"Screen time is inevitable because many digital materials have real learning value, and I see Stick'Em as a way for kids to step away from screens. Kids used to go to the playground or void deck to play, but now they choose online games like Fortnite with friends. If we show them that building is fun, robots are fun, and hands-on learning is fun, we can shift them away from being fully digital." - Chong Ing Kai, Founder and CEO of Stick’Em
"We were fresh out of secondary school with useful skills and decided to solve the problem ourselves, so I gathered my friends and we sketched an idea to make something like LEGO robotics but ten times cheaper. It would help kids be more creative than simply building a fixed LEGO creation, and we wanted to work with schools. Five years ago, we built a prototype within a few weeks using our school’s makerspace, spending about 100 USD of our own money. We tested it with our parents’ friends’ kids, spoke to teachers we knew, and slowly grew the idea through continuous testing." - Chong Ing Kai, Founder and CEO of Stick’Em
"Honestly we did not think we were going to win; the Hult Prize was simply a chance to get exposure to great mentors and spend a month in London meeting world-class teams in the social impact space. We planned to refine our pitch, learn as much as possible, and out of 15,000 teams we entered the accelerator with around twenty others, then made it to semifinals, finals, and the final eight, where we realized we might actually have a chance. It became a matter of showing the judges that even though the idea is simple and easy to understand, a million dollars could truly scale our impact." - Chong Ing Kai, Founder and CEO of Stick’Em
Chong Ing Kai Founder and CEO of Stick’Em joins Jeremy Au to unpack how tinkering shaped his early years, how ADHD influenced his learning journey, and why he built a chopstick robotics kit to make STEAM education affordable for all. They explore how schools struggle with hands-on learning, why teachers need flexible tools rather than rigid kits, and how students learn better when they build instead of follow instructions. Their discussion covers the rise of open-ended tinkering, the pitfalls of screen-first childhoods, and the structural challenges of selling innovation into schools. Kai also shares how Stick’Em grew from a hundred-dollar prototype to a company used by thousands of students and how winning the Hult Prize at 22 changed his plans for global expansion.
02:42 Schools lacked quality STEAM programs: While working as a robotics trainer, Kai notices that schools rely on vendors who are businessmen rather than educators, creating weak learning experiences.
04:54 Chopsticks unlock creativity for kids: Kai shares why Stick’Em uses chopsticks, how they are cheap, sturdy, and open-ended, and how kids build robots, weapons, helicopters, and costumes in early tests.
07:05 Teachers adopt Stick’Em when it fits their real lessons: He explains how teachers use Stick’Em inside core subjects like social studies, ICT, science, and mother tongue — not just in after-exam activities.
11:38 Modern dopamine loops hit ADHD harder: Kai goes deep into TikTok, gaming, poor sleep, and how dopamine addiction creates pitfalls for impulsive students — plus how he manages these triggers as a founder.
18:48 Shifting the business model to recurring school revenue: Kai explains why selling hardware once was unsustainable and how Stick’Em now targets booklist placement so every P3 student receives a kit yearly.
29:39 Winning the Hult Prize transforms the company’s scale: He recounts entering the competition for mentorship, making semifinals and finals, and ultimately winning the million-dollar global prize because of traction and clarity.
Jeremy Au (00:01:17)
Hey Kai. So excited to have you on the show.
Kai (00:01:21)
Thanks for having me.
Jeremy Au (00:01:23)
I just wanna say congratulations on winning a million dollars, but we'll get into it. So I wanted to hear and be talking about, I think education, your experiences of ADHD, your philosophy on what education tech looks like, and so I think there's a great opportunity here. Could you introduce yourself?
Kai (00:01:42)
Yeah, so I'm Kai, founder of Stickum. We started Stickum when we were 17, five years ago. And the whole idea came about because we used to build things since like primary school, building all sorts of crazy stuff. And growing up, we had a lot of access to these great opportunities. We were quite privileged, so we could build whatever we wanted, didn't have to worry too much about resources. And after we graduated from secondary school, we quickly realized that, hey, we went to a School of Science and Technology, which is a very independent, specialized school, and we started to see that as we were working as robotics teachers and trainers for like private companies and vendors, we were like, "Hey, most of these schools do not have the same resources or capacity that our school had." And there are a few reasons to this. The teachers are too busy. It's not in the directive of the school, the strategy. And what this means is that the schools are basically getting private vendors to come in, run the program, like a once-off program, and then they go, and these vendors are more businessmen than educators, which means that the students are not getting good quality program for education. So, okay, we are fresh out of secondary school. We have all these skills. Why not we try to solve this for ourselves? So got my friends together and we just started to sketch. We sketched this idea of, "Okay, let's make something like Lego robotics, but 10 times cheaper, much cheaper." It gets kids to be a bit more creative than just building a Lego creation. And let's try to work with schools. So that was five years ago. We got together, built a prototype within a few weeks, and we used the school maker space, like our fabrication lab. So everything was free. We spent a total of maybe a hundred dollars of our own money. Got the prototype. We started to test it with our parents' friends' kids. We went to school teachers that we knew, just started testing, and slowly by slowly we started to grow to more ideas. Yeah. So that was five years ago. With the company, since we worked with around a hundred plus schools across 11 countries. Yeah. Mostly Singapore still. Yeah. But yeah, we make chopstick robots.
