software, we are building a unique and tech-savvy school suited for tomorrow’s children, today. 

Working methods have changed significantly over the generations. In today's world, work and life are fluid. Work is just a set of tasks and is not tied to a location, but schooling is. With this change, the perspective of millennial and Gen-Z generations has also changed. According to a survey by connections academy, 81% of millennial parents agree that online education can be more personalized and 62% of them would consider online school for their children. 

This indicates a drastic shift that is needed in the education system today.

We tested our MVP with 8 students and that number grew four fold to 21 paying students for the summer school that was launched on the 13th of July 2020. 

We are planning to start out pilot year this September with 50 students and add another 50 for the next module.

We are targeting to reach 5.5K students by 2025.

We started bina as a for profit company that provides the highest quality IB/ American standard education to a selective market. But now with the onset of the pandemic, it became that much clearer how many would benefit from a product like bina.

We are targeting to reach 5.5K students in the next 5 years with a future vision of extending a non-profit arm that would enable us to help thousands more.

Some of the biggest barriers that we face are legal ones. As an online education platform that offers global services, we are limited by the legal restrictions of several countries and mitigating cross country business operations. 

And as a product that delivers a completely new mode of elementary education, we are a hard sell. The mental barriers of people, be it in terms of children's screen exposure or the notion of lack of social interactions which are not and will never be an issue as a result of bina. But we are trying to make a systematic change, and this is going to take time, both from our side and from the parents' side.

Crisis in Latin translates to 'a turning point'. And we are facing the worst crisis in the last century so far. The pandemic had a ripple effect across every industry and the most obvious one was education. How the learning of students came to a stand still when the schools had to be shut down. After all these months, not just parents but policy makers are re-adjusting their perspectives on the future of education. A future of education that we at bina envision. 

The pandemic served to show case the limitations of the existing educational models and made people look for alternatives. We are in a perfect position to serve the ones that are looking for a new and improved model of learning. 

We are in the process of establishing a partnership with Tech Will Save Us.

bina is based on the Tesla business model.

bina is focused on modernizing education, not by scaffolding bits of new technology onto old pedagogy, but by completely re imagining what education can be in the digital age. We are building a fully digital primary education system- a modern solution for modern families. Our curriculum is designed to always incorporate the latest innovations in educational technologies. Our aim is nothing less than a complete paradigm shift in the way we conceptualize and execute primary education.

We are building a custom platform that will enable students to learn from anywhere in the world, while still enjoying the social benefits of sharing a digital classroom with their peers. Using synchronous video conferencing as a backbone for our classrooms, and highly-interactive lessons built with gamified educational software, we are building a unique and tech-savvy school suited for tomorrow’s children, today.

We are building a complete, comprehensive school priced mid-range at  €800 monthly tuition, with a classic eight-year customer life-cycle, targeting 5.5k students in 2025. We predict to reach €100Mn in revenue by 2026.

We are currently raising pre-seed investment capital of €600K-800K for a lean runway of 18 months. According to financial model, €5Mn in investments would be enough for bina to function until 2024 after which the revenue stream would be self sustaining.

We are bootstrapped so far and are in the process of raising pre-seed capital.

We are raising $680K-900K in convertible notes as part of the Pre-seed round. We are also actively applying for grant funding.

We have an estimated monthly expenses of $73600. This is including product developmental costs, human capital, operations(HR, Marketing, Sales) ans Customer acquisition capital. 

Cause if we improve early education in a meaningful manner, the global impact is going to be significant; especially to the lives of vulnerable population like women and children and in the long term, everybody.

We took up a mission to significantly improve, but change the traditional educational model. We are applying to The Elevate Prize to gain credibility and to validate our model. We are sincerely committed to research and development of early years education and partnering with educational giants like MIT would be extremely helpful to us. 

bina has been bootstrapped so far and we are raising pre-seed capital now. Education is a human intensive institution when it's not a market place and we built bina to be a complete school. So we are looking for investors who are equally passionate about education and are ready to work with us. 

Marketing and exposure would be greatly welcomed as it is imperative that we spread the word about an alternative schooling option that is up and running and can be accessed globally. Our current marketing model is majorly dependent on Word-of-mouth. Though it has proven effective so far, we need bigger means to reach our scaling goals and future product vision.

We seek to partner with universities conducting research on early life education or education in general and believe we are mutually beneficial to each other, from your insights and research and in turn be provided with an abundance of data on educational methods and child developmental psychology. We aim to reduce the gap between theoretical research and practice. As a completely new approach to education, we are keen to explore the methodologies and aim to continuously improve the student experience as we move forward.