When his little cousin dropped out of college in 2012, Tony Seing found himself playing the role of tutor for the first time.
His cousin had majored in computer science and wanted to go into tech, but felt discouraged by his experience in college classes. Seing, who also studied computer science and struggled in school, began teaching him programming by night.
“When I was tutoring him, I realized that he was really bright, so he was totally capable of learning the material—he just needed a little bit more of a personal touch,” Seing said.
Three years later, seeing the improvement in his cousin’s learning led Seing to develop the first prototype for what would become Brainery Labs. That prototype was an AI tutoring software that analyzes student knowledge on a given subject and fills in the gaps through a fun, gamified learning experience tailored to the student.
“Essentially, what’s happening is the AI engine is learning you, and learning the subject, so it’s sort of that meeting of minds, marketplace of ideas,” Seing said.
Working as a solo founder, Seing has developed and financed the project himself. However, he is also a member of CED‘s latest GRO Incubator, an intensive 12-week program designed to accelerate growth. Through GRO, he’s learned more about the business development side of running a tech company.
The startup’s road ahead includes the launch of an alpha MVP in the next few weeks and an official site by end of year. With a SaaS business model, Seing said his first goal is to create a pilot program assisting students studying to attain professional licenses in specific disciplines. Then, he’d like to move into post-secondary and K-12 learning.
Addressing The Future Of Education
One of the biggest problems Seing wants to solve is accessibility to education. As the cost of a college education continues to rise, Seing predicts that in the future, fewer people will attend universities and more will join apprenticeship and professional licensure programs.
Seing also foresees changes in the remote learning experience as a whole. With the next evolution of the World Wide Web, Web 3.0, he expects that we will see a rise in artificial intelligence that further individualizes the online experience.
“We want to validate this idea of AI teaching people—how does that work? Do people find this to be a more engaging and more robust experience? Are they learning more than they would from a more passive educational experience?” Seing prompted.
Brainery Labs will ultimately aim to answer some of those questions, using an RPG virtual classroom where students can engage and interact with their surroundings. A user might run into AI classmates that pass them notes, a joke-telling teacher or even a class pet that remembers them.
Through these interactive elements, Seing is hoping to combat what he views as the aspirational side of education, in which learning is seen as something to strive for, but not enjoy.
“Similar to how a person might want a six pack and washboard abs, a lot of people don’t really enjoy eating steamed chicken and running five, six hours a week,” Seing said. “That’s very similar to how education works: we all want to be smart, we want to be knowledgeable, but the work can often be very cumbersome. So, a lot of what we’re trying to do is build a platform that is fun.”
QUICK BITS
Startup: Brainery Labs
Founder: Tony Seing
Founded: 2024
Location: RTP
Website: brainerylabs.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
Seing has seen the power of fun in education firsthand. While he struggled in high school, he thrived in college—studying under lively professors who exuded a passion for AI and gaming. They’re the reason he went on to get his masters in human interaction and artificial intelligence.
And Seing’s cousin, who found computer science so intimidating that he dropped out of school, eventually realized that the subject wasn’t as scary or serious as he’d thought. He now works at a tech startup in New York City.
With Brainery Labs, Seing said he wants to give people that same feeling of accomplishment.
“I come from a belief system that learning feels really, really good,” Seing said. “One of the best, very human experiences you can have is really deeply understanding something that you didn’t understand before.”
Readers are invited to reach out to Seing at _@tonyseing.com with comments, questions, or just to share a passion for education.
