In 5 Years, Every Kid Will Have an AI Teacher
Mark Pavlyukovskyy and Hendrik Remigereau host TechMates, the NZVC podcast. The guest on this episode is Arash Tayebi of Kara Technologies, Penelope Barton of Crimson Global Academy, Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education & Finn Puklowski of Fluency Academy, and it went out on 21 July 2026. It covers the NZVC portfolio companies Kara Technologies and General Compute.
- Guest
- Arash Tayebi of Kara Technologies, Penelope Barton of Crimson Global Academy, Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education & Finn Puklowski of Fluency Academy
- Date
- 21 July 2026
- Companies
- Kara Technologies · General Compute
- Watch
- YouTube
- Listen
- Spotify
This episode brings together four conversations on one theme: technology is rewriting what it means to learn at every stage of life. It opens with Arash Tayebi of Kara Technologies, whose own hearing loss led him to build AI avatars that translate content into sign language in real time. Penelope Barton of Crimson Global Academy has built her son a personalized AI tutor and predicts AI-driven teachers are three to five years from the mainstream classroom, while Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education imagines AI avatars standing in for Ivy League professors. Finn Puklowski of Fluency Academy closes with the workplace, where he built an internal AI curriculum for his whole company.
- How AI avatars are giving deaf communities real-time access to education and content.
- Why one founder believes AI-driven teachers are only three to five years away.
- Inside one company's internal AI curriculum: 165 projects, 40 shipped to production.
- The rust belt warning for entire industries that ignore AI in the workplace.
Companies in this episode
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Kara Technologies
AI and B2B SaaS
Kara Technologies builds hyper-realistic digital human avatars that translate written and spoken content into sign languages, including New Zealand Sign Language and American Sign Language.
Read about Kara Technologies
-
General Compute
Deep Tech
General Compute runs an inference cloud built on purpose-built AI accelerators rather than general-purpose GPUs, designed for the high volume of model calls that AI agents generate.
Read about General Compute
EdTech, AI in Education, Accessibility, Sign Language, Future of Work, AI and Jobs