Meet Gary Mack & Lybroan James | co-founder, MILO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gary Mack & Lybroan James and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gary & Lybroan, how does your business help the community?
MILO is addressing the biggest problem that occurs in k-12 Education. For the first time in history, ALL 3.9 million teachers are “First Year Teachers” in the hybrid learning environment.
This is having a negative effect on the 57 million students who are experience reduced learning of anywhere from 7-8 months. Even WORSE, for students of color, they’re experiencing reduced rates of learning of 11-12 months.

MILO is a Los Angeles-based disruptive EdTech platform that provides training, services and assessment tools on a subscription basis designed to help education professionals close learning gaps for underserved students by creating communities and culturally affirming learning environments through equity, innovation and engagement.

MILO Solves this problem 3 ways:

1. Our MILO TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM
We train teachers how to be effective in hybrid learning environments with a focus on culture and equity

2. COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
At MILO we’ve created a community of teachers that collaborate nationwide, providing best practices and support to each other in continuous learning efforts.

3. MILO ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAM
We provide assessment & observation tools to education administrators to lead and support teachers during this transition to hybrid learning with a focus on equity.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
MILO is a Los Angeles-based disruptive EdTech platform that provides training, services and assessment tools on a subscription basis designed to help education professionals close learning gaps for underserved students by creating communities and culturally affirming learning environments through equity, innovation and engagement.

MILO almost didn’t happen
It would be a chance intersection between two longtime friends that lost touch over the years that reconnected on an afternoon walk in their neighborhood during the pandemic only to discover they lived 10 houses away from each other. Together, we [two Black Men] decided to take action, pool our resources and solve a massive issue in education that affects underserved students of color in communities across the United States.

Gary Mack’s background is event production -He owns an event experience company based in Los Angeles & Berlin that produces sensory events worldwide for clients like Bumble, Facebook & Instagram. Lybroan James is a Harvard Scholar in education with over 20 years experience in academics and student learning. In 2019, Lybroan improved math test scores for students of color by 26.4% in the state of California.

The MILO startup formed strategic & financial partnerships with: Deloitte, Salesforce & Cisco. Since the September 2020 launch, MILO is in 28 states, trained over 700 educators, impacted over 110 school districts and positively affected over 300,000 students of color. MILO was started with $500,000 in seed funding and will exceed $1.5mil in revenue in 2021.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We’d start with a hike in temescal canyon. Followed by lunch in Pacific Palisades in the new mall
Dinner at Yasabel

Day two, Malibu for breakfast in Malibu country mart
Surfing in Zuma beach
Dinner at Gladstones

Day 3, erewhon venice for a wallet crushing grab & go breakfast
A walking on Manhattan Strand
Dinner at Fishing with Dynamite

Day 4 – Santa Barbara by train
Dinner back in LA at Catch LA

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
MILO finds its success from collaboration & partnership. As such, we want to acknowledging Dr. Michele Bowers, Superintendent of Lancaster school district. Dr. Bowers is a leading educator in the state of California, Superintendent of the Year & advocate for amplifying equity in education. (https://tinyurl.com/2fm44hek).

We met Dr. Bowers through a mutual contact that felt we shared similar interest in equity in education. The following link is her testimonial about MILO https://www.miloedu.com/testimonials

Website: https://www.miloedu.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/welikemilo/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/78119888

Twitter: https://twitter.com/welikemilo