Edsoma<\/a>, an AI-powered reading, education and communication platform for children. The NBA star was joined onstage with Edsoma CEO Kyle Wallgren, who says the startup\u2019s goal is to teach a million kids to read.<\/p>\nO\u2019Neal touched on how developed his investing strategy after hearing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos say that if you invest in things, you are going to change people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to a conference in \u201897 or \u201898 and I heard a beautiful bald-headed man by the name of Jeff Bezos say if you invest in things, it\u2019s going to change people\u2019s lives,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cSo when Kyle came into the office and he started talking about children, about education and his love for children I knew it was going to be a great fit. And when I heard Jeff Bezos say that I started investing in things that\u2019s gonna change people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The app helps children learn correct pronunciation as they read aloud, and it also lets parents read with their children from any location, which is helpful for parents who live separately or travel for work. O\u2019Neal and Wallgren shared that during Edsoma\u2019s first month of launching, the company boarded 300 students. The company has now onboarded 9,000 students, and eventually wants to change a million lives.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neal believes that although he doesn\u2019t have a specific formula when it comes to the VC world, he believes that having a sense of humor and being nice has given him a lot of opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe<\/span> being<\/span> nice,<\/span> has<\/span> gotten<\/span> me<\/span> a<\/span> lot<\/span> of<\/span> opportunity,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cI wish it was a formula to how I get all my deal flows, but it\u2019s just me being me and me having a sense of humor being nice and I\u2019ve been very, very lucky. When [Wallgren] was building Edsoma, he told me that he thought of me because he knows the relationship that I have with children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nO\u2019Neal, who earned his MBA in 2005, says he believes that education is important to him largely because his parents pushed him into education. Reflecting on his journey on getting his Master\u2019s degree, he says he did it for the children who look up to him to help them understand the importance of education.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did it for my children, and I did it for the children that follow me just wanted them to know that education is very, very important,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m rich and famous and got a lot of followers but I wanted to show him that there\u2019s more to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He believes that literacy can drive positive change, not only for children, but also for people who are incarcerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s actually a study that shows that if you can teach somebody that\u2019s in prison how to read and increase to grade levels, they go from an 87% chance of reoccurring down to an 18% chance,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cSo literacy can drive you know, economies that can change everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaquille O\u2019Neal, 15-time NBA All-Star, four-time NBA champion and three-time NBA Finals MVP, took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about his passion for investing in edtech and backing projects that aim to change people\u2019s lives. O\u2019Neal is the lead investor in Edsoma, an AI-powered reading, education and communication platform for children. The NBA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}