"When I first started teaching fifth grade in Vermont, I quickly found that my students didn't know their math facts," says MathFactLab creator and company owner Mike Kenny.

That discovery would ultimately lead him to designing his online strategy-based math fact fluency application.

Mike, who teaches fifth grade at Thomas Fleming Elementary School in Essex Junction, Vermont, first responded to the challenge by researching ways to help his students learn math more easily.

Designing a revolutionary system

But everything he found was based on memorization--which wasn't working.

Instead, Mike began creating a system that would help students understand multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. Initially, that system was flash card-based, but eventually, Mike found a developer and evolved it into an online program.

MathFactLab is highly visual: math facts are displayed through multiple models, including beads, dice, clock faces and bar graphs.

For students using the program, learning math become a discovery process, that's all about reasoning and thinking with numbers, and identifying patterns.

"It's much easier to apply patterns, than it is to rely on memory,"," Mike says.

Starting with certainty

Also, he explains, students explore what they already know, to learn new math facts.

For example, with a student who says they can't do division, Mike will ask if they can multiple a simple number, such as three times eight. Then, he has that student consider that they already understand how to divide, if they can multiply!

"Division is simply 'unmultiplication',"he says.

And the approach of discovering new facts, and learning visually, is highly effective, as students learn, rather than simply recite, facts.

"If they can get there themselves, then they own (that knowledge), and they appreciate it all the more, and remember it," Mike says.

Mike shared the story of creating MathFactLab, offered a closer look at some of the principles teachers can use in their classroom, and discussed what's next with the program.

"...Sixty-five percent of kids...entering school today will end up (in) jobs that currently do not exist," explained Nanit Robotics Founder Vlad Konov, during our 2023 conversation.

Since then, that statement has only become more relevant.

Vlad, who introduced his Nanit ed-tech to the U.S. in the Eureka Park® startup area of CES®2023, has a long track record of innovation.

An engineer, entrepreneur and educator, he is also the founder and CEO of RoboHouse, Ukraine’s international laboratory of robotics, electronics and programming.

In addition, he is the creator of a first-of-its-kind robotics school in Ukraine.

Our discussion, following CES®2023, explored the ways his user-friendly kit, for all ages, made robotics accessible to all.

Vlad's innovation sprang from his discoveries of the limited learning resources for adults, as he began his journey, in adulthood, as a self-taught roboticist.

While STEM opportunities for children are abundant, he says, he found very few learning possibilities for beginning adult learners.

However, he did see a real need for upskilling.

"...Now, market need is to change your professional orientation. It's OK to change your professional orientation at least three times in your lifetime," Vlad says.

And as he became proficient in robotics, he began thinking of ways to fill that gap.

"We don't have enough STEM education for adults, and I want to solve this problem," he says.

"I have a lot of success right now (with robotics). Can you imagine if (I'd started) at 12 or 13?"

His experience would ultimately lead him to create the Nanit Robotics kit--from which users of all ages can build, literally, 100 robots!

But he didn't stop there.

Growing the inspiration

Today, according to Nanit Robotics' website, that innovation has grown into an online engineering course: "Nanit Master", which is getting A pluses, in feedback, from previous students!

"Our mission of the project is to create engineers," explains the website.

"The company's products are not used as weapons, they have only an educational STEM character."

Another exciting note? Since our conversation, Nanit has also begun offering smart home products on Amazon!

A quick check of their listings reveals several different types of baby monitors, including a wearable which tracks breathing motion, and a wi-fi camera with sleep tracking and two-way audio.

"This is the future," Vlad says.

Vlad shared the story of Nanit Robotics, explained some of the ways the kit can be used and offered a closer look at a future in which robotics can facilitate bringing ideas to life.

"If you can learn the planets, you can learn the microbes--if you have the tools," says MedMicroMaps CEO and Co-Founder Dr. Jane Harrington.

"...I will do anything to meet the learner where they are."

And that's exactly what she has done, by drawing on her background as a professor of microbiology, at multiple universities, as well as her time spent serving as Course Director in the area of medical microbiology, both in the Caribbean and, more recently, at Rocky Vista University in Billings, Montana.

Dr. Jane uses technology, both to put microbiology into relatable terms, and to engage visual learners in a fun experience.

Analogies through VR

Her virtual-reality game, MedMicroMaps, replaces the "intimidation" factor with fun--even as it provides a highly-effective tool for visual learning.

The gamer enters a world where they see actual bacteria before them--and interact with them, in the course of their experience. And these are realistic bacteria.

"It's based on real science," Dr. Jane explains.

"So (many) VR applications right now, they're very 'cartoony'."

"(Our representation says,) 'This is a bacteria phage. This is actually what it looks like.'"

Meanwhile, players are discovering parallels between the science behind the virtual bacteria in the game, and their own experiences.

(For example, Dr. Jane says, one person mentioned that a bacteria phage looks like an octopus!)

The world of bacteria in VR

MedMicroMaps players are assisted by a mascot/study buddy named Phage.i. He's a bacteria phage, designed with AI to begin at a learner’s starting point, for microbiology, and help them “grow” from there.

He's also there to make microbiology accessible. Phage.i is a whimsical character with a high voice: Dr. Jane says that, upon seeing him, most people comment on his “cuteness”!

The game is pure fun. In addition to a "detective"-style puzzle to solve, there's a "whack-a-microbe" feature.

Directions for learning

In addition, MedMicroMaps incorporates a revolutionary "map" and compass.

These are a patented design which allows user to learn the effects of the different types of microbes both visually and geographically.

"...An upper-respiratory tract infection, that's the northern coordinate," Dr. Jane explains.

"Versus, if I have something in my lungs, and it's pneumonia, that's the south."

2025 saw Dr. Jane and her husband and MedMicroMaps co-founder, Ian Holyoak, roll out the beta version of MedMicroMaps. Their ultimate goal: several different editions: for high-school students, medical students and institutions of higher learning.

Dr. Jane talked about creating MedMicroMaps, explained how her game works and offered a closer look at the compass system!