Augmented Mom is a venture dedicated to hacking education in the new world.
Do you know what virtual reality (VR) is?
If you’ve been to a technology conference or exhibition recently, or if you’ve got a teenager who likes gadgets, I’m sure you’ve heard of this:
Stick your phone into a folded piece of cardboard, and use a VR app to step inside a completely virtual world. You can play a game, where you move around in a castle, check out a hotel room before making a reservation, learn about the solar system as you move between the planets in a spaceship or a simple simulation of a roller coaster.
But, if you put your hand in front of your face, you won’t see it! it's not part of the virtual world.
Augmented reality (AR) is the next generation of this technology. When you put on AR glasses, you will see the world as it is (yes, even your hand if you put it in front of your face), and on top of our reality will be a layer with virtual elements that will naturally and interactively blend into the environment. The most obvious use would be a navigation system, which marks the route on the street we see in front of us now.
This technology was my inspiration for this venture, because it provides an outstanding illustration of the issues my blog covers.
Therefore, an Augmented Mom is a mom (or parent) who wants to explain the world as it is to her kids, but to add layers of information.
Our parents needed to mediate the real world to us, “It’s hot!” Or, “That's dangerous!” However, parents in today's new world need to mediate additional layers of information.
Beyond education in a digital world, we need to prepare them for a world that's a big in social and occupational question mark for us as well.
So the Augmented Mom venture will be dedicated to the issues we encounter as part of being parents in the new world.
I will deal with the issue that bothers my children and me the most now: Why is school boring? Why is it so irrelevant? and what can we do about it?
I will also deal with challenges that we face in this era – screens, social networks and more. Things that our parents never had to deal with. True, they had to grapple with other issues presented by the generation gap, but somehow, they had to deal with us and didn’t find themselves steering the same course.
The blog will examine the challenges that arise out of our desire fulfill ourselves in the new world. We are also coping with the new world. We want self-actualization and meaning, are exposed to new fields and want experience them. So? If we're parents, can we no longer be part of the new world? We evidently can. The combination brings challenges. It exacts a price, but it also offers many advantages.
Finally, it will look at our challenge as parents, namely to prepare our children for an evolving and unknown world. The challenge of imparting skills and values for an occupational and social reality of which we, ourselves, are not at all certain. The challenge of preparing children for a world in which many professions are disappearing due to bots and autonomous devices and the thoughts about what will lead them to be relevant in such a world. In addition to our personal concerns about helping our children cope in the new world, we are also burdened with the obligation of preparing the generation that will be forced to deal with the greatest challenges facing humanity.
If we used to rely on our school system to prepare children for life, or at least prepare them for the employment world, today that is far from being the case. The school system is no longer relevant in terms of its structure, content, assessment and many, many other parameters.
Dealing with the school system is frustrating. It is a heavy, outdated behemoth of a system, a dinosaur, and any attempt to take it on is overwhelming. But that doesn't mean we need to sit back and twiddle our thumbs. There is still a great deal we can do.
I, personally, don't believe in private solutions that create disparities in education – private vs. public – creating “education for the wealthy.” I believe that the solutions must be accessible to everybody, and believe in equal opportunity – regardless of gender, sector and geography.
Augmented Mom was born out of my sense of obligation to add additional layers of information to the existing reality for my children and myself. An attempt at sharing and finding partners to accompany me on my journey towards hacking augmented parenthood.
Who am I?
Hi! I’m Mali Marton.
TL; DR
An engineer at Israel Aerospace Industries, Developing and leading cross-organizational innovation processes. Established the Education Division of SpaceIL.
Serve as a mentor to teens on technology projects such as FIRST and Women Engineers of the Future project.
Lecturer on space, innovation, education and mentoring of teens.http://www.spaceil.com/he/
And now in more detail
I have never taken the standard track.
Although I started out “okay,” like in the books. School, military service, bachelor’s degree, work.
I started working in high-tech during the heyday of the bubble, and after a few years, the start-up I worked at was sold and closed not much later. Instead of updating my resume and moving on to the next thing, I decided to take a break.
At the age of 30, I traveled through South America, by myself, for two-and-a-half months. When I got back, I just couldn't see myself sitting in a cubicle again, so I started studying to be a pastry chef. Eight months working in a kitchen, from early in the morning until the evening, as hardcore as it gets. I got married. I did my internship at a châteaux in France with three Michelin stars, and my time there alone is worthy of a book. I came home, opened a business, it actually did pretty well. I sold my sweets in specialty shops, stores and cafes in Tel-Aviv. I catered small events.
And then…
Congratulations! You're pregnant! With twins!
OK… So it started getting tough for the three of us to knead dough, and slowly but surely, I stopped taking new orders.
To make sure that we were having a really good time, I was hospitalized in in the high-risk pregnancy department in my 25th week until I gave birth. This, too, is a period you could write a book about.
And then, they arrived. Hereinafter, Thing 1 and Things 2*
If there's something that can really drain the energy out of someone like me its preterm twins. For six months, I didn't know if I was coming or going.
But then it got easier, and suddenly I wanted to do more than mash up fruit and vegetables and sing songs. I started directing my energies in odd directions, like growing vegetables, making jam, selling some cakes, but I couldn't really start a business. When Thing 1 and Thing 2 turned two, and I already had an inventory of jam that would last us a lifetime, I decided to go back to working in high tech.
And here I am, 12 years later, working at Israel Aerospace Industries. During this time, I managed to start the Education Division at SpaceIL to be a mentor to teens on technology projects such as FIRST and Women Engineers of the Future and to do lots of other very cool things that made me realize that I’m capable of making things happen and a change generator.
So what do I want to happen?
It’s clear to me that the change I want to make in this world relates to education. The lectures I gave at schools around the country, my mentoring of teens and particularly girls, made me realize that I want to inspire the next generation to pursue a STEM focused education and inspire young girls to shatter the glass ceiling and empower them to do so
The challenge of parenting Thing 1 and Thing 2, and the desire to prepare them for an unknown world, the experiences, insights and discoveries along the way, turned me into an Augmented Mom, who adds layers of information to the existing reality for myself and for my children.
So I invite you to join me on a journey to hack the augmented parenting of parents who themselves are people in the new world, parents who are evolving along with the changing world and want to understand how to prepare children to face an unknown world.
Click here for a more formal and detailed resume.
*My teens would like to say that they approve of the nickname, and we chose it together to protect their privacy on mom’s blog.