A university dropout becomes a university chancellor with Christian Rebernik of Tomorrow University

Christian Rebernik is the mastermind behind Tomorrow University, an accredited online university using business education to drive impact and sustainability. In this interview we talked about:

👑 Christian’s royal pedigree in Berlin’s startup ecosystem

🎒 How a university dropout becomes a university Chancellor

🎯 Tomorrow University’s goal of reaching 1 million people

#education #university #climatetech

Transcript

Ryan Grant Little: 0:06

Welcome to Another Climate Tech Podcast interviews with the people trying to save us from ourselves. I've been wanting to talk about education more on this podcast, so I was really happy when Christian Rebernik, co-founder of Tomorrow University, was keen to be on it. Christian is Berlin startup royalty and turned his focus to building a digital university a few years ago. That's totally focused on impact. We talked about how the university dropout became a university chancellor, the challenges and opportunities of creating community online and reaching a million people. I reached Christian in Berlin. I'm Ryan Grant Little. Thanks for being here, Christian. It's great to have you on the podcast.

Christian Rebernik: 0:47

Hello, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for the invitation.

Ryan Grant Little: 0:50

You have got a great pedigree as the CTO of some of Germany's most famous and successful tech companies. You've been in Berlin since 2009. You're from Vienna, so it means we were in Berlin at the same time for at least a decade and maybe we crossed paths. I'm not sure, but possibly because we have a lot of people in common. But you've been involved with some of these really, really famous companies like Parship, the matchmaking platform, the digital bank, N26, and then as the co-founder of a health tracker called Vivy, and now, and for the past few years, you've been the co-founder and you're the chancellor of an accredited online university called Tomorrow University. So, mr Chancellor, what was the impetus for starting Tomorrow University?

Christian Rebernik: 1:39

Thank you very much, and I'm still not used to this kind of title, and it's funny that you mentioned Parship and N26, because they're not the same industry at all. It's like really different industries and living with health and now you talked about tomorrow, which is about education. Yeah, so it's, it's fundamentally different industries, but there is a red line between them and the red line. Literally over the last 20 years, I had the opportunity to build digital products and to have with them a positive impact, and this is literally what is across my whole life. Actually, it's a path that was my whole life.

Christian Rebernik: 2:15

Nonetheless, education is not a given, because, also, I dropped out the first time when I started to study. So the reason I was when I was studying, I was already unhappy about studying myself. It was not very motivating for myself to study. It never was really like, never had the feeling of learn really matters. I couldn't connect that, and now I'm a little bit older. So now I have three kids and they go to school, and there was a point in my life when they started to go in school and a lot was coming up which I had actually experienced back then when I was in school, which was about hey, you need to learn for that exam. You need to get this good grade, yeah, but why? Why is this matters? Yeah, there's a grade which I need to do. Good, I need to learn how okay, but why? Yeah.

Christian Rebernik: 3:03

And then the learning it was during the pandemic, when my kids have been in homeschool and my son he was sitting on the other side of the dinner table and he had this experience that he was actually learning about Berlin history, which is really interesting, I think. But the teachers just kept on talking for pretty much an hour and I don't know, in minute 51 or something like that, my son was really like falling asleep and this was really the moment I thought, okay, education hasn't changed. It's pretty much broken. The world has changed so much we have. Now. The libraries are not anymore locked up, the knowledge is not locked up. You can go online, you look things up. Ai becomes really powerful now so that you actually have a tool which helps you to craft, eventually, more effective solutions.

Christian Rebernik: 3:49

So the environment is changing, but our education doesn't. And this is not helping, because I think also that, just looking at my kids, but everybody education is the fundamental to create a better future. This is enabling us constantly to glide forward. This is enabling us constantly to glide forward, so it's one of the most important things actually, not for a short-term quick win and doing things solving the climate crisis tomorrow, but creating a sustainable society, solving climate eventually. This is where education matters and this is the reason why we actually founded Tomorrow's Education. If that kind of approach that we say, hey, education is important and we think it's really, we need to fix that. So here we are.

Ryan Grant Little: 4:27

And so, yeah, I was going to mention that, I saw that you dropped out of your business degree, which is like a you know proper tech founder kind of thing to do.