Jeremy Au (00:03:47)
Fantastic. And I think you've done such a tremendous job over the past five years. I wanna go all the way back to the beginning, right? Because, you studied at polytechnic, you were a student, you have built this company. So how did you even come up with the idea at the age of 17?
Kai (00:04:02)
So after SST (School of Science and Technology), when I left, I did the early admissions exercise to enter Singapore Poly 'cause I cannot study, like I'm really bad at studying. And it was a great opportunity because I could use my portfolio and my stuff I've made in the past to demonstrate why they should let me in instead of having to study for my O levels. So when I got in, I did the Engineering of Business course. It was because, I think, my mom or someone said there was this famous phrase, "Every engineer can become a businessman, but no businessman can become an engineer." And for me, this was a good phrase because I was thinking, "Should I just go forward into business?" Yeah. "Business school or should I just do engineering?" But if I did any of these, I'll lose touch with the other. So I was like, "Okay, there is a course that does both of them, touch a bit of everything, 'cause I'm a bit of a generalist." So I was like, "Okay, why not just do both of it?" Yeah. So I got in. I was quite bored. And I was like teaching robotics on the side. So I think my past experiences making and tinkering stuff combined with me teaching and actually seeing what the schools were going through and how terrible the system was for STEM education, I think that got me to, "Okay, let me, let me try to fix it by myself."
Jeremy Au (00:04:47)
And before we talking about the polytechnic situation, you said something interesting, right? Which is that you said that you were bad at studying, but at the same point of time you're also, doing robotics and everything. And I empathize with that. Because for myself I was also at robotics club back in secondary school. I did a micromouse and a Lego Mindstorm competition. Yeah. I did the O levels. Yeah. And I went to junior college. So I'm just curious, like you say, you're bad at studying. So I think most people are like, "Wait, if you're doing robotics and it's so good at education, why are you bad at studying?"
Kai (00:05:27)
I think robotics, I wouldn't even say I'm good at robotics. I'd say I'm very good at tinkering and building stuff in general. So in secondary school, poly, all the competitions I took part in, the projects I did were more based around tinkering. "How can I get different stuff together?" Yeah. Like, for example, I did an underwater robotics competition where all I used was a Tupperware for the body. Oh yeah. Because Tupperware is waterproof, right? Yeah. So I use Tupperware. I use PVC pipes. My whole life has always been just piecing stuff together. Yeah. "Make a flame." "Oh, use a lighter." Yeah. Use a turkey marinade injector. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. And yeah, I think that's completely different from actual studying like chemistry, humanities. Like I cannot memorize and regurgitate something. Yeah. What I can do is piece different concepts together to solve problems in a very creative way.
Jeremy Au (00:06:05)
And there you are tinkering all these things. And I think it's one thing, obviously to be going for competitions. Another thing to be saying, "I want to build a company that does robotics." Totally different things. It's like playing football versus, I don't know, building a football team. It was like, as a company, so what was that? What was it like to figure out that product-market fit, the early days, the ideation? Yeah.
Kai (00:06:31)
So when you go for competitions, it's very direct objective, right? You want to win, you wanna pitch the best you can. Lucky for me, I saw that very early on, that this company is very different from how we approach hackathons. 'Cause there are so many hackathons now that, yeah, people are going for that. Then again, to this loop of, "Oh, let's keep going for hackathons, let's keep winning, let's keep building a portfolio." I think it's a very different thing from starting a company. 'Cause when you start a company, you have to talk to actual users, right? You have to figure out the actual long-term strategy instead of, "Oh, how do we win this school over?" We win school one by one. But there's no long-term strategy. I think only in the fourth year of Stickum is where we started to grow up a bit. We started to see, "Okay, let's not just slowly win schools over and build a very good product. We need to actually design an ecosystem that allows for revenue, allows for like growth between the different schools by themselves," all those different stuff. We did not really have that kind of deep insight when we were young. Now that we're like slowly getting older, a bit more experienced, I slowly see like our brain forming into approaching different stuff together, systemizing all our processes, getting very good data points from schools and everything, which was not there in the start.
Jeremy Au (00:07:29)
And was it like, I don't know, like you walk in the morning and you're like, "Lego Mindstorm is expensive," but like, how do you say, "Hey, I wanna build something that's cheaper?"
