Wesley Smith (00:00.608)

Ruben, thanks for joining us today.

Ruben Harris (00:03.874)
Thank you for having me.

Wesley Smith (00:05.44)
Hey, for our presence forum audience, can you tell us a little bit about your background? It’s an interesting background, and then also introduce out rival to us.

Ruben Harris (00:14.03)
So I’ll with Outrival. So Outrival creates AI agents that we call digital workers for high volume organizations to create personalized interactions with their customers. So when you think about higher education, those use cases tend to be in enrollment management, bill pay debt collection, inbound student support, and then retention. And so we are currently doing over 3 million calls a month. And the way that we got into this.

Wesley Smith (00:40.712)
wow.

Ruben Harris (00:42.274)
This world is before this, we ran an organization called Career Karma. Career Karma built its own enrollment management team of about 300 people with me and my co-founder, Timormeister. we had about two million people a month coming to us trying to get enrolled into vocational schools. So we learned everything about not just enrollment management funnels and retention, but all of the things that you need to do to serve a student when it comes to psychology.

follow-up nudges, motivations, wraparound support and things like that. before that I worked at three different startups in education, healthcare and politics. The first one wasn’t education. It was called alt school focus on pre-cise education for K th grade students. The second one was called Honor, which was a marketplace for caregivers and their families in hospitals. And then the third one was actually in politics with with Hustle, which is another reason why I’m excited about President’s Forum at Hustle. We actually

worked on bi-directional communication for text message for through text message for political campaigns. so I really learned a lot about not just communication for politics, but how to raise money for big political parties. And before that I was an investment banker for three years. And then before that I’ve been playing the cello since I was four years old. I’ve done Carnegie Hall twice and that’s a little bit about my background.

Wesley Smith (02:04.779)
We got a little bit of everything. I like I didn’t know the cello. That that’s that’s really interesting. Twice at Carnegie Hall. That’s cool.

Ruben Harris (02:08.63)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Twice at Carnegie Hall, I was a my Montessori school kid. So I learned about music through Montessori School. and my teacher, Bonnie Bull, that I started with, top violin and cello. And so yeah, I work with her, President Wolfgang Laufer, and and many other great cellists in the world.

Wesley Smith (02:25.093)
wow.

Wesley Smith (02:31.797)
So I mean, w maybe some music at an upcoming presence forum meeting. We’ll bring the cello out. that sounds good. Well, hey, you’ve made a really interesting observation. You y you made the observation that what sounds strange today is just early. Tell tell me what you mean by that, and and I reserve the right to to follow that up with with another kind of leading question. Go ahead.

Ruben Harris (02:36.403)
Yeah. I think we should do that, yeah.

Ruben Harris (02:58.538)
Yeah. I mean a lot of things that look novel in the beginning is just normal. That’s actually I I took that language actually directly from President Miller Mill Iron, where we did an interview last week and he was just talking about like what’s novel is normal. He actually gave an example of of email being introduced into the school and how a lot of people were very in against actual computers and email in the classroom, very similar to the introduction of AI, but then

Now obviously AI and computers are very normal in classrooms. I’m a student of history. I read a lot of books, a lot of biographies, and I know that we’re going through a lot of changes with AI faster than we’ve ever seen. And that quote was just a reminder that this is the same thing that you guys have seen before. And I I showed that picture of people in a boardroom where we gotta not we gotta change and and stop hoping that our

our strategy of of hoping that a the internet’s gonna go away is gonna be is gonna work. You gotta kinda like sit there and and accept that the internet is here, AI is here, AI agents are here. So what are we gonna do with them to empower our employees better and also to empower our students better? And if we’re gonna help our future leaders of the world, they’re going to need to be using AI agents in the workplace. And so

Not everybody in the workplace is using AI agents yet, but from my perspective there will be more AI agents than humans on the planet and more AI agents in the workforce than humans on the planet and we have to figure out how to work together with them.

Wesley Smith (04:36.361)
Yeah, yeah, really interesting. Okay. So so my question is, so str it’s it’s the new normal, right? Like to see see things that are looking very novel, very strange. What what in higher education do you think looks kind of interesting now that in, you know, two years will be like super mainstream?

Ruben Harris (04:43.361)
Uh-huh, huh.

Uh-huh.

