“There has never been a more extraordinary time to be alive. But we must remember that technology is not a substitute for our humanity but in fact an amplifier of what becomes possible when we use it to reduce suffering, ensuring no one is left behind.”
Dr. Isaac Balbin offered this early in our conversation on The Wisdom Of… , and it points to something almost absent from today’s technology discourse.
We are, quite simply, having the wrong conversation about technology and education.
The debate shouldn’t be about whether AI will replace teachers or whether students should spend more or less time in front of a screen. Those are surface-level questions and often distractions that keep us from addressing the real issue.
The real question is, how do we prepare people for a world where distinguishing truth from noise determines their capacity to make sound decisions, where complex technologies reshape industries overnight, and where the knowledge you need to function as an adult isn’t taught in any curriculum?
Dr. Isaac Balbin , founder of GLIDE and Executive Director of Green Gold Trading, has spent his career bridging the gap between brilliant technology stuck in academic papers and solutions that actually serve people. With a PhD in electrical engineering, published patents, and expertise spanning 15+ domains from blockchain to AI to quantum computing to cannabis science, he understands both the promise and the limitations of what technology can do.
The value of Isaac’s perspective lies not in his technical skill alone, but in the way he frames technology as a tool for human flourishing, rather than a measure of capability.
The Question That Changes Everything
Isaac was teaching students about the scientific method, using global warming as a practical example. The classroom discussion began predictably, where students shared their opinions about whether it was happening, some passionate about the threat, others sceptical of the claims, all convinced they understood the issue clearly.
Then Isaac asked a question that shifted the entire dynamic: “How do you know?”
The room changed. Students who’d been confidently expressing opinions suddenly had to examine the foundation beneath those opinions. Where did this certainty come from? What evidence supported it? How could they distinguish between what they believed and what they actually knew?
“I’d let them all speak. And when they were done, I just asked another question. “How do you know?”
He followed with another question: “We have a lot of people with different ideas. How will we decide which idea is more correct than the others?”
This isn’t about climate science specifically, but truly giving people the skills and confidence to navigate a world where the capacity to think critically can shape outcomes.
Watch Isaac and I explore how to systematically develop this capability in the complete conversation
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
GLIDE stands for Generating Lifelong Interest in Deeper Education, and the acronym reveals Isaac’s core insight about what education should actually accomplish.
Not memorisation. Not test scores. Not even knowledge acquisition, though that matters.
The greatest outcome of education is to spark curiosity. Once curiosity is ignited, people take it upon themselves to explore, discover, and learn far beyond what any curriculum can prescribe.
One of the most powerful elements of the GLIDE Method is how it connects every lesson to the historical figures who developed that knowledge. Whilst learning mathematics, students meet the people who cared deeply enough about understanding patterns and relationships that they dedicated their lives to developing these tools.
“We believe it’s important to understand and appreciate who these giants are, so students can develop a deep understanding of the process humanity went through to acquire the knowledge in the world today.”
When students understand they’re standing on the shoulders of giants, something shifts in how they relate to knowledge itself. It’s no longer abstract information to be memorised and regurgitated – it becomes part of a human story of curiosity, persistence, and discovery.
Purpose isn’t something you find in isolation. You witness inspiring people of purpose, and something awakens in you. You see someone who cared deeply about what they were trying to do, and you begin to understand what it means to care deeply about something yourself.
Learning While Moving: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in Modern Education
Imagine Confucius teaching. What do you picture?
A man walking, with students walking alongside him, engaged in dialogue as they move through the world.
Picture the ancient Greek philosophers whose ideas still shape civilisation today. Where are they teaching?
Outside in a toga, walking, talking, debating – integrating physical movement with intellectual exploration.
“What was common in so many of those situations was the integration of physical movement with learning itself.”
Yet today we take teenagers – what Isaac calls “little balls of chaotic energy” – and we put them in rooms and tell them to sit still for 40 minutes, do nothing except concentrate on this material, without any physical outlet for the energy bubbling up inside them.
Research shows improved memory retention and learning outcomes when you combine mild forms of physical activity with learning. The GLIDE Method goes beyond that. It acknowledges that human beings evolved to learn while moving through the world, not while sitting motionless in artificial environments.
The restrictiveness of current educational systems creates a disincentive for teachers to innovate, to push boundaries, to actually get things where we want them to go. Meanwhile, students learn that education is something done to them rather than something they actively engage in.
What would happen if we decentralised education systems, let schools and teachers try something different while maintaining core learnings? What if we treated education as an area for experimentation and innovation rather than rigid standardisation?
The Practical Knowledge Gap
One of the most powerful lessons Isaac teaches in GLIDE is how the financial system works, what credit scores really mean, and how to optimise them, and how to understand both your own psychology and that of others.
“This knowledge is often critical information for a functioning adult in today’s society.”
Think about that for a moment. We send young people into the world expected to make sound financial decisions, build credit, manage money, understand contracts, navigate employment, and maintain relationships – without ever systematically teaching them how any of these systems actually work.
Then we wonder why so many struggle.