Kai (00:07:41)
I think it was when I came back from teaching a class one day. I went to a GP school, I was teaching Python and Microbit. On this controller that all schools are supposed to do now. Yeah. And I was like, "Wow." As a trainer, although I have this deep engineering experience and everything, I did not feel confident teaching these kids because this was completely out of my depth. I'm not an educator, so I already had this feel, this nagging feeling that, "Okay, this is not my place to teach." The company brought me as street labor. They paid me like 17 per hour. I'm so happy. 17 per hour was great for a 17-year-old. Exactly, yeah. So yeah, I was coming as a trainer. I was very excited. It was not my place. I was not an educator. I could see on these kids' faces that they were not interested in what they were learning. Yeah. They were sitting there because the school had this program for them, after exams. It's considered fun because the teachers say, "Oh, they're not doing like math and science. They're actually coding something." They're making an LED light up. And that's the main KPI of the lesson.
Kai (00:08:35)
"We want every single student to be able to make their LED light up." That, which is so stupid. That's the objective for the lesson. Yeah. That's a learning outcome that you want of the kids. So I think that kind of like radicalized me to think, "Wow, if we are like so well resourced in Singapore, but the students are not getting great learning experiences. They're getting great curriculum. But outside of the classroom, what's going on?" Yeah. It was pretty rough.
Jeremy Au (00:08:54)
Yeah. So it is one thing to be radicalized because...
Kai (00:08:58)
Yeah. Correct, correct. Every student is like, "Why is my principal so stupid?"
Jeremy Au (00:09:05)
Except and everything. Okay. But again, it's one thing to be radicalized as to say this isn't a good curriculum or syllabus. But again, I guess this time you're a trainer, and I think to be like, "Okay, I want to build a company." So what was it like? You're saying like, "I don't wanna teach Python and stuff. I wanna teach something that's more easy or fun."
Kai (00:09:16)
I think having the confidence there: "I can solve this problem for myself." Yeah. Yeah. Instead of just saying, "Ah, it sucks, but they're paying me my money. I'm just gonna go through poly. I'm gonna study hard." Yeah. But instead of saying, "Okay, I'm resourceful enough to know that I can create something similar." Yeah. "But that's much lower cost and much more creative. How can I do that?"
Jeremy Au (00:09:44)
Yeah. And how did you do the ideation or iteration of the product? Because there's so many ways you could do it, right? You could made, I don't know, Lego Mindstorm. Exactly. You say about 10 times cheaper. Yeah. So we know why chopstick robots, why, it's very unique, I think, approach, right? So how did you iterate there? Yeah.
Kai (00:09:59)
Yeah. So there's hundreds of STEM kits out there. I'm sure as a parent you've seen so many Shopee stuff, so many stuff on Wow. The issue is that I think for us, because I used to build with a lot of STEM kits, a lot of them are lacking the creativity aspect where it's very open-ended. 'Cause Lego, yes, you can have hundreds of different pieces. You can buy extra pieces, you can add on, but you feel afraid to go a bit crazy with Lego, you can't cut it. It's so expensive. You can't attach cardboard, you can't attach raffia string, cut bottles up attached to it. For me, tinkering is about that. It's about putting different pieces together and just going crazy with imagination. And I felt like there was not many STEM pieces that did that. So when I first had the idea for Stickum, actually the initial idea was maybe let's use cardboard as a building material. Cardboard's not very steady. "How are you gonna supply cardboard to every single child?" So then I looked around my house. I was like, "Okay, what building materials can I use that's very open-ended?" I opened my cupboard and I was like, "Oh, chopsticks." Chopsticks are, everyone has a lot, a small set of chopsticks. So I like, "Okay." Chopsticks are, they're very sturdy actually. You can cut them, you can snap them, and they'll be fine. You can customize them and they're quite cheap. I think using that as a base point, "Let's use chopsticks to build stuff." Then, "Okay, you have chopsticks. How do you connect chopsticks together?" 3D printed connectors, right? Yeah. So yeah. That's how Stickum came about now. Yeah. Oh, chopsticks can be a variable building material that...
Jeremy Au (00:11:21)
Yeah.
Kai (00:11:21)
Yeah.
Jeremy Au (00:11:22)
And I think what's interesting is that not only use chopsticks now, can put in other materials. Yeah. Other formats that help require visualize that. I have to ask the basic question, right? What's so good about tinkering anyway for kids? Because I have a 5-year-old and 4-year-old, and they're both going to robotics camp because, correct. Yeah. My wife thinks it's good. Okay. Yeah. And to be fair, I think that Lego, yeah, correct. So what's the value of this tinkering from your perspective? Yeah. Versus a more Lego, everybody knows it. They've been playing with it. It's safe.
Kai (00:11:47)
Yeah. So I think exactly what you said, when you go for those like robotics, bootcamps, all parents are sending their kids to. Yeah. But it's very robotic centric. "Let's build this robot that can maybe do line tracing. Follow this map. Or maybe this robot we can program to do a certain task." It's very computational, very, "Let's do it step by step." But I think the whole point of tinkering is that you don't know what the outcome will be. You just wing it along the way. And there's no one telling you that this is the right outcome of tinkering. You, as a child, you have this idea of what it could be. And I think for children to be able to step into that space where it's no longer just having a fixed outcome that I want to excel at, I want to be the number one at this specific outcome. But instead, step back from there a bit. "Let me have this challenge statement that's given to me and let me try to solve it in the best way I can. And if I fail, it's okay because I'm gonna keep having different stuff that I can keep trying to solve for."
