Mark Pavlyukovskyy and Hendrik Remigereau host TechMates, the NZVC podcast. The guest on this episode is Arash Tayebi of Kara Technologies, Penelope Barton of Crimson Global Academy, Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education & Finn Puklowski of Fluency Academy, and it went out on 21 July 2026. It covers the NZVC portfolio companies Kara Technologies and General Compute.
This episode brings together four conversations on one theme: technology is rewriting what it means to learn at every stage of life. It opens with Arash Tayebi of Kara Technologies, whose own hearing loss led him to build AI avatars that translate content into sign language in real time. Penelope Barton of Crimson Global Academy has built her son a personalized AI tutor and predicts AI-driven teachers are three to five years from the mainstream classroom, while Jamie Beaton of Crimson Education imagines AI avatars standing in for Ivy League professors. Finn Puklowski of Fluency Academy closes with the workplace, where he built an internal AI curriculum for his whole company.
Kara Technologies
AI and B2B SaaS
Kara Technologies builds digital humans that translate written and spoken content into sign language and deliver it live rather than as pre-recorded video.
Read about Kara Technologies
General Compute
Deep Tech
General Compute rents dedicated racks of inference silicon to companies running AI models at high volume.
Read about General Compute
EdTech, AI in Education, Accessibility, Sign Language, Future of Work, AI and Jobs