About us

Omkar Deshpande

Omkar started The Young Socratics to try a different approach to teaching the regular middle and high school curriculum, which would not be compartmentalized, feel burdensome or boring, or devoid of joy and meaning. During the six years he spent at Stanford University towards his MS and Ph.D in computer science, he also attended classes and talks by professors in widely different disciplines (especially the humanities), and did interdisciplinary research spanning computer science, genetics and cultural anthropology. He came to believe that discipline boundaries, though convenient for specialists, prevent one from appreciating the interconnected nature of all human knowledge. He firmly believes in blending the teaching of math and science with the humanities (with a special emphasis on history and philosophy), without sacrificing the development of practical problem-solving skills. He earned his BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and is currently working as a Principal Engineer at WalmartLabs (formerly Kosmix). 

Vivek Kaul

After working extensively in academic and industrial settings across multiple disciplines, Vivek decided to join The Young Socratics and work on the vision of providing fundamental science and mathematics education integrated with their historical and philosophical context.  According to him, education consists of laying out a series of paths for the students to discover and create new pathways on their own.  Sadly such educational exposure is hardly provided to most students before graduate school and by that time many lose their interest.  Therefore, he believes that the foundation for such education should be laid pretty early and that motivated him to work with middle school and high school students. Vivek has M.S degrees in Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering and Mathematics respectively and a PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech. He obtained his B.S  in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and is currently working as a Data Scientist at Facebook.