From Conceptual Product to a Global Scale Engine for AI Readiness

We went from just finding a solution for a problem to a scale engine that is looking beyond just small impact to a really big impact globally. And I'm saying this very intentionally because Neil brought in the thinking mindset that I needed. As a founder, you always need those advisors who push you and press you in areas that you never thought about. I was thinking B2B, I was thinking schools, I was thinking small. And he really pushed me to think, you need to go bigger with how you're going to drive this change. Everything from partnerships to revenue streams that are different He truly is that expansive mindset for me that I honestly use not only as a sounding board, but also one that will test me on just pushing myself a little bit further and being a little bit more uncomfortable with the next level. My name is Avni Trivedi, really nice to be here. I'm the CEO and founder of Mass Next Gen. And I'm coming to you from Austin, Texas. Mass Next Gen is a gamified learning platform where we are empowering an AI-ready generation with the skills they need to be resilient and truly have digital safety in a way that's never seen before. So we're very excited to have this be part of the world now as a foundational life skill. Before finding Neal, we had just started on the conceptual work ⁓ it was a concept not really built into the product. early enough to question everything that we're doing, but not early enough to not have market validation that this is the right way to go. I come from the cyber security world and then I'm veering from cyber security to digital safety, which I think is a huge distinction. A lot of it has come through this comes this partnership with Neil, just honing in on that Neil was actually introduced to me through my chief information security officer. So I met him, like in his early, early days in Austin. And he's very methodical about how he actually approaches networking. So he is one of those people who's out there quite a bit. And so that's how we got connected and realized, okay, maybe there's some synergy, or we can talk about a meeting at a coffee shop. Initially, Neil was like, another social security awareness program. Great. Like I've heard them all. But as soon as we started chatting, his own personal story in this space is what really hit me, where his son had actually been through a pretty deep and disturbing experience with a stranger online, and it just felt like the right place and the right time to meet, honestly. Since then, we've never looked back. When Neil came on board, with all that was all we were doing; it really brought it all to a head and said, OK, we've now focused completely on being this AI readiness infrastructure for schools in a very different way. What Neil does better than anybody is that he has an experience that nobody else has had. If you've ever heard Neil's story of how he started and how he went from, a veteran to being a mailroom boy in a hedge fund to actually driving deals, being in the forefront of a lot of scaling mechanism. It's that story and his experience that really differentiate his thinking power. He just helped me break the norm. And I love that because we need that. thinking beyond the box and he brings that to the table. We bring Neil here all the time to talk about everything from raising to revenue streams to revenue conversations. And what it has truly done for me is given me that feeling of we are a team. And Neil is part of it and he's an extension of not only the team but also the extension of how, for example, we're doing South by Southwest here, he's going to be my spokesperson so would say it's true team collaboration that having him on the team has brought me, where he truly is an extension of our thought process, our mission, and what we're going to do with all that we're going to do in 2026.