Ryan Grant Little: 4:35

And if I look back, on my life and you know I mean it's a controversial thing to say, but one of my regrets is that I didn't drop out of university because I was building a foundation. I was building a public foundation called Canada House when I was 20 or 21, which, like you know, now I'm 43 and I look back and it's still the best thing I ever did. And doing that while kind of doing a degree, because I was kind of supposed to or expected to, but I was not super engaged in it and I was, you know, doing something much bigger and grander kind of on the side, which basically led me to, I mean, almost burn out by trying to do both at the same time. And so I was wondering, yeah, is your decision to do this part of? Does that come somehow from kind of frustration about the education that you experienced in your undergraduate degree? And maybe, to ask it a different way, how is Tomorrow University fixing the mistakes that you saw in kind of what I'll call legacy education?

Christian Rebernik: 5:30

So then, once I dropped out, the reality is it is shit hard to learn. It is actually really not that easy, and to do this all by yourself means you make a lot of mistakes and it's a lot of searching, actually finding the right information, and so I think also now this sounds a little awkward. I think my career was actually quite slow. I was a lot of learning the hard way. I talked to many people just to get to know where I'm looking for. Actually I didn't know when I started my first company. It was while I was studying, but I didn't know what actually I needed to run a business at all, literally at all. Yeah, from the basic things creating an invoice to actually how sales works, yeah, communication and and it. To learn this. It's really tough. I think it took me really a long time. I should build it up much. So I think that overall the concept actually they spend time on learning to building up competence. I think it's really, really important and it really empowers us to be more successful, and I think also this is one of the key acts that I made. It's not sure, but, but I don't want that. Everybody needs to go and don't just talk about kids, but I don't think it's the right way that you all need to do it by yourself. I think we have some great tools now so we can help you in a very effective way. And how does this work in a nutshell, from our perspective?

Christian Rebernik: 6:53

The first thing, to simplify it. It's really about knowing why you learn. This is what comes if you have a career like what you said. You know why, if you know why. This is amazing Because now you have actually something you want to solve. You want to learn because of a reason. So this increases the motivation, the engagement, and then, once this is about, then you need to find out. I want to learn something which is relevant, but it's not about learning things by heart. This doesn't help you in real life. Just getting the knowledge. Okay, I can repeat everything, it's not solving it. You need to be able to create a business model, actually not just know what is in the business model. You need to be able to sell something, not just in theory, all the different marketing concepts. So it is about this competence.

Christian Rebernik: 7:37

And the third thing life is not alone. You're not isolated. Every business, every career is actually a joint thing. It's about doing this together. So it is about building up a network, knowing who you can ask. It's about collaboration. So also that means our mission is to educate and empower the changemakers of tomorrow. But empowerment is about this kind of network and this means for us we are thinking about here and luckily, actually, my co-founder. He has the education background. So he told me. I asked him actually, thomas, this is not working. Our kids, they don't learn effective. Why is this the case? And he told me it's a systematic problem. We know how to do it better and it's nothing new.

Christian Rebernik: 8:16

The science behind how learning works is like really like in the last century. There is a lot of research about how effective learning works, but it's so hard to put it into our systems in place and we literally didn't if we invented the learning science, we just took what is there and put it into tomorrow, which is about challenge-based learning. It's about competence-based learning so that we leverage your strengths. You have already based learning so that we leverage your strengths. You have already. You build on top the competence and you flourish this. You learn on the relevant, on the relevant challenges actually, and apply the knowledge. First, as you learn the knowledge, you apply the knowledge and then also you give feedback to others based on what you have learned and what you have experienced, actually to build this up. It's about social learning, so that you see what others and experience what others actually are learning. You can exchange on it. Yeah, so this is not the rocket science, but we have created and this is important a technology which can help you achieve this, not based on one academic, but actually as a systematical phenomenon, so it's really built into the whole system.

Christian Rebernik: 9:16

So in my school, I had also like these three teachers my English teacher was really amazing Great, but the math teacher was really amazing Great, but the math teacher was not good. So I was frustrated with math, and so many of us have this experience that one teacher was great but the other one was really cheated and shit, and this shouldn't be the case. If you're learning, I think every class should be outstanding and relevant. So this is what we're trying to do with tomorrow is that we want to educate the power of change makers we. So this is what we're trying to do with tomorrow is that we want to educate and power the change makers. We want to make every class outstanding for you. Every class needs to be relevant and every class needs to be social, where you together learn for your purpose in the next year, and this is tomorrow university.