Jeremy Au (00:12:35)
And when you think about tinkering, obviously, you had to do the I don't know, was it with demos, something like this. Who did you practice with? Was it like a cousin or the, yeah, our parents' friends' kid. And what was the reaction, compared to Lego or these other stuff?
Kai (00:12:49)
So we'll literally just give them the Stickum kit. Yeah. And we just say, "Build whatever you want," and we'll see what they built. I think through observing what they were coming up with. Some will build weapons, some will build helicopters. The boys will build very boor. Yeah. The girls will be more creative, yeah, to integrate more materials. Yeah. By seeing where that natural kind of urge to build something came from, we can start to see, "Okay. If we slowly prompt them a certain way, yeah. To think about certain thing, how can we like enhance their learning experience."
Jeremy Au (00:13:10)
And I think one interesting thing is that, you talk about how is different from the pedagogy or the, like the curriculum, checkpoint, right?
Kai (00:13:16)
Yeah.
Jeremy Au (00:13:17)
Which, if I flash back to my old days, probably I went through some of my old classes like that as well.
Jeremy Au (00:13:21)
So why do you think this pedagogy exists? Versus the more tinkering mindset?
Kai (00:13:26)
I think it's standardization. Yeah. Because it's very hard to, as a school administrator or principal, wrap your head around the student not having a fixed learning outcome. It's very difficult to say, "Okay, we don't know what the kids are gonna build, but as a broad idea, we wanted to be more creative. We wanted to have hands-on learning." It's a bit difficult. Maybe back then, five years ago, it was a bit more difficult. Now I think the principals, the school teachers understand the importance of it. They just don't have this avenue to do it. The tools. It has the tools. So I think that's the gap that we're plugging in Singapore right now.
Jeremy Au (00:13:58)
But I think what's interesting is that obviously, it is one thing to let kids tinker. Then you're like, "Yeah, duh." I feel like, my wife buys all these specific toys, and the kids love the cardboard box more than the toys. Be like, "Oh, it's like a car, it's an ambulance, it's a house." So they have a tinkering mindset. So I think obviously having a STEM kit that's educational but also lets them tinker, makes a bit more no-brainer sense for the kids. But obviously you said that you understand how teachers have these, I don't know what you call it, incentive structures. So you must have been like quite different to be like giving something fun to kids versus selling something to the hundreds of schools, right? So can you tell, talk to me about that process of what was it like to try to move towards selling it versus letting kids playing there?
Kai (00:15:00)
So after the first few months of testing with the kids playing. Yeah, the first thing that happened was 'cause I do very publicly. Yeah. This HOD of a primary school reached out to me and he was like, "Hey Kai, I think we can use this in our school." So then I started to actually have forced myself to see how this can work. Plug into the education system instead of saying, "Okay, STEM kit should be able to work in the school." And I think how we tie it back is that we know that the certain, the certain teachers have their learning outcomes they need. For example, if you're a social studies teacher, they're probably used to pen and paper learning where, yeah, okay. Maybe do a group project, right? Where they discuss cultural symbols in Singapore. But what we do with the schools is that we will actually look at the teacher and say, "Okay, we know you want to do hands-on learning, but you're not sure how. Why not we give you this set of tools where you can really create anything? You design your own lesson according to this, and you design really, if you want us to make the actual challenge and put it on our lesson bank, we'll do that. If you think you can do it by yourself, just do it by yourself." But we give you the tool, we give you the training, the confidence. And what we see is that, oh, the teacher will actually give the students a challenge, and instead of the students doing pen and paper learning, they end up building like a wearable Merlion costume. They built like this Art Science Museum that spins, and then the student's logic is, "Oh, if it spins, the tourist can see more of Singapore skyline." So it's just letting the students learn, but at the same time also go into their own headspace about what this could be.
Jeremy Au (00:16:04)
Yeah. Amazing. So do you have to tie it to the exact, I don't know, syllabus or their checkpoints? So it'd be like, what are the hurdles you think from the adoption? From the team side?
Kai (00:16:16)
So initially we were just pitching it as extracurricular. Okay. You do robotics, you do your STEM club, maker space club. I think that's quite low hanging fruit because it's replacing existing program with just Stickum. So enhancing is slightly the one that's a bit more difficult to work with schools with. But we're slowly starting to see a shift. It's actually called core curriculum: social studies. Mother tongue. How can mother tongue teachers use hands-on learning? We train the teachers, all hundred teachers at once in the school. And then what we're starting to see is the mother tongue teacher. When I go back to the school one year later, the mother tongue teacher will tell me, "Hey Kai, I use your Stickum kit for my dragon boat activity. I got the kids to build dragon boats, and I got them to share in Chinese about what they made." So I think it's seeing all these interesting core curriculum usages that is more interesting to me. 'Cause that means that we're getting the kids to actually have a bit more of exciting learning experience in the classroom and not just, "Okay, at the end of the term, we're gonna build robots for post exam activity, three hours a year." Yeah. Which is quite wasted, I think. Yeah. Why not enhance the actual curriculum itself?
