- Hi everyone, Sal Khan here from Khan Academy.
Welcome to the Homeroom live stream.
A very exciting conversation today.
We have Mala Sharma who is the VP
and GM of creative cloud at Adobe.
But before we jump into that conversation
I will give some of our standard announcements.
First, a reminder that Khan Academy
is a not-for-profit organization,
we can only exist through donations
from folks like yourself.
So if you're in a position to do so,
please think about making a donation@khanacademy.org/donate.
I also want to give a special shout out
to several organizations that stepped up during the pandemic
when they realized that we were running at a bigger deficit
than normal because of all of the server costs
and our desire to accelerate content
to support tens of millions of learners around the world.
So, special thanks to Bank of America, AT&T, Google.org
Novartis, Fastly, and general motors.
I also want to give a special shout out to Adobe.
This is a new thing that we are announcing right now
and one of the reasons why Mala is here amongst many others
as our creativity partner and we're gonna be talking
a lot more about just education
and the role that creativity has to play
and how Khan Academy and Adobe hope to work together
to really push the envelope there.
And last but not least, I wanna remind everyone
that there's a version of this
that you can get wherever you get your podcast,
Homeroom with Sal, The podcasts.
So with that, I'm excited to introduce Mala Sharma,
VP and GM of Adobe Creative Cloud.
Mala, great to see you.
- It's great to see you too Sal,
thank you so much for having me here.
- Well, there's a ton of stuff I wanna talk ask you about.
I know you care deeply about education,
it's teacher appreciation week.
I wanna learn about your journey and of course I wanna talk
about what we are now going to be doing together,
Adobe and Khan Academy but maybe a good place to start
just so people understand context,
what is the Adobe Creative Cloud and what does the VP
and general manager of Adobe Creative Cloud do?
- So Adobe Creative Cloud is the creativity platform
that anybody can use
who has an idea to put out there in the world.
We have professionals who use it,
we have students, we have consumers like you and I
who have an idea and wanna have impact in the world
that has applications like Photoshop, Premier Pro,
InDesign, Illustrator,
applications that work on the desktop,
on your mobile phone, on the web.
Adobe Spark is a part of a creative cloud
that is a web based application
and not only does it have applications
it also has services integrated
so you can collaborate on creative cloud.
You have content you can use, you have templates,
you have fonts that you can bring into your creation.
So, think about anything you need to express an idea
is available within creative cloud and what I do at Adobe,
I have the privilege of managing
the product marketing organization
and the education business.
So, I'm responsible for thinking
about how do we get our products more available
to our customers, how do we grow the business,
how do we make them more accessible to users
wherever they are in any part of the world,
any platform that they're on and I work with product teams,
engineering teams, marketing teams
to get the product out there and available to our customers.
- Yeah, and I've had a long relationship
with many of those products products.
I use them now but I all the way back,
I think it was as early as 1991 or 1992
when I was the art editor and layout editor
for our school newspaper in New Orleans
under Mrs. Kennedy who is one of the teachers
that I always make a point of appreciating
during teacher appreciation week.
She was our journalism and our English teacher.
But that's when I first used,
what was now part of the Adobe Creative Cloud
but I used all of the various things that Adobe suite.
I'm curious, how do you and how does Adobe,
there's a lot of areas where Adobe is used.
Obviously a lot of designers, the creative professionals,
et cetera, et cetera.
What is the lens that y'all take on education and education
in the context of supporting teachers especially?
- Yeah, education is very important
from a couple of perspectives.
First of all, we believe that all of us as humans
are innately creative
and giving everybody a voice is an important part
of building self-worth,
building great citizens in the world
and therefore education is a conduit,
is a very important vertical for us to get students access
to our products so that they can tell their stories.
And we have so many infinite examples of the students
when they're able to put these stories together,
put a voice to their ideas,
what it does to their self-confidence
and what it does to student outcomes specifically.
So, a big part of our focus
is getting the products with the hands of the students,
making them work on platforms that students are on
whether they're on the web,
whether they're on mobile devices or they're in the lab,
working in the lab.
So, it's about making the products work here
in these different places, making it affordable for schools.
Adobe Spark is free for students to use.
Creative Cloud which is over a $600 a year product
is just $5 a year for student in K-12.
So, really it's about making the products work
as well as making them accessible through pricing
but the second area Sal is about the teachers.