Ryan Grant Little: 9:53

So are you taking pedagogical methods that have worked from the past and then combining that in a way with best practices of sort of digital community collaboration, that type of thing, and knowledge management potentially as well? Is this like an intersection of these two kinds of things? What's the principle?

Christian Rebernik: 10:10

Yes, absolutely. It's exactly what you said. We take the learning science and put it into a platform and into a pedagogy. The special thing about tomorrow is that we designed it from the ground up for an online environment, and this is also where new challenges arrive, because nobody has literally figured out online education. Really, because you have this, I watch, a stare at the screen and there are 20 faces, but it's not the same thing if you have 20 people in a room and you feel that the proximity of people you can look at people, can talk to people.

Christian Rebernik: 10:41

So there are challenges in these online environments which you need to solve or which you need to design for, and this is where we have, for example, the campus at tomorrow. It's not like a video conference they just have the faces, but actually it's more like a floor plan of the campus and you see the people walking around and every time you go into the proximity of an art student, a video will put up and you can talk to them. This means also, if there's an academic professor standing around, you just can walk up to them and ask them. It means also that if there's a class and you're five minutes early, you can actually socialize and connect. Or after that class, you can still stay and just talk to the academic and have some follow-up questions. So it goes away from, for example, this more transactional in-and-out approach to something which is more social.

Christian Rebernik: 11:28

And so we're working. And I don't think we have figured everything out, but I think we are really trying to innovate and look how can we make learning online work, because there's so many benefits of this online, from flexibility, you can learn when it fits you. You can learn from so many different locations, wherever you are. This is really great to save on commuting time. You can also connect around the world. I think many of the problems we have today they are interconnected between countries actually, so this kind of cross-country collaboration has been important, and all this actually becomes possible doing it online.

Ryan Grant Little: 12:04

Do your students meet in person at any point? I'm just trying to think back to my time where, you know, a lot of the student experience was the in-person bonding, the late night philosophical conversations in dorm rooms, that type of thing. And I wonder, I mean, it's already really interesting that people can show up early to the class and chat and people can walk up to a professor kind of in this like avatar way, I guess, and I'm just wondering how you create the kind of maybe even outside of class student experience for these university students yeah, we like to say the world is a campus in the sense you can complete the degree fully online, but we encourage every student to meet in person and we have for this.

Christian Rebernik: 12:42

We have regular meet events, immersion days, where actually students come together from all the different backgrounds also across the different programs, by the way and stay together for a couple of days, and that's where we have panels, we have speaker sessions, we have workshops, but a lot of um drinking, late night sessions, all these things. So this is one thing for every student. It's not possible for every student. Nonetheless, this is something which is optional, but we really encourage it.

Christian Rebernik: 13:08

Then the second thing is, depending on the city, we have local.

Christian Rebernik: 13:12

We call this currently hubs, learning hubs so the people actually, like in Vienna or in Berlin or in Amsterdam, for example, the people come together and learn and meet regularly. There's a city ambassador and he's organizing that also to connect the local learners with, for example, startups, and this is really helping them to connect to each other, get to know each other better, spend nights together, develop relationships further, because we think also, this is really really important and this cannot be resolved by just learning online. This relationship building is an important part, yeah, and we fully believe this is an actually one of the key parts of tomorrow that you don't do this like always just in one location, but you can actually interculturally meet and also travel eventually to different locations. Yeah, the last meetup was in Frankfurt, the next one is in Vienna, then we have one in London, for example. So you experience different cities, you experience also different students and you can connect and mingle and then you have your more stable connections in your direct proximity, which is your city.

Ryan Grant Little: 14:18

You referenced a number of European cities. Does that mean the student base is mostly in Europe?

Christian Rebernik: 14:23

I would say 80% of the students are in Europe.

Ryan Grant Little: 14:25

Okay, interesting and, as you alluded to kind of earlier, talking about invoices, marketing plans, these types of things. It's a business school and you offer two undergrad degrees Responsible Entrepreneurship and Management, as well as AI and Sustainable technologies, which is a pretty interesting one I'm sure that's getting lots of traction, especially right now and two master's degrees a master in science, a master in sciences, I don't know in sustainability, entrepreneurship and technology, as well as an impact MBA, which has six separate streams to pick from itself. Why these degrees? How did you land on these specific degrees?

Christian Rebernik: 15:05

Yeah, that's a really great question because we also constantly thinking about what are the right degrees actually and from our perspective, actually, we want to educate the change makers of tomorrow. We want to shape the people who are actually creating better tomorrow. So how, what is the relevant? What are the relevant skills there actually for that? What is the relevant credentials they need? Who needs that?

Christian Rebernik: 15:24

And from this we're deriving it and with the skills we're talking about, about this 21st century skills that you're focusing on, there are six of them, which is on the more like hard skill, like technology is really important, but it's about also interconnecting. It's about sustainability, it's about emotional proficiency, it's about self-leadership, which are really important. It's about communication, communicating, impactful and based on that, now we're looking into the into the more specific areas. Yeah, so, for example, the impact mba again, impact is also very clear. We don't believe into, we just need the traditional mba program, which is just to make profit, make more money. We think that it's not a bad thing to make money, but you need to combine it with a positive impact and this is the reason why, for us, the impact of the MBA is actually about exactly combining this a positive impact, but also creating businesses. And then you have, more specifically, green marketing and ESG your climate leadership topics in in that field, which help you to build a successful career.

Christian Rebernik: 16:27

The Master of Science what you mentioned before in sustainability and technology, exactly it's for the people who actually are entrepreneurs, who want to create businesses, especially and again they are learning about sustainability, creating circular economy companies, for example. Learning about technology, because technology makes leaders just more effective. In today's world, technology is pretty much in every field and entrepreneurship is really for the thinking and thinking about solutions. And then we have the bachelor programs, which are falling into the same directions as bachelor programs, with entrepreneurship and the AI topic. Again, technology is the key to build a better future and entrepreneurship to create companies which lead to a better future. So this is literally integrating all our programs.

Ryan Grant Little: 17:12

I mean, I love that Tomorrow University focuses only, you know, specifically on the intersection of business and impact. And you know, as someone who did a very traditional MBA, you know it's this is, I think, what we need in 2024. I give talks at business universities from time to time and I do this specifically and solely to convince students to put their talents and time into solving problems that matter, right. So, climate change, number one, basically. And I tell them, you know straight up that if they go to work for Goldman Sachs or to McKinsey, they'll make a lot of money, they'll have lots of status in certain circles, but they will be actively fucking up the world. And I don't always get invited back to these universities.

Ryan Grant Little: 18:02

But I wonder, you know, and the message lands a lot, I think, and I think people need to hear this in more stark terms, right, a lot of the time, because they are making very big decisions about their futures and once you get on a certain path, it becomes pretty hard a lot of times to change that and sometimes that's built in. That's a feature, not a bug, of some of these paths, like consulting, for example. Feature, not a bug of some of these paths like consulting, for example, how do you prioritize students? Or how do you, sorry, convince students to prioritize doing good while still making lots of money, versus just optimizing for personal wealth? And I suggest, I imagine part of the answer there is that it's self-selected right. So if they're coming at tomorrow university, then they're already kind of the right group for this.

Ryan Grant Little: 18:42

But how do you kind of drill that in or, at least you know, lead people to think about this topic?

Christian Rebernik: 18:48

It is a self-selection. People who apply at tomorrow. We ask them already about the mission at the beginning of the application process. So what do you want to change? How do you want to leave the world a better place? And maybe you found it, you know.

Christian Rebernik: 19:03

So it is an inherent selection and it just gets amplified once you join. Because at the beginning, when you join the degree programs, there are four phases the orientation phases read about, define your vision values really well, so you really are clear where you want to go and you will learn. Every student learns about sustainability foundations, every student also. You know um, one of the key parts is the people who shape you. At the end, you become also there's some of the people who actually you're together, spending time with, so we have a community which everybody is actually around. This kind of question of how can I impact the world in a positive play, in positive ways. So you're surrounding this and then we have to amplify this.

Christian Rebernik: 19:41

Students, for example, in the Build your Dream Team Challenge, they actually define their personal board of advisors who are supporting them on being successful on the journey. So it is everything geared on really maximizing people in their impact and for sure we have people which maybe are coming for, hey, I want to be successful and this success is defined just by money. But I don't know a single student, to be honest, who is with us at this point of time, who is just up for the money Doesn't come to my mind now. So it is this kind of self-collection process. It is this kind of process also where we ask them challenging questions or they interact with each other when they think about this.

Christian Rebernik: 20:27

There is no hard selection criteria. On the other hand side, at the end we don't know if somebody might do something different, but we are. Even if they graduate, we ask them for the impact they have. So one of the things how we measure our impact is based on the impact, the impact they have. So one of the things how we measure our impact is based on the impact that our students have. So this was the ultimate measure and from this also so far, we know that our students really have to remember the impact actually on all the different SDGs, not just on climate, not just on energy, not just on biodiversity, but really to remember on those different things. So I think this is what we see currently from a selection process, from a community approach.

Ryan Grant Little: 21:08

That kind of impact you're seeing after they graduate. I guess you've got some first cohorts that have graduated now and going into the workforce. Where are they landing after tomorrow university? What kinds of jobs are they getting? Or companies are they starting?

Christian Rebernik: 21:21

So there's a big diversity. You mentioned people. Actually, we have people trying to form consultant companies who want to switch their career. So this is something, you see, good for them, some of them actually starting switching jobs. Um, some of them switching and becoming actual entrepreneurs. We have people who who are in organizations like Apple and then they are thinking about how can they help to Apple and I think Apple is doing quite a good job, for example, in the field of sustainable company.

Christian Rebernik: 21:49

But how can we think more about circular economy? How can we improve actually the footprint? How can we do more for the society? For example, this is the case that it grows. An example for startups so many different industries. One is founded, a startup in the marketing industry. This is the case that it grows.

Christian Rebernik: 22:03

An example for startups so many different industries. One is founded, a startup in the maritime industry that she's helping. She created an AI technology for ships to arrive just on time in harbor so they don't have to spend time waiting in front and with that, consuming energy. Different one we have one which is in the education field, helping actually migrants to learn the language of in this case, sweden Swedish student, and she created a new organization and a very interesting project for how to address migrants and help them be there effectively. They have also, as one student, created an impact fund, which is also really interesting because he extended his network actually and we need more funds actually entrepreneurs, which is exciting.

Christian Rebernik: 22:46

There's so many different, I think, really great, great stories. But we have also, like a musician talking about the bachelor in ai, a musician who wants to use ai to create the next level of music and integrates this, so he's studying the bachelor of science. Or in a doctor also who's, for example, in the ai program and he's he's a Finnish doctor Finnish, but he wants to learn actually about AI and how he can create eventual health software, which is helping. So it's really different profiles from that perspective.

Ryan Grant Little: 23:13

I mean that makes for such an interesting group as well and for interesting exchange when people come from these different backgrounds and have these different goals. So that's fascinating. You work in cooperation with let's call it bricks and mortar university, wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, or WU, which is Austria's top business school, I guess, and I should mention that I also give lectures there. What does the cooperation look like? How did it come together and to what extent is this cooperation? What do they call it? Coopetition versus competition? Do they see you as a threat? Do they see your model as a threat?

Christian Rebernik: 23:48

so we I think we've been lucky and that we are very proud actually of that collaboration and that the vienna university, the executive academy more specifically, actually did set up this collaboration so early on. And what happened? In the natural diversity during the pandemic, they struggled to deliver real great online programs. So that's where our specialization and focus came in and based on that, we said, okay, how about if we actually set up together the Master of Science program and this was the starting point for the collaboration where, on the one hand side, they have really great academics also in sustainability and we have also in the platform on the one hand side, but also academics in, for example, entrepreneurship or, for example, in technology. And we actually set up the program together and it was a huge success. And this was also one of the key stepping stones actually for tomorrow and that we're here today, because we have successfully not just the students but we help them actually to be very successful. So that's the reason why, until today, this program is running and expanding.

Ryan Grant Little: 24:52

And in what ways do you work together now, so post-pandemic, what does that cooperation look like?

Christian Rebernik: 25:01

So, in a nutshell, 30% of the academics are coming from the Vienna University, while 70% come from Tomorrow. Students learn fully on the Tomorrow system and then on the Tomorrow platform.

Ryan Grant Little: 25:11

Amazing. Okay, I need to see this platform. I think I need to get a demo of it. It sounds amazing. You're also an angel investor and, just to not get the hopes up of listeners, you have a strict focus on funding initiatives that come out of Tomorrow University and I wonder if you've had a chance to make first investments with that or anything you can talk about from that pipeline so far.

Christian Rebernik: 25:34

So, in total, I've done 15 investments so far, so it's also let's say it's a limited scope, but I really think that it makes a difference. And I'm not doing it for the let's call it for the wishes. It's really because I think it's because of the meaningfulness of it, really giving people the chance and supporting ecosystems. And we talked about funding and it is important to have actually access to funds, so that's my motivation. And then, as we founded now Tomorrow University, we see all the students which are really having amazing ideas actually, and you want to support them, and this is where I said, okay, I need to focus on my resources. They are not they are far not unlimited, unfortunately, and that's the reason why I said okay, and that's the reason why I said okay, let's do this tomorrow, invest only in tomorrow's students.

Christian Rebernik: 26:20

And we are using also, we are also in partnerships with other networks and accelerators, for example, that actually collaborate and support students with funding. One of them is Eivor Network, which is doing an amazing job actually supporting funders. There are people-centric accelerators or also, for example, techstars, which we're working together with to help students build successful businesses Because, as I mentioned to you as part of the Master of Science program. There are many who actually really, you know, build up that confidence. They learn the skills and they get also the exposure to actually say, hey, I really want to take the step into the company, even if they're coming out of the comfort zone before. So that that's very. I'm passionate about helping them and this is one way of doing that actually I'll put links to those accelerators in the show notes as well.

Ryan Grant Little: 27:12

What is your long-term vision for tomorrow? University and, to paraphrase the famous job interview question, where do you see yourself in five years? Or maybe that's a question on partnership also.

Christian Rebernik: 27:24

That was probably a partnership question so I mentioned, our purpose is that we want to excellent position to sustainable society, and we call it society specifically because we think it's about the people and the whole ecosystem. That's the reason why we I think this is really what is driving us and the mission I mentioned before to educate and empower the people actually who are doing the change, because at the end, it's individuals who drive that change and they are the ones who we want to strengthen and really support. And we want to reach one million people to actually drive this change. Why? Because, out of the theory of change, we believe that one million people is actually enough to change the world. So, if we're humble, I would say we want to change the world and we actually are convinced that this is possible and that's what we are doing.

Christian Rebernik: 28:14

Five years might not be enough for that. To be honest, I have more, more, 10 year-wise for this actually in plan, but that's our trajectory and we are doing everything actually to do this because, again, it's not a local problem. So we want, we are building also a global university and we talk about we have 80 percent of our students currently from europe, but we have also 20 percent from outside already, um, and we are quite excited about this. Actually, and currently most of our students are coming also from Western countries, but we have students also from countries like Nigeria, pakistan, and this is what is really exciting for us, because we want to give accessibility and the opportunity to drive change actually from all the different regions. So that's our trajectory from that perspective.

Ryan Grant Little: 28:57

I mean, it's an amazing goal to hit a million people. I think that's, and it's probably, very possible, especially with a scalable platform like you've got. Speaking of scalable platforms, you have 30,000 followers on LinkedIn, so I'm guessing that if people want to kind of track your activities or see what you're up to, following you on LinkedIn is probably the place to go. Is that right? Absolutely Great, and I'll put links to your LinkedIn and also to Tomorrow University in the show notes. Christian, thank you so much.

Christian Rebernik: 29:25

Fine. Thank you so much for the invite. We loved it here.

Ryan Grant Little: 29:29

Thanks for listening to another Climate Tech Podcast. It would mean a lot if you would subscribe, rate and share this podcast. Get in touch anytime with tips and guest recommendations at hello at climate tech pod dot com. Find me, Ryan Grant Little, on LinkedIn. I'll be back with another episode next week. Bye for now.