In the future of work - set to be upon us in the next 10 to 30 years, depending on what your core skills and capabilities are - mathematics is going to be key. Love it or hate it, LearnEd founder and CEO Mahya Mirzaei explains why - and how she’s upskilling thousands of high school students across Australia with a single platform.

Photo: Mahya Mirzaei

Photo: Mahya Mirzaei

"The world is going towards the world of AI. In that world, knowing mathematics is going to be able to help define the course of the future. Areas like data analytics are heavily reliant on maths and if you’re not competent in that, you can’t contribute."

- Entrepreneur and PhD holder Mahya Mirzaei.

At just 27 years old, the list of reasons that make Mahya a qualified commentator are a combination of mind boggling and envy inducing. Not only does she have a degree in aeronautical space engineering, plus a PhD from UTS in Engineering and IT (Data Analytics for Innovation), she also launched her own virtual maths tutoring startup, LearnEd, in 2016 after completing the Hatchery Accelerate program (now UTS Startups).

LearnedHub has been particularly successful in the past six months: it was awarded ‘Best for Profit Venture’ at UTS Venture Day in February, as well as the IBISWorld 3P Innovation Competition, alongside fellow UTS Hatchery Accelerate startup alumni Tekuma.  

Maths in the mainstream

You might be doing the maths (pun intended) and be thinking that Mahya has an agenda to push, using maths in the future of work as a marketing message. But despite her level of skin in the game, you have to admit, she makes a sound argument for why maths going mainstream is more than just a fad.

“Mathematics is also a language of logical thinking as it teaches us problem solving. So even if you don’t directly go into a field where you have to use hard mathematics, just knowing mathematics will help. What we see is when our students get really good at maths, they also get better at their science courses, because mathematics is fundamental to those too,” Mahya elaborates.

Mahya gives an industry example of mathematics and its role in the future of work: in the field of medicine, specifically the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, which is using data analytics and machine learning on genomes and genomics. 

“One of the problems they have is looking for people with medical or biology degrees to join the team and do some of this via machine learning, but very few people from those degrees have the mathematical and technical backgrounds to do that. 

“Many of the things doctors do will be replaced by robots pretty soon. Whether that is a good or bad thing may be up for debate. But if that’s going to happen, then the degrees that educate those doctors are going to be very different from what’s on offer now, and are going to be more data-driven and more mathematics-based.” 

From maths whizz to new mindsets

Photo: Mahya Mirzaei

Photo: Mahya Mirzaei

But a degree, whether it’s maths-focused or otherwise, is just the beginning of building the type of mindset and skillset that will see graduates add value in the future of work. The most important mindsets for success, according to Mahya? The desire to keep learning, and confidence in your abilities.

“I’m a true believer in self-learning. University is great in terms of giving people the core skills of an industry. But one of the main things that a degree should do for you is enable you to understand your own capabilities and realise that you can learn anything, and that you can do things independently,” she explains. 

Mahya likens this to her own experiences launching and building her startup. “As a startup founder, or someone that works in a startup, you need to be willing to always challenge yourself and learn new skills. It is extremely important to have the confidence to believe you can learn something new.” 

That confidence and adaptability has certainly paid off, as it will for many others in the future. In just two years since launching, the business has expanded across Australia, and setting up shop in Asia is now on the horizon. More than 2000 students have now used LearnedHub’s online courses, and tutoring scholarships have been awarded to nearly 500 more. The startup is now part of the latest Startmate accelerator cohort, which is supported by Sydney-based VC firm Blackbird Ventures.

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Transcript

[Meg is talking to the tutor online]

Meg: Would we... times it by four?

Olivia: Yes, that's exactly right. And remember, whatever we do to the bottom, we have to do to the top.

[Meg's mum enters with a hot drink for Meg]

Meg: Oh, thanks mum.

Sansia: Sweetheart, there you go.

Sansia: Hi Olivia, how are you going?

Olivia: Good, how are you, Sansia?

Sansia: Yeah, I'm great. Meg is getting so much out of this, so thank you so much. I'll leave you two be.

Meg: Thanks mum.

Meg: Sorry. So, what happens after we simplify?

