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As Betabox reaches the 10th anniversary of its founding, it’s a good time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed next. With so much change occurring in the world of education, I cannot think of a better moment to outline the strategic vision for the future of our organization, along with our thoughts on the future of technology education.
Betabox originated from a startling personal realization that the zip code someone was born in largely determines their access to a quality technology education. Growing up I was fortunate to have numerous opportunities both in and out of school to engage with technology. I grew up in a well-funded public school district, and my dad was an engineer. We had a computer (and internet) at home, a tech lab at school led by an outstanding tech ed instructor, and I even had the opportunity to participate in a work-based learning program at NASA. These experiences and mentors gave me the confidence and desire to pursue engineering.
In college, through volunteer opportunities in rural communities, I realized how uncommon my access to tech had really been. As I learned—and as so many of us already know—high-quality technology education is not equally available to students everywhere. The unfairness of the fact that, through no fault of their own, hundreds of thousands of young people never get the chance to discover a potential passion for technology was the impetus for starting Betabox.
In those early days, Betabox was just a group of friends experimenting (and frankly, struggling). We built our first "Betabox"—a retrofitted shipping container filled with borrowed makerspace equipment. It quickly became clear schools desperately needed turnkey STEM enrichment, especially rural schools. Along the way, amazing people joined the journey, bringing ideas, passion, and hard work that transformed Betabox into what it is today.
A decade later, our Onsite Field Trips run across multiple states in 100+ districts, reaching over 40,000 students annually. We've helped secure millions in funding for rural schools via partnerships with leading STEM employers, institutions, and state governments, helping schools bridge STEM learning gaps—even during a global pandemic. And we've built a high-trust team united by shared values and a common mission.
But as much as Betabox has evolved, the world has changed with us.
If you’re reading this, you’re likely aware that the American education system has some catching up to do in order for our young people to remain both globally competitive and prepared for the rapidly approaching, technology-driven future. While I’ll spare you the statistics, I do think it’s helpful to take a high-level historical view of the evolving eras of our work and education system over the last 300 years to better contextualize where we are today.
During the time of the American Revolution, work was linked to apprenticeships. Young people learned directly from skilled masters, living with them and exchanging labor for mentorship. Economic activity was localized and emphasized hands-on learning and trade skills. Think of a figure like Benjamin Franklin in his newsprinting workshop as best representing this era.
The Industrial Revolution brought with it a shift in work from decentralized craftsmanship to centralized factory labor. People became parts of large production systems, often doing repetitive tasks for wages. Labor was now standardized and time-based, not tied to output.
Work—and life—became more systematic, hierarchical, and linear. To support aging workers with specialized, non-transferable skills, employers introduced pensions: guaranteed retirement income managed by the company. The “work 40 years, retire with a pension” model took hold, especially in unionized and manufacturing-heavy industries. It was in this era where the education system we still see today was first established.
As industrial work gave way to ‘white-collar’ corporate work, the importance of college degrees surged. Higher education became the key to accessing stable, upwardly mobile careers. Employers began to view degrees as direct proxies for competence, and the labor market and social classes became stratified by credentials.
At the same time, self-directed retirement emerged. In the 1980s, companies began replacing pensions with 401(k) plans, shifting the burden of retirement planning from employer to employee. Workers now had to retrain as investors, often without the tools or education to manage that responsibility well.
From the 1990s to 2020, economic innovation moved from tangible products into finance—leveraged buyouts, private equity, and complex financial instruments dominated. High-profile collapses like Enron and WorldCom, along with the 2008 financial crisis, highlighted the fragility of this system. Simultaneously, the race for prestigious college degrees exploded tuition costs, resulting in massive student debt. Credentials inflated, leaving many young adults financially strained and overqualified yet underprepared for the changing job market.
The pandemic was a moment that allowed us to look up and start questioning the structures we’d long taken for granted. As they say in the South:
“You can’t read the label when you’re stuck inside the jar.”
The pandemic cracked the jar of the ‘workplace’ wide open. Suddenly we weren’t commuting anymore—a ritual left over from the corporate era. And just as suddenly, it became obvious how little our credentials mattered in a world forced to run on what people could actually do, not what their resumes said. We also saw the brittleness of our systems. Decades of de-prioritizing innovation at the level of atoms (physical stuff) left our supply chains fragile. It left us educating a generation of students for a world that simply no longer exists. Meanwhile, AI and robotics advancements have now led some to even question where humans even sit in the future workplace. Clearly, something very different has arrived. But what is it?
I’d like to think of this new era as a Second Renaissance—one where creative polymath types, akin to Leonardo da Vinci, can leverage emerging technological systems to create amazing things. Careers will become nonlinear and adaptive, demanding creativity, interdisciplinary thinking, and the ability to continuously adapt to change. In this new paradigm of work, practical technology skills will of course matter. But what may matter even more is the capacity for intuitive systems design (knowing which technologies to use) paired with a unique insight into a problem (often rooted in direct experience).
Success will feel less like mastering how to play a single instrument, and more like learning to conduct an entire orchestra of technology-based ‘musicians’.