Ruben Harris (04:58.776)
So part of the reason why I’m very excited about the present form is you all are the you all serve the the largest number of students. And it’s it’s not a lot of people when they think about schools that have large numbers of students, they usually think for profits, but present form is obviously a lot of nonprofits. You have schools like Mommy Day that we work with and and many other schools like that. What what I think is is interesting about that is whenever I talk to a small school, I actually

Tell them they actually don’t need to work without Rival because they have enough humans to personally serve all of their students when they reach out to them or when they’re reaching out to the student, right? If you’re doing with the if you’re dealing with a large organization, even if you have ten thousand employees and you have a hundred thousand students or in some cases two hundred or three hundred thousand students, it’s impossible for a human to reach out to that many people, especially when you have to touch them at least.

five plus times because these are working adults. these aren’t just people that are going there for four years that there’s an online component. So these people are are are I’m gonna use another quote that that Mark Melion uses. He calls them anders. These are people that are parents and online students. These are people that are actually doing things and so they need some kind of personalized interaction. So what I think is going to be normalized is every student is going to be able to have

some type of a digital worker or an AI agent that not only guides them from inquiry or prospect into enrollment, but also stays with them throughout their entire school experience through graduation. But that digital worker is a collaboration partner or a co-intelligence with your human staff and they’ll always be able to route the student to the right human at the right time in your organization. And when they graduate from the school,

Wesley Smith (06:50.005)
Right.

Ruben Harris (06:55.756)
that student can still reach out to their AI agent that was with them from the beginning. And that AI agent can connect them with the right human at the right time at the school because humans sometimes leave organizations. Right. And so that’s gonna be normalized for sure.

Wesley Smith (07:12.543)
Yeah, that’s interesting. I I mean that’s the first time I’ve heard that articulated. I I I’ve heard a lot about AI agents and you know, we’re we’re gonna be using you know, to decrease friction in the enrollment process or others. But I like that concept of having your own personal, almost like liaison to the institution that can that can then route you to whether it’s, you know,

Ruben Harris (07:14.658)
Yeah. Yeah.

Wesley Smith (07:39.445)
financial aid help or or admissions help or academic help or alumni support or or whatever. That’s that’s a cool vision.

Ruben Harris (07:48.111)
Think I think on top of it too, if you think about the the increasing focus on what is the purpose of education, people are thinking about cost. Some people will say, it’s just to make a better student, a better person, community, find your wife, whatever, right? Some people will say going to school and paying all that money is to get a job that pays you more than what you had to pay in tuition, right? And so from an outcomes perspective, I think it’s currently very difficult to know.

where all of your alumni goes from a employment perspective in the future. But if they have a relationship with their digital worker or their AI agent, you can probably get more accurate and up-to-date employment information in the future from that digital worker. And if you think about the whole circle of life, after you get a skill and you get into a job, you at some point are probably going to need more education. So that digital worker can also route you to the right.

person or the right course that you might need in the future as well.

Wesley Smith (08:49.757)
Especially today. I mean, with with the the landscape in the work world changing so quickly, you’ll have to reskill, you’ll have to upskill, you’ll have to I mean, you just have to be resilient. You have to be able to, you know, change when things change. And things are changing so much faster. The cycle of change is coming so much faster that that makes a lot of sense that this this, you know, liaison could also help you upskill, reskill, you know, to whatever whatever the workforce dictates.

Ruben Harris (08:58.403)
Mm-hmm.

Ruben Harris (09:17.858)
Yeah. My my favorite book that ties to your liaison analogy is called Cointelligence by Ethan Mollock. He’s a professor at Wharton. It’s a very short book, but it just gives you the framework and the mindset for how to think about these digital workers. It’s almost like your staff got promoted. I mean several of the people in the president’s forum already have lots of humans. Sometimes a third or two thirds of their whole staff is dedicated to the phones. But if you think about

What are they doing on the phones? A lot of it is waiting for people to pick up the phone, right? So here’s another thing to think about that’s going to be normalized. Right now in the higher ed, there are certain schools that are best in class at speed to lead, right? They have the best humans that are can reach out immediately when somebody fills out a form. I actually think that that capability is going to be normalized and every school is going to be able to do that with AI agents and digital work.

So what’s gonna make you different? It’s gonna be that speed to meaningful conversation where the digital worker might be able to reach out to the to the lead immediately and then route it to the right human in a certain kind of way. Right. So everybody’s served in a different way. You got everybody’s providing education, very similar to a restaurant, right? If you you everybody has food, but what makes everything different is the service. And what that’s also gonna do is gonna increase the quality of life.

for the employee. Call centers in general at schools have high churn rates. We all know this, right? Because they’re smiling and dialing. And sometimes if you’re dealing with Bill Pay, people are hanging up the phone on you, right? But if I can only talk to people that want to talk to me and the digital worker can talk to the people that aren’t ready to talk to me, how do we think about lead scoring and high intent and low intent and medium intent?

