Transcript

Raising Capable Kids in a Fast-Changing World ft. Gary Surdam | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby

From Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 40 min · 6,248 words · 71 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Raising Capable Kids in a Fast-Changing World ft. Gary Surdam | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby", an episode of Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby published January 2, 2026 (40 min, about 6,248 words). It mentions 9 people, works and ideas, including Illuminate, STEAM education, Chicago Tribune, Gary Certum, Harvard Business School.

What this episode is about

The Illuminate app, created by Gary Surdam, aims to transform children's education by fostering collaboration between parents and kids, emphasizing parental involvement as the first step in learning. By providing customizable activities that promote values such as responsibility and social justice, the app prepares children for success in a global economy, while upcoming features will leverage AI technology to cater to individual learning styles and strengths.

Key takeaways

  • Illuminate app connects parents and kids, turning every home into a mini classroom.
  • AI's role in education is evolving; it’s not just about data, it’s about illuminating individual learning paths.
  • Behind every great app is a problem; Gary witnessed the 'aha' moment in learning ten years before AI was cool.
  • Education isn't one-size-fits-all; Illuminate tailors the experience to each child's unique strengths and weaknesses.
  • From restaurant entrepreneur to education innovator, Gary proves adaptability breeds success in the ever-changing education landscape.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Illuminate, STEAM education, Gary Certum
  2. – 10:00: Brightart Edtech, Chicago Tribune, Harvard Business School
  3. – 15:00: Berkeley, Chicago Tribune, Illuminate
  4. – 20:00: Adrian Martinez, Illuminate
  5. – 35:00: Illuminate
  6. – 39:38: Illuminate

Notable quotes from "Raising Capable Kids in a Fast-Changing World ft. Gary Surdam | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby"

  • Episode of Coffees for Closers. Today we are sitting down with Gary Certum, the founder and CEO of the Illuminate app, an application that is revolutionizing education for children. Please welcome Gary Surdom. Thanks for joining.
    about Illuminate · at
  • Their weaknesses and it takes their grade level where they're at in their schooling and focuses on steam education.
    about STEAM education · at
  • Business called Brightart international education, and I actually sold it to the Chicago Tribune.
    about Chicago Tribune · at
  • Entrepreneur and not an educator. And so I went back to school got a certificate from Harvard Business School and was able to kind of change and that's when I started the new…
    about Harvard Business School · at
  • So, I brought in some interns from USC, from Berkeley, from Arizona State, and they built the AB through my direction and kind of going piece by piece. And so, it took us about eight months to build it. but they're doing.
    about Berkeley · at
  • Of books that are there. We have podcasts that are on there. one of our key person is Dr.
    about Adrian Martinez · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Gary Certum — Person · 1 mention · first at
    What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. Today we are sitting down with Gary Certum, the founder and CEO of the Illuminate app, an application that is revolutionizing education for children. Please welcome.
  • Adrian Martinez — Person · 1 mention · first at

Companies & orgs

  • Chicago Tribune — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • Harvard Business School — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Brightart Edtech — Company · 1 mention · first at
    School and was able to kind of change and that's when I started the new company called Brightart Edtech using what I have learned through the Harvard program and really making…
  • Berkeley — Company · 1 mention · first at

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. Today we are sitting down with Gary Certum, the founder and CEO of the Illuminate app, an application that is revolutionizing education for children. Please welcome Gary Surdom. Thanks for joining the show. Welcome to another episode of Coffee.

Thank you. I I'm I'm excited to be here and excited to share our story, what we're doing, and where we're going.

I love it, Gary. Now, if you want to give the audience a 10,000 foot overview of what is the illuminate app and how is it revolutionizing education for children today? Illuminating app, it starts off with the parents and the children working together understanding that our parents are the first and most important teachers in the lives of their children and then connecting them together. You know, we've gone through the p pandemic. In fact, I've written a book called Illuminate that talks about how do we go from four years ago when our kids were 247 in our house that we normally send them off to school, but now they were working with us. How how do we help our students to be successful and how do we how do we um gear them up and prepare them for success in a global economy? So, we combine them together.

