On December 5th, 2022, The Knowledge Society hosted a web event called GenZ Takes Web Summit! How a Group of High School Students Spoke on the World’s Biggest Tech Stage.
Five TKS students share their experience speaking at Web Summit, an annual technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, which took place on November 1-4, 2022. The conference focuses on internet technology, emerging technologies and venture capitalism, with over 71,000+ attendees, 160+ countries, and 1000+ investors.
Here are some quick notes from the webinar:
The Knowledge Society (TKS) was founded by two brothers, Navid and Nadeem Nathoo. While living in Silicon Valley, the brothers thought if they had 10 billion dollars, how would they solve three of the world’s biggest problems: affordable housing, food production and access to diagnostics and drugs? But if they dedicated their lives to solving these problems, what about the rest of the world’s problems?
Instead, what if they built an institution that trained young kids to solve the world’s biggest problems? Children start training at a young age for the Olympics. How about creating a human accelerator educational program, like Olympic training for nerds to become innovative CEOs, innovators, researchers, and thought leaders? You didn’t need to wait to finish your master’s or Ph.D. to start working on complex problems. If you were ambitious, you could start working on these problems when you were young.
TKS doesn’t consider your grades, age, or school to be accepted. You don’t need a tech background or previous experience before joining TKS. 95% of people joining TKS don’t know how to code, but by the end of the year, they could build a machine learning algorithm. All you needed was passion and a desire to translate that into reality.
There are three types of people that are accepted:
- Anyone interested in emerging technologies and sciences like AI, quantum, nanotech, stem cells, gene editing, and human longevity.
- Anyone interested in making a significant impact by solving big problems, creating an exciting future and reducing human suffering.
- Anyone that doesn’t vibe in their school community or learning environment may find their tribe at TKS.
Why do TKS?
- TKS provides structured exposure to next-generation topics that high school students would typically never be exposed to, like AI, quantum and blockchains, that will change the world in the next 5-10 years. Exposure to these topics allows students to find their passion and ignite a spark. Achieving unconventional success requires an unconventional path. You can’t expect to do the same thing as everyone else and expect to achieve another result. The conventional best-case scenario in school would be to get 100%, participate in maximum extracurriculars, and earn a full-ride scholarship to the university of your choice. Following an unconventional TKS path, a best-case scenario would be to create a new technology and start a company.
- TKS provides access to top-tier mentors. To change the world, you need to learn from the best. At TKS, you can meet like-minded people interested in geeky and nerdy things that are cool now. TKS is for those kids with weird interests who are hungry for information. There is an expression that you are the average of the five closest people around you. At TKS, you can meet other kids who share your interests and become the version of yourself you want to become.
- TKS dramatically raises your expectations about what you can achieve. If you see yourself as an innovative CEO, innovator or inventor in the next 10-20 years, earlier exposure gives you a head start so that you can make a big impact.