And again, it's great to be here with you
during teacher appreciation week announcing this partnership
because teachers are aware where this all happens.
They are the ones who sort of help lead the students
through the learning process and making them ready
to bring creativity into the classroom
is another really important piece of what Adobe does.
We have a platform called Adobe Education Exchange,
there's over a million teachers on that platform,
there's sharing ideas with each other,
there's project plans,
there's lesson plans available for them,
of how they can bring creativity into a Math class
or into a science class or a Geography class.
Because what that does is one,
it makes learning more interesting.
It engages students but most importantly,
the teachers can assess
what the student is actually comprehended and learned
through what they create.
So, education to us
is about making both of those things possible
which is putting the products in the hands of the students
and preparing the teachers to teach creativity
and bring creativity into the classroom.
- And I definitely want to talk a lot more about this
especially what both Adobe and Khan Academy
hope to do together.
But before we go there,
I do wanna focus a little bit on your story.
That's one of the interesting things
about these conversations.
I always love to learn
how people got to where they're going.
We have a lot of young people who are watching this,
a lot of parents who are watching this.
So, when you were young in elementary school,
middle school, did you say,
"I Mala Sharma I'm going to be a VP
and GM of Adobe Creative Cloud."
What did you think you were going to do?
(laughing)
- Oh my Gosh.
Well, if you asked my mom,
she probably thought I was up to no good.
I was a very, very naughty student and was always the person
who was trying to distract the teacher in the classroom
and distract the students in the classroom.
(indistinct)
I'm sorry.
- Do you remember what you did?
- Oh my gosh.
I don't know if parents would appreciate this
(chuckles)
but I used to be the student who would sit at the back
of the classroom and throw a little airplanes,
this is what we did in India.
We made airplanes with, you know, paper
and we threw it out in front of the classrooms,
I would chew chalk and then throw chalk
at different students, I was really bad.
- Chew chalk, that's a new one.
I didn't know that that's the thing that...
(Mala laughing)
- Oh my God.
Yes, I was a very naughty student
but at some point...
Sorry.
- No, no, go ahead.
I was going to say it but it clearly evolved.
But at some point...
Please keep going.
- Yes, at some point,
I think I realized that it was important for me
to pay attention to learning
and I think my mother being a school teacher
was part of that.
And really, I think the way I'd sum it up,
it's a sequence of events that I didn't expect what happened
but happened but I think the learning that I had
from my teachers, from my parents, from the elders around me
was to be ready to embrace them and be prepared for them
and be able to not just embrace them from the standpoint
of accept what happened but embrace them
and take them forward.
There's been lots of ups and downs in my journey
to get to here but what's been consistent
is being confident, having a deep sense of self-worth
and a deep sense of confidence
that if somebody presents something to me, I can embrace it
and I think that comes from the learning.
The learning and the teachers around me
and all the examples that were around me
that gave you that confidence.
- Yeah, so, I mean, going back to your original.
Your mother was a teacher
and still, it sounds like at a young age
you were maybe not the most obedient obedient child
in at least in the, in the classroom.
Do you remember when it kind of clicked in you?
Was there a particular moment?
Clearly your mother is a teacher
who played a big role in your life
if we're thinking about teacher appreciation week
but were there moments in your education
where you started saying, "Wow, this is really interesting,
I'm not passionate about this
or this person is really invested in me."
- Yeah, I think what my mom did for us
was it was not just about what we learned in the classroom
but she also encouraged us
to do different kinds of learning
so she put us into theater.
I was on stage at an early stage,
I was learning Indian classical music.
I was learning rowing and a variety of different experiences
that taught me consistently
that then I practiced and when I learned from people
who knew more than me and were better than me
and I observed what they did,
that I was able to incorporate that learning
into whatever that I was practicing
and I think it was the extracurricular activities
and the interest that those teachers and those mentors
took in me that helped me get better
and I was able to apply
that into into the classroom as well.
And I think from a teacher standpoint
when it came to just regular studies,
it was a biology teacher who I had in I think seventh grade.
She really made learning incredibly interesting.
And this is again many, many years back in India,
in a government school where I was learning
and we heard that the resources were limited
but the teacher made it interesting by making us take walks
helping students get together in groups
and have conversations about the different plants we saw,
the different insects we saw bringing art by having us draw
what we were seeing.
