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ABOUT US

July 29th to Aug 9th, 2019

310 Easy Street, Mountain View, CA (GISSV/YSIC School)

$1,199 (Early Bird Discount off $100 when you sign up before March 31, 2019)

Young Outliers is a part of Silicon Valley STEAM Education & Research Association (SV-SERA)

K-8 STEM Education has not been able to keep up with innovation.

Antiquated methods of teaching and assessing are discounting children's unique abilities, curiosity, and creativity. Standardized tests, textbooks, and policies reward conformity, memorization, and redundancy. How can there be the same standards for all when every student has unique combinations of abilities, challenges, and interests?

Limited connections with real-world STEAM industries keep students from engaging in STEAM education in the context of everyday life and work.

Children need to see STEAM professional in action and learning about the changing roles of professionals as STEAM fields advance. How can learning STEAM, which permeates every aspect of our everyday lives, become more relevant, connected, and compelling for students?


Marisa Harford, deputy director for the Math and Science Teacher Education Residency and Charter Teacher Residency at New Visions for Public Schools, explains, "A lack of efficacy is a major reason for teachers leaving the profession – a sense that they're not impacting students."


How can teaching STEAM, which transforms life, work, and the world, be more exciting and inspiring?


Sharon Robinson, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, said, "Recruitment to this (STEM Education) work is harder than it's ever been."


Steve Kappler, vice president of brand experience for the ACT, said "Interest in teaching STEM subject areas is very, very low. It is very difficult to find math and science teachers for elementary education."


Most elementary school teachers are not trained in STEAM teaching because of the elusive way these subjects were taught.

Meet The Team

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Gigi Carunungan

Gigi Carunungan has over 30 years’ experience as an education leader and is driven by her passion for reinventing education. Her work focuses on developing learning environments that nurture students’ potentials to optimal levels. Gigi designs integrated, thematic, hands-on, and future-driven school wide curricula, summer camps, and offline and online after-school programs.

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Gigi is co-founder and led the learning design of 3 Silicon Valley K-8 schools-- Synapse School (2007-2012), Imagination School (2015-2018), and wrote the blueprint of Spark Charter, which was approved by the Board of the Santa Clara Unified School District in 2015.


Through her leadership, students thrived and excelled with impactful, deep-dive, thematic, active, and creative hands-on education solutions. In the overall score of the first standardized test of Synapse School, students performed above national norms.


Gigi invented the Helical ModelTM, an innovative constructivist learning system anchored in neuroscience. The model includes 5 stages of learning: play, explore, connect, imagine, and remember. Students engage in analytical, creative, hands-on, social, and project-driven learning. Dynamic and open-ended, lessons provide teachers with learning solutions that engage multiple types and levels of learners.

 

Currently, Gigi is cofounder and Chief Learning Architect of Playnovate, a hands-on science learning lab, where learning experiences are likened to real-world practices with the merging of offline-online platforms; Young Outliers, a design entrepreneurship camp for K-12 students, and Silicon Valley STEAM Education & Research Association, a K-8 STEAM IDEAS Exchange on the challenges and possibilities of innovating K-8 STEAM Programs in schools and after-school programs.

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Steve Hsia

As a parent, entrepreneur, business leader, and angel investor, Steve is no stranger to the Silicon Valley culture of innovation. For the past five years, Steve spent most of his days being actively involved in his children’s education, which revealed to him certain gaps in what was being taught in the classroom and what skills they would need to succeed.

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Steve firmly believes in the value of Silicon Valley STEAM Education Research Association (SV-SERA) in preparing students for their future careers. He believes that passion, self-discipline, commitment, intellectual curiosity, and hard work are what matters most for lifelong success and happiness.


As a serial entrepreneur, Steve co-founded and led five consecutive successful startups in different industries and geographic regions. For education, Steve co-founded Playnovate (online STEAM education for K8 students) and Young Outliers (design entrepreneurship for K-12 students), for digital marketing and advertising, Steve co-founded and led AGENDA, one of the largest digital marketing agencies in Asia with a presence throughout Asia-Pacific. AGENDA was an early adopter of innovative Internet technologies with advertising and marketing services to help large global brands market online. AGENDA was acquired by the world’s largest advertising and media conglomerate, WPP Group, in 2008. For enterprise software, Steve founded and built two enterprise software companies that were acquired by leading enterprise software companies in Silicon Valley. He is a very strong leader and proven business-building operator, with a history of building an unmatched company culture and management team.

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JingJing Xu

Jingjing is the co-founder & CEO of ETU Inc. ETU is a progressive and innovative education startup operating in Silicon Valley and Asia. It comprises a network of micro-schools and teacher training institutes in China, centering on the 21st century learning with equal opportunities for all students. Jingjing is also the founder & CEO of InnoED, a Silicon Valley education startup that develops and hosts Mandarin language educational programs across many Bay Area schools.


As a member of Board of Directors of Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Partners in Education (PiE), Jingjing chairs the development and Leadership Circle & Community for PiE in Palo Alto.


Jingjing holds an M.S .of Computer Engineering from UCSC. She has always been passionate about education especially STEAM and community. After a successful career of over 10+ years leading various world-class semiconductor engineering teams, Jingjing pivoted her career to devote her full focus on education. She aims to cultivate a lifelong passion for learning and providing children with the skills they will need to thrive in the innovation economy.

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