Kavindya Thennakoon: Founder of Tilli
Kavindya Thennakoon grew up in Sri Lanka, where she observed firsthand how differences in geography and access to technology manifested stark contrasts in people’s lives. She started Without Borders to create accessible and affordable outcomes-driven learning experiences and served on the United Nations Youth Advisory Panel as a Gender Equality advisor. Building on her work with Without Borders, Kavindya most recently founded Tilli, a social emotional learning tool that empowers kids to build safer, healthier, and happier lives.
Kavindya and I discussed her experiences growing up in Sri Lanka, the culture shock of coming to school in the States, and how she leverages her international perspectives in her work as an edtech entrepreneur.
Photo by Yoon S. Byun
Rebecca: Can you start by telling me about your upbringing?
Kavindya: I was born and raised in different parts of Sri Lanka. A lot of Sri Lankans who come to the US are usually from the capital city of Colombo, but I was partially raised outside the city. Sri Lanka is traditionally both patriarchal and classist. You will always look at somebody’s surname and try to figure out where they’re from or what their parents do professionally. I spent some time going to school in the city, and even after entering the world of work, I often had to explain to people why I was there. I’ve struggled with these conflicting parts of my identity.
My dad passed away when I was very young, so I was raised by a single mom. I was the first person to go to college in my family.
Rebecca: When you were in Sri Lanka, was the community around you pretty homogenous or more diverse?
Kavindya: There’s a lot of groupthink in Sri Lanka, because the majority of people practice Buddhism and are Sinhalese ethnically. That homogeneity and people’s familial beliefs influence a lot of people’s political beliefs. That really affects the way you think about and understand things like the civil war. My mom was a little different though; she was great and very leftist and radical-thinking. She taught me to read with these extremely leftist newspapers.
Even though my neighbors were all Sinhalese Buddhists, Sri Lanka is a very multicultural community. Communities are diverse, but still there are many schools that are segregated by religion and/or race. In Sri Lanka, there are questions you can’t ask or things you can’t talk about, like the complexities of the war. Growing up, I was able to have these conversations because of my mom, but my experience would have been different if I was raised by someone else.
Rebecca: How did you start Without Borders?
Kavindya: After I finished high school in the city, I moved back to the village where I was raised. It’s a very small, agricultural village called Deraniyagala. A close friend of mine was 17, working at a garment manufacturing factory, and already getting married. She used to be so creative when we were growing up; she would make elaborate structures for us to play house in. Her story really made me think about different divides in Sri Lanka such as the rural and urban divide, the digital divide, and the education divide. I wanted to help people who didn’t have the same opportunities as me, but I wasn’t sure how.
I talked to the chief monk in the village temple and asked if there was anything I could help with, since I know English. He gave me this rundown shed with a roof that was falling apart and suggested I teach English classes. I reached out to my friend Sakie and we ended up co-founding Without Borders together. In the beginning it was just an English class, but it was the genesis of me wanting to do something. It started out extremely small, but gradually we realized that education and designing learning experiences was a whole space. We started slowly figuring out what exactly we were trying to do and how to be more specialized.
In the beginning I didn't have a solution in mind; I just thought my skills might be a good fit. It makes such a difference when you're obsessed with the problem, even if you don’t know the solution immediately.
Rebecca: How did you scale and grow Without Borders after those initial English classes?
Kavindya: We started in April 2014 and initially it was entirely run by volunteers. Volunteers would travel two hours by bus, teach English for two hours, and then come back. That was the business model.
The difference was that we were very intentional with how we curated the lesson pans and learning content. We read research about how language can be taught effectively, and we tried to see what skills could bridge these divides that we saw earlier on. We asked questions like: What are the skills that could guarantee people a job that is well-paying instead of minimum wage? What skills can help people get above the poverty line? What skills can ensure that people don’t go through child marriage? At the end of the day, we want to help people be the best version of themselves and reach that untapped potential. If they want to be a farmer, our mission is to help them become the best farmer possible. This research and evidence-based approach to learning was new at the time.
Even though we started with English classes, our focus shifted to critical thinking and creative problem solving. Even when we’re doing something around social emotional learning, we approach it with a frame of empowering learners to become critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. In Sri Lanka and much of Asia (especially through the influence of the British education system), there’s so much emphasis on rote learning. You would memorize everything, put it on paper, and totally forget it within two hours. Our approach was different, which helped us get an edge and get a lot of traction. We were creating a best practice that a lot of other people and communities wanted to replicate. That helped us scale our intervention, partner with the ministries, and take it outside Sri Lanka. One of our volunteers recently migrated to Liberia and started a similar model there.
