An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
You would think education would be one of the most innovative places. This is an opportunity to be progressive, and we are thinking of how we can do better with educating children. Many people are not willing to get outside of the box to try to do things differently utilizing the amazing technology available today.
As a part of our series called “Wisdom from Women Leading in VR, AR and MR Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Erika Donalds.
Education entrepreneur Erika Donalds is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Optima Foundation and Optima Domi. She is a finance professional with a passion for education and has offered her expertise in business and policy to help further the expansion of high-quality school choice options and to improve accountability and governance in Florida’s public schools. Erika is launching the first virtual reality charter school, Optima Classical Academy. Additional information can be found at www.optimaclassical.org.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?
I am a fourth-generation Floridian. I grew up in Tampa with a single mom who worked multiple jobs and did not talk to me much about education or college. However, at some point in my high school years, I just knew that I did not want to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle financially. I decided to buckle down so that I could go to college and improve my future.
I went to Florida State University (FSU) and majored in accounting. I was very serious about my studies and graduated Magna Cum Laude, then went on to get my master’s degree in accounting and my CPA. Since then, I have been very driven in my career and other philanthropic, political, or church-related endeavors.
My husband and I met at FSU and have been together for 20 years. We have been involved in education causes for two decades, and about three or four years ago, I decided to make this my life’s work.
Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
There is a book titled: Reinventing America’s Schools by David Osborne. David Osborne was vilified during the Common Core Era — of which I was a part of the anti-common core movement. But his book talks about education reform and all of the pieces that need to be in place for successful reform in different areas of the country, using them as case studies — places like New Orleans, Denver, and Washington DC. He explains the politics, policies, and other factors that must be aligned for education reforms to be successful. I think it is one of the best education reform books out there because it is not myopic in the view of how to be successful.
Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.
I specialize in classical or traditional education, so I never thought I would be involved in a virtual reality school, since our brick-and-mortar schools have no technology in the classroom. When we went virtual during the pandemic, we were able to keep the best things about classical education intact. Our students had live instruction from teachers every day, they were still reading classic literature and receiving the content-rich curriculum. We had such great feedback from parents, and they were asking us to continue this style of online learning.
When I started looking into virtual learning, I knew it would be challenging to do this effectively, and I happened to meet Adam Mangana, our executive director, who has been working on virtual reality classrooms for many years. The combination of the virtual reality classroom and the classical model of education was the perfect match to implement what our vision and to maintain the pillars of classical education in the virtual reality environment. I think it’s going to be the most successful education innovation in a very long time.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?
You might think that starting a virtual school in the middle of a pandemic is a great idea, because the demand is high. However, with chip shortages, uncertainty in the marketplace, looking for investors to embrace what has never been done before, and going through the government bureaucracy, it has certainly had its challenges. This entire endeavor, from January 2021 to today, has been one miracle after another as we overcome so many obstacles. The greatest thing about it has been all the people who have joined the team and are working to build this virtual reality charter school. They have embraced the vision that we have for what is ultimately possible and are getting on board with full energy and attention. I mean, that’s really a story in itself; to be able to gather such an exemplary team in such a short time to build a VR school, launch it, and welcome 1,500 students next year — it’s just going to be an amazing thing.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I started in the charter school industry, we went into a new area in Florida that was not so friendly to growth. We are thinking we are bringing this school choice into this community, parents are really excited, and everyone will love it, and then we ran into the brick wall called government. They held public meetings, and there were hundreds of people who showed up complaining about traffic, environmental impacts, conspiracy theories, and anything else that they could think of to block education choice. The effort to defend the education monopoly was stronger than we realized. It was a mistake to underestimate the opposition to reform and innovation, and we will not make that mistake again. Since then, the good news is that school choice, education reform, and school choice options have gained such support from the public, parents, and community members.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Definitely my husband. We got married right after college, and we started our life together right after 9/11, both working multiple jobs. We had our first baby, and Byron was “Mr. Mom” so I could go back for my master’s degree and CPA. Then when he was studying for exams and advancing his career, I was taking up the slack at home. Just over 20 years together, and we work as a team to help propel each other forward. I could not do anything that I do without his support and encouragement, and all those years that he helped me achieve my goals and dreams.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
My exciting new project is opening the world’s first virtual reality charter school! We are also building classical teacher and leadership training programs that we will offer both in-person and virtually. As we begin to open this virtual reality school, we know we are going to have to train a lot of teachers across the country and perhaps around the world to teach classically and to teach in virtual reality.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?
