Boundless Life's Communities and Education for Digital Nomads

Welcome to the future of education. My name is Michael Horne and I'm delighted by today's guest that we have Rekha Meghan. She's the co founder and head of education for Boundless Life. And Boundless Life caught my attention because it's one of these companies that's really leaning in and from my perspective into the moment where people feel much more untethered by where they historically have been located, they feel like they can move around a lot more. They have a certain amount of freedom to really work and learn from anywhere. Powered by the technology opportunities that have made this so possible for so many people, but also people still looking for a deep sense of community and things around it. And Boundless Life seems to be onto something on this regard. They recently raised $2 million in seed funding to create communities around the world for what they call digital nomad families. And we'll dig into that a little bit. But they also have an educational offering as part of that community that is based on a Nordic baccalaureate program. And it's experiential, personalized, purposeful, and nature based in their language. And so we'll dig into how they do all of those important aspects of really serving the whole child. Importantly, it allows children to continue to learn and not miss a beat in their studies as a family moves. And right now, Boundless Life has locations open in Portugal and Greece, as well as a third site in Tuscany, Italy, soon to open. And I'm looking forward to hearing from Rekha about all of this and much more I suspect that I don't know about. So I'm going to bring her up to the virtual stage. Rekha, it's good to see you. Thanks for being here.

Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. And so let's dig right in. As you describe Boundless Life, like I just did my poor imitation of it, I suppose. But as you describe Boundless Life, what's your description and vision for it? And maybe more importantly, just to ground us. What's the opportunity that you all saw, you and your co founder, when you created it, that said, yeah, this is why this should exist in the world.

Sure. So, I mean, I think the pandemic has been a huge catalyst in families kind of revaluing how it is that they want to live their lives, how, how do they want to spend their time? And I think the pandemic was also a great opportunity for families to get a deeper insight into how their children's current education looks like through virtual school that many families had to go through. And I think there's just this huge market of people now who are looking for something different, are looking for a different way to live their own lives, are looking for a different way to educate their own children. And so we started Boundless about a year ago now. And really what we're doing is giving families the opportunity to live the digital nomad lifestyle that so many single people or people without children have been enjoying for years. So what we do with Boundless is really kind of provide a turnkey solution to people who want to slow travel the world by providing them fully furnished apartments, access to a co working space, you know, where they can work throughout the day, and then obviously access to education. So we've developed an entire education system that kind of follows the child through all of our different locations.

A lot of that sounds fascinating. I want to dig into a bunch of those elements, but I want to step back first and just give the audience and myself personally just a sense to know your own personal story and how you came to create this. How did you get into education originally? How did you think about this question of community and serving this population? What's your own personal story?

Sure. So I mean, myself, I'm a child of immigrant parents. You know, my dad was born in India, my mom was born in Africa. I was born here in Canada. But growing up, they really made it a point to immerse me in mindfulness, community service and travel from a very young age. And I honestly excelled as a child. You know, whether it was being student, class president or valedictorian, I kind of felt like I always had this upper edge, if you will. And when I got pregnant with our first child, I knew instinctively that, you know, I wanted to give my own children the same experiences that I had as a child. And that kind of hit me then. I was like, well, that's not fair, right? Why should it only be, you know, our children if I know how beneficial this is to myself? All children should get kind of these experiences and this toolkit to, you know, the way they're raised. So at that point in life, I was an auditor at kpmg, Senior Auditory kpmg. I did my CA and I left the corporate world to start my first company which was called the Mindful Scholar. So it was an award winning EdTech company is really passionate about bringing mindfulness into mainstream education. And then my own children started school when they entered kindergarten. And I soon realized that education needed more help than just some mindfulness. So I actually pulled my kids out of school, started homeschooling them we were world schooling, traveling the world. At the same time, I started developing homeschool curriculums for that market to help, you know, more families who wanted to live this lifestyle. And I've also helped kind of launch an alternative learning center here in Montreal. So Boundless Life kind of came about not only because it aligns with my, you know, personal, but also my professional views on, you know, how children should be raised and educated. And really the goal is to create a different lifestyle for families so that they're not locked down to one location. And really the world becomes your classroom.

