Episode 127: Teaching Life Skills with Nitin Gour of Bloomster
Nitin Gour is the founder and CEO of Bloomster. Bloomster is a dynamic platform that empowers students by teaching over 25 essential life skills. Nitin started Bloomster after spending two decades in the corporate world, working first in tech and then finance. Nitin came to recognize that academic success alone isn’t enough to prepare young individuals for real-life challenges. This realization inspired him to establish Bloomster, a mission-driven platform dedicated to closing the gap in traditional education
Nitin and I discuss his journey towards creating Bloomster and what he has in store for its future. He also gives his opinion on integrating AI into education.
Topics Discussed:
How Bloomster aligns with CASEL
How his finance career transformed him
Why Bloomster uses animation
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
Nitin Gour is the founder and CEO of Bloomster. Bloomster is a dynamic platform that empowers students by teaching over 25 essential life skills with nearly two decades of experience in the corporate world spanning technology and finance. Nitin came to recognize that academic success alone isn't enough to prepare students for real life challenges. He saw a pressing need for an education model that fosters self awareness, confidence and well rounded growth, and this realization inspired him to leave the corporate sector in 2022 to establish Bloomster, a mission driven platform dedicated to closing the gap in traditional education by equipping students with the skills they need to succeed in school and beyond. Welcome. So nice to have you on the podcast.
Nitin Gour
Hi Lily, thanks for having me on the show. Really excited to be here, absolutely.
Lily Jones
Well, I would love to have you, in whatever direction feels good to you, tell us about your professional journey.
Nitin Gour
Sure. So hi, I'm Nitin Gour. I'm the founder and CEO of Bloomster. My journey has been far from linear, but all those twists and turns has shaped me who I am and brought me to where I am today. I wish I could tell you that it happened overnight for me, or the stroke of genius. I just woke up with an idea and started doing what I'm doing right now. Didn't happen to me like that. It almost took me a decade to get to this position, and I would say that is, in a way, good, because that gave me time to deeply think about it, and to a point where it became a calling for me, my passion for the remainder of my life. That's how I look at it. So I started my career in technology after earning my degree in computer science, and after working in tech for almost six years, I went from programmer analyst to project manager, like a typical career trajectory on tech. In the tech space, I pivoted to finance, where I worked for almost 18 years at City group. I began as an analyst and rose up through the ranks and left city while I was serving as a director in its capital markets division, working in both in tech and finance, gave me the exposure, exposure to work in fast paced environment, specifically at City, with a global institution making high stakes decisions. So that was a great exposure.
Nitin Gour
You can look at my finance career, because that's where this transformation happened, which got me to where I am today, and I'll come to that. So in the two halves of my finance career, the first half, obviously, like finance, was new to me. We're coming from the tech background. I had to roll up my sleeves learn everything new. So I've read a lot and just focus on my own learning and but despite the prestige and success and rising up through the ranks and working and being at the top financial institutions in the world, I felt a persistent void, a feeling that perhaps there's something more, something beyond the corporate hustle. So I embarked on my personal journey of discovery, and what I found led me to create Bloomster, a platform designed to help children or equip them with essential life skills they need to thrive. Because for me, I strongly believe, in my opinion, that success isn't just about career milestones or material achievements. It's about how we navigate through life and how fulfilling that journey is. So that's what led me to create Bloomster. I'm looking forward to, like, any further questions, dive into my journey and all anything specific that you want. But overall, like, you know, with that in that discovery phase, led me to create everything.
Lily Jones
That's fantastic. I love that. And absolutely. I mean, I think as I started my career as a kindergarten and first grade teacher, and, you know, there's all these sorts of things we're supposed to teach kids, right? And some of it is very relevant to their lives when they grow up, and some of it is not so relevant. And so I appreciate your focus on not only career readiness, but more than that. It's more than careers. You know, education is life and life is education. And so really being able to have both sides there and really think about what really matters and reflect on your journey, I think, is so powerful. So can you tell us about Bloomster And also, like I know you went through this journey as a grown up, right? And thinking about, why did you decide to focus on kids and also what? What is Bloomster? What have you developed?
