Our story
Mentava’s story starts with the pandemic. All of a sudden, my wife and I became two working parents trying to share a 600 square foot 1-bedroom apartment with 3 kids, no childcare, no playgrounds.
My kids have always loved learning, but there was no way I could give them each the individual instruction they needed. So I focused on teaching them to teach themselves.
What surprised me was how well it worked. It was also much harder than it needed to be.
Even the best education software I could find had serious bugs, nonsensical UX, key concepts that the curriculum skipped, frustratingly sudden jumps in difficulty, bad adaptive engines - all problems that would be easily dealt with under the close supervision of a skilled teacher, but insurmountable for a child without that support.
As I struggled to support my kids’ learning needs, it was clear the world needed genuinely educational software that “just works” and allows a child to learn at their own pace.
And by “learn at their own pace”, what we mean is “as fast as they want to go”.
Taking a step back, why is this so important? What problem are we solving for?
Many parents don’t realize that modern education policy isn’t about helping every child reach their potential. The goal of modern education policy is closing the gap between struggling students and high achievers. It’s an important goal, but the end result is policymakers implementing universally unpopular policies that force teachers and schools to hold high achieving kids back.
Mentava’s mission is to accelerate learning. If we can build software that “just works”, and allows a child to learn at their own pace, we can provide options to kids whose learning needs aren’t being met by their schools.
We believe that every child deserves to have their learning needs met. They should be challenged, and have the opportunity to learn something new every day.
But if kids can’t read, they can’t learn, so that’s our first goal: teach kids to read as quickly and as effectively as possible. Compared to private school, or a personal tutor, our software-based learn-to-read tutor is more effective, more convenient, and cheaper. And it’s available now, for preschoolers..
Niels Hoven
FOUNDER
Niels Hoven is the founder of Mentava and remains the primary instructor. He has spent over a decade working at the world’s top tech companies and has three kids of his own.
Since elementary school, Niels has appreciated the accelerated coursework he was lucky enough to benefit from. Niels spent 4 years in elementary school learning math through independent study, which prepared him for formal computer science classes in 7th grade and AP Calculus in 8th grade. He received a perfect score on the SAT and earned over a year’s worth of college credit from AP tests, several of which were self-taught.
Niels has remained passionate about education throughout his professional career, which has included time spent teaching and at an edtech startup. He believes that all kids should have the opportunity to challenge themselves at school.