Jeremy Au (00:17:15)
Yeah. And make it more fun and obviously if it's fun, there is more absorbed. Exactly. Sticks better as well. Higher learning English. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is that, obviously I think education tech often has that struggle, right? Because. You got so many stewards to deal with, right? You gotta do with the kids, which is do they wanna do it? Correct. Because if not, they're gonna spit out the broccoli. An extra customer. Then you have your extra customer, which is, yeah, your teachers and schools, and then parents. So how do you sort out all these different stakeholders from human perspective?
Kai (00:17:48)
I think the students one is easy. Yeah. I think it's quite a no-brainer for students. You wanna do a, you wanna do the actual pen and paper, you wanna build the Merlion. Yeah. That was easy. I think that was never an issue.
Jeremy Au (00:17:58)
That shit, exactly. Yeah.
Kai (00:18:00)
It was never an issue from the start. The schools one, it took us a while because it's, first of all, it's hard to get into a school in the first place to even talk to the teachers. Yeah. And then as you talk to teachers, you slowly figure out what are the things that they're concerned about, what are some ways that you can align your business model? Actually, because selling hardware to school is horrible. Yeah. It's a one-time sale. Yeah. Then you have our academy subscription. It's a very small amount per year. But then my question is, okay, how do we align with what the teachers need and how do we extract the value out of that? 'Cause we're definitely creating value in the classroom, right? But are we extracting monetary value out of that? Yeah. Sustain ourselves and grow ourselves. It is this.
Jeremy Au (00:18:37)
And what's the answer to that? Is it through, like you said, vendors and trainers?
Kai (00:18:42)
So initially it was, "Let's sell this all-in-one hardware kit, classroom set to the schools. Maybe we'll make $\$12,000$ from the school one time, and they'll never make money again." But it's okay. We serve the schools already, right? That's our mindset at first. Now I'm starting to see, "Okay, if the school students at maybe P3, they're able to use Stickum, not just for mother tongue or science or ICT, but across a broad range of subjects. Why not get this as part of the book list?" Yeah. So when you enter P3, you get your dictionary, you get your textbooks, you also get a STEM kit. Yeah. Which means that now instead of every school's lifetime value of $\$15,000$, every year is $\$22,000$ purchases from one whole batch of students, 280 students. Yeah. So that's something that was slowly shifting towards, "How do you get recurring revenue from the school?" While also providing value and not just...
Jeremy Au (00:19:08)
Yeah. And I think it also, what's good for the students that if they receive it at the start of the year, then they can play with their whole... Correct.
Kai (00:19:15)
Yeah. So...
Jeremy Au (00:19:15)
it's not just, for specific lessons, something can discover enough.
Kai (00:19:18)
Obviously not all of them will. Yeah. But I think providing them with the option that they know, "Ah, that kit that I used in mother tongue class. Actually I think I can build robots with it. I can actually do something at home. I want to make a laptop stand. Why should I buy from Shopee? I can make my own laptop stand." Yeah. It's getting them into that. Yeah. I think growing and problem solving.
Jeremy Au (00:19:35)
Exactly. And I think that's something that is also a good evangelism moment towards the parents as well. Parents are always looking for stuff for the kids to do. That's not something that's the right. Yeah. Yeah. iPad or TV for you or something? It's...
Kai (00:19:46)
Too much screen time already. I try, I shift them away from screen time.
Jeremy Au (00:19:50)
Yeah. So what's your philosophy on screen time? Because, I think, yeah I've had that personal challenge drive, which is that I love robots. I love computer gaming. I love watching TV. And now I watch my kids going up and I'm like, "Oh, I wanna do robotics, but I don't wanna have the screen time." Which is a little bit like, yeah. I think.
Kai (00:20:05)
Screen time is like inevitable. Yeah. Because there's a lot of great like learning materials out there, that they do have learning value. I see Stickum as this is just a chance for kids to step away from screen time. 'Cause kids used to go to the playground. Now they still do, but to a lesser extent. Yeah. They used to go to the Point deck play with their friends. They play. Yeah. And I was like, "Why? Why do I have to play baby if I can play Fortnite online with my friends?" So I think if you can show kids that, "Building is fun. Building robots is fun. Hands-on learning is fun." Not learning, like hands-on in general is, yeah. Build all kinds of stuff. Then we kinda shift them away from being fully digital. I mean, obviously they will still have their apps, they'll still have their games. It's hard to compete with that. Yeah. But I think you're showing them that, "Ah, I have something at home I can build with." I think that's really slightly better than, yeah. Creating another app, sell to kids or parents.