Voice over: At LearnEd Hub, we offer maths sessions with the best tutors in Australia. But your help doesn't stop at your weekly sessions.

Meg: I'm really having trouble with this one question, and it's like an hour to the test. Is there any way you could just run me through it?

Olivia: Yeah, of course. Let's go.

Voice over: In addition to your weekly sessions, you can also get help from us when you get stuck on a question.

Voice over: Experience a revolutionary tutoring program that actually works.

Voice over: Learn more at learnedhub.com

Alongside her educational grounding in mathematics, Mahya credits being open to change and perseverance as being particularly crucial to the traction LearnedHub has experienced. 

“It’s the fact that we’ve really been passionate about the problem space itself. We’ve never really been married to the solution we’ve had. We’ve always been open to changing it to make it better for our customers,” she acknowledges.

“That’s the main difference between us and others, who have been really sure about their solution and wanted to make that work.”

Perseverance can be easier said than done, especially during times when you’re the only one that believes in your vision. 

“Getting customers to understand has sometimes been difficult,” Mahya admits. “We could have given up on it a while ago, but we believed in it and persevered to get parents to try it. Once they did, they loved it. If we’d gone off the initial feedback, it would have never worked, because people don’t know what they want until they see it.” 

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What does innovation mean? To me innovation means being able to 'think outside the box', but outside the box thinking has become a cliche. No one really knows what it means anymore, and today I will talk about what it means to me. 

Innovation is being able to imagine a world that does not exist but so many of us today lack imagination. If you ask people how they view the future their ideas are very much influenced by the movies they watched or stories the read. There is a shortage of truly original ideas.

Henry Ford said, "If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse," and it's true, because so very few people have truly mastered the art of outside the box thinking that they can go from a horse to a car. But why is this? Is it truly because creative innovators are born and the rest of us, those of us that aren't Steve Jobs, are doomed to be followers? 

I think the reason why true innovation is scarce is quite simple. It goes back to Henry Ford's other quote that says "whether you believe you can or you believe you can't you're right”. It's all about Thomas Edison's definition of genius - the 1% inspiration and the 99% perspiration. 

The reluctance towards innovation comes from the reality that the myth of born innovators has gone to the roots of our society so much that people have forgotten that 'outside the box' thinking is a skill you acquire not one you're born with. Creative people do not wake up in the morning and have a world-changing idea. Innovation is hard work hence the 99% perspiration rule. I give a very simple example, if you consider students that do 4 unit mass at the last year of high school - which is one of the very very few subjects in the whole of the secondary education system that requires students to think and for the first time actually think beyond the rule based approaches that they normally follow - what you'll see is that they are so unfamiliar with their own brain and how to think it's actually hilarious to watch. And they bring you a question that they spent weeks on and couldn't do. I mean you do solve it for them they think of you as an incredible genius that belongs to another world. But you yourself know that you can do this because 'outside the box thinking' is a skill you acquired through vigorous practice and then never give up attitude.

But the same way that mathematicians are not born creative thinkers do not pop out of the sky. Many of us have been told throughout our whole entire life they were just not that creative. But there are processes and sets of tools that can help us be successfully creative. 

But next Thomas Edison for example. Thomas Edison created the electric light bulb and then wrapped an entire industry around it, in the same way that Steve Jobs created the iPod and wrapped an entire ecosystem around it using iTunes. Many people actually think of the light bulb as Edison's signature invention but Edison understood that the bulb was little but a trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that too. So Edison's genius lies in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace and not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would use what he made and he engineered toward that insight. He was giving a great deal of consideration to users needs and preferences, which is exactly what Steve Jobs did to make iPods so successful. 

Edison's approach was an early example of what is now called 'Design Thinking’, So there are processes and toolkits that can help you innovate. But just like learning a set of mathematic rules will not make you a mathematician, reading textbooks about design thinking or any other innovation methodology will not make you an innovator. You can sit by the beach and watch as many people as you like swim, so long as you're not in the water yourself you will never ever learn to swim. 