The three things that excite me about the industry would all have to do with education. That is my focus, and that is where I want to see technology being able to take education to the next level. It is already involved with entertainment, which is wonderful, but education is what truly sets people free. Being able to utilize VR, AR, MR to bring classical education to students in rural communities and disadvantaged or underserved communities, that otherwise would not be able to get the same experience with the same quality of teacher. We will bring that right to them at Optima Classical Academy.
Secondly, studies show VR can help students who have attention deficits and other types of special needs. I am excited about the possibilities for those students to immerse themselves in an educational experience fully and not have the distractions of a traditional classroom.
Finally, I’m excited about training teachers in VR and allow them to interact with the greatest teachers from around the country. The possibilities for expanding and improving teacher training using VR are endless.
What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?
We must be careful that VR is used to enhance the world that we live in and not replace it, especially when it comes to our children. I think it will be great that kids can interact during virtual school with their teachers and peers, but it is not going to replace peer-to-peer interaction that they need, like playing outside with friends. I think kids still need to be out and about and interact personally.
I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?
Training our teachers will be a tremendous aspect of our work with Optima Classical Academy. It is very difficult for a teacher to observe another teacher teaching. That is because they all teach at the same time throughout the school day, and they would have to leave their class and watch another teacher teach. Once we have the teachers teaching in VR and record those, another teacher can watch the video and ask questions. They can also be live and see how the teacher interacts with the students in the classroom. Also, just bringing the highest quality trainers into virtual reality with students around the country without having to travel and deal with other expenses. It is going to make high-quality, live training more accessible and more effective because you’re doing it in VR as opposed to in a webinar.
Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?
We host VR meetings with our team at Optima. This interaction is so much better than it is in 2 dimensions, and we can still share documents with one another in the metaverse. As more people have VR headsets in their homes, we will see more social interaction in VR. It is so much more fun to get together with avatars in the virtual reality environment where you can go anywhere and have an experience together when you cannot otherwise be face to face. It is going to change our relationships and our ability to interact with other people virtually in a more meaningful way.
Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in broader terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?
I believe it is important that we encourage women and young people about their abilities in mathematics and science, but it starts with having capable teachers in these subjects. Often, teacher unions do not allow differentiation in pay for teachers in STEM fields, and it is difficult to compete with the private sector for this talent. As a result, we have weak STEM teachers in our schools, students do not receive quality instruction in these areas, and so they are not confident exceling in those fields. We need to incentivize skilled STEM teachers to come to teach in our schools, and inspire women, men, and other students into the STEM fields.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?
People who defend the education monopoly criticize school choice advocates as a ‘special interest’ and say we are in education for the money. We are definitely in it for the children. For people coming from the private sector, like myself, it was a calling to change careers and focus on something like school choice that has so many barriers. It is not as easy as working in the private industry, but you do it because you love kids, want to help families, and think it is going to make a difference in our country long-term.
What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in Tech” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
I am relatively new to being a woman in Tech, aside from in the accounting and finance industry in my 20-year career, and I’m a lot more “tech-savvy” now that I’m the founder of a virtual reality charter school. So as a newly experienced woman in tech, I find that the one surprising thing to me is the kind of minority veto on innovation and technology in a multitude of areas, but certainly in education. You would think education would be one of the most innovative places. This is an opportunity to be progressive, and we are thinking of how we can do better with educating children. Many people are not willing to get outside of the box to try to do things differently utilizing the amazing technology available today.
Hopefully, I can be part of the solution in spreading the good news about utilizing technology in the right way and maintaining the efficacy of something like classical education or other traditional things that can be enhanced with technology, not replaced with technology.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
If I could do one thing, it would be to bring universal school choice to every parent across the country. I would make education into a competitive free-market environment, which would raise the quality and accessibility of education for every child.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Elon Musk, of course! Because he is innovative, a risk taker and an incredible businessperson. I would want to learn everything I could about him, his success, and what is next for him in the future so I can invest in whatever it is he is doing.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Wisdom from Women Leading in VR, AR and MR Industry with Erika Donalds Of Optima Classical Academy was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