The parents have an activity that they can choose to have it once a week. They can choose to have it two or three times a week. But we give them activities to build responsibility, honesty, and and one of them activities that we have is to build social justice. having our our our children understand how do we respect each other and when we don't get respected h how do we deal with that and how do we make life uh more positive um for us and then uh phase two is in uh 18 months and we are looking at using the AI technology to give uh students exactly we call it illuminate because we want those illuminating moments to happen in every child because it takes the way the learning style of each child. It takes their strengths and their weaknesses and it takes their grade level where they're at in in in their schooling and focuses on steam education.

Love it. Now, take me back to when you started this application. What is the problem that you were trying to solve for?

Actually, 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I had this idea. Why not build an app that we can help students to really succeed? I was teaching a online class with students in Thailand and I gave them an engineering problem. They had to solve the problem. Their minds were you can see the gears just working. They couldn't understand it. All of a sudden, it illuminated in the life in the face of a child. And within seconds, he gave me the answer. 10 years ago, we didn't have AI technology. It was just something in the far future. Now, we're at the point where let's use that technology to give each student those illuminating moments. There are moments when everything clicks and everything comes together. So, that's the concept that I had 10 years ago. It took us 10 years to get to where we're at now and we're at the right place at the right time.

So it was 10 years ago you and it all started from when you were teaching engineering students. I actually um I've taught every grade from first grade all the way up to university and I teach steam education at a university um at that time I was in a university in um called University of Leverne in Leverne California and I was teaching um teachers that were getting their their degree in um the their credential teaching credential um and we would go we would talk about steam education and I would instruct them, but we would go for two weeks at the end of the semester and we would teach in China and we do steam camps throughout um up and down China and give um our teachers the opportunity to learn and to refine their teaching style. What they found out is that students are the same all over the country, all over the world and it just gave them an opportunity to do that. So I was focusing on steam education with

new teachers that were coming into the classrooms. Okay. Gotcha. Now you've worked all over the world in education. What originally drew you to the education space and how did it become a calling to do this like full-time for a living?

I got to tell you, I I have an entrepreneur spirit. Um I was 19 years old. My uncle had a restaurant that was popular in Ventura, California, and he just was doing phenomenal work, just raking in the money and all of that. I would watch him and he would he would at lunchtime after the after the the lunchtime rush, he take his money, he put it in his pocket, go to the bank, and then after dinner, he'd take his money and then he'd take it home. So I saw that and I had that entrepreneur spirit and I said I can do it. So he taught me the recipes. I opened up my restaurant when I was 19 years old with the help of my parents.

Your own restaurant? Yes. And I didn't have any customers. I'm like wait what what's going on here? So with the first month I'm like wait my uncle didn't tell me about this. If you fast forward basically I found After three years, I loved the business. I loved what I was doing, but my heart was in education. And so, I went back to school and got my bachelor's degree, went on to teach in um LA Unified School District for a number of years, moved on to different districts in in the county, and then opened up uh my first uh business called Brightart um um international education, and I actually sold it to the Chicago Tribune.

Wow. and became an executive for the Chicago Tribune. And they used to tell me I'm like that speedboat. Um they they would say the Tribune is that that tanker that just goes straight down the ocean and I'm that speedboat that just kind of reacts to the market and reacts to what what customers want and what they need. And so I did that which gave me a good um they gave me the 40% kind of um uh I guess if you if you're making less than 40% profit then you don't do it. Even if it's 30 39.9% it has to be 40%. So that gave me a lot of a lot of um uh schooling in in growing the company. years later I found that I needed to grow the company as a entrepreneur and not an educator. And so I went back to school um uh got a certificate from um Harvard Business School and was able to kind of change and that's when I I started the new company called Brightart Edtech using what I have learned through the Harvard

uh program and really uh making things click and come together. What was the biggest takeaway you got from the harvard program?