And I think all of that and the interest that she took
in making it fun and making it non monotonous
and surprising is what engaged me and helped me
get more interested in learning.
And then when I started seeing the results
of what I was doing, I think it got me most serious
about continuing to do my studies.
- And I'm always curious
because when I remember when I was especially in high school
and even in college, you see people whose careers,
their mid-career or they've kind of gotten
to impressive places, what is the path?
How did they figure that out?
Did they know what they were doing?
I clearly didn't know what I was doing,
what did you think you were going to do?
When did you kind of find your direction?
Did you know you're going to go into industry,
go into marketing,
did you think you were going to do something else?
And when did you figure that out?
- Yeah, so when I was in school,
as I said, I was in theater,
my first dream was to actually take acting professionally.
And I was in a theater through school, through college
but then my parents didn't think that was a good choice.
My next choice was to join the Indian Navy
because my father is a war hero and I really admired him.
And I was like,
"I wanna go represent my country and be patriotic."
He then discouraged me from doing that because at that time
women didn't get great opportunities in the Indian Navy.
We were typically stuck behind the desk
as opposed to what I wanted to do, was be on the front.
So, that's what I wanted to do.
And when neither of those worked out at that time at my age
of my batch at the time,
everybody was studying to go abroad
and I was like, "No, I don't want to go abroad,
I wanna work for my country."
And I decided to do my master's in business
because I didn't want to do science
because it looked like science was too hard
and people studied too much.
So, I kind of made the out of convenience really
and ended up doing my MBA.
And then after that life just happened.
I was I think ultimately Sal if I were to look back
on what's consistent is what you learn not just in school
but what values get instilled in you.
And I think that's helped me through and sort of guided me
through all the ups and downs
and I've had plenty of downs as well
is really sort of hanging onto the values that matter
and for me, it's about doing what's right, not, what's good.
It's about being consistent in thought, word and action
and it's those kinds of values that see you through
and I think it's so important.
Again, teachers, parents play such an important role
in not just teaching us the studies that we'd have to do
but also demonstrating and being the examples
for us when it comes to values.
- Now I'm curious, I did not know this background of yours
that you were essentially the theater kid
turned a corporate leader.
(Mala laughing)
- It's funny, a lot of folks, when I was in college,
I took a theater class just on a whim
just thinking it would be a nice change of pace
and I thought it was transformational
and when I really think about it,
it affects how I even interact with people,
how I communicate, how aware I am of of my own being,
what was the effect of theater
and obviously we're here to talk about creativity.
There's a lot of creativity in theater,
how has that background given you some superpowers in it?
Most of the folks are corporate leaders in Silicon Valley
especially if were stereotypically say,
coming from South Asia,
they were probably engineering majors,
come out here and start their life as a software engineer
and then move up through management
but you have a very, very different background.
How has that either helped or hurt you?
- I think the way it's helped me,
there's a couple of things that come to mind.
One is the recognition that you alone
are not what makes that play happen.
There's you, there's the person who pulls the curtain,
there's the light, there's the person behind the camera,
there's a team that's involved
and everybody has to work in sync.
The production is great for the audience
only when everybody is operating together on time, on cue
and all of that takes an incredible amount of practice
and incredible amount of collaboration
and incredible clarity
on what the outcome of the play needs to be.
And that's what work is about.
The second thing that I learned is improvisation
because oftentimes the person you're working with,
or excuse me, you might be with,
they might forget that dialogue.
You might forget your dialogue
and being able to in the moment sort of fill the gaps
and let the story continue.
And the third area, I think is just the confidence, right
of being in front of an audience
and that's what business is about.
Businesses is about collaboration, it's about innovating,
it's about creative ideas and it's about selling those ideas
confidently through storytelling.
And so, I do think that it's been something that's helped me
and including my fighter spirit,
all right, that's where risk-taking and planning
I think was an important thing that I really admired
about what my dad did
and that's something I found I've incorporated into my work
which is really being thoughtful
about what the strategy for winning needs to be,
what the operational efficiency
and operational cadence needs to be.
All of those skills that you need in business.
- I've never made the connection before
but hearing you describe it, you're so right.
I feel like theater should be part
of any business program now because you're absolutely right.
It's a clear goal,
- Yeah. - Lot of coordination
but as soon as you're out there, some new stuff might happen
and you're going to have to improvise
and it reminds me I actually was for half a year in college
on the improv comedy troupe.