Nitin Gour
Okay, so start by like, you know, this discovery phase, specifically the second half. Like, you know, what drove me, or what research and analysis thinking that I did at this phase? So there were, like, you know, I mean, I focus ahead on my own learning. So I did my MBA from NYU, my CFA, because I was in finance, did some bunch of other courses. So I was like, you know, in that learning phase on my own, and I was very keenly observing of how things are shaping of my professional world. There were two key, key things that emerged for me. The. First one, which I'll focus more, because that's your focus, the education piece. And the second one is technology piece, which I'll cover briefly as well. But on the education side, as I said, I was like keenly observing my colleagues, their kids, and my classmates, like what's happening in this education space. So when I was looking at my kids and their my colleagues and their kids, my friends, their kids, specifically in the education and how it was contributing to their growth and development, I found that there was a huge gap between the academic world and the professional world. My professional career gave me the exposure to work in a global institution. Also gave me exposure of different industries. As I said, I started in tech. Being in finance, the kind of transactions that I was working on gave me exposure to talk to coordinate with firms in tax, tax, top tax, from top accounting firms, top law firms. So with that, I could see that these, everyone, all, everyone was like top professionals, top of their game. They came from top universities and all. So from academics perspective, they had it covered, even at Citi, like, you know, bankers and all, like, they come from Wharton, Howard Sanford, you name it. But I could see that there's a whole different side of things. Because my job was not just about, like, you know, just those exclusions transaction, but it more so about building those relationship generating revenue, meaning, like, you know, getting to create those transactions. So there's a whole social and emotional aspect to it. I mean, yes, when you're a junior, you're mostly like, you know, working, but as you rise through the ranks, other skills become way more important. And I could see that even I was not prepared for it. I would come out of meetings when I'm leading some teams, and I would think, Okay, why did I behave that way? Like should have done this or that? I mean, generally you would say, you may agree, at least that's true for me. I started working on these skills when I in my early 30s, like, 20s went by, just trying to figure out, like, where I am professionally, and trying to rise through those, you know, corporate ladder. But early 30s is when I was like, you know, doing my MBA also, and trying to figure out stuff. I would go to Barnes and Nobles, like, read some, like, self improvement books. But that's I feel like it's already too late, and there's a lot of like, unlearning that has to happen because you've got some stuff in your mind, and then, like, you need learn the right way. I strongly felt that we need to work on our kids early on. And I chose to answer your question, like, which age, early adolescent years, biologically, also, like, you know, because, like, this is the period when kids are coming out of their parent centered world to social centered world. So they are very vulnerable the prefrontal cortex, where the executive decisions, like impulse control, decision making. It starts to develop around 10-11, years of age. So all of that was like pushing me, okay, you know, this is the right age where we need to focus on and because these are soft skills, it's not like, you know, you wouldn't be master of like, let's say self awareness or self confidence skill within a few months. It's a work that you have to put in over a year. My hope is, if let's say our kids start early on, and I'd say middle school, let's say because that's the age group, 10 to 14/6, seventh and eighth grade and ninth and 10th, 11th, 12th. So so middle school and high school, so all these years, if they if we can plant those seeds of awareness of these skills in that age group, I think the odds of success are way higher than somebody like, not focusing on this. So that became like, you know, one of the key things when I started like, figuring out, okay, what are those skills that are important for the professional world even now? And I was like, then, connecting, I'll get to that tech piece. Uh, quickly. Like, how is the future shaping up? And I could clearly see in that world, which will be dominated by AI and algorithms all that, and I'll elaborate on that, but very quickly. So that world would need these skills. So I came up with a list of 25 plus skills. Then I like thought about how to organize them, because as humans, we like like frameworks, because it's easier to think about something. If I just throw these 25 skills, you'll be like, you know, overwhelmed, but if I put them into some categories. So I came up with five dimensions, or what I call them for boomster. It's social, emotional, intellectual, mindfulness and physical. And I organize these 25 plus skills into these five dimensions, and that became the holistic growth model for Bloomster. So that's what Bloomster is to help children develop these skills that traditional education often overlook, things like self awareness, emotional regulation, critical thinking, problem solving, effective communication, so and on and on, mindfulness, financial literacy and many more so that, and we do this with an engaging and interactive content, and we make the learning more practical, relatable and fun. So whether a child is struggling with focus or confidence or emotional management looms provides all the. Right tools to help them navigate challenges with confidence. So that's the crux of it, because at the end of the day, it's not about passing grades, it's about how to handle setbacks, how to communicate effectively, how to manage your emotions and make thoughtful decisions and blooms to bridges that gap, providing our children with a foundation, a well rounded foundation for a lifelong success. So that's, yeah, yeah.