Okay, as an educator, it's like, okay, so um they asked me, how much do you want for this? Well, you know what? I just want your your teachers to be successful. So, it it doesn't matter. Harvard taught me you can't have a sustainable company if you're just giving it away. So, you have to bottom line, you need to make sure that you make a profit in everything you're doing. And so, that was the bottom line. I I I have brought on board um a um advisory board that is consisting of superintendents of schools, sales people, uh financial people, technology people brought in those advisors that are helping me to grow the company.

Now what are the moments of or struggles in your own life that help you shape helped you shape your passion for helping kids and parents connect through education? I actually I go back to when I was in fifth grade. When I was in fifth grade, I was a struggling reader. Um I couldn't spell. Um I I I struggle through the reading. And I don't know if you've ever you probably are too young, but we used to have peachy folders. And the peachy folders were things that that students would carry around with their back. They didn't even have backpacks back then.

But I took I I was in a fourth grade speller when I should have been in a fifth grade speller. I co covered it up with a peachy folder so no one knew that I was below grade level. Those struggles that I felt, I don't want students to feel the same thing. I don't want them to feel like they are less than anyone else. And so that's where my my heart comes into the the business and into education. helping students to succeed, helping students to feel good about themselves and to have confidence. [snorts]

So, does your platform help with th those specific subjects like reading, spelling or is it more like macro? What because you talked about social justice, you talked about, you know, various things that we deal with as a society. The first phase is working with parents. Uh parents and children working together, gaining a bond with each other, but also parents being those first important teachers in the lives of their children. And and it it it has a variety of um activities. If we look at let's say honesty, honesty we have activities that they can do that bring in reading that bring in writing that all bring in all those other subjects but it's all broken down into age appropriacy. So if you there's step one, step two, step three for each one of the activities. But let's say I have a three to fivey old.

If the three to five year old is um I I click on it and I can see this is what I do with my three-year-old. If I have a 12 year old, I can click down. I can say this is what I do. So, it's it's really age appropriate, but at the same time, we include the reading, the writing, and all those other subjects.

Gotcha. I love that. Now, um you you know, you're not just an educator, you're you're you're an actual entrepreneur, and I love that. What was the first big leap that made you think about building something of your own? Was it this business? Did you have multiple businesses other than the restaurant?

The restaurant was the first leap and and the struggles that I I needed to realize, you know, if you don't have the money, you still have to pay the bills. And so, how do we do that? um when I became an educator and started working in the school system, I still had that heart to be wanting to go out and to make a business and make it successful. So, um the kind of the the benchmarks in between were let's see what can I do next and what can I do next? So, it started off with me after school rushing after school after one of my classes and then doing um a um a workshop at at a local school and and just sharing some of the um some of the strategies that I have learned as as an educator and little by little doing that which it ended up I left um teaching per se in from teaching. In fact, I was teaching a fifth grade class that summer. I had a um I had an administrator leadership co uh conference in the local mountains in

which we had I believe we had probably around 50 teachers and 50 administrators. That was my first leap. At the same time I got hired by uh which was then the Chicago Tribune, one of their um educational arms and I got hired to work part-time for them. So that helped me to build the business. So little by little in that fashion.

And now you've been at this project. How long have you been at Illuminate? How many years?

Illuminate has been two years. And you just had this full launch. Up until then, the beta test. Who was your pilot? Who are the people using it?

Well, the funny thing is, um, as a startup company, there's no money. There's no funding available. So, I needed to find out how do I build a mobile app that is going to be phenomenal, that's going to be incredible when I'm not techsavvy. So, I brought in some interns from USC, from Berkeley, from Arizona State, and they built the AB through through my direction and and kind of going piece by piece. And so, it took us about eight months to build it. Um but they're doing phenomenal work. Um as the the um interns continued to come on board with us, if we felt that it was a good fit and and it was going to be the future for us, we brought them on on board as an equity partner. So some of our um our tech technicians or our tech techn uh developers, they are now equity partners in the business. And and I feel like if you don't have if you don't have skin in the game, sometimes when when life gets

tough and it's it's not working out, we tend to not focus on what we're doing. But if you have skin in the game and you have a supporting um community, there's nothing nothing that we can't do and that's what we're doing right now.