And we used to have to go to college
(indistinct)
and you just go on stage with no planning
and people throw out words and scenarios
and I have never gone through more stressful thing
in my life than being on an improv comedy team
but also, you want you to go through that and you're like,
"well, nothing else in life"
(indistinct)
I've never fully drawn the prowls.
I'm gonna make sure my kids get a little bit more drama
(Mala chuckles)
organized drama,
I think unorganized drama for them.
For unorganized in their lives.
Well, let's put the gears a little bit,
let's let's talk about this partnership
that obviously I'm very excited about it
but I'd love to hear from your point of view,
what excites you, or I'd love to hear in your own words,
what is the motivation for partnering with Khan Academy
and what do you hope we're able to do together?
- Yeah, So this is an amazing opportunity.
And Sal, we are so proud and honored
to be the creativity partner for Khan Academy.
As I said earlier,
for Adobe, enabling creativity for everyone is our mission.
We believe every human is innately creative
and giving them a voice is a part of our mission
and the fact that your platform serves many millions,
I believe it's over a hundred million students globally
and the focus of your work has been on in the STEM area.
What I'm excited about,
what Adobe is excited about is giving all of these kids
through the classroom access to tools
where they can express themselves creatively
because what we've seen happen Sal
and there's many, many examples including a personal example
I had when I was volunteering in India.
We teach for India where kids who'd never seen technology,
had never interacted with Adobe tools,
when they were given access to this,
what it changed for them
in terms of not just the learning experience
but what it did for them
(indistinct)
in confidence is what we are excited about
and it's not just sort of the storytelling aspect of it.
We know that future hiring managers,
they value creativity in employees.
We know that the World Economic Forum, Bloomberg, LinkedIn
their research has it that creativity is a skill
that most hiring managers are looking for.
So, the ramifications of bringing creativity
to your platform and the lives that can impact
is incredibly thrilling and so important
especially in today's time
where the entire education experience has been upended
because of COVID.
- No, I couldn't agree with you more.
From my point of view, what we Khan Academy is missing
as a not-for-profit is free world-class education
for anyone anywhere
and education has a lot of dimensions to it.
There's the cognitive development of it,
there's the socialization element of it,
there's the credentialing side of it
but even if you talk about the cognitive side of it,
a lot of folks listening Bloom's cognitive taxonomy,
it's usually drawn as a pyramid
where the base is remembering,
it's the most rote type of work to do
then you go into skills procedures,
and then as you get higher up the pyramid,
you're getting into synthesis application
at the very top as create.
And I'm a big believer that you need the whole pyramid
that if you just do one part without the other,
you're selling yourself short
but the reason why I believe bloom started up as a pyramid
is that they do too many degrees build on each other
not always, but many times build
and Khan Academy has historically focused
on I would say that core foundational piece of the pyramid,
more of the skill fluency, et cetera
but there's always a desire for real education.
We got to make sure kids get the top of the pyramid as well.
And so for us to be able to be so complimentary
where the students and teachers
who are already leveraging Khan Academy
and hopefully many more to make sure they have fluency
in their mathematics and their sciences
had that content knowledge also have world-class tools
to apply that in really thoughtful ways
and that they compliment each other.
So, this is this announcement we're making this week.
It's very exciting and actually I'll cue this video
that I think we've put together that describes the program
and I think we can comment on it as it's playing as well.
- [Presenter] Teach creativity with Adobe and Khan Academy,
a powerful new partnership bringing together creative tools
and content knowledge to empower thousands of teachers
and millions of students worldwide.
- It's a beautiful blend
of informative and engaging content.
- [Presenter] Get started today by registering
for our brand new self paced course available for free
on the Adobe education exchange.
Take this course and earn up to 20 hours
of professional development credit
and maybe even a visit from Sal Khan himself,
founder of Khan Academy.
Register by May 17th and share a tweet
tagging an educator who inspires you
with the #AdobeKhanCreativity
for the chance to win an Adobe creativity kit.
You want to surprise your students with a voice Khan Academy
is best known for, yes, we are talking about a virtual visit
to your classroom from Sal Khan.
(indistinct)
Or plan to infuse creativity into your classes.
Submit your entry by May 17th and you could win one
of five virtual classroom visits from Sal Khan.
Embrace creativity in powerful new ways
with Adobe and Khan Academy.
Sign up to the course and learn how to get started now.