Wesley Smith (10:52.831)
Right. Yeah.

Wesley Smith (10:59.209)
Yeah, yeah.

Ruben Harris (11:13.602)
The digital workers can help you identify who’s ready and who’s not. And then the humans can really love their job and actually retain better. You don’t have to deal with turnover and retraining so much.

Wesley Smith (11:22.847)
Yeah, that makes sense to me. That makes sense. So you know, we’re talking about a really exciting future and you’re working with a lot of higher ed institutions. And I’m curious for your insight on what what kind of distinguishes, in your opinion, some some leaders who are cutting edge and that are, you know, qu early adopters and seeing good results versus those who who aren’t so much. Is there anything within, you know, leadership that you see that you could say, I

Ruben Harris (11:32.044)
Yeah.

Wesley Smith (11:52.649)
I think I I think that I think that that person is doing something right.

Ruben Harris (11:57.635)
I really love that question. Cause at first I was thinking you were asking me what am I doing different? But I like that you’re asking what are leaders doing different. Okay. Number one, if a school knows their numbers code, that’s great. You’d be surprised how many schools do not know their numbers. Number two, do you have an outbound call motion, whether that’s in house or through a third party call center through

a BPO or some offshore capability. That’s number two. Number three, what are your strategic priorities that you’re trying to move right now? So the issue with a lot of AI agents in production is that it’s usually focused on time saving, productivity, making people more efficient. Those things are great. The problem with it is as a leader, you spend a lot of time

Wesley Smith (12:28.416)
Mm-hmm.

Ruben Harris (12:56.162)
Setting up a pilot, investing a lot of money. And then it takes you a long time to know whether it worked or not. What’s really cool about a use case, let’s just use enrollment as an example, or even bill pay debt collection as an example, is you can see whether that worked in a day or a week. Right? So, so and so very quick feedback. And so you want to have the dashboards.

Wesley Smith (13:17.417)
Yeah. It’s pr pretty quick feedback.

Ruben Harris (13:24.172)
And the metrics to be able to see not only how your metrics are moving, right? But you also want to be able to see all the other metrics, like what is the effect of your dial attempts? How how what what’s more effective from a time of day perspective? Are you doing A B tests with male or female voices? One of our schools that we work with, Penn Foster, they’re doing over 50 experiments to really see what serves the student in the best way.

So the long story short is we we suggest that you create a pilot. The best leaders create pilots, but we we time box it. So it’ll either be 30 or 90 days. So we call it an internship for digital worker. And and student and higher ed leaders are familiar with internships, right? What do you do with an intern? You give them a job, you give them a job description. Don’t create a one-size-fits-all agent. Give the agent a job description, focus on the metrics.

If the metrics moved, great. Bring on that digital worker as a full time member of your team and add it as a member of your of your staff. It could do the work of 10 people augmenting the work of 100. Awesome. If it doesn’t work, don’t hire the the digital worker full time, but make it very outcomes based. And ideally, and I know people don’t always like talking about money in higher ed, it’s something that should make you money. So the best leaders that I’ve seen, the pilot is structured in a way.

Wesley Smith (14:35.445)
Right.

Ruben Harris (14:52.77)
where it actually makes you more money than you paid and it’s short and it is set up in a use case where you can deploy it at scale where maybe in the pilot phase it might make you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And s in our case, we’ve seen some p pilots make millions of dollars in thirty to ninety days. I’m talking about four million plus. And then if you deploy it at scale, you could actually make tens and even eventually hundreds of millions of dollars that goes back into reinvesting

Wesley Smith (15:13.887)
Wow. Yeah.

Ruben Harris (15:22.7)
and serving students and empowering teachers.

Wesley Smith (15:24.917)
Yeah, I love I love that last portion that that it it it’s really about reinvesting the the capital into more useful in into more useful and probably human-centered activities, right? It goes back into personalized education and instruction. You can ha you can you can utilize your your personnel in more effective ways because you’re not utilizing you know, humans to do

wrote tasks or tasks that that that a computer can do for you.

Ruben Harris (15:58.151)
I’m going give another analogy for the AI agent that’s it’s kind of stealing a little thunder for the interview that I did with with Mark, but he said that higher ed has always used AI agents. And he gives an example of writing a book. he’s written a lot of books and articles. And as a grad student, he worked with an author, let’s call him Wesley, right? And the grad students put all the material together and then the book was published. And great. That was awesome. Guess what the grad students were?