Jeremy Au (00:20:56)
And I'm just curious that, going from point A to point B here, which is that, like you want people to explore and tinker and do robotics, but you also want 'em to do less screen time. Do you think, what's the end state of that world? Do you think it's gonna be like, it's inevitable or everybody would just do more screen time? I'm just curious. Yeah. What's your philosophy at that? Or you're thinking about that?
Kai (00:21:09)
For me, as long as I can get kids...
Jeremy Au (00:21:13)
Yeah.
Kai (00:21:14)
to think a bit more, become a bit more adaptable. It's not my place to stress about it so much. Am I really serving kids for their whole life, from getting them a job offer, getting them placed in an internship? I was like, "Okay." I think right now where we are at Stickum, in the next one or two years, it's to just make sure that in that phase of the kids' life, we make sure that we can get them to, tinker a bit more, be a bit more adaptable problem, solve a bit more, and have that almost like that confidence that, say, "Okay, this problem, I can solve it." I think for me that's enough. To make sure that they have this mindset.
Jeremy Au (00:21:39)
Yeah, and I think what I'm curious about is that, you also mentioned to me before that, you have ADHD. And I'm curious about that because, they talk about the story, which is like you, there's a founder story, the founder, but you also have ADHD. So how, tell me more about this ADHD diagnosis that you got.
Kai (00:21:54)
Yeah. So I was diagnosed with ADHD. I think Primary Yeah. That came about because, so I used to go to which is considered like one of the more elite schools. Then my mom shifted me out of the primary, which is more of a neighborhood school because this teacher said, "There's something wrong with this kid, but I dunno what's wrong with this?" And after that my mom brought me to the GP, just to find out if I was autistic or something. He said, "Oh, he's definitely special." But they don't know what kind of special. So then she brought me to Child Guidance Clinic, IMH, and then we discovered, "Oh, it's ADHD." Yeah. But yeah, always getting into trouble when I was young. Constantly suspended, always going to the principal's office. Very typical ADHD kid. And yeah, I think when I got diagnosed, it helped my parents to understand that, no matter how many times they nagged me, it's not gonna stop me from being impulsive, it's not something that is a discipline issue. It's just impulse that comes very naturally. Over the years, as I get older, obviously the impulse comes less and less. I'm able to suppress it. But I think that allowed my parents to step into this frame of, "It's not something to do with the way we're parenting. It's something that's a bit more innate in here. Just how can we support him?" Growing up through that process.
Jeremy Au (00:23:00)
So what do you think about ADHD? I feel like there's a lot of people obviously see as a problem, and probably more of the camp to see that this, there's a bell curve of humanity. And, people who are impulsive is a natural part of human personality, or what do you think about that?
Kai (00:23:21)
I think definitely impulse. The impulsiveness part I say is like a double-edged sword. Yeah. It's good to have people like, want to solve things. Yeah. Want to do certain stuff. I think we need more of that actually. But I think what's more important for parents' side is to make sure that. Kids with ADHD or even kids in general, don't fall down this path of, very bad sleep habits. Addicted to junk food, things that feed that impulse for ADHD kids, which is much easier because screen time, dopamine and everything. Oh, it's such a huge issue for kids with ADHD. Even for me I find myself sometimes falling to this trap. And again, yeah, so I say that's the bigger issue. Just, them falling to things that are designed to suck their attention. Instagram, TikTok.
Jeremy Au (00:23:51)
Actually, that's a really interesting point, right? I think what we're saying is it's human for some humans to be impulsive. Yeah. Because evolutionarily and biologically is good for some members of society to be born impulsive and some people to be super conscientious, law and order. Yeah. Okay, fine. So there's the bell curve, but what we were saying is that in the modern world, yeah. There's a lot of pitfalls that will really suck up these...
Kai (00:24:10)
Yeah. A...
Jeremy Au (00:24:11)
ADHD kids a lot easily. Were there any examples of you doing those pitfalls? Like what? Computer gaming.
Kai (00:24:19)
Oh, computer games. Because I used to wanna fit in with my classmates. Oh yeah. All about that. Play games. Yeah. I would have horrible sleep schedules. Instagram, TikTok, all those stuff. Yeah. And luckily my mom is quite conscious about all this stuff, so she would still nag me all the time. Back then, I would still like, "Okay, fine, man." Didn't have my frontal cortex I developed yet to understand how all this would actually affect me. Over the years, especially in secondary school, I slowly started to see these effects of, "Oh. When I sleep at 3:00 AM, I feel like shit the next day," and "Oh, maybe it's not really worth feeling like shit the next day." Yeah. Being in this consistent state of dopamine, addiction, all that. Slowly. And then when I start the company, obviously all these things are like double down. "Oh, I really have to get my stuff together."
Jeremy Au (00:24:56)
So what's it like to be a founder and have ADHD? Do you manage it? Do you have routines? How do you...?
Kai (00:25:02)
Being very conscious of my sleep. Yeah. Sounds very cliché, but yeah, like the sleep thing is a huge thing for me because if I don't sleep like by 1:00 AM, like the next day, I'm not functioning a hundred percent right. Eating healthy, all this different stuff that like, even if you don't have ADHD, I think is very important, right? For me also understanding what excites me and what kind of gets me my energy very low. And then adjusting my day schedule to that. So I know that, "Oh, meetings get me very excited. Talking about Stickum sales gets me very excited." So I make sure I put that in days that are very slow, put that in the slow parts of the day. And then if I start, I'm very energetic, start the day, make sure I get all my emails out before I get to the end of the day. I'm like, "Okay, I'm out of energy. Let me push it to the next day."
Jeremy Au (00:25:40)
Do you believe that there's a lot more people having ADHD because ADHD diagnosis are going up, prescriptions are going up, especially in America. Do you think it's a function of kids who are not underdiagnosed getting diagnosed or think it's a function of the world is super ADHD because of all the modern society. I'm curious where you follow that.
Kai (00:25:57)
I think the baseline level for diagnosing ADHD because kids' attention spans are getting shorter,
Kai (00:26:02)
I think people are slowly reaching their baseline a bit easier. So it's a bit easier to diagnose you as ADHD. Yeah. When maybe you just have a dopamine issue. When you're young. I think doctors are a bit more enthusiastic to diagnose ADHD now. Or just take Ritalin. Just take a medicine to solve this. Although I have seen the effects. My friends when they started way younger than me, like started taking medication, like they're like this high, their growth is stunted. And they're very dependent on it. They feel like they cannot function without it. I also weaned myself off it. I had that exam, PSLE. I was like, "Okay, this makes me not feel very good. Let me try to be self-independent. Get my dopamine in check."
Kai (00:26:31)
So yeah, I think more and more parents are getting aware of ADHD. Which I think is a good thing, but whether you really have to get diagnosed for it. Whether you have to start medication when you're like eight years old. Yeah. I don't think so.
Jeremy Au (00:26:40)
Yeah. So awareness is good. Self-management of your lifestyle is good. Whether you need to be doing medication to manage it, question mark. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is obviously we're talking about the future of kids, right? Because I'm the millennial generation, like how old? So I'm 38. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm dating myself here. And then, you are effectively Gen Z, right? 22. And then obviously there's a new generation, the kids that are getting close to Generation Alpha. So obviously, the generations are different, right? Like for me it was like, the PC laptop. For you is very much a mobile, one of mobile games, and obviously for the new kids, it's all about AI. They're very comfortable voice assistants, and robots. So I'm just kind of curious about how do you see that progression? What do you think?
Kai (00:27:44)
Yeah. That's the whole point of hands-on learning. If I have AI that can actually do everything for me, what's the last layer of that? It's the physical world, and if the kids are just constantly depending on AI to solve problems for them, they're very comfortable getting information just immediately and, "Okay, I have this information, I'm gonna feed it here." That's done. I think it's shortening that cognitive process of actually thinking, but yeah, I think what we can do is give kids more hands-on time. Make them less easy. So with a lot of our challenges, we deliberately make it such that it's not about gathering information. Because that's gonna get easier and easier. But it's more about presenting your solution in a way that you can't really do with AI. You can't need AI to speak for you. You need to be the one speaking, communicating. It's this whole like 21st century competencies, like adaptability, problem solving, communication, all that. It's a bit overplayed now, but I do think it's very important that, stuff that AI cannot do, we get kids to be very strong in it. So that, they have information at their fingertips, but who conveys the information to people, who pieces information together, I think still has to be the kids.
Jeremy Au (00:28:38)
And I guess my second last question here would be to see obviously you recently won like a million dollar prize and Hult competition. What was that process like? What was the experience like?
Kai (00:28:51)
Yeah. Honestly we didn't think we were gonna win. We went into the competition 'cause we tried to apply for competitions where if you get exposure to mentors, if there's funding available. The Hult Prize was really just, "Okay, let's try to get exposure to these good mentors. You get to go to London for a month, right? Stay in this like beautiful castle for free." So, "Okay, this will be a very fun experience. In this castle, we get to meet like world-class mentors, world-class startups in the social impact space. So let's just go there, refine our pitch, learn a lot." And then, yeah, out of 15,000 teams. So yeah, we went to the accelerator, 20 something teams, and then slowly we got into like semifinals, finals, eight teams. They were like, "Oh, shit. Maybe you got a chance. Maybe you got a chance now." So you like this inch closer and closer. And then a lot of signals came along where people were like, "Oh, you guys are obviously not tech, you're not biotech, you're not changing like a billion lives with like water technology." But what we did have is traction. We've been around for five years, which is quite long. Yeah. We have actual revenue. Yeah. Profitable, operationally profitable, and the product is very easy to understand, right? So that sets us apart from the other people. So it was just a matter of, "Okay, how can you show to the judges that this is something that, although it's very simple, easy to understand, something that with a million dollars, right? Can we scale our impact?" instead of "it was a million dollars, we'll spend one more year of R&D getting more LOIs, getting..."