Lily Jones
That's fantastic. And I love the focus on social, emotional learning, on financial literacy, all of these things that are so key as we know, as grown ups. And I'm curious. I mean, I, you know, I'm a curriculum writer now, and have a curriculum development company where we focus a lot on social and emotional learning, too, and in recent times, that's been a little weaponized. You know, people are pushing back on social and emotional learning, and I'm wondering if you have a response to that.
Nitin Gour
Yeah, so my content is primarily because I've also debated, like, you know, which way should I go, so when we were developing our courses. So let's get deeper into to talk about skills. How should we deliver, deliver this content, create the content and deliver the content. So on the one hand, it's about, like, you know, writing an article or something on any skill, let's say, self confidence. And on the other side, I mean, kids at this age would check out, like, after like, first few lines, if you like, present the content that way. And on the other side, if you put them on a video game, they can play that for hours. You've seen that right now, you'd have to pull away them away from that game. So I knew it has to be as engaging in video game, but not exactly that is on the skill. So after discussing a lot with researcher researching with PhDs and all some teachers, I concluded that I think story could be that mechanism where we can in that story, sort of weave in that skill, where those characters, I think a perfect way to think about is, and that's where we started. Think of a comic book. In a comic book, you can paint a real life situation that those characters can go through and are dealing with, the self confidence issues. Let's say they have some exam or presentation or something debate, where they are nervous and all that, and how they how we can provide them those tools to deal with those feelings, those emotions and all. So that became our model. And I started adapting with around 14 courses initially, and then got some feedback on that. And feedback was mixed. Majority, sorry, there was a good portion which said, like, it was a lot of reading involved in my kids, not like, as engaged as like you know he or she should be. So we quickly migrated to animation format, and that's how most of our courses are right now. And in terms of engagement, and to get back to your social emotional learning, I completely agree with you that these days, and what we do specifically in that area is there's a very fine line where, you know, it's a human tendency to cross that line, and the line that I'm referring to is like the psychological evaluation, I think, I ensure, and we've reviewed our courses, so We don't want to sort of go in that direction, because it's very easy for a non professional to start, like, giving labels or advice in a way. So let's say there's a questionnaire, personality type questionnaire. I even had it at one point, and I had to, like, take it down, because, okay, that's when I don't want to go because kids at this age are very vulnerable. That's a key thing here. Any negative thought, they can hold on to that, and we make sure that okay, you know what? We're not going to like, you know, go. We can introduce them to these tools and all, but not question or get them to a place where they put a label, or not good enough, or there's something wrong with me and all things like that, because in my experience, meaning, like, you know, talking to people, it's very easy to go past that line. So I think we make sure that we don't and content, and most of our courses are developed by PhDs, or at least reviewed by PhDs, who are experts. They have been in the industry for 25 plus years. Some have like, you know, even current practices of helping kids, like therapies and all. So when they look at the content, I think I'm pretty confident that we add a lot of value whoever wants to learn these skills in our platform.
Lily Jones
Wonderful. And so thinking about it, it's amazing what you built at Bloomster, and I'd love to hear your plans for the future. Where do you see Bloomster in five years?
