My journey as an Entrepreneur: From Take Heart to BraveNewTalent

26 June 2014

Lucian Tarnowski is the founder of BraveNewTalent, a social learning platform building Enterprise Communities. The company focuses on the future of education, youth, talent communities, entrepreneurship and learning. Lucian came into the office and the team really enjoyed chatting to him and hearing more about BraveNewTalent and his other projects.

Below is a short story, written by Lucian, which allows us to see what inspired him to become a successful and forward thinking entrepreneur.

I have always been passionate about Education. My journey as an EdTech entrepreneur began with my father.  Aged 28, in 1958 my father got Polio whilst setting up a company doing overland travel to India.  He spent 2 years in hospital and the rest of his life in a wheelchair.  My father realised that around 10% of the worlds working population were in some way handicapped and the majority did not work.  He felt a persons dignity and self respect came through their ability to contribute to their community.  In 1964 he set off on a 100,000 mile overland expedition.  He drove from the UK as far as Japan.  He did the largest study of vocational education across Asia, filmed numbers BBC documentaries, wrote for the Readers Digest and wrote a book (The Unbeaten Track).  It was in India that he met Baba Amte, the legendary social worker and protege of Gandhi.  They became great friends and started the Take Heart Foundation.  Together they created a vocational education training program that specialised in training handicapped students in employment skills.

Fast forward - my father started taking me to India to visit the training programs from the age of 9.  I grew up on stories of how vocational education changed the lives and prospects of so many.  I immediately shared my father’s passion.  At 18 I took over the running of the foundation. I raised enough money to create a IT school that specialised in training blind students.  I experienced firsthand how 6 months of vocational training can 10 times a person’s income.  Through this I began exploring how technology could play a role in scaling professional and vocational education.

After I graduated from Edinburgh University, BraveNewTalent was born.  My goal was to always to enable companies and professionals to share their knowledge content online more effectively.  The majority of the world’s knowledge and best practice sits inside the experiences of professionals and inside the walls of companies rather than in academia.  At BraveNewTalent we are working on ways to help companies share their knowledge and gain value in doing so.

My journey as an entrepreneur has been one very much shared by the experiences and legacy of my father.  It’s incredibly exciting to be working in an area where so much change is taking place.  I feel incredibly lucky to be able to potentially have an impact on the professional lives of so many people.

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