It's fascinating, and I love that you have lived the vision that you are creating for so many people. Now I'm curious, you know, how big is this opportunity in terms of the digital nomads? Like, I think we see some of the stories, but a lot of us are struggling to figure out how widespread are the people acting on this, how widespread is the desire. Right. If they just had an offering like what you're creating so that they could jump into this, what are we talking about here? And who are these families that are making this sort of decision?

Sure. So, I mean, like, on a worldwide level, as of last year, 2021, there are now 35 million digital nomads in the world. So this is a massive segment that's growing, you know, as time passes, where people now can work from anywhere. Right. So many massive companies, whether it's Google, Facebook, everyone's issued a mandatory work from anywhere. A lot of people are not going back to the office. And that's just opened up this, you know, entire new way of living for people. And I mean, many people were doing this before, but, you know, people with kids can't benefit from this lifestyle. Right. Because you're really tied down to, to the traditional system, to a brick and mortar school where they, they're just locked down, you know, for the entire year and the only two months that they can travel is, you know, July and August. So I think this segment is huge. The families that we've attracted so far, again, we just launched in February, and we've had a tremendous amount of interest in people joining us very quickly. And, you know, we're seeing many different types of segments. So a lot of families, you know, who are already world schooling or already out of the traditional system. We've also had many families join us who are, whose kids are part of some sort of alternative education or interested in the future of learning and what that looks like. And, you know, surprise. What was the most surprising to us is we thought you know, we would attract more families who are taking a sabbatical or just wanted to travel for a year. We have a huge segment of our members who've actually rented out or sold their home, sold everything that they own, and are living boundless, you know, and have made it very clear that they plan to just continue with us moving from location to location. So really nice to see the wide range of different families that are being attracted to our offering.

And that's staggering. You said 35 million. Is that. Was that the number you. You said?

Yeah, worldwide. 35 million digital nomads at the moment, and that that number is rising, you know, by day.

It's remarkable. And they're truly nomads if they're selling their houses in these cases and digging up the roots. I'm curious, you mentioned that you wanted to make this offering available not just to families like yours, where, as a parent, you were able to see the opportunity, construct the offerings and do the homeschooling for your kids and provide this mix of travel and mindfulness and personalizing the learning and so forth. You know, before you all entered this market, what was the landscape of offerings and what were the barriers to more people being able to access this? So I. You can go wherever you want with this question. But, yeah, you know, I mean, competitors and other opportunities.

Yeah, yeah. You know, surprisingly, there. There are really, no, not too many people out there offering anything like we are. Right. There's a lot of online platforms that do provide some sort of education online. But as a parent and many families who are already living this lifetime lifestyle can attest to, is that all the offerings out there leave you feeling very isolated. Right. Because even if you are traveling the world and your children are following some sort of online program, you're doing it just on your own. Right. It's very difficult to move to Thailand or move to Portugal or to Greece and then find a community of people to bond with and make relationships with and have shared experiences. And there's. There's actually nothing really that exists on the market. And that's why we were, you know, compelled to create boundless life, is we were looking for a solution ourselves. Right. For how we wanted to live this life. And. And, you know, myself personally, like, I didn't. I didn't want my children or any child really to be on a screen all day. Right. Yes, there are, like, great solutions out there for people who want to travel. But, you know, education beyond being on a screen as well, there's definitely amazing tools that we can leverage out there, and we do in our current offering. But to be in a group of other children having shared experiences, working on projects together, that is very valuable, you know, and currently no one was doing that. So what we've done is really created these education centers at all of our different locations where we've hired fully trained educators, they've been taught in our system, and they're the ones executing our personalized learning and our project based learning with the students. So now when you're traveling the world with your family, your kids are instantly making friends, you're making friends, you're having these shared experiences with like minded people from around the world. And honestly, it's been incredible to see the community that's organically sprouted between all of our members and how these lifelong relationships have quickly been built with families staying with us in each cohort.