Wesley Smith (16:27.659)
They were yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Ruben Harris (16:27.682)
They were the AI agents for Wesley, the author, right? So today now the grad students can have AI agents, the professors could have AI agents, and they could all work together. So use that analogy in your head, going back to like going being a student of history, it’s actually not novel. Like history, you know, and the future and the present, they all rhyme together. And then not there’s also the that’s nothing’s original. So what sounds strange is just early. You j and you just haven’t really picked up that it’s it’s familiar actually.

Wesley Smith (16:56.971)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, great conversation. I I wanna conclude with the last question, you know, you’re new member of the forum. We we’re we’re glad to have you. tell us a little bit about what you think we can accomplish together. What what can the forum and outrival do that will improve education?

Ruben Harris (17:16.738)
Well, thank you for for inviting us to be a member of the President of Forum. We are true believers that you move at the speed of your relationships. And you I’m not gonna say the cliche quote about going farther together, but you you know the importance of collaboration. but I I did say the quote pretty much. But the the reason why I’m excited about the president of forum is not just because of the collaboration and the action items that you take, but

that the group collectively is is speaking out to people to try to teach people to learn. You all are clearly focused on content like we are. Part of the reason why our Rival created the the new normal podcast is because a lot of people started asking us questions like what you’re asking me now. What are you seeing from other leaders and what are they doing? So we would do a lot of customer references, a lot of introductions, but a lot of those customers never really had the time. And so presence form is great because we’re creating content together.

We’re sharing stories. It’s not a a commercial sale. We’re not trying to do do vendor stuff. We’re trying to educate the community and serve people. and and then you all don’t don’t just do things virtually, you all do things in person as well. And so I am very excited to to collaborate in that regard and yeah, help other people follow the examples of the leaders here to hopefully

prepare the future of leaders of the world. And last thing that I’ll say, I take it very personally because I think that there’s a cost to not doing things. Right. Yes, our schools have been around for thousands of years and there’s over four thousand schools in in the co in in the w out here. And if they don’t do things, not only are students going to be at a disadvantage, I think that schools some schools will shut down. and I think that there’s a way to run schools sustainably, leverage technology and

Wesley Smith (18:52.394)
Right.

Ruben Harris (19:12.487)
I am going to do my best to make sure that nobody has to shut down.

Wesley Smith (19:17.225)
Hey, now you’re on now you’re on Presence Forum talking points where you’re talking about, hey, we need to use technology, leverage it, we need to decrease costs with it, make it more sustainable, make it a better return for all of our students, because at the end of the day, that’s what the Presidents Forum’s all about is is driving outcomes for students and with with the use of technology. We call it accountable innovation at the the presence forum. We you know.

Ruben Harris (19:20.918)
Mm.

Wesley Smith (19:41.917)
Innovation, you know, for innovation’s sake isn’t necessarily what we’re pursuing. We’re we want to see innovation that drives better student experience. It’s lower costs and better outcomes. So that’s what we’re working on together.

Ruben Harris (19:54.366)
That’s it. Let’s do it together. And thanks again for having me on the present forum and let me know how how else I can help.

Wesley Smith (20:02.186)
You got it. Thanks, Ruben. Thanks for joining.

Ruben Harris (20:04.313)
No.

Wes (0:22): Welcome to the President’s Forum Podcast. Today I’m joined in studio by Ashish Fernando. He’s the founder and CEO of Edmo, and the newest collaboration partner of the forum. Edmo is focused on higher education institutions, working with them to improve admissions, enrollment, and student experience through AI. So, Ashish, welcome to the podcast. More importantly, welcome to the forum.

Ashish Fernando (1:07): Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for the invite.

Wes (1:11): Not all of our listeners know about Edmo. So, like give us a 101. Start like very basic. You started Edmo, and you were looking at certain things that you wanted to change, things you wanted to improve. What are those things? How did this come about?

Ashish Fernando (1:31): Yeah, it’s a great question, and you know, I always want to start by saying I never intended to start an AI company. What I think the intention was, was to solve a human problem in higher ed. And that problem stems from my own background. So, I came to this country 12 years ago to get my MBA, right? And I applied to a lot of schools and and I saw a lot of friction in that process, especially as an international student, where you have all of the challenges of domestic admissions, plus visas and travel, and you’re leaving your family, and…

Wes (2:12): Yeah, that makes sense.

Ashish Fernando (2:13): How do you get a place to stay in a different land? So, there are so many things, and I went through that whole process myself, and I realized there was something that I needed to shift there from… And it didn’t seem like a challenge around, you know, people knowing what’s needed. Like, institutions knowing what’s needed. Institutions precisely know what an international student needs, but it’s a challenge of friction. There’s like, I mean, you most schools, 30,000, 40,000 students admitted, but only admitted. How many of them are applying? More than 100,000. How do you cater to each one, personalize the attention, and get them to do what they want? That’s where I thought, you know, technology could could drive that change. It could help operationally, making it more efficient, frictionless, and that’s kind of the journey from trying to help the student to figure out how to do things to like, oh my god, aha moment. If I’m on the institution side, I can do better. Yeah.