Nitin Gour
Great question. So I wanted to start directly reaching out to parents, because I feel like parents are the ones who should be making the decision to help their kids in any direction. So they're the ones who are spending. Lot of time with their kids, and they know my child is struggling with relationship building, like he's not able to make friends or confidence later or not able to focus. So I wanted to reach out to them, but in last year or so, I've been talking a lot of teachers as well, and it was a consistent feedback or overwhelming feedback that I received that lot of schools want to implement social and emotional learning, and many states also give grants for implementing that. But what happened, and there was a big push in COVID also, which actually, like, at least, I would say, in a good way, pivoted us to that direction. But I mean, after we came out, I think 2022 I mean, that thing is, like, you know, going down. 10s are again, pushing back on academics, because they are saying, okay, yeah. I mean, two years were lost because of that. I can understand the perspective. But again, like, you know, if you look at it long term, I think with leaders like you and maybe platforms like ours, I think we need to, like, show them the other side. Yes, academics, by any means, I'm not saying they are essential. They're critical for the future, like math and science. Yes, absolutely. We need to focus, but we need to complement or supplement that with this holistic model that I'm talking about these skills, they will be equally or even more important in the future. So, yeah, I mean, that's what I saw, that schools are like, you know, we're pushing, at one point for this. So there were a lot of hiring new roles created for creating content for so on social, emotional learning. But then obviously, like, you know, other priorities slowly takes, takes shape. And let's say there was a teacher who was pushing that direction, in that direction, but then that person was either let go, if there was a new role that was created, or that person got some busy with some other stuff, schools and teachers, you your paid plates always full. I know they survived so many teachers. So that thing is going down. And I think now I want to focus on schools, and this is the focus for this year. And my as you asked, like, in five years from now, I want group Bloomster to be the number one platform where schools can can trust on providing content on social emotional learning, because this can be just plug and play platform on day one, you can get started and not worry about any of the content creation of social emotional learning. You just have to select which plan. That's how I'm approaching it. I've created certain plans that are closely tied into the standards on social emotional learning. While then you may be aware of CASEL Collaborative for Academic social emotional learning. So we built so those are five. That framework is five, competency, self awareness, self management, responsible decision making, relationship skills and social awareness. We have one to one match like those skills, and we have built amazing courses on that, on those and I've added two more. I feel like, you know, because to be holistic, that's just social emotion. I think intellectual also should be included. So included critical thinking and problem solving. Created a CASEL Plus plan. Likewise, we have academic support plan and then empowerment growth plan. So we created certain plans, and you can create custom plans also. So I want to, like, go in that direction for schools, they just select one of these plans. Or build their own custom plans. Okay, we want to want these courses on our plan, because we want, we think that these skills are more important or equally important. So you do that, and then you can get started. So schools, there is a new direction, and I'm starting that this year, hopefully, like, you know, I want to do some pilots, and all the product is ready, I'm in discussions with schools, so to answer questions. So that's my goal for this year.
Lily Jones
I love that. That's awesome, and, yeah, I definitely could see schools using that. And I like the idea of a CASEL Plus too, because CASEL is great. But I like that you're connecting it to other topics and the intellectual part and the critical thinking part. I mean, I think that hearing you talk, it's like, it just affirms what I think you know many educators and parents and adults know, right, that all these things work together. It's not in isolation. And just like you said in your own career, it's like, what gets you success with academics is a lot of those life skills of like perseverance and reflection and integrating feedback, like all these things that, if you know, I think about myself taking really complex math courses in college or something you know, like, if I didn't have the perseverance, or this growth mindset around, hey, I'm going to learn by just struggling through, I would have given up. And so I think that it all fits together.
Nitin Gour
Absolutely. Thanks for acknowledging that.
Lily Jones
Yeah, absolutely. And so I know you mentioned AI, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how AI is going to change the education landscape, or is changing the education landscape?