Rebecca: What were some of the challenges you went through while working on Without Borders?
Kavindya: One of the biggest challenges is that a lot of young people starting initiatives, especially in Sri Lanka, come from affluent or influential families. When I was starting, I didn’t have parents who could make a few phone calls and get a donation for us or call the local government so that we could do a workshop in a school. My team and I always had to build up our contacts and credibility over time. Only the communities we were working with could vouch for us and they were also coming from very low levels of power.
Funding was hard, especially finding those initial supporters who would come forward and back us. Our initial supporters didn’t know us personally; they had just seen the work we were doing and the results of that work. Building that initial base of support was really hard. When you come from a certain type of a family, you're starting miles behind everyone else. My age and being female also made it difficult.
Rebecca: How did you end up studying in the States? Was it a goal you always had?
Kavindya: After I started Without Borders, the UN country team in Sri Lanka set up a 12 member advisory panel to streamline youth work in the country. I was focusing on gender, given our work around sexual and reproductive health education. Antonia DeMeo was running the panel, and she was the deputy representative for UNICEF at the time. She was at the Sri Lankan parliament when I was giving a speech, ended up asking her office to find me, and has become a lifelong mentor.
Before I met her, I didn’t have any plans to study in the States, especially because of financial reasons. I was doing a law degree at the time, because it was the cheapest option available. I didn’t know what the SAT was or what personal statements were. She had gone to Wellesley and told me I needed to get a college degree and have a different set of learning experiences. She said if I stayed in Sri Lanka, I wouldn’t see a different set of realities for myself. She guided me through the entire college application process and made it happen. Wellesley gave me a full ride, which made the financial situation much easier.
This experience solidified for me why it’s so important to have mentors who champion and advocate for you. It’s not just about mentoring, but breaking down closed doors for you. I was literally in the right place at the right time, but that shouldn’t be the only way. Antonia really changed my life and is also the reason I did the Learning, Design, and Technology Master’s program at Stanford. She forced me to do a campus tour, I ended up loving the campus and the program, and then she convinced me to apply.
Rebecca: How did you feel when you initially went to Wellesley? Did you experience any kind of culture shock?
Kavindya: Before I came to the US, I had travelled a bit, but it’s so different to live in a place versus to visit. I definitely had a culture shock, but thankfully I had my mentor and other people to answer my questions. Wellesley is a very expensive, rich town. One of the main things that blew my mind was the fact that the dining hall had food 24/7. I couldn’t believe that at any hour, I’d be able to eat miniature boxes of cereal. Some of the food also surprised me. I remember the first time I saw buffalo chicken pizza, I was like “oh my God, these people are really bad, I can’t believe they’re putting buffalo meat on pizza.” And someone had to clarify that buffalo chicken isn’t actually buffalo meat!
Rebecca: How did attending a historically-women’s college shape your perspectives and personal growth?
Kavindya: Because Wellesley is a historically-women’s college, I felt more empowered to speak my mind and raise my hand to answer questions. It was like this switch turned on inside me.
In the beginning, it was a little harder. English isn't my first language. I need to translate things in my head sometimes, and some of the pronunciations are different. I would have to repeat myself a few times when speaking with people, so I thought I was pronouncing things incorrectly. This made me more hesitant to speak, so for a year I was a little silent. I felt like the way I was expressing my ideas and the realities I was talking about were different from everyone else’s. But after some time I embraced it and owned where I came from. I realized my story is just as valid as one from a girl from New York who had previously interned at the World Bank, for example.
Already in Sri Lanka, I was a little more outspoken than others and a lot of it was my mom’s influence. I’d be in spaces where I was the only woman or maybe one of the few women, but I also used to be such a people pleaser. Culturally you’re taught to be smaller, take up less space, be silent, always say yes and be accommodating. But Wellesley helped me negotiate better and stand my ground more. At Wellesley you’re not trying to impress some mediocre boy and there aren’t any men talking over you in class. After I left Wellesley, I worked for a tech company back in Sri Lanka, where I was one of the only females in senior leadership. I would tell someone if I didn’t like the way things were done or if something was against my values. If someone interrupted me, I’d be like “oh I’m sorry, I’m still speaking” and finish what I was saying. At Stanford, I was able to stand my ground if, for instance, a white scholar tried to explain to me how classrooms in South Asia worked.