The only problem? School as it stands is not preparing students for this world. Modern education was born during the industrialization era—optimized for compliance, linear careers, and predictable tasks. Students still move through school in a linear fashion grouped by age, taught within siloed subjects areas, and assessed through standardized testing. Creativity, adaptability, and interdisciplinary problem-solving tend to fit poorly into this model. Often, graduates of higher education leave school burdened with debt and degrees mismatched to an economy that has radically changed beneath them.
What results from this is a widening of existing economic divides and social stratification—where those in disconnected communities risk being left behind.
If we could snap our fingers and redesign education—not just a single school, but an entire nation’s system—what would it look like in a world shaped by this new ‘Second Renaissance Economy’? We believe it starts with four core design pillars.
Move beyond the traditional model of content delivery and start focusing on developing real-world capabilities—things like problem-solving, systems thinking, and creativity. That means replacing siloed academic subjects with interdisciplinary projects and challenges that reflect how problems are actually solved in the real world. The goal shouldn’t be memorization or seat time—it should be learning velocity, curiosity, and adaptability. Education should be personalized and responsive, driven by student interest rather than rigid standards that can’t keep pace with the world outside the classroom. We need to empower students to take the lead in their own learning journeys, guided by relevance and interest. AI tools shouldn’t be seen as threats, but as learning partners—augmenting exploration, accelerating design, and supporting rapid iteration. Hands-on instruction isn’t just a nice-to-have; it should be the foundation of how we prepare students for meaningful careers and engaged lives.
It’s time to dismantle the credentialing edifice we’ve built around degrees and outdated proxies for competence. Instead of filtering opportunities through GPAs and diplomas, we should be evaluating students based on what they can actually do—what they can build, explain, or improve. That means shifting to a model where portfolios, public work products, and technical demonstrations serve as direct evidence of readiness. We need to move beyond time-based grading and adopt competency-based systems that reflect real skill development, not just how long a student sat in a classroom.
We need to move beyond the outdated idea of a linear workforce pipeline and embrace an upwardly moving work-life spiral—one that allows people to integrate learning and work throughout every stage of life. Careers in the age of AI and automation won’t follow a predictable path; they’ll evolve continuously, shaped by shifting interests, economic realities, and emerging technologies. Education should reflect that reality by supporting personalized career exploration and giving students the tools to reinvent themselves over time.
To address the deep-rooted inequities in our education system, we must move beyond legacy funding models based on property taxes—structures that inherently reinforce inequality.
An instructive example comes from the aerospace industry. For decades, NASA relied on cost-plus contracting—micromanaging projects and reimbursing costs with a margin. This approach stifled innovation and drove up the cost per launch. But when NASA shifted to defining high-level requirements and letting private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin deliver solutions, launch costs dropped dramatically. The focus moved from controlling processes to incentivizing the right outcomes.
Education reform needs a similar transformation. We must stop treating education as a closed system and start designing it more like a market-driven innovation engine—one that brings together public institutions and private industry, each playing to their strengths. Public-private partnerships that break through county lines should be structured to align incentives and unlock scalable solutions that serve students, schools, and communities. This type of change can introduce new funding that is aligned with industry needs, while also reallocating existing funding to more student-focused outcomes.
These four principles aren’t something that any one organization can execute in a vacuum. Their fruition requires collaboration across multiple groups and sectors. Betabox’s role in this ecosystem is to build the best possible hands-on technology education resources—resources aligned with these core beliefs about what’s needed to elevate the education system for this new era.
The primary resources we offer are:
By focusing on building and delivering evidence-based resources and by partnering with changemaking educators we believe meaningful change is not only possible—it’s inevitable.
In summary, we believe that humanity is entering into an era that might be called the Second Renaissance, where young people leverage advanced technology at scale like never before to build creative, authentic solutions to problems in their communities and in the world. Since we don’t think the education system is preparing students for this world, we’re offering four pillars of change:
We’re not doing this on our own. Betabox is building the tools with which education changemakers and policymakers can leverage in order to operationalize these pillars within their systems and communities. Through these relationships we aim to carry out our mission:
To open the path into technology for all students, so the future works for everyone.
The doors into tech remain shut for too many—Betabox is here to open them. We believe that one meaningful experience, like building a rocket or assembling a robot, can change a student’s entire future.
As I write this, my one-month-old son sleeps quietly next to me in his crib. When he reaches high school, the world will look nothing like it did for me. He’ll navigate his path in this new era of exponential technological change.
Our vision at Betabox is that we act now to reshape the systems that prepare humans for the future—so the future itself stays human. For that to happen, the technology systems that will undergird our new economy must be built by humans from every walk of life, every perspective, and every corner of the country.
The way we “vote” for our desired future is by building it. That’s what we’re doing over here at Betabox. If this resonates—join us. We’re hiring.
Sean Newman Maroni
President & Founder, Betabox, Inc.
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At Betabox Learning, we are passionate about making hands-on STEM curricula accessible to all students.