That's fascinating. So give us a picture before we go into the educational offering just of what these communities look like. How big are they? How much does it cost to join and live for a month, a year, whatever it might be in the community? And you mentioned the friendships being formed already. Talk a little bit about the global reach that you have and who's coming in.

Sure. So just to address the first question is the way we've set up each of our locations. We've carefully curated which town we launch each location in. And we have this very detailed kind of spreadsheet to evaluate different, different towns around the world. We wanted to, to stay away from the big cities to start to really go into a small community where, you know, all of our members, all of our apartments are located within a 15 to 20 minute radius. Walk, you know, from the education center, from the co working space, from grocery stores so that members can easily walk to everywhere that they need to go. They can, you know, and, and we wanted everyone to be within this 20 minute radius so that you can easily, you know, spend time with the people that are in. And that's what's been so beautiful. Like within, you know, a few days of launching, we already had play dates happening after, after education hours or sleepovers or you know, you know, families going out to play soccer together or going on a field trip together. There's so many organic opportunities that arise just by having this community of people living within a 15 to 20 minute radius. And that on its own has been beautiful. And even just in terms of lifestyles. Right. Like what I've heard so much or even myself, like it was so beautiful to live in Portugal for six months and to be able to walk everywhere that I needed to go. And you know, coming back home to Canada and now having to get into my car every time I need to go see someone or get groceries, it's almost like left me like I feel like this kind of void inside me. You know, it's a lifestyle that becomes very addictive as well. Well, so it's kind of hitting people on many different layers as well and just evaluating how it is they want to continue living their lives. In terms of the families that we've attracted, there's a wide range. We have like a, you know, a decent population coming from North America, from the States and from Canada. We have a lot of families from Europe, you know, so some families from the uk, from Poland, from Mexico. There's really this beautiful, just organic mix of diversity in the families that we're attracting. But I think the biggest thing is that when a family decides to join us, we make it a point to ensure that they're aligned with our values. Like what are the values that revolve around boundless life, you know, with family and, you know, growth and giving back. So everybody who's kind of come into our community has these shared values and are very like minded. So the connections that are made happen so organically because it's not that everyone's been curated, but it's really attracting like minded individuals. So these friendships are made quickly and last long.

It sounds incredible and I'm seeing in the comments over here, as I look over occasionally, that others are agreeing that the lifestyle becomes addictive and almost its own attraction. I imagine for people just continuing to probably as you open more of these sites around the world, wanting to be a part of those communities and continue to find that connection that they found once they've done it the first time. I want to dig into the education piece of it because you all name it as a big differentiator between other communities, other co working spaces that you could join around the world. You've talked a little bit about some of the components. It sounds like you're not reinventing the wheel from scratch in terms of using technology tools for personalization, but you're making sure you're coupling that with the project based learning, the opportunities for nature, the opportunities for mindfulness, opportunities to explore the community and so forth. So I'd love you to sort of what's a day in the life of a child look like? And I assume they're learning in mixed ages because it's whoever's in the community. So how does that dynamic look from a Social perspective as well.

Sure, absolutely. So just take a step back. You know, what we did is we partnered with a Finnish school development company. So we really liked like, you know, anyone who knows about education, who has research. This is. Finland has like a very progressive, a future oriented approach to education where focusing more on skills and competencies to prepare children for this unknown future. So we partnered with a Finnish school development company and then really used that as our base upon which we added made everything very boundless in terms of what a day at the education center looks like. The group really comes together in the morning time for a moment we call connection time. And that's really an opportunity where the group gets to partake in rich, meaningful discussions around character building. They get to connect as a group and take mindful moments to really connect with themselves as well. And then we jump into mastery time. So mastery time is really focusing on like you touched upon personalized learning. Right. You know, I say this all the time that any parent who has more than two children know how different, you know, every child is, that even your two children that are, are born and raised in the same household, same conditions.

I've got identical twins and I see it all the time. They're totally different.

Yeah, that and it. So it's always blown my mind like knowing this, right. Such a basic thing. Why is our education system teaching everyone the exact same way? It makes no sense. So we have a huge emphasis on personalized learning and we really are leveraging, you know, tools, like I said online to meet each child where they're at, kind of assessing where they are when they come in and then really giving them the tools on an individual basis so that they can achieve mastery in the areas that they're focused on. In order to do that, we have very small class sizes, you know, so our maximum in a class is currently like in Sintra is 14, 14 kids, one educator and an assistant. So there's really the opportunity for one to one learning. We do have mixed age groups, so we mix ages 3 years are kind of grouped into 1. So we have our lower exploration which is 1 to 3. Then we have 4 to 6, 7 to 9 and 10 to 12. So really focusing on mixed age groups. And then the day pushes into quest time. The quest time is project based learning. And what we've done is each cohort, the explorers, we call our students explorers. They're focusing on one un sdg. So they're really focusing on learning their math, English, science, but learning it in relation to this real world problem. And to me that is so important because if we add purposefulness and relevance to a child's learning, they're not just learning something to pass a test or to memorize it and then have, you know, forget it the next day. You're adding relevance to it. You're giving it a real life purpose. That's something that will stay with them forever. So really, really passionate about, you know, real life education using the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And then that's kind of how the morning is, is broken up more of an academic focus and then the afternoon gets broken up into different times. So we have list time. So that's where, you know, we're Inspired by Google's 20% time, where kids are really focusing on their own passions and trying to become experts in areas where they can create more bold, meaningful work, but in an area that they're passionate about. Then we take a deep dive into nature based learning where kids are, you know, immersed in nature and really leveraging the local land, whether it's, you know, the beaches in Greece or the forests in Portugal, really, you know, immersing them into nature. We also have a culture based learning. So, you know, one of the biggest things is because we're opening around in different countries, how can we really immerse our explorers into the local culture? So whether it's learning the local language, the local dance and songs, or even cooking an authentication Portuguese or Greek meal to serve to the community, really giving them an authentic experience of, you know, the country that they're in. And the last thing we do, because we're attracting such amazing people in our community, we have a period called endeavor time. And that's where once a week we invite a parent from our community to come in and teach about their own zone of genius. Right. So I always believe that if you're learning about something, you know, from an expert, that passion and, you know, zone of genius inspires you and lights a different type of fire in you. So, you know, for instance in Sintra, this last cohort, we had an Olympian staying with us, you know, a silver Olympian medalist. So she came in to talk to the kids about the mindset that's involved in becoming an Olympian. So really leveraging the community so that, you know, different people are bringing education to children and it's not just restricted to the educators.

And I imagine that last piece, right, inspires people then to pick up a passion that they never otherwise would have thought about and then that informs their time there. I love this interdependence between all the areas where the knowledge is to do something that makes the knowledge that much more important.

Right.

To be able to successfully do these projects, I suspect that also informs the passion and the immersion in the culture itself. And that you're seeing this beautiful interdependence, I suspect.

Absolutely. It's amazing to see, you know, and the beauty of just how, like, the community comes in and they. They really spark a fire in. In the explorers, you know, and to me, that's what education is all about. How do we light that fire? You know, so it's. It's beautiful to witness.

That's awesome. And I love, obviously, the mastery in some of these pieces you're talking about are the bread and butter to me of what education should look like. So. Love how these all come together. I'm curious just sort of a couple questions as we wrap up here. One is, what have you learned over. You know, you all announced this about a year ago. You've had people living on site since, I think you said February of this year. What have you learned in the first few months that maybe you didn't expect?

You know, what I, you know, we get feedback from parents all the time, and we're really good involving our community, getting feedback. And I also do that with the Explorer. So I go into the education center and, you know, I have this big Bristol board. I say, okay, tell me, what do you think is working with boundless education? What do you think is not working? What do you think we could do better? And one thing that they all highlighted, which I was surprised about, was all the older kids highlighted how much they enjoy having such a close relationship to the younger children. So, you know, I think that it really, in these mixed age groups, and we have a moment, you know, every day where the older kids go and read to the younger kids. And, you know, there's a lot of kind of silent interactions that happen that don't typically happen in a big school. And I think those moments to see that was surprising to me, how each child highlighted that they love being able to read to the younger kids and kind of have that leadership role naturally within the classroom with the younger kids. And that's something I didn't expect, and. But that I think is such a beautiful experience for kids to have because they automatically become the leader, you know, in a setting where typically they're always the subject of someone always teaching them. And I think that interaction, connection between even the kids like the younger kids. So, you know, because of that, we're now launching, like, a boundless Big Sister and Big Brother program. Where the older kids can also, you know, further support the younger ones, even when they move to different locations. And I think the bonds that are organically being created within our community is so touching and something that I think will be transformational in the way these children are raised. Because now we've eliminated the barrier of, you know, just being friends with people that are in your immediate community. And now, you know, people are becoming. The community is becoming people from all around the world. And to me, that is something that will be transformational in who these children become as they go. You talked about, you know, educating the whole child, and I think being able to show kids very naturally that the whole world is really, you know, your friend or your peer, I think will just change the dynamic of the future leaders that. That we see coming out, coming out of the system.

Love so much of that. And I think Montessori education sees the same thing, which is that sort of when you're the younger child, you're being modeled the behavior by the elders, so to speak, you develop these bonds and the social capital, and then as you age up, you get to be the leader and exhibit those behaviors. But it's sort of scaffolded as you have these relationships through. And it sounds like you're seeing that very healthy part of the community as well, which is just awesome. And someone on the comments can correct me if I get this wrong, but I think educate means to lead forth originally is the root. So you're really building that element, it sounds like.

Yeah, great point. Yes.

So, last question as we wrap up, which is talk to us a little bit about vision for where this goes from here, and you can do it in two ways, up to you. Choose your own adventure five, ten years from now. What does this look? What does boundless life look like? Or on the flip side, you know, you have three centers about to be fully open. You know, what are plans for growth? How many centers do you project in the next few years? What are some interesting locations we should keep an eye on?

Sure. I mean, in terms of the vision for this, like, the grander vision in a few years, which I'd love to see, is we've had so many members come with us and love the experience that they've had with their children and boundless education. And the vision is to empower people to go back to their own local communities and launch their own boundless education center. Right. And to have hundreds of centers around the world, which enables people in your local community to experience the education and then also plug in so you know, plug in from home to the education center, but then easily be able to go to Portugal or Greece or Bali or Japan, all of our destinations, and to allow kids to easily kind of drop in and out, but between our own education center. So really, the vision here is to be able to empower people to go back into their own community and give them all the tools that they need to launch their own boundless education center in their own local community, which I think really expands the reach that we have, because then it's not only the people who are coming to stay on destination with us, but each community is bringing the education back home to them and allowing people to plug in and out. So that is the grander vision, hopefully, that we can, and we've had so many people, you know, within a few months reach out to us and say, hey, can I open my own boundless education center? You know, and in my hometown in New York or in Montreal or in Toronto. So there's definitely a huge demand for that and that we're really setting up things to be able to take the business in that direction in terms of our own locations. You know, like you mentioned, Italy is meant to launch in January. We will be expanding to Asia early next year in Q1 of next year as well. So, you know, already scouting out properties in Bali and Japan. And then the goal is also to hit South America. We've already, you know, talking to some partnerships in Costa Rica. So there's definitely many locations on the horizon that we're very excited about and just. Just happy to be able to. To bring this lifestyle to so many more people moving forward.

Boundless indeed. Really exciting to see how members of the community are setting up their own models in their own localities. And I can see what you're saying about how this will start to spread. So it's really accessible to anywhere, anyone, anywhere, ultimately. So, Rekha, just huge thanks for coming on and talking us through and building something that for a lot of families is going to be absolutely transformational. And for all of you tuning in, thanks again for joining us in the future of education. If you like stories like what boundless life is creating and want more to learn more about it, give us a thumbs up wherever you're watching. And thank you as always for tuning in. We'll be back next time.