Press Release

Interview of German Businessman by Juan Manuel Astorga in “El Informante” Chile Posted Wednesday, february, 25 2018 12:00pm

When I heard about the story, from the school’s principal where I graduated, I had to know more about this German guy that came to Chile in 2014 with a nothing but a very good concept to contribute to Chiles education, both public and private.

Knowing that education y key to every successful country I could no resist to call this person, Andreas Seibert, and ask him on my show “El Informante”  to share his story with the nation.

When Andreas picked up the phone, I felt his positive vibration and energy immediately, as he answered: “Sure, I would love to share this story so you can help me to help more students and teachers to be better prepared and with that contributing to forma better country in the future.”

This sentence told me he is a man of good. So we arranged a meeting in my studio just before going life so we could meet and align ideas.

As he came in he smiled right away and was very happy greeting me “Hello Juan Manuel, I am very happy and great full that you are receiving me, I hope to be of service to you.”

I invited him to sit down on the set, and I remember the air conditioning was very cold and I noticed him getting cold but put on a skullcap.

Andreas aked: “ how does this interview work? I do not what no mess it up for you, I have never been on live tv before.”

I told him to relax, it was jus as if we where having a conversation. “ just ignore the people, lights, cameras, directors, and other staff around” I told him, to witch he busted out in laughter. “ I will do my best not seeing them.. jajaja”

So we went to the set, where there is practically a stages back round, individual lightening, different cameras depending on angles and two individual black sofas one in front of the other.

“I am quite nervous” Andreas said, “but lets do it now!”

So I started asking: Hello Andreas, thank you for being here with us. Before que get to the story aboutn how you came to Chile, tell us a litle bit of who you are.

“Hello, thanks for having me, I am honored to be here and feel fantastic., Well, I am a German citicen, born in Costa Rica but live in Guatemala, with my lovley wife and 2 beautiful daughters that I love above all, They support me, give me love and so mutch energy making them the backbone of my success in live.

I love my live and living in Guatemala, and since I can do a lot of my work from my home office I get to see a lot of my family and friends. We often invite friends and grill in the garden terrace, and have a lot of fun.

“Great”

“I heared your story on how you became one of Chiles most important pedagogical providers in 4 years, impacting more than 50,000 studends nationwide. Tell us a little bit about it!

“ I do no really see myself as the only actor for the achievements, since I have a partner and a very good teem of people who work with me to always try to improve our services and commitment to the schools and universities that  have decided to join this movement of skill based learning.”

“Great, tell us how you got started here, why Chile?”

“ Good question..” laughers, from bouth including some of the staff..

“Well I started this vision in 2003 back in Guatemala. To be honest, in the beginning I only sow a business since education at that point was not my expertise. ..It is surprising how wrong I was. Is soon learned and became much more aware of the difficulties schools and teachers face every day, even more with the rapid changes of the world today.
So I started to look for ways to create a methodology online so we could find a way to help with this problem!

“ Wow.. not that simple…!

“ No, not at all, as you can imagine this needed a lot more money and for sure a lot more brains than I had jajajaja.. so I got Angel investors to come aboard and develop a firs class solution! The where very intelligent and business wise people from witch I learned a lot.

As it turns out, I ended up selling my shares to them since I could not hold the rithm of investment.

“uups, that must have been hard..!”

“Well yes of corse, but I learned a lot from it. With the negociation came that they would let me try to conquer Chile with this solution” I asked for Chile.. why? Because I thought,” this is a country where education has been very high quality but at the time struggling a bit with innovation because of its system”. And on top of it it has a high budget for it, so why not try to get a share of it with a high class solution.

Ok? So you came to Chile with nothing but your commitmet?!

Yes, I knew my parter, who also is very motivated educator and we embrassed this start, literaly going from door to door knoking.

What was the hardest part?

Getting the first school to say yes!!! breaking out with a realive..and laughter

From there on it has been a roller coster with a lot of up an downs, I even had considered throwing in the towel a couple of times.. but . kept going.. When you have a clear vision of what you need to be happy and ehere you whant to go, it becomes a Desire so strong that you feel invincible.. Of cours.. you need to be able to Focus.!!

Okay.. great.. and now you are helping and providing the most privileged schools in Chile with your methodology right?

“well yes.. we have the honor of working with practically all the best schools in Chile, learning a lot from each other so we can keep up improving out method that serves them.

On the other hand, we serve also the most underprivileged schools from the public sector too. These Schools interest me a lot because of the difficulty they represent, and it is there where we can touch and influence more lives. By doing so we have had the kindness of many private companies that support us with donations in education. “

Great I hear you are are starting next semester, starting march 2018 on a nation wide proyect with the ministry of education, is that so?

“you are very well informed, yes indeed with the help of privat investors and the government of Chile we are expanding to 100.000 students this year in the public sector! This gives me a feeling hard to describe, so proud of being capable to serve so many students an teacher, really making a difference in the word.”—

His voice cracked up a little from tears of joy and accomplishment. I could notice his bliss and understand why he was so magnetic! Real passion there.

We had no time to finish live, but kept on talking after the show. We ended up having dinner together, and a good friendship started from there..