Rebecca: When you were at Wellesley, did you primarily spend time with certain demographics or types of people?
Kavindya: I’m the kind of person who moves between different friend circles. I was around the South Asian community, where I felt a sense of shared culture. But a lot of other South Asians were very affluent, and there were only two students in my grade who came from South Asia on scholarship.
Then I started hanging out with other communities who were doing social justice work. I tried to diversify my circles, because I realized you can find solidarity in the class experience irrespective of what country you come from. Being able to move between these different spaces in college was important and changed how I saw my identity.
Rebecca: Now that you’ve been in the States for a few years, do you resonate with the term “Asian American”?
Kavindya: If I have a list of options on a survey and I have to check a box, then I’ll tick the “Asian” box since that’s the only one that fits. But Asia is so big and the term “Asians'' is so, so broad. I understand the broadness, but I also wish our stories were seen as distinct and not all bubbled together. Even within the South Asian identity, it’s very India-centric. I always get asked if I’m Indian and I’m like no, India is over 50 km away from Sri Lanka. I don’t think I’d identify as an Asian American, because my Sri Lankan citizenship is super important to me. I’ll always see the US as a second home, but I’ll always identify as Sri Lankan.
Rebecca: Okay, I’d love to switch gears and talk about Tilli. Can you tell me about how you started working on Tilli?
Kavindya: In 2017, we were doing work around sexual and reproductive health at Without Borders. We wanted to streamline the work more, so we brought together our findings and learning materials to create a more cohesive program. We designed a three day program for girls ages 15- 20 around sexual reproductive health and emotional wellbeing. We also gave them some grant funding to design an intervention for their own community using the content they learned to become peer mentors and changemakers in their own community. The big question we wanted to figure out is how do we reduce the risk of a child facing sexual violence or harassment. We did this programming for about three years and realized that starting at 15 is way too late. 15 is too late to prevent the creation of a perpetrator and too late to build resilience. If you are a survivor trapped in this cycle of violence, 15 is really too late.
We had been doing this work for some time before I started the LDT program at Stanford. For this program, you work on a certain learning problem for the entire year and it’s very product-solution focused. I kept wondering if there was a way to design really effective outcomes-driven learning interventions that could reduce the risk of a child becoming either a perpetrator or a survivor from a young age. I brought a lot of the people we had been working with for three years in Sri Lanka and asked if there was a different approach to what we had done. I worked with learning experts and neuroscience researchers and looked at this problem from different angles to see if there could be an early learning intervention for children between the ages of five to ten.
That was the research phase and it ended in September. Between September and now, we’ve released the first version of Tilli on the largest mobile gaming platform in Sri Lanka. Now we’re working on the development of the actual application and a physical learning kit. That way even people who don’t have access to the internet are still able to experience the tool.
Rebecca: How have you been able to take some of your learnings from Without Borders and apply them to Tilli?
Kavindya: Tilli is like the 2.0 version of the work we’ve done in the sexual and reproductive space. For Without Borders, we created materials and taught a lot of interventions in schools. Now, Tilli is a more scalable product of that work. A lot of people who contributed to the early work of Without Borders are still involved with Tilli, even though Tilli is a separate company.
One of the biggest learnings I had from Without Borders is to prioritize user testing from the beginning. Other things that are important to prioritize from day one are setting the process of how product development happens and the culture of the organization. For Without Borders, it wasn’t clear what we were trying to do in the beginning. With Tilli, it’s very clear. We’re a social emotional learning tool that works with five to ten year olds to prevent children from going through sexual violence or harassment. Finally, I learned that it’s important to find partners that align with our north star. We don’t want to tweak our north star to fit a VC or a grant or a partner.
Rebecca: How does growing up in Sri Lanka and also spending time in the States influence how you work on Tilli?
Kavindya: Growing up in Sri Lanka and going to school in the US has shown me we cannot have “one size fits all” learning. For example, the version of Tilli that we released for the South Asian market has different stories, names, colors, and graphics compared to the Tilli that we’ll release in the US.
When I'm creating a learning experience, I always think about whether a class or student without internet access would be able to use Tilli. People don’t always think about this, especially within the privileged places that create learning content. People don't realize that even in the US, a lot of people need to go to parking lots to access the internet. That reality was always there for me when I was growing up in Sri Lanka and being able to think about accessibility in a firsthand way is probably the biggest strength I’m bring to Tilli. My upbringing there gives me a different perspective when I’m designing products like this.