Wes (3:23): So so this like stems from your use case.

Ashish Fernando (3:28): Yeah.

Wes (3:29): You’re out there, you’re thinking this could be so much easier. Give us an example of the friction that you encountered. You’re you’re working on this and you’re like, this is wild. Why do I do this?

Ashish Fernando (3:40): Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I only half joke about it when I say my my Indian mother would, you know, if you asked her still, she would say, “No, he probably should have gone to Yale,” still, even after she sees my 10-year trajectory, right?

Wes (3:55): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (3:56): Because it’s very societal. Like, you want to go to a high-ranking institution. So, I’m like, fine. I’ll apply to a Yale, I applied to UBC in Canada, again, another prestigious institution in Canada, because I didn’t know if I’ll get a US visa.

Wes (4:08): Right.

Ashish Fernando (4:09): And then I applied to a few that I thought were right for me, right? And one of that was Bentley, which is where I went to school. But, you apply to all of them at the same time, but they respond to you at different times.

Wes (4:23): Right.

Ashish Fernando (4:24): Right? They ask different questions. There’s different documents. Yale had an MBA interview, but Bentley did not. Bentley instead had an interview with a committee that wanted to know what’s my extra extra-curricular.

Wes (4:37): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (4:38): So, in all of that is where I saw there’s there’s there’s a lot of like time gap, friction, lack of understanding as a student of what I need to do. Like, how can I get this across the finish line?

Wes (4:53): So, yeah, this makes sense that, okay, so you’re seeing all of the disparate requests, you’re you’re seeing how inefficient it can be. Did that impact your decision making? Like you’re thinking, I got to hear back from these institutions while I’m still working with this institution and when to I just remember, you know, you got to put a deposit down at some point. You don’t want to do that if you’re not sure you’re going to go to that institution. So, all of those things kind of wrap up into your thinking where, hey, this could be a lot easier.

Ashish Fernando (5:27): Yes, absolutely. You know, like for instance, the last admit I got was from from UBC, right?

Wes (5:35): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (5:36): It was too late for me. Even if I wanted to go there, I couldn’t because I put my deposit down for another institution. But beyond that, you know, it becomes a question of not just the friction, but also like, you and I talked about access.

Wes (5:51): Yeah. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (5:52): You know, I always try to think access is not just a a cost issue. Access is also an issue of does information reach me at the right time? Do I know that there’s an institution out there that’s fit for me?

Wes (6:06): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (6:07): Right? There might be like five schools that, you know, I have let’s say $15,000 in the bank, I could have five institutions. But I don’t know they exist.

Wes (6:16): Right.

Ashish Fernando (6:17): So, that’s that’s the problem I try to solve because I had that problem when I came here.

Wes (6:22): So, you’re on the front line of this right now. And and access is a big issue with the forum. Always looking to improve access. What are you seeing out there right now that you’re that you’re just saying, this this kind of friction or barrier should be unacceptable. We we need to change this in our system. What are you seeing now that that are the big issues?

Ashish Fernando (6:47): So, before we talk about big issues, I’ll tell you what I’m the one thing that I’m seeing that for me is my silver lining.

Wes (6:54): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (6:55): I think we’ve gone from especially domestically, right? If you ask an Indian family, they’re still going to say, “Yeah, my kid needs to go to Harvard,” right? But I think domestically we’ve shifted in terms of how we think of education and access to it. And you you see the, you know, the advent of the big onlines and they’re starting to do well and you actually, I mean, some of them are are our customers, and when I see that, okay, now I can actually, I’m a single mom, I don’t have enough money to go to even, you let’s say, the U, right? But but I can do this online while I’m doing my job. So, not just offset my cost of education, but also fend for my family, right, feed my child.

Wes (7:43): Which is a reality that most people deal with.

Ashish Fernando (7:45): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Wes (7:46): They they really have to deal with this.

Ashish Fernando (7:48): Most people, including me, we wake up late to say, “Oh my god, I should have done this,” and it’s like you’re five years late, right?

Wes (7:55): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (7:56): And so so I think, that’s my silver line. Like, I did I did my undergrad and my masters in biotech. And nowhere close to doing anything in biotech, right? Running tech because I realized where my my mojo is, and where I think I can contribute more to society. But now coming to where I see some of that that challenge, right? So, um yeah, this is the silver lining and and things are happening well. I feel uh I feel what students are lacking is not just, “Oh, okay, I I need this education,” but what they’re lacking is an entire end-to-end funnel to say, “Okay, what do you want to achieve in the end, and then play that back, reverse engineer it,” because so many times we’ll have students go through an entire education and be like, “Yeah, I had $15,000, now I went through my bachelor’s degree, but you know what, it’s not what I want.”

Wes (8:53): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (8:54): Yeah, so it’s education is not trying to solve access to learning. It’s actually trying to solve access to livelihood.

Wes (9:02): Agreed. Yeah, I mean, well, 90 plus percent of the reason people go to school is that the the outcome, right? Being able to provide for your family or being able to be actively engaged in the workforce. So, I’m hearing you say that needs to be the focus, work back from that, make decisions that are informed by where you want to be there.

Ashish Fernando (9:29): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Wes (9:31): I I couldn’t agree more. I we we had this conversation, you know, before we started rolling, but the conversation about brand in in higher ed and it seems to be, you know, alive and well, that brand bias is out there. You see rankings all the time, you see, but you also see the cost for the major, you know, major educational brands are significant. They’re they’re barriers for for a lot of people. And now we have all these alternatives and I still see people out there complaining after the fact that it costs so much to do X, Y, or Z. But as a consumer, like you have more options than just, you know, just the high brand, you know, the high dollar. It’s kind of an interesting like, we’re in an interesting spot now where we can make different decisions. Everybody has that information. We, it could be better, but people have that information. Does Edmo have any role in in that access? And how would you see what you’re trying to do as kind of leveling that playing field for institutions and for students?

Ashish Fernando (10:55): Yeah, it’s a great question. So, you know, when we started we were on the student side, right? We were like, okay, we’ll help one student at a time. That actually used to be my like common lingo. I would always say we’re going to do this one student at a time.

Wes (11:08): Right.

Ashish Fernando (11:09): And we’re going to say, okay, you’re one student. What do you need, okay, financially, like for your career, like where where your skill sets lie. You may want to be a pilot, but do you think you can garner the skills to be a pilot? Maybe you’d be more successful being somebody else. So, that’s where I started.

Wes (11:27): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (11:28): In the process, we actually put together a a gold standard data of every institution, not just in America, but Canada and Australia and across the world, all of the programs they have to offer, the courses within those programs, and what they all mean and what they all do, right? So, what we have is now this core database…

Wes (11:49): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (11:50): …of everything. So, what what that helps us do today, I’ll just fast forward, like we were helping students so we were gathering all this information, but today, I can sit on an institution side and let’s say, you know, I’m working with a university here, right? And there’s a student coming in saying, “I went to this school, I dropped out, and then I went there and I dropped out, and then I went worked here for a year and I dropped out. Can I do something? Like, can you help me?” Now my system has the ability to say, “Okay, I know exactly what you did at the school you went to and dropped out. So, I know partly what you did there. I know partly what you did at school B.” And I can put that all together, and instead of a human having to spend 5 days, which we don’t have the time for. I mean, some of our institutions recruit more than 150,000 students. How big can your team be to be like one… So, with a machine, I can now look at that student personally and say, “Yeah, based on what you’ve gone through, your successes, failures, certificates, competencies, and skills, here’s the right fit program for you at my institution, and here’s what you should do and here’s your trajectory.” And that’s where we’re really seeing the value of AI coming.

Wes (13:14): Yeah, everybody’s talking about AI, right? Everybody everybody’s like, “Oh, yeah, we use AI. We’re doing this, we’re doing that.” That seems like a really productive use of AI. You’re you’re getting compiling this information and using it to give really good direction to consumers.

Ashish Fernando (13:30): Yes.

Wes (13:31): Um, we we can get it right there. I’m interested in, are there places where you like ways that we talk about it right now where we get AI wrong? I’m just like looking for the, what’s how are we using it right, how are we using it wrong?

Ashish Fernando (13:44): For sure. You know, um and I talk to presidents and and teams, like C-levels, and we, I always like to have wear a consultative hat. I’m like, forget about what my product does, right?

Wes (13:57): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (13:58): Can we talk about where the friction is? And you know, you’ll constantly see, not just in higher ed, but everywhere, even us as consumers, we think of AI as one-off products that will solve a problem.

Wes (14:12): Right. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (14:14): Right? And where I like institutions to go is in the direction of AI is like cloud. You don’t say, “Oh, I need a chatbot and that’s AI.” Today, that’s how we talk, but AI is infrastructure. You know, it’s like cloud. There used to be a day when we’d be like, “Oh, we got to move to the cloud.” Today, it is the standard. Right. We don’t set a data center in at the institution. You go, if you build anything, you build it on the cloud.