Nitin Gour
Absolutely. And I'll connect this if you remember I'd mentioned like in the second thing was technology related. And and I'll also combine why SEL is important specifically around this AI thing. So if you look at it, let's call it like you know, prior to the turn of the century, 2000 prior to that and after that, the pace at which things are changing is was a concern of mine, and it grew more and more obviously we had first internet. Then Google came towards the end of that period, 1998 and all then social media came, then smartphone came. We were not as humans getting enough time to adapt to those changes, like when social media came, we're so mesmerized. Oh, they are great technology. Little did we know that they are making an anti social and unfriendly and many cases depressed. So that was, like, you know, a big concern of mine. And then came this AI. We get to this point. This is a paradigm shift, in my opinion. I think the future with AI is incredible, but we need to learn to how to use it for our own benefit. We know what it's capable of today. We used to hang a hat on or think like, oh, machines cannot be as creative as humans. You know, chat typically is doing. It can draw like a professional artist. It can create content like an article with a split seconds. You just give that prompt, beautifully written. I'm amazed. Like, you know how it can write like that. So it is at that level today. And give it another 510, a decade. Let's say that world, or that future, will be dominated by intelligent machines, constant change and extraordinary unpredictability. There are many reports and research that suggests that in a decade or so, more than 50% of the jobs will be either fully automated or will be highly influenced by algorithms or robotics. Machines will, like produce insight, generate insights that humans cannot even imagine, and would drive transformation continuously. So if that is the case, if that's what's happening, lot of industries will be going away, will be destroyed, and nuance will be created. Net, net, yes, will be productivity growth. That's the idea that we have, and I fully support that. So future with AI is incredible, but jobs, job roles, jobs will be eliminated. I know for financial world, 50% of the trading jobs have been eliminated by algorithms. How can you compete with a program, with an algorithm that can evaluate 1000 variables all over the planet and then give you an analysis? I mean, humans will take a lot of time, and that's been happening in the last 1015, years. That trend will accelerate in the future exponentially. And if that is the case, that individual would need to continuously learn new stuff, adapt to change, be resilient, have a growth mindset, make conscious and responsible decisions, take risks and do this all over and over again, because AI will again and again, continuously change the game. So if, if that's the case, we need to prepare our kids to be more self aware. At least. I have a portfolio. This is how I think about her. She needs to think through who she is, what she wants to do, and then make those decisions. So self awareness is the key skill. My number was one skill. If you ask me, What's the number one skill on the platform that I would vote for, that's self awareness, because self awareness is where you spend a lot of time with yourself, like a Who am I kind of a question. Yes, it's a heavy question, but thinking about your values and beliefs, your strengths and weaknesses, your behavior, what motivates you, why it motivates you, what matters to you, why it matters to you, things like that. And then once you are, you've done that exercise, and obviously, as I said, it takes years to get to that place, and it's funny, but the truth is, asking that question to myself, like, when I was in my 30s, I would send that robe in my mind, and I would come empty, like I had no idea. Like, okay, like, you would ask yourself, like, what are you good at? I mean, I had no idea. So you have to work on it. You have to think harder about it, right? So that is the work that I want our kids to do. And to close it off, there's a report, future of jobs, report by world economic economic forum that exactly talks about this thing. I've been like preaching this thing for quite some time, but that report came out very recently. Hundreds of millions of jobs will be displaced, and that report is encouraging humans overall to enhance our skills. So at least think about people. Those who will not like focus on will be left behind. So it's about enhancing our skills. There is no doubt in my mind, if you pick any industry, we can go do that analysis, I know for a short time, but I can give you tons of example, how AI is going to, like, you know, transform, not in a bad way. Yes, new jobs will be created, as I said, but I think for humans, I think we need to, there's two schools, so either you compete with AI or go in the other direction, being more human. I am in that boat where let's push to be more human. More connected, more social, and build that network we are like, you know, social beings. So, so AI as a is going to transform everything from education perspective, I think it'll be all personalized. I mean, each child will will get some individual attention. That will be the key thing. The second thing is, AI will be complementing or supplementing teachers, in a way, helping them with administrative tasks. I think all of the grading work will be automated at some point where they can focus on other stuff. So 30% I think it was a number of other I read somewhere that of their time can be sort of simplified so that they could focus on other better things. Then I think just streamlining other processes, where curriculum building was another one, where they can, like, define some parameters, and it can come up with other these curriculum stuff that will be streamlined in the coming years. So these are like, you know, small, small changes that will happen for the next few years.
