Telos

The people behind Telos

Rowan Block

Co-founder

Rowan Block

My name is Rowan Block, and I’m a soon to be college graduate earning a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. I’ve always been driven to improve the way things work and make a meaningful difference in people’s lives, even when that means teaching myself new skills to make an idea happen. Telos began after I saw my sister, a physician assistant student, struggling to use AI in a way that supported rather than replaced her learning. As I searched for solutions, I realized there was a growing gap in education. We are teaching people what AI can do, but not how to use it without giving up the thinking that learning requires. I co-founded Telos to help close that gap and give the next generation the skills to benefit from AI while maintaining their independence, judgment, and ability to think for themselves.

rablock@telosedu.org
Brandon Bonner

Co-founder

Brandon Bonner

My name is Brandon Bonner, and I'm an undergraduate at the University of South Carolina. By my freshman year in 2023, using AI for schoolwork was already everywhere. I didn't think much of it until this year when I started reading about what it does to how students think and I started wondering what it was doing to my younger siblings. So Rowan and I set out to build two things: an AI tutor that helps a student think instead of thinking for them, and a course that teaches children how to keep their own reasoning while they use AI. AI is a genuinely good tool in the right hands. Used the wrong way, however, it quietly takes over a part of us that makes us human: our ability to think for ourselves. The next generation will use it every day. We want them to be better for it.

bbonner@telosedu.org