Wes (14:38): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (14:39): That’s how AI is going to be 5 years from now. It’s the infrastructure. Anything you build for your institution, be it in admissions, instruction, career, you got to think of how do I build this in a way in which a machine can just eat up all this information and tell me, on a personalized basis for each student, what’s the right direction. Be it for a lea- for a prospective student of like, what’s the right direction for them to get admitted,

Wes (15:06): Right.

Ashish Fernando (15:07): for an admitted student, what’s the right path to graduate for successful outcomes,

Wes (15:11): Right.

Ashish Fernando (15:12): and then for a graduate, what’s the right path to a job and become a successful alumni alum who gives back, right? So, that whole thing today is very manual for us. But think of like retail or automobile and automotive sectors, they’re all automated. Like they can, so, that’s where I’m trying to make a difference is, uh and and I picked admissions specifically, and there’s a reason for that. Why am I not saying let’s automate everything, right? Because I still have to get an answer to one important question about AI, which is, in admissions, it’s mostly operational friction, right? The students at home, right, staff and then there’s a lot of like paperwork and blah, and you can fix that.

Wes (15:58): Yeah, that makes sense.

Ashish Fernando (15:59): But when it comes to post-admission, will AI hamper the human-to-human connection in any way, is a big question I always try to answer because if you put AI everywhere, what’s the meaning in that for us humans, you know? So, like, it’s really hard question to…

Wes (16:15): There’s a little more risk post-admission.

Ashish Fernando (16:17): There is a little more risk, yeah.

Wes (16:19): Pre-admission, those were designed to be automated. I mean, they’re ready. It’s fertile soil to say, okay, we don’t need to keep hiring to manage on these particular tasks. We just need to leverage technology in a way that allows us to do it better and faster.

Ashish Fernando (16:41): Better, faster, and all the people who are there, they can do a a much better job, other things, maybe post-admission, or maybe during admission, but manage the human-to-human connection.

Wes (16:53): This this is clearly like something we talk about all the time in AI now. And that is, and and you’re seeing new cycles of this. Um, people saying, well, the the job loss because of AI, the like, what’s what’s going to happen to all these people? But to your point, these people are going to be used in ways that are more helpful within the system. It doesn’t mean you have to you don’t have to cut jobs, you have to cut job duties.

Ashish Fernando (17:21): 100%.

Wes (17:22): So, you can still focus on, hey, engage with the students, work on mentoring, work on, um, on on the teaching side, the instructor side, but you just know exactly who and when you need to instruct or help them with these decisions as opposed to, you know, that’s where you get into personalized education. You get like, we know personally what this person needs.

Ashish Fernando (17:49): Yes. Yeah, in the end, it’s the value for the customer, right? Bank of America, for example, like look at banking as an analogy because they’ve automated a lot of stuff. We do all of our banking on our phones,

Wes (18:00): Right.

Ashish Fernando (18:01): including depositing checks, which is kind of crazy. But, they went from, they’re almost still the same head count, roughly.

Wes (18:08): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (18:09): But, they went from being everything brick and mortar. You went in and you did everything at the single window, uh you know, deposited money, talked to a teller. Today, it’s all online, but that doesn’t mean people have lost their jobs in banking, you know, and it’s the same, it’s just the nature of, in the end, you got to focus on the customer.

Wes (18:29): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (18:30): Does my banking customer wants stuff on their hands, like palm of their hand? Yes. With education, it’s the same.

Wes (18:36): From a communication standpoint, I always thought it was awkward and weird that AI leaders were always talking about a massive job loss coming. It just doesn’t make sense to me, especially in education.

Ashish Fernando (18:48): Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Wes (18:49): Like, especially where uniquely human touches are highly impactful. And it just it just means that, I mean, the the things that are are like, if you just shrink it to the most basic level, you know, the things that teachers do in the US with regard to an elementary school.

Ashish Fernando (19:10): Yeah.

Wes (19:11): It’s so most of it’s not teaching. Most of it is administrative. Most of it is, I mean, they’re doing so much work that is not what they could be doing and spending that time. And then, you know, that just scales on every different, you know, secondary and and then you get to, you know, post-secondary, you get to your higher ed stuff that we don’t, you don’t need people looking at gathering paperwork on admissions.

Ashish Fernando (19:39): No. Yes.

Wes (19:40): It’s not inherently the strength of the human.

Ashish Fernando (19:43): No, it’s not. Yeah, it’s like we don’t have to we don’t have to do that. We can we can figure out better ways, more effective ways to get all that information and then we can spend time on utilizing that information, what it means on how to impact the student.