Lily Jones
Yes, yeah, I appreciate that, and I think it's interesting thinking about the evolution of both people and AI, but like, constant evolution, right? It means being a lifelong learners. It means using critical thinking. It means having self awareness. It means adapting and changing and growing, and whether it's with AI or anything else in our lives that's constantly changing and growing, having visibility is allow you to grow with it and lean into that learning and that growth. So I appreciate that perspective. I also appreciate what you said just about the self awareness and like, I'm interested in the overlap between self awareness and responsible decision making, of having, like, ethics and your values and having that drive what you're doing out there, and having kids know that that's possible and important too.
Nitin Gour
Yeah, that's a great question. And, and again, that's the reason why I value self awareness a lot. So let's like, you know, think through that. So these kids, I'm again, talking about these middle schoolers, they have to make so many decisions, and at that age, they have no ideas that they're even like, brain is not there. That part of the brain so it's developing. So it's like, very wrong. Think of them as, like, you know, the hardware is not even there. Forget about the program that can help them evaluate so they don't have any yard sick at that time. Now, if they've done this work, of like, as I said, like the values and belief and this, imagine that they did this work. Because in the course, we provide them workbooks and all we encourage them to engage with the parents to do this exercise, their strengths and weaknesses, values and beliefs. So as a family, if you approach that and help your child think through and it could be like, you know, you want to implement like, you know, we should be free to decide from a religious angle. Also, okay, what are our values like? You know, this is how we think about things. And also, you've given them some criteria, how to evaluate things, and then when they are dealing with any of those decision making things where they struggle, I think it will reduce their stress, they'll be able to make those decisions in a much faster way and in the direction that you would want them to right because you've already, like, you know, initiated that process with them, rather than like, you know, oh, you make that decision. Oh, that was not the right decision. You're course correcting at that point. Likewise, strength and weakness is another thing. Now, imagine a child where, like, you know, there was something in the class, and you like, maybe teacher gave a critical feedback. Child could take that and just say, Okay, I'm terrible at this. Just hang on to that thing, whereas there's nothing wrong, because it's just that that is something was new, to them. If they have done this exercise of thinking through their strengths and weaknesses, they just think, okay, you know what? Maybe I need to focus more on this. They'll think very differently. They'll go home, work on it, and then come back with a different attitude. So all these small, small things would reduce stress, and they would approach things, and when they are are in that space, they'll be more vulnerable to ask for help as well. So if they know their weakness, then you know what. I need to just work on this, and then I'd ask my parents or teachers, so they're more vulnerable and approachable also at that point. So that's how I think about like self awareness, how it helps in academic space. And there's no doubt in my mind, like this would definitely help.
Lily Jones
Absolutely, yes, absolutely, I love that. Well, Nitin, it's been so nice talking with you. Can you tell folks how they can connect with you?
Nitin Gour
No, absolutely. I mean, the best way is to sign up on our platform, and then you will get 30 day free trial. And in that trial, you'll get certain emails and all and in that email, we also have a place where you can actually connect with one of our like, you know, mentor and I sometimes, like, you know, make make it a point to talk to our users so that I can define our platform. Because, as I said, I'm not claiming that we have it nailed, nailed that our courses are perfect. I have evolved in the last years. So, and that's all because of the feedback that I've received. I would continue to do that so you can schedule, like, a 15 minute call with me or any of our team members, so that we can, like, you know, get your feedback. And obviously that helps us improve for the entire loop community platform, or email us on contact@loomster.com but our website is the best place to start, perfect.
Lily Jones
Well, thanks again. It's been a pleasure talking with you same here.
Nitin Gour
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai