We help youth create their desired futures
Our dream
School of Gumption is conceived with a vision of empowering individuals to collectively design sustainable
solutions for their desired future through deep personal mastery and navigating complexities of the 21st century, supported by a learning community and a culture that encourages making changes and taking risks.
We focus on:
Our mission
We develop youth and professionals to be future-ready and drive change with the heart and entrepreneurial dare.
Our vision
A world where every individual is able to realize their full potential and contribute collaboratively to an inclusive and sustainable future.
Our gumption values
Value-driven Leadership Framework (6C)
Calm
The Calm of Character to maintain your clarity and balance.
Compassion
The Compassion to contribute to a better world.
Curiosity
The Curiosity to ask questions and find new answers.
Commitment
The Commitment to stay the course when challenged
Courage
The Courage to imagine new realities and make them realities.
Collaboration
The humility to Collaborate and build the ecosystem.
Our Learning Philosophy
Learning through
Future Creation and Active Inquiry
Learning is deepened and enjoyed when it helps a learner to advance toward a personal aspired goal. We navigate through our learning process with questions to acquire new information, seek new answers and solutions. We learn the skills and the knowledge that can help us move closer to our desired future.
Value Embodiment of 6C
We nurture 6C values in our learners through intentional use of languages in our dialogues, reflections daily to build up a culture of 6C. The embodiment of values requires the conscious intention to embrace them as a way of being. Learning new values requires constant dance between our habitual self and our mindful self.
Self-directed learning with internal compass
Each of us is created uniquely, with diverse talents, passions and roles in life. The best way for us to blossom into our full potential is to constantly navigate our life based on our internal compass: How do we learn best? How do we express ourselves the best? What do we care most?What types of activities do we lose ourselves in?
Learning anytime, anywhere,
from anyone and anything
Learning happens all the time, through all senses. We learn from nature, from one another, from every existing feature of the environment around us. Everyone can learn, and everyone can teach. Teaching deepens learning and is a learning process itself, because we have to find a way to clarify, express and communicate clearly what we need to teach.
Integrate the head, heart and hand
Learning happens the most when the head is ignited, the hand is engaged and the heard is inspired. Human is created with intelligence embodied in every cell. To unleash human potential, it is time for us to activate the intelligence of the heart, head and hand in an integrated manner to truly harness the power of our collective creation.
Our Team
Our team consists of individuals from different nationalities and professional backgrounds in education, social entrepreneurship, business, technology and wellness who are seeking to shape the future of learning. We also have a group of incredibly dedicated volunteers who bring their expertise and energy to advocate for life-long learning and inclusive society.
Pham Hai Yen
Co-founder/Chief Executive Officer
Haiyen has been a passionate educator, a secondary school teacher and an officer at Ministry of Education in the past 10 years. She was the Head Of Department of Craft & Technology and led curriculum and pedagogy design, Art, Design & Technology, Food & Nutrition before joining School of Gumption. Background in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with awarded ASEAN university scholarship, Haiyen's expertise and interests are among neuroscience of learning, Intrinsic motivation that drives human behaviour, multiple intelligences and how to unleash human potential and the role of emotion in human behaviour.
Liu Yan
Co-founder/Chief Impact Officer
Liu Yan is an award-winning social entrepreneur who has been advocating a new way of working and learning since 2004. She established China’s first coworking center Xindanwei listed by Fastcompany as “The World’s Top 10 most innovative company in China”. She is part of the founding team of Xinchejian, the pioneer of Asia’s maker movement. Liu Yan is also the co-founder and chief curator of China Australian Millennium Project (C.A.M.P), a unique 100-day incubator program designed to train, mentor and empower emerging young Australian and Chinese leaders and entrepreneurs.
Jack Sim
Co-founder/Board Member
Jack Sim is a Distinguished Fellow at the GFCC and founder of the World Toilet Organization. He broke the taboo around toilets by bringing the sanitation crisis to the global media spotlight in 2001, and has since mobilised a global movement involving governments, policy makers, United Nations agencies, international civil society, thought leaders and activists to work together in addressing the global sanitation crisis. Jack also founded Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) Hub, a business-centric organisation using hybrid cross-sector collaborations to alleviate poverty sustainably through creating efficient BOP marketplace for the 4 billion poor.
Roberto Fabbri
Board Member/Advisor
Having lived and worked in Asia for over 30 years, Roberto Fabbri has come to know and understand the Asian psyche. Roberto’s work has taken him around the world running various engineering and management projects.
He has worked for and collaborated with different government bodies on numerous enterprises.
Roberto has been conferred the title of Knight of the Republic of Italy twice. In 1995, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (OMRI) in 2009 he was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy (OSSI).
Donald Hansen
Advisor
Don is a retired IBM executive with over 30 years of global experience leading complex teams and acting as a change agent for multinational corporations. He has received many awards and accolades for ground breaking first-of-a-kind projects throughout his career; including the internet’s first secure electronic transaction (SET) implementation is Asia and, more recently, the first award of IBM Watson AI for banking.
Since retiring Don has focused his attention on independent consulting projects, advising startups and angle investing.
Nguyen Ngoc Khanh Nhu
Associate in Vietnam
Nhu graduated from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh city. After that, she have worked in Teach for Vietnam as a Leadership Development Fellowship, She had worked for AIESEC for 5 years, and was National Head of Social Projects of AIESEC in Vietnam, therefore, she has various experience in education and social entrepreneur and obtain strong insights of youth development in Vietnam and in global network. During working with School of Gumption, she nurtures the ambition of transforming education into firm and secure foundation for youth to achieve their desired future.
Nguyen Than Thuy Linh
Associate in Thailand
Pursuing the major of Social Entrepreneurship in Thammasat University, Linh hopes to contribute her energy to building a sustainable educational ecosystem. Linh was one of 3 Vietnamese students to be granted Scholarship of Development Studies from Oslo Metropolitan University and Kulturstudier (Norway) in 2018. The journey that she engaged in then, Young Sustainable Impact SEA Innovation Program 2019, has strongly deepened her awareness and understanding of entrepreneurship and a passion to help youths unleash their potentials.
Do Thuy Hang
Associate in Thailand
Hang is currently majoring in Social Entrepreneurship at Thammasat University. Aspired to be an entrepreneur in the future, Hang has dedicated her energy and expertise to advocate for social innovation. She is a digital community leader for Vietnam Impact Entrepreneur Group, Entrepreneur-in-Residence in Young Sustainable Impact South East Asia and conference presenter at the second international conference of the South East Asia Social Innovation Network. Hang has a strong belief that quality of core product is an essential asset to transform the ecosystem, which leads her to contribute her effort for the School of Gumption.