Ashish Fernando (19:56): And how, absolutely. And here’s the irony of it, right? Our average institution, across the board, actually has a lot more students who are like roughly 8,000 to 10,000 students, and you look at the admissions office, five people.

Wes (20:13): Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ashish Fernando (20:14): Right? So, like, what how are they going to lose their jobs? There’s going to be enough for five people to do. The challenge they’re trying to solve is actually not how to safeguard five jobs, but it’s like, how do I serve 10,000 applicants and students with five people? Much…

Wes (20:29): In a in a in a much better way.

Ashish Fernando (20:31): In a much better way because we’re strapped for budgets, like higher ed budget cuts and whatever, like that have happened. Now, those five people with Edmo’s AI can actually do so much more for those 10,000. Like, that’s kind of how how I look at it.

Wes (20:44): Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense that I like your reasoning for the focus on admissions. Like, that’s that’s the most fertile area. It’s ready to it’s ready to, you know, be impacted by technology and be more efficient. Post-admission is a little bit more tricky.

Ashish Fernando (20:59): Got to think about it, yeah.

Wes (21:00): You got to figure that out. Um, okay, so, new partner with the President’s Forum, we’re glad to have you. Tell me what, um, what can we accomplish together? What are your hopes that that Edmo and the forum can work on together?

Ashish Fernando (21:16): Yeah, you know, I, um, people like us who when we’re trying to like bring some change where we say, you know, um, oh, I think here’s a human problem that I want to solve, usually most of us are reactive. Right. And so, so I have a lot of conversation where it’s react like, oh, other verticals are deploying AI and so let’s deploy AI. I think with the President’s Forum that shifts from being people who are reactive to what’s happening in the industry,

Wes (21:46): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (21:47): and and and making it, you know, kind of as a reaction to change versus being the change, right? These are individuals who will like sit there and be like, what do we need to do to bring that change? Therefore, what do we do for policy and and I think they’re just sitting at that table and being able to say, you guys understand the mission of the higher ed institution, the mission for the student. Uh, I think technology can be a huge driver, and so I want to just be able to say, here’s what I think tech can do, and then have that marriage of like, yeah, we know the mission, and plus here’s some tech and, yeah, that’s my goal.

Wes (22:31): I love that. The the idea of, these presidents have really great vision on what the future education system needs to look like.

Ashish Fernando (22:40): Yeah.

Wes (22:41): And what they don’t have all the time is, um, the EdTech to, now don’t get me wrong, I mean, huge portions of budgets are now EdTech.

Ashish Fernando (22:51): Going to tech, yeah.

Wes (22:52): But, I’ve been around long enough in higher education to understand that EdTech is the most complicated area of, you know, modern day higher education.

Ashish Fernando (23:02): For sure.

Wes (23:03): And there’s a lot of risk in in moving in specific ideas and projects. Having partners that are already moving in that direction, in in that space, and can share kind of the visioning that the presidents have as a starting point, and then, and then be the builders,

Ashish Fernando (23:25): Mhm.

Wes (23:26): to me, that’s like an ideal marriage of collaboration partners and presidents saying, okay, we’re going to work on this together.

Ashish Fernando (23:31): Yeah, well said. It’s, yeah, you, it’s thinkers, movers, and builders. And yeah, like, being on the build side, yeah, that’s that’s that’s our bread and butter. You know, it’s…

Wes (23:44): Yeah, and that’s and that’s really what what these presidents and these institutions need now is partners that are saying, let us take this incredible technology, let us apply it in ways and then perfect it with you. Like, let’s partner on these things and move it together.

Ashish Fernando (24:02): Yes. Your best business analyst is your customer. That’s, you know, and so every time we build we’re like, you know, our teams will sit and be like, oh my god, Ashish, look at this proof of concept, looks great. Well, did you talk to a customer? If not, then I’m not even looking at it, right? So, just being here to just kind of understand all of that and just say, let’s build in the direction that we as a combined unit think is is the right direction. I think we’ll move, not just us fast, but also all of these institutions, presidents. Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty excited for it.

Wes (24:37): Agreed.  I think that’s one of the strengths that the forum has is our partners are experts in different areas, especially in the tech world.

Ashish Fernando (25:09): Mhm, yeah.

Wes (25:10): And being able to have that expertise on hand to give counsel, advice, thinking, best thinking, to presidents is really valuable for us. So, we’re looking forward to doing that.

Ashish Fernando (25:21): Absolutely. Same here. Thank you for having me.

Wes (25:23): Thanks thanks for joining us.