David Cordover, Founder, Kids Unlimited
- David is the Founder of Kids Unlimited
- He’s an entrepreneur, mentor, and angel investor.
Podcast
Overview
David is the founder of Kids Unlimited. He’s an entrepreneur, mentor, and angel investor. Kids Unlimited is a one-stop solution for extracurricular activities for children. Kids Unlimited partners with schools to provide various classes before or after school hours at the school premises. David talks about the importance of extracurricular activities and T-shaped learning.
00:38-What was the motivation to start Kids Unlimited?
- I realized that around 15 man-hours were being used to take my son to the swimming class.
- All children need to be doing extracurricular activities, it’s a major part of growing. What if all of those activities were closer together and more convenient for the parents?
- We put in six or seven different activities all in one location. There’ll be one trip for the parents, and they could spend two or three hours, and the children could have siblings there.
03:03- What areas are you working in now?
- So, we started with a STEM focus, and then have branched out, we’ve now got 18 different areas including karate, soccer, cooking programs, Arts and Design, public speaking, and we’ve even got an entrepreneurship program as well.
- We started with five different locations across Melbourne, but now our model is that we provide an exclusive service to schools, where we can provide all of their extracurricular programs.
- Kids unlimited can be a one-stop shop, we can come in, and we can offer this broad range of different activities.
- Now that the programs are now running at school, immediately before or after school, it means that the parents don’t even have to do that one commute.
06:24- Kids unlimited turns interested into excellence
- We have a philosophy of education called a T-shaped learner. A T-shaped learner has got a breadth of experiences, and depth of expertise, in one of those.
- We offer a breadth of programs, to students, and when they find something that they are truly interested in, they can drill down and develop expertise, and go further.
- Parents used to take the children to maths, tuition, and violin lessons, and it didn’t matter what the children were looking for.
- T-shaped learning can give a much broader set of experiences, which makes you much more of a creative thinker.
11:15- How are the younger parents reacting to the work that Kids Unlimited is doing?
- Parents want children to be better than them, but with a humanistic approach, with a more personalized approach, so they’re looking for things that the children are interested in.
- Exam focus and hot housing create a lot of pressure and a lot of stress on students but don’t necessarily give them better academic outcomes, or life outcomes.
- The parents recognize that succeeding today is not about what you know, it’s about the skills that you have and the right attitude.
- That’s why extracurricular programs are so critically important because it helps them to develop that hunger and that appetite for learning.
14:12- Why is chess good for kids?
- It is a good way of developing transferable skills, and developing attitudes about learning and life.
- Trying to build businesses across the world over the last 25 years, the ability to think ahead and analyze problems, select the best option at the time, then accept that sometimes the path that you chose isn’t the right option has been immensely helpful. All that comes from chess.
- The culture of chess has 1000s of years of history, stories, personalities, and of knowledge that’s built up around it, which you don’t have in some other games, which are maybe equally as strategic and equally valuable learning tools.
- I think everybody should learn how to play chess in the world, not to become a grand master, but to develop some problem-solving skills, develop resilience, an understanding of winning and losing, and to develop analytical skills.
18:41- How has the pandemic impacted extracurricular activities?
- While the pandemic was an incredibly difficult two years, very early on we recognized the potential devastation that was about to happen and used our skills in business and technology to move all of our programs to online delivery.
- During the pandemic, as schools would open, the appetite for extracurricular activities was three times higher than normal, because people were starved for it. But as the pandemic went on longer, it built more fear and distrust into people’s lives. So, we’re coming out of it much slower.
- For the first 6 months post-pandemic, people were not confident, but now we have reached pre-pandemic levels of engagement and will be seeing greater levels of participation.
- People realized that they need to do what they are passionate about. We saw things like the great resignation, where people change jobs.
24:23- 3 lessons you want viewers and listeners to take away from your learnings
- You have to believe in yourself. Show up and take all the opportunities that are available to you, don’t be afraid to fail, because that’s going to happen all the time and will just make you stronger.
- I think you should be a generalist, taking a breadth of experience.
- To be successful, even in an employment situation, understand a little bit about a lot of different things, really spread your wings, and get a breadth of experiences in lots of different areas. You become more creative, you take something from one area and put it into a different area.
RESOURCES:
You can connect with David Cordover- on LinkedIn
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Profile
- David is the Founder of Kids Unlimited
- He’s an entrepreneur, mentor, and angel investor.
- Kids Unlimited is a one-stop shop, and they offer a broad range of different extracurricular activities for children at their school premises.