That's a great idea to get those kids to actually have skin in the game. that and that was forward thinking like what was the motive behind that? The motive was I I would first I was thinking okay how do we have no money what are we going to do so I started kind of reaching out and finding some of these tech people and asking them would you be interested in working for equity um it was kind of funny I was I was on a interview with this uh gentleman director of technology had already talked to him about it's an equity position you're not going to get paid he got online and he goes, "I'm not going to turn on my my my monitor because this meeting is not worth it." And I'm going, "Excuse me?" He goes, "I need I need money. I I I'm not going to work for free." And I thought, "Okay, well, you know, thank you very much. Um, we'll let you know." Because he already knew, but he he felt like, "Okay, let me just get

on and see what they're going to give me." But then when I got I started thinking, how can I do it? And I was talking with a a a student um from one of my university I was teaching at. He goes, "Well, why don't you just find computer science students and and see if they're interested in coming on board?" And and that that's how it worked and that's how it clicked. We we brought at one time we had a total of 10 um interns that were working on the project. Right now we we're down to five because we've done a lot of the meat of the of the program and now it it's really functioning very well.

Now the program is called Bright Start. The um the company is called Brightart Ed Tech. The product is Illuminate and it's spelled with two O's. The reason why it's spelled with two O's is this. The two O's form infinity because once you have those illuminating moments as you're learning, learning goes on forever. And so the two O's represent infinity that we're building a community where learning is going to be top-notched and it's going to be something that students love to do. Now you know you describe brightart as a parent powered learning solution right

now what does that mean in practice and why do you think a parent power a parent powered solution is so powerful

like I've said before that u parents are our first and most important teachers in the lives of their kids we give parents an affirmation as parents sometimes we judge ourselves What do you mean an affirmation?

An affitive like um so it's a daily affirmation you guys have within the app, right? And it's it it could be daily, but it could be a push notification. So on on Monday more, Monday evening, I know I'm going to be with my child at 6:00 p.m. They're going to get a push notification giving them a positive for the great things they're doing with their students, with their children, but also how they're changing the community, how they're changing the world by what they're doing today. So an affirmation that they can choose. Let's say I also get it on Saturday 10 o'clock in the morning. So from there they get like a pat on the back and then after that they can click on the daily activity and each day they may have a different activity that they're going to be working on. We don't want it to be a checklist where oh I've I've done it for 10 minutes I'm done with it. We want it to be meaningful. So some of our activities

may take two or three days for them to accomplish and we don't say you know spend two or three hours spend 15 minutes on working on this activity and then tomorrow pick it up again and work on that. So it's important to do that. Right now it's a free app. Um in about two weeks it's going to be pushed out as a um an app uh um subscription app. What we're adding to it is number one journaling. At the end of each activity as a parent you journal how reflecting on how it went and and what were the successes. A community part of it where we join forces together. You know there used to be the saying it takes a village to raise a child.

Still we bring Yeah. Still exactly we bring them together as as a community form. So okay. So let's say today I I had an activity with my child to build honesty. So we we go on our community forum and say you know this is what I did with my child. Did anyone have any other ideas? So you can share you know this is how it went for me and a great support system. There's going to be resources resources where they can go. Um I've have a number of books that are there. We have podcasts that are on there. Uh one of our our our key person is uh Dr.

Martinez. She um writes um and does s um sessions on uh social emotional learning. And so she'll have a podcast up there. She'll have a video. Um some of her um parts of her books are on there. And so we have a variety of those. We also have a conversation where once a week a parent professional will come on for a webinar, but it's it's engaging. It's not a one-way webinar. It's engaging. So, if you're a parent and I start to share with you an activity, um, and then you may have, well, how would that work with my 5-year-old? Um, the parent professional will will be or the the um parent professional will be addressing those.

So, it's a more of an open conversation. That's really cool. That's really cool. And uh, but this isn't live yet. The notebook, the journaling,

that's not live yet. In fact, um, by the beginning of next week, it will be approved through the Apple Store and Google Play.

Fantastic news. Um, now you've mentioned closing learning gaps really, really early. What are some of the most common gaps you see and how can parents get ahead of them before it's too late?

Number one, the one of the most important gaps that we have is our self-esteem. Self-esteem plays a a a big toll in in a child's development. A lot of times our children don't have the confidence to believe in themselves and as they move as they move through grade to grade their confidence level goes lower if their reading skills are not the best, if their writing skills are not the best. So we need to build those reading, those writing skills and those math skills so that they do feel confident but also as parents we need to support them and be their number one cheerleader. We need to be there for each one of their children, but also just push kind of like every child has a a positive thing that they do very well, but they also have some weaknesses. Really enhance and and encourage those positives and and what they do well and continue to build that up so that their confidence builds and

their self-esteem builds. you know, I'm I'm asking these questions and it's like for me, I got four kids.

I'm always trying to figure out balancing, you know, their self-esteem, education, etc., because it's very true, like if they feel like they're not at the same level of of their peers, like their self-esteem is just shot. And it's it's a struggle I deal with frequently myself, you know, for my own kids.

Exactly. Exactly. And it in it what we're building is we're building a society. We're building children that in the future are going to be successful in a global economy. As we're looking at a global economy, I am a a a professor of global education. We're working with our students to really look at the economy worldwide and how do we become um successful in not only dealing with our own uh community here but globally how do we deal with the with the the issues that are are out there. There's three areas that I focus on. number one helping people to be successful, helping um uh countries to prosper, but also saving our planet and looking at how do we save our planet. So those um items are also part of our our training that we do with our our kids and our parents.

We talk about how do we how do we keep our environment clean? How do we you know, it's kind of funny. I started teaching at Yokohama, Japan at Ktokakuin University. And I had this idea, okay, let's go do a volunteer project. And they go, volunteer? Like, what do you mean? And I said, well, let's go do this. And that. They go, we already do that. That's not a volunteer. Okay. I said, well, let's go pick up trash. Okay. So, I go over there. we have all these big bags and we have gloves and we're going out to pick up trash. They they were humoring me. In Japan, there's no trash. And so, we started at the beach. Uh the university is very close to the ocean. We started at the beach and there was no trash. And we walked across the bridge. We walked. We ended up

Still no trash. No trash. We ended up with a handful of trash in these big bags. one probably a handful out of maybe two or three bags, but in in in other parts of the world there is trash. And so, how do we help our our our children to see it's important to keep our community clean and to do positive things in our community? I actually I was while I was in Japan, I had a paper in my in my pants and I I got something out of my pants and a paper fell to the ground and the gentleman came over to me, hit tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the trash and I picked it up. Nothing nothing negative, nothing uh judgmental.

He just reminded me there's trash on the floor. So, how do we become a community that is is really looking at keeping our community safe, keeping our community clean, and everyone working together. So, I learned a lot from that experience.

Lovely. It sounds amazing. U let me ask you this. Um what is the framework right now that you use to create content to design content and uh you know how do you support it with researchbacked uh articles and you know all all the different things that you're you're you're doing to basically

the the interesting thing is back when I started my company it actually was called healthy Hente hente in Spanish means people. So it was called healthy people. My my background I was on the state of California um I guess it was the advisory board on health education and so I went from there and transferred into growing the business that way. But throughout the years I have developed activities uh focused on helping parents to to be that educational leader at home. So over 20 years I've been developing all of those um activities.

So that those activities are put into our app. The same thing is um one of the the an investor asked me how do you keep it unbiased because oftentimes people will will have their own uh agenda or the whatever they feel is most important. We keep it very neutral. We keep it just basically these are activities that you can do with your child and there's no uh bias in what we're doing. It it's all about just good stuff. Good stuff that we do um to help our students and help our children to succeed. Um when you when you focus on only developing and only creating things that students need um and not looking at them in a biased way is where we really grow our children to be successful but also to be non-judgmental.

Now um if you're you're in a education business, what kind of comp competitors now do you worry about in your space? Like couldn't like hooked on phonics come in

in education? Um there um are a number in fact I shared with some investors is the edtech um market is over $44 billion a year. The edtech market

and how many competitors are in that space when you get to edtech um there's probably uh 20% of them uh it could be anywhere from maybe 50 to 100. It's not a large amount globally

who dominates. Um I don't think there's a dominating force. I think it's like the large companies are are kind of coming up to the plate to try to figure it out. We have a five-year plan. Our five-year plan is to get traction, to make it work, to make it successful, to get to the point where we partner with one of those large guys or we sell it to one of the large guys or we go public. Um because what we have I shared on a show that I was on that as entrepreneurs we seem to think that we're the only game in town that we are the best at what we do and nobody else does it.

Yeah. Everybody thinks like that. Everyone thinks that. But in reality we're not. But what can we offer is we can offer a niche that nobody else offers.

What would be our niche? Our niche is that we provide the parent portion of it, but we provide a community, we provide resources, we provide instruction, we we we give the whole package in the future in in 18 months, we'll provide that um that personalized learning for every student. So when we're not only um providing for our parents, but we're providing for our our students where we're combining, you know, as a teacher, we we tend to teach the way we learn. And if I learn visually, I'm only going to reach probably about 20% of my students in that fashion because there may be some that learn auditorially. There may be some that learn by reading and so I'll miss the mark on some of those uh students. But when we have each one of the content give it to them the way that they learn we can pretty much reach 100% of our students.

Wow. So it's not only going to make it uh phenomenal for our students but it's going to make life easier for our teachers. Now, what's the long-term vision you have for the company? Is it to go public? Is it to gain market share? Is it to

dominate your competition? Long term is to connect. There are some companies that I feel we would be an incredible enhancement to what they already offer. But no one's going to talk to us right now because we don't have traction. Um, in the last uh the app came out two weeks ago. Right now we have 120 followers.

Users. Yeah. Users. Yes. Users. And so we need to get up to a million two million users. That that

it's free right now, right? What's that? It's free. It's free right now. You know, we're kind of taking the the dualingual uh business model. Dualingual um their revenue annually is about 932 million. However, 92 7% of their users are free users. How do they make that money? They have um they have advertisers that are on there. But then if you decide not to uh not to want to see those advertisements, then that's where you have the the the paid subscription. So we want to get to the point where we have millions of of users. We're not only talking the United States, we're talking globally. I really feel that our program is going to reach out to the world to families all over the world. So that's our focus, but to begin with, we're starting with the United States.

Now, I want to ask you this last a couple last questions. This one's about legacy. Now what at the end of the day what do you hope kids and parents remember about illuminate about you about your mission?

I want them to feel and understand when they see illuminate they know it ma illuminates makes my life better. I feel confident because illuminate has given me that confidence. Illuminate has helped me to be a successful individual globally, successful in what I'm doing here, successful in building a life, whether it's as a parent in the future or as an entrepreneur or as a doctor or whatever it may be that illuminate when they look at that that uh word they say they made my life better. What what a great mission.

And you know the other thing is that I teach when I when I teach new teachers coming into the world. I want them to be those teachers that 20 years down the line, students come back into their classroom and just praise them for you touched my life. You made my life better because I was your fifth grade student. That's what we want illuminate to be. We want illuminate to be you made my life better because what you offered.

This last one this this is the last question before the final question but it's a three-prong question and you kind of answered this question a little bit already right now but I want to kind of dive deep into your goals. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a family goal you have for your family, and a business goal you have for?

You know, as an entrepreneur, um, I'm not I didn't come from a rich family, so my parents didn't give me millions of dollars to grow the company. So, it's been a struggle. I left the classroom years ago and built what we have now. My wife has been the support 100%. um we still struggle. We still need to meet, you know, meet our our re our obligations. And so I would love to get to the point where as a family we're living okay, but the most important thing that I believe is I raise kids. My my my children are good people.

Yeah. when when I my my one of my son is a um police officer. When he was promoted um I went to the um uh to the promotion, other lieutenants and other uh police officers came to me and said, "You've raised a good boy. You've made the best compliment you can get." And that's what my life as a family member, as a as a father is. I want to be able to see that I've raised good kids. And I have. I've I've raised solid kids. As a company, I want to see us get the traction and make the difference. Like I said, illuminate.

I want people to see illuminate and say, "You changed my life. You made a difference." As a business, we need to look at our our business goals financially and be able to raise the money. Right now, we're doing a um uh a fundraising campaign uh to get to the next level. I'd love to be at the point where we don't have to worry about money that we can do the things that we want to do and do it successfully. So, two twoprong. Number one, raise the company so that it's sustainable. And number two, raise the company so that people look at it and say, "You've changed my life."

And I don't know if you talked family goal yet. Family Goal, it's kind of funny because people say, "You should be retired by now. Why are you not retired?" And I said, "My kids know that my life has always been in education." Um, raising my kids in a in a a home that has been loving has been what we've done from day one. And so, as a family goal, our goal is to someday enjoy the reaps of our harvest or harvest of our roots or whatever it may be, but but just enjoy my family, uh, grandchildren and and just continue to just grow.

One last question. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

God's going to tell me that you've worked hard. You've struggled, but you've shared your heart with your family, with your students, and with everyone that you've come in contact with. That's the important thing is that it's not about the money that you have in your bank account. It's not about the car you drives. It's about how did you touch the lives of someone else? One one thing that that I shared with my with my kids are when they were young, I used to say, "What's what was the positive thing about your day today?"

Number two, what was the struggle that you had today? And number three, how did you touch the lives of someone today? Just understanding those three concepts is what I want my family to remember.

Powerful. Gary, you've been a pleasure to have on the show. If people want to get in touch with you, how do they find you?

We are on illuminate.net, which is I l o m i n a t.net. Our Illuminate app is uh Illuminate 1.0 uh on our um Apple App Store and it's Illuminate on Google um uh Google Play or Google Play, whatever it may be. But I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on all these other social media. I would love to connect with anyone who believes what we're doing is going to change people's lives. Or if they don't believe that, let me convince you that it is.

God bless you, Gary. I hope you hit every single one of your goals. You've been an absolute pleasure to have on the show. Thank you so much, guys. Make sure to download that app. Get your kids on it. I'm sure it will edify you and help you build a better relationship and educate your kids. Let's go. Gary Llluminate app. Thank you.

Hey hey, hey.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Raising Capable Kids in a Fast-Changing World ft. Gary Surdam | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby"?

Joe Shalaby (Host), Gary Surdam (Guest).

What is "Raising Capable Kids in a Fast-Changing World ft. Gary Surdam | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby" about?

The Illuminate app, created by Gary Surdam, aims to transform children's education by fostering collaboration between parents and kids, emphasizing parental involvement as the first step in learning. By providing customizable activities that promote values such as responsibility and social justice, the app prepares children for success in a global economy, while upcoming features will leverage…

What is mentioned in this Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Illuminate, STEAM education, Chicago Tribune, Gary Certum, Harvard Business School, Brightart Edtech. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Raising Capable Kids in a Fast-Changing World ft. Gary Surdam | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby"?

The episode runs 40 min; the transcript is about 6,248 words in 71 timestamped sections.

More from Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.