Jeremy Au (00:30:03)
Yeah. Amazing. And my last question is, could you share a personal story about a time that you've been BRAVE?
Kai (00:30:10)
I think during the PSLE period, this was in P6. During the PSLE period, the teachers were like, "This guy's like a golden case. Like this guy will not make it, probably gonna go any stream," or "and I think niche." Being very thick-skinned or me being like, "No, screw you. I'm gonna actually push really hard." I went from the predictions of, "Okay, maybe he's gonna get 200-ish for PSLE." I hustle so hard in those like few months. I basically, I burnt out, my hustle so hard that I got 256. It's a very big jump from a, yeah. Student where all the teachers are predicting that. So maybe not one time, but throughout my whole primary school experience, it was me just standing up to teachers saying, "You have this assumption about me 'cause I'm this naughty kid that gets very suspended, but I'll show you that I'm a bit more than that. I'll show you that, 'Hey, I can.'" Yeah. And yeah, I think just being not getting beaten down by all it's just that they were not supportive. There are just that they were supportive. Yeah. But I'd say it's like half. Yeah. It's just that, "Oh, this, sorry, your kids are going case, so we'll try to, something you're putting down an animal, oh, we're trying to make him comfortable until he goes on to the next phase of his. Maybe ITE or poly."
Jeremy Au (00:30:57)
Yeah. I'm curious because obviously there was an experience where you were that promise-less kid going to the experience where people didn't believe in you and you wanted to surpass your own expectations and those of the people around you. But now that you are older and now that you are somebody who sells to those teachers and talk to those teachers. What do you think, do you have a different view of those teachers today? Along how they're approaching it or how they're viewing you as a student? You talk to those teachers who are talking to their own problems, students? Now that's a good question.
Kai (00:31:37)
So now that I grew up a bit more. Yeah. Actually very specific example: in primary school, I had this teacher that emptied my bag out in front of the classroom. Tossed it across and just yelled at me. So I found out after I grew up, that he was having problems in his own household.
Kai (00:31:52)
And I think looking back at all the, like bad teachers, some of them, yeah. They had their own problems. Some of them were really just so focused and they were so overwhelmed with their own work. That when they do have a problems student, their goal is not, "Oh, how can I mentor them? How can I get them to be the best version of themselves?" It's, "How can I, as a teacher, survive and make sure that my overall, my class is doing well?" And the easy solution is send them out of cluster. If there's one kid versus 19 other kids, right? 30 other kids, why am I spending all my time on this student? And then there are teachers that, "Oh, this student is struggling, let me spend extra time focusing on that." So yeah, I say that's the main difference. And what we try to do, we talk to schools very often. Like they invite us for teacher talks and everything. I just share, "I was that kid that you guys thought could not make it, but because of the good teachers that really nurtured me, supported me and everything."
Kai (00:32:32)
That allowed me to basically flourish into this. Obviously there's other factors like, yeah, maybe we had certain advantages and everything, but those encouraging teachers were such a huge factor to like us not giving up. So we just try to show teachers that, "Hey, yeah, don't give up on those kids that, yeah, are really struggling. Try to support them, see where they're coming from. Even if they're not good at studying, they're probably passionate about something else. So try to develop their passion and not just fit them into this mold that, yeah, everything operator has to be fit into."
Jeremy Au (00:33:14)
Yeah. No, I think that's such a beautiful way to wrap up this conversation. Which is I think now that you have empathy for the teachers, who are the better you as a student and see both as a story. Thanks so much for sharing. So I'd love to summarize the three big takeaways. First of all, thanks so much for sharing about your own personal passion for STEM and tinkering and robotics and how that eventually translated into building something that you felt made sense. Which is, I think a tinkering like system for robotics and for kids to be able to play with. Secondly, thanks so much for sharing about. Your own personal struggle, right? With ADHD, your own like kind learning journey. And I think that really is quite such a helpful way of seeing it from your own personal student perspective about going through being a student founder, managing your own ADHD, routines and lifestyles and that what you think about society as well. Lastly, thanks so much for sharing about the company itself. I think it's just fascinating to hear somebody who's built a company and started it at age of 17. Now you are 22, very solidly Gen Z five years and with the revenue putting a million dollar price investments. And also I really enjoyed, I think your sharing about how you iterate under product market fit. I think the different stakeholders that can be quite tricky in education, which is, the kids, the parents, the teachers, the schools,
Kai (00:34:11)
even like government, sometimes the government
Jeremy Au (00:34:12)
as well. Then also I think I really enjoyed how you talk about how you have to experiment with the go-to market and making sure you hit and be empathetic with their syllabus or their incentive structures.
Kai (00:34:25)
KPI, their KPIs. Yeah.
Jeremy Au (00:34:26)
Their KPIs. Yeah. So, you know, thank you so much for sharing.
Kai (00:34:30)
Thanks for having me.
