Vriti Saraf
“I've always been very open to feedback because I know that in order to keep up with the world and to be the most successful human, in whatever sense you deem success, you have to constantly be evolving, you have to constantly be progressing. And the only way that you can evolve is if you take feedback and you apply it and you change the way that you think about things." —Vriti Saraf
Vriti Saraf (@VritiSaraf) is the founder and CEO of k20 Educators (@K20Educators). Vriti is an educator and edtech trailblazer who is working to dismantle global silos in education. She spent the last 12 years as a teacher and administrator, most recently building schools around the world and coaching school leaders. Vriti founded k20 Educators to connect educators from around the world in order to realize their collective brilliance. When educators collaborate, they’re able to transcend local obstacles to produce global solutions.
k20 aims to be a metaverse for educators - a virtual networking, learning, and career hub that will change the way the education industry operates.
Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Vriti Saraf (@VritiSaraf) and Founded By Women host, Margie Chuang (@margiechuang)!
Subscribe to the show & listen to Episode #009 on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can find the transcript for Episode #009 here (coming soon!). Transcripts for all episodes can be found here.
Show Notes
Vriti’s career path [1:50]
How educators collaborate and connect around the world [6:03]
Origin story of k20 educators - creating a global and scalable network for educators (part 1) [9:20]
How Vriti thinks about “the no” [10:04]
Evolving yourself from feedback & how to think about things differently [11:12]
Origin story of k20 (part 2) [14:40]
The City of Learning | Choose your own adventure | Gamified conferences [17:35]
Reimagining and creating virtual conference experiences [18:40]
Giving agency, energy, and fun back to conference attendees [19:55]
Blue Sky Ideas | “You have to think about the technology second and you have to think about the human experience first.” -Vriti Saraf [25:25]
The ideation & creation of The City of Learning and the Twitter Spaces Conference [27:17]
Benefits of the Twitter Spaces Ecosystem [29:08]
Biggest takeaways that educators and speakers took from the City of Learning [32:32]
The importance of creating and sharing a deck on lessons learned [35:03]
The power of community | Creating the k20 Eduverse [38:20]
Education in the age of innovation | #k20innovates | The first Twitter spaces conference [39:52]
Vriti on innovating and moving education forward [41:55]
Convincing people to attend your event and make it worth their time [45:18]
Building a community on Twitter spaces within the Twitter ecosystem [47:00]
Vriti on the most meaningful and fulfilling part of building things for the future [50:04]
Engaging with your community and adding value [56:50]
Vriti on building in public [57:53]
Medium fire questions [1:00:31]
Vriti on what other women have said or done to empower her [1:01:22]
Parting thoughts and encouraging words [1:01:46]
What was your favorite takeaway or quote from this episode? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!
Selected Links from the Episode
Connect with Vriti Saraf:
K20 Educators:
k20 Education & the FIRST conference on Twitter Spaces - all about Innovation in Education
#k20innovates on Twitter Spaces (launched September 6, 2021)
Subscribe to the show & listen to Episode #009 on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Notable Quotes—with Vriti Saraf
“You have to think about the technology second and you have to think about the human experience first. If you can think about the human experience and you can actually create a blue sky idea for what you want the human experience to be, then you will find the technology to support that because we are in the age of innovation.”
“If you want to find encouragement and courage to do something, find believers.”
“It was clear to me that it’s actually not about showing my best self, but it’s about showing all aspects of myself. ”
“It’s about how you actually engage educators and create value for them. If they don’t get value from the first minute that they’re on the platform, they’re never going to come back. And so we have to create value for them. And that’s really what we’re trying to do with our platform.”
“I’ve always been very open to feedback because I know that in order to keep up with the world and to be the most successful human, in whatever sense you deem success, you have to constantly be evolving, you have to constantly be progressing. And the only way that you can evolve is if you take feedback and you apply it and you change the way that you think about things.”
“If you can create a support system, then I think anything is possible. Doing things alone is totally fine too, but doing things within a community is oftentimes easier and more powerful.”