The gap between what education provides and what adult life requires isn’t small – it’s enormous, and completely avoidable.
Isaac’s insight is that education shouldn’t just transfer academic knowledge but equip people with the practical tools they need to navigate the actual world they’re entering.
Collective Intelligence vs Individual Genius
“One of the most powerful tools that we have as a species is our collective intelligence. It’s not one genius or another genius. It’s all of us all together that makes all these things possible.”
This challenges the narrative we often tell about innovation – the lone genius who changes everything. Isaac’s view, shaped by expertise across 15+ technology domains, is that breakthrough comes from collective intelligence properly harnessed.
A critical insight we explored in our conversation was that collective intelligence only works when enough people can participate in educated discussions about complex topics.
“If we want to have intelligent discussions about these things, people need to know what they’re talking about. The top physics professor at MIT is going to be able to speak in a much more educated way than a high school graduate who studied physics. But that high school graduate who did physics in year 12 will at least understand the language that’s being used by that professor.”
This is why democratising complex technology knowledge matters so much. Not because everyone needs to become an expert in blockchain or quantum computing, but because when these technologies reshape industries and societies, we need enough people who understand them to have meaningful collective discussions about how to deploy them responsibly.
“I am in love with technology, and I want to share what I know, what I understand, and what I can envision with the rest of the world, so that no one is left behind.”
The Post-Truth Challenge
We’re living in what Isaac calls a post-truth world, where determining what’s actually true becomes increasingly difficult.
“When nothing is true, then everything is true. It becomes a really challenging existence for young people to be able to determine how to understand where they should go, how they should behave, and how they should think of themselves.”
Social media algorithms are designed to optimise engagement rather than truth, which allows misinformation to spread faster than accurate information and reinforces the echo chambers that cement existing beliefs. All too often, “doing your own research” simply means finding sources that confirm what you already think.
The solution is teaching people how to figure out for themselves whether something is true.
“We need to get better at teaching kids how to figure out for themselves whether something is true or not. And we need to be unafraid to make those assessments ourselves.”
Teaching opinion is easy, however, teaching people to systematically interrogate their own opinions is much harder – but it’s what actually matters.
“To hold onto an opinion, you have to ignore evidence to the contrary. It’s the only way you can hold onto an opinion. So debate around the preponderance of evidence, around how do you know, is something we should nurture.”
Watch how I build a systematic framework around this concept with Isaac in the complete conversation
Decentralising Trust Through Technology
Isaac’s work with blockchain and distributed systems reveals something profound about how trust works in human systems.
“Blockchain technology is about decentralising trust so that people can trust each other effectively just through a technology-driven contractual arrangement.”
He believes that if international criminals could use systems like Bitcoin to trust each other enough to conduct transactions worth millions, then trustworthy people should find these same systems even more valuable.
The principle applies far beyond cryptocurrency. When you decentralise trust, you remove the need for central authorities to mediate every interaction. You create systems where people can collaborate and transact based on transparent, verifiable rules rather than having to trust in institutions or intermediaries.
This connects directly back to education. When you decentralise educational systems, letting schools and teachers innovate while maintaining core standards, you create space for breakthrough approaches like GLIDE that centralised, rigid systems would never permit.
From Academic Brilliance to Commercial Impact
Isaac completed a PhD in electrical engineering, where he had enormous success with articles published, awards won, and patents granted. Then came the frustration that changed his ultimately changed his trajectory.
The technology he developed was never brought to market.
Brilliant ideas trapped in academic papers, Patents that sat unused, and innovation that never reached the people it could serve.
That frustration pushed him down an entrepreneurial path where he stumbled across blockchain technology and began building companies that actually deliver solutions to real problems. GLIDE transforming education, and Green Gold Trading advancing evidence-based healthcare through cannabinoid therapeutics.
The true challenge in transforming a brilliant idea into tangible impact lies not in the technology itself, but in understanding what makes people adopt it and how to bridge the gap between what’s possible and what will actually be used.
The Greatest Time to Be Alive
“I believe we live in the greatest time to be alive in history. But I also see so much unnecessary suffering and hardship in the world. That’s why I am passionate about advances in science and technology that can combine to make the world a better place.”
That optimism, tempered by clear-eyed awareness of suffering that technology could eliminate but hasn’t yet, drives everything Isaac builds.
He’s an entrepreneur, which means he’s an optimist, but it’s an optimism rooted in a clear understanding of both what’s possible and what it takes to make it real. Technology moves with its own rhythm and cadence: the wheel transformed transportation, the industrial age reshaped manufacturing, the internet restructured communication, and now AI is redefining the very nature of work.
We cannot halt that rhythm. The real question is whether we harness it to reduce suffering and expand human flourishing, or allow it to create new forms of inequality and isolation.
Isaac’s answer is unequivocal. He believes in educating people broadly across scientific domains so they can engage intelligently with technology. He sparks curiosity, encouraging exploration rather than acceptance of easy answers. He teaches people to stand on the shoulders of giants, helping them see knowledge as a cumulative endeavour, creating a legacy humanity builds together across generations.
