Story and Photo by Our City Thoughts
Gary and Valerie Berman are the co-founders of Grasp Learning, a pioneering after school program that provides academic support and enrichment to children with hands on tutoring and tech.
Our City Thoughts: Why did you create in Miami?
Gary We’ve been in the Miami community for almost 40 years, and we’re seeing that Miami is just at the precipice of something that can be very important regarding entrepreneurship. There is an ecosystem that’s been created here over the last several years to facilitate that.
OCT: What does your company do? How was it founded?
G: We open micro learning centers inside not-for-profits such as JCCS or community centers or churches and other settings for after school and out of school learning for k-8 children. One of the most important innovations of our system is that we’ve figured out how to drive most of the costs out of starting your own company. In particular, we’re focusing on educators because we know that teachers are underpaid, and this is an opportunity for them to earn supplemental income by opening their own micro-learning center wherever they live, in every neighborhood throughout the United States.
V: We were challenged by a local entrepreneur to “do something disruptive in education.” So the journey began in Miami and proceeded through different parts of the country where we checked out innovations in education at Stanford, Harvard and other centers of academia, and gathered best practices in out of school learning.
OCT: Describe an innovation advancement you are working on?
G: We have several innovations. The first is the business model itself, which is to empower a generation of educators to own their own micro-learning centers. The second very exciting innovation is that when a child comes to one of our centers, they’re also going to have access to 24/7 on-demand academic coaching through any electronic device. So if a child is stuck, 4:00 in the morning with geometry, they’ll be able to go online and get help. I think the other big innovation for us is establishing partnerships with not-for-profits. So by opening up inside not-for-profits, we’re really helping the not-for-profits accomplish their mission by providing high quality academic support.
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