Describe yourself in three words or phrases.
Curious, stubborn in a useful way, and permanently slightly behind on sleep.
What do you like most about your job?
Technically my job is being a high school junior. CamBright is the thing I do around it. What I like most is seeing where people log in from. We’ve had students from Sudan, Lebanon and dozens of other countries, many of them places where paid prep simply is not an option, all preparing for the same exams I am in Washington State.
My IB friends and I compare notes constantly, and it is the same story everywhere: same syllabuses, same mock exam panic, every continent. Being a small part of that is the best part.
Describe a project or initiative you’re currently working on that excites you.
Growing our free tutoring program. Content solves half the problem; tutoring solves the confidence half, and that is the part that costs families the most. Our volunteer tutors mean a student anywhere in the world can get help with additional maths without anyone asking for a card number. That still feels slightly unreal to me.
What’s a piece of work you’re proud of, and what did it teach you?
CamBright’s past papers library. It sounds unglamorous, but it is what students asked for first and use most. It taught me that accessibility is mostly not a technology problem. The material existed before CamBright did. It was scattered, paywalled or buried in forums. Organising it clearly and giving it away turned out to be the innovation.
What’s a small daily habit that helps you in your work?
I revise on CamBright myself every day, because I still have my own exams to pass. If a note is confusing, I suffer first, and my classmates tell me exactly what is broken with no diplomacy whatsoever. Being our own user is the best quality control we have.
What’s one change you’d like to see in your sector over the next few years?
Free access to learning as the baseline, not the exception. Cambridge and the IB give students in more than 160 countries a shared standard, which is genuinely wonderful. But the prep economy around them is pay to win, and the students with the most riding on these exams are often the least able to pay. Accessibility cannot stop at enrolment. It has to include the notes, past papers and tutoring that decide how students actually do.
What idea, book, podcast or conversation has stayed with you recently?
A conversation with my IB friends at school. We realised a student in our hallway and a student in Singapore can be revising for versions of the same global exam system, having nearly identical experiences without knowing it. Education went global faster than the support around it did. That conversation is basically why CamBright exists.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone starting out in this field?
Build the thing you needed six months ago. As a student you know exactly where the gaps are, because you just fell into them. Start smaller than feels impressive and let real users tell you what matters. Also, being 17 is not a disqualification. Sometimes it is the reason people take your problem seriously.