(indistinct)
- So much fun.
So, the course that we've designed,
it's specifically designed for Khan teachers.
We built this along with your team Sal
and the courses are specifically designed to be used
like creativity and math, creativity and social studies,
creativity and science
and I know recently there's a young woman
called Hillary Andeles who was part
of your I think it's called a junior.
- Breakthrough challenge, yeah?
- Yeah, thank you.
And she's somebody Adobe is very familiar with.
We got to know her a few years ago
when she was in her teens.
And as you know, she is, you know a STEM enthusiast
and she had a classmate who was very creative
and she decided as a as a young teen that,
"Why can't I be creative?"
And she started teaching herself Photoshop and illustrator
just for fun and unfortunately while she was a little kid,
she lived in Philippines, there was this really big typhoon
that hit Philippines in her town.
It was called typhoon Yolanda
and many people lost their lives
and there was a lot of damage.
And once she realized
that the communication that this put together
to help people understand what the impact
of the typhoon would be, was just not impactful enough
and that's when she made a commitment to herself
and has done some amazing work
to really take science concepts
and make them more accessible and understandable
through creative communication
and she's done this amazing work, created this amazing video
and then of course she got awarded the prize to the-
- Exactly what number is this?
- And she goes, yeah.
- She it says it's six, she says it's nine.
- So who's right? - Yeah, I know.
- And she's an amazing woman and now she's an MIT,
thanks to the scholarship
she got and- - Added from
different reference frame.
Now, what exactly are...
(faintly speaking)
- Yeah, I think we can stop the video.
- Yeah, she is so inspiring but this is a great example
and I hope that the teachers on your platform
can take advantage of these lessons, plans.
There's hundreds of lessons, plans, there's projects,
there's tests that they can be bringing into the classroom
to inspire these kids to communicate and tell these stories
in an impactful way making these concepts
that can sometimes seem obtuse, more accessible
and have an impact.
- Now, Hillary is great.
I mean, all the Breakthrough Junior Challenge winners.
And it's a very impressive set of...
They get $250,000 for college,
- No. - Their teacher gets $50,000
and then they get a I think a 50 or $100,000 science lab
for the school, it's done by the breakthrough prizes
and it's really a brainchild of Yuri Milner
and several other folks out here in Silicon Valley.
But yeah, it's incredible.
I'm privileged to be part of the process
as one of the judges and obviously we get the word out
to the broader Khan Academy community.
And to your point,
Hilary shows that a lot of people think somehow
that that STEM and creativity don't go together
and in fact it's the exact opposite.
I always say, the factoring of polynomial,
those are giving you the toolkit
so that you can unlock your creativity in STEM.
That's like saying that learning to mix paint is painting.
No, that unlocks your capability to then become a painter.
And you see someone like Hillary shows that in spades
and shows the importance of this type of work.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
I'm super excited about what your teachers can make possible
for the kids.
- Yeah, well, Mala, all these conversations go much faster
than I ever expect.
Time flies when you're having fun.
But I just wanted to first of all thank you
for sharing your story with us.
Thank you for this partnership
between Adobe and Khan Academy.
I really do think it's going to unlock
hopefully many millions of Hilary Andeles around the world
to benefit all of us and be just more creative in the world
which I think just makes the world more interesting.
Any final thoughts for all of the parents
and students and teachers listening?
- I want to say let your kids express themselves
in the way that they want to
and know that the tools are just a means
to get their ideas out and creativity is equally important
as the science and the math that they're learning
because that ultimately
is how they will be able to have impact.
Is by bringing their ideas out into the world,
sharing them with others and having impact.
So, thank you.
- Love that, thank you so much Mala
and I couldn't agree with you more.
If you don't have that creativity side,
then really all of the skill level
is to some degree all for not.
It's all it everything it needs to be in service
to creativity and we're so excited about this partnership.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you, thank you, it's a pleasure.
And thanks for having me. - Well, thanks everyone.
No, no, it's been a pleasure.
Thanks everyone for joining today.
We're very excited about this partnership
with Khan Academy and Adobe around creativity.
Parents, students, teachers, you can all check out the site
that we're doing on the creativity cloud.
I'm sure if you do a Google search for Khan Academy,
Adobe and the Creative Cloud,
I'm sure you will find all of these resources
and we look forward to continuing to go on this journey
of learning with you.
Thanks everyone.
(beep)