Founder: Lisa Wang, CEO & Founder
Venture name: Almost Fun
Link to official website: https://www.almostfun.org/
Description of the venture: Almost Fun is an education tech non-profit dedicated to providing culturally relevant and accessible educational resources to low-income students and students of color. The venture initially started with SAT prep because the founder believed that SAT is especially anxiety-inducing for many low-income students. The venture found that using familiar context and analogies to help students build core skills improved student scores and self-confidence significantly. As a result of the findings, the venture is now building a full, supplementary library of Math Lessons that use culturally responsive, non-Math analogies to help students build a true conceptual understanding of math and unlock their potential as Math learners.
Founder’s Biography: Lisa Wang founded Almost Fun to ensure low-income students and BIPOC students have educational resources that empower their learning. Her passion for educational equity is inspired in part by students she has worked with and in part by her parents, who grew up in rural China with scarce access to quality educational resources. Prior to leading Almost Fun, she was a product manager at Google, leading development of features on Google Classroom and Google Maps. She received her B.A. in Math and Computer Science from Harvard College.
Why the story resonates with me? I chose Lisa Wang because I have so much respect for when entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship help disadvantaged persons in society break away from their unprivileged positions and use their journey’s learnings to create positive social impact. Lisa Wang, coming from a family who grew up in rural China, shows that disadvantaged persons can enter entrepreneurial activities, be successful, and dedicate part and/or all of their career to helping others, and it’s totally worth it.
HOW ALMOST FUN STARTED:
What an interesting venture- I am so grateful that Canada isn’t as stuck to SAT prep as the states, but we nevertheless still could work on the relevancy of the subjects taught to students. Students who don’t have a great support network at home need to understand the “why” of a subject, as in “Why am I learning this?” and “What is this to me?” in order to be motivated to pay attention and succeed. I’ve always found math fascinating, but I think so many more might be interested if they could see the purpose of what they were doing, which makes this venture even more relevant- it doesn’t just tackle cultural relevance in social studies, but will be looking into math as well. This brings back the old argument against IQ tests, where often the questions are culturally based and the knowledge needed to respond has more to do with economic background than intelligence. I also love the name… it starts you off on the right mindset.
I completely agree with your point that there’s something admirable and worthy of our respect when entrepreneurs focus on the concept of social responsibility. It’s easy to be completely absorbed into the mindset of “my venture’s goal is to make profit and how can we monetize further?” (not saying profit isn’t important, perhaps a balance between different values is the healthier approach). At the end of day, this venture reminds us of how education is supposed to benefit others and enabling low income families the equal opportunity to find success through education
Any founder that has an equity focus in their venture makes my heart sing, especially when it comes to to education, and is therefore an excellent role model. The idea behind making learning meaningful and fun should be a focus for educators, especially for SATs since it is (unfortunately) such an important marker for students in the USA. However, the most important element of this venture is the access to low-income students and to the BIPOC community – thanks for sharing.
This particular venture hits home personally for me. Having been through the arduous process of MCAT test prep and knowing the cost of taking one of those in-person courses, I am can appreciate how this non-profit business tries to level the playing field for low-income students and the BIPOC community who may not have access to the privatized courses, as it can get costly. Moreso, Lisa’s story of growing up in rural China and making it to be a graduate from Harvard then an entrepreneur is a true story of success, especially when it stems from her passion of educational equity.