In this series, WeWork’s director of digital community selects a WeWork member to get to know better, sharing her fun findings with the rest of the community.
Renat Gabitov is very passionate about education. The main goal of his endeavor Opti is to create an educational technology platform that can increase learning capabilities and potential. Thanks to WeWork Transbay community manager Alyse Opatowski for introducing us, I spoke with the WeWork member about his view of educational possibilities, infographics, kitesurfing, and more.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m 21 years old, and I’m from Moscow, Russia. I was born into a family of entrepreneurs, travelers, and digital nomads, which is a niche that has taken me to a lot of different places—I’ve seen so much ranging from Kenya to Rio de Janeiro. It was a phenomenal experience to grow up in my family—my families were running their businesses, so I was at the offices interacting with their employees, learning from them as well. So being in that environment—being curious about what people do—helped nurture me to be an entrepreneur myself.
One thing I keep telling everyone is the best way to achieve results and get what you want to be is surrounding yourself by those who have achieved what you admire. So learning from those people, asking the right questions.
So tell us more about Opti, your latest project that you are building. What inspired you to build it?
Opti is an education technology platform that will use machine learning to give people the most relevant educational content online to learn pretty much anything. What inspired me to build this is truly big: in 9th grade, I got into a program at Moscow State University, and I was at school at the same time. I felt like my schooling was not preparing me for what was out there, so I dropped out of high school and university, to learn by doing from perspectives and experiences. And I wish there was a way that was tailored to who I am—a way to learn based on my passions, goals, and personality type, what my interests are, what my personality is, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all educational system. So I’d say it was my background, and working on a journey of learning by myself since the very beginning.
When you aren’t working on Opti, what are some of your hobbies and activities?
I love kitesurfing. Kitesurfing is my big passion. It makes you forget about all your troubles. It’s like meditation—being fully focused on the wind, the sea, and enjoying the moment, jumping up 30 feet in the air, and having fun with it. And the beautiful thing about kitesurfing is there’s an avid network to it—there are big venture capitalists like Bill Tai, and entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Elon Musk, who are kitesurfers and part of the community. So when you’re in this relaxing space, you can make great friendships that can also lead to great business opportunities.
You design infographics as well. What are some of your favorite subjects you’ve tackled?
For infographics, the most important thing is taking projects that require some unique angle to explain complex ideas and data, so people can apply it to their life. There was one infographic I created about oil drilling, and it was really interesting because a lot of people do not have experience or familiarity with that topic. It was interesting to see that information represented and understand it in one package.
What’s something that inspires you?
What inspires me is probably a massive mission from somebody who has been proven to create big things for the world—like Elon Musk—who wants to create technologies that will revolutionize the way things are done. When people are bold enough to persevere through the hard times when others are telling them they are incapable of achieving their vision—that inspires me so much.