Steve Jobs in one of his early interviews says a sentence that I think if anyone truly comprehends its meaning it will revolutionize the way they see the world. He says "you can change the world the moment that you realize that those that change the world are no smarter than you". And this it's probably one of the most powerful sentences I have ever heard. And there will come a day that you will understand the true meaning of this and from that moment on your world will never be the same.

Funny enough I first heard Steve Jobs say this when I was about 10 years old, but my understanding of it until very recently when I met Steve Wozniak the co-founder of Apple, was like most of my university students understanding of the concept of logarithms. So my university students know the concept of logs a very well. They know it, they can use it, they can solve the most complex problems with it, but few of them really understand what it means. And the funny thing is that they don't even know that they don't know. And I finally tell them that all a log of, for example 25 base five is, it's just asking you five goes to the power of what two gives you 25, that's it. A very simple concept, one they think they know. They even know this formula up there that basically says exactly the same thing, but above all the equations and all the glittery things they have forgotten the depth of the matter. And this is exactly like Steve Jobs quote. Once you don't just know it and you truly believe and understand it, you will know that the walls of the rules in this world are not set by people that are better than you and me. That you don't have to walk in between the walls, and you can change them, demolish them, rebuild them or remove them completely. You can change the world. 

Elizabeth Holmes undoubtedly knew this very very well. Broncos early death from cancer moved her to develop a way to detect diseases earlier. By her sophomore year at Stanford she had dropped out to start Thoronos? a blood testing company that some of the smartest people in healthcare think will change medical testing forever. And their magic, with a virtually painless prick of the finger, and a drop of blood elapsed can quickly run a multitude of tests. Cheaper, quicker, less pain, less blood. And if you have ever had a loved one battling with cancer you will know that this changes the lives of so many children and adults very drastically. 

At age 31 Elizabeth Holmes it's the worlds youngest self-made female billionaire, but what she's done it's beyond anything money can measure. And this is a true meaning of innovation. To be able to see the world for not what it is but what it can be. To not just say that this is how blood tests are done, but to believe that there's always a better way. To be able to get rid of the mentality that the world is the way it is and you are to just align your life within the world trying to not bash into the walls too much. 

Life can be a lot broader the second you discover Steve Jobs' simple fact - that everything around you everything that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, influence it, build your own things that other people can use. Once you land that you'll never be the same again. The most important thing for innovation is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just living in it, versus embrace, it change it, prove it, make your mark upon it. And however you learn this, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better, because it really does require a lot of improvement in a lot of ways. Whether it's eradicating cancer from the face of this earth once and for all, or coming up with a better way to take blood tests like Elizabeth did, or a better way to get from one country to the other. And this is when you can truly change the world.

And I finish with what Steve Jobs would have said "stay hungry, stay foolish”. Thank you.

Keeping it real with industry

Instrumental to Mahya’s journey as an entrepreneur were the real-life industry collaborations on offer through her PhD, namely with IBM, CBA and EY. 

Under the tutelage of IBM Research Australia’s associate director, Mahya traveled to Melbourne to collaborate on live projects. CBA opened the doors to its Innovation Labs, including its famed social robotics initiative. The work with EY, meanwhile, was focused on leveraging data analytics to help organisations innovate, diving deep over several months and working directly with some of the firm’s partners.

“These have been chances that not every university provides students with,” she reflects, giving a nod to her UTS PhD supervisor’s ability to open up valuable new industry opportunities for her. 

“My supervisor was a great role model, stretching all her students to see the world in a different way. The people that she connected me with - like Steve Wozniak - changed my perspective on things quite a lot. Even the Vice Chancellor of UTS, Attila Brungs - how many universities in the world allow students to receive mentorship directly from the VC? He’s been so active in all the entrepreneurship endeavours at UTS and helping students.”

Of all the qualities, knowledge and skills Mahya has tapped into to get to where she is today, perhaps it’s something as simple as seeing things from a different perspective that is really the key to making a difference in the future of work. Can robots and AI do that as well as an empathetic and creative human innovator can? Only time will tell.

By MaryLou Costa, UTS Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

Hear more from Mahya and other education disruptors at the 'Future and Disruption of Education' event in Sydney on November 28 - register here. Click here to find out more about entrepreneurship opportunities for UTS PhD students.