#331 The Future of Data & AI Education Just Arrived with Jonathan Cornelissen & Yusuf Saber

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Nov 12, 2025

Jonathan Cornelissen, Co-founder and CEO of DataCamp, and Yusuf Saber, technology leader and founder of Optima, explore the revolutionary impact of AI on personalized education. They discuss how AI tutors can rival human educators by adapting to individual learning needs at scale. Yusuf shares insights on Optima's dynamic lesson delivery model, and Jonathan highlights the importance of customizing learning experiences for organizations. The conversation also touches on future possibilities for AI in curriculum design and the expansion of learning beyond data science.

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ADVICE

Personalize By Context And Pace

Connect learning examples to a learner's role and problems to increase engagement.
Adapt pace by testing comprehension and pausing to fill gaps before moving forward.

ADVICE

How To Get Optima Courses

Individuals can access Optima courses like Intro to SQL and Intro to AI via DataCamp now.
Enterprises will get gradual rollout and should contact their DataCamp rep for earlier access.

INSIGHT

Content + Delivery Decoupling Creates Variants

Disentangling core content from delivery allows infinite, customized versions of a curriculum.
Cornelissen predicts many tailored variants will emerge for different learners and organizations.

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The future of education is being reshaped by AI-powered personalization. Traditional online learning platforms offer static content that doesn't adapt to individual needs, but new technologies are creating truly interactive experiences that respond to each learner's context, pace, and goals. How can personalized AI tutoring bridge the gap between mass education and the gold standard of one-on-one human tutoring? What if every professional could have a private tutor that understands their industry, role, and specific challenges? As organizations invest in upskilling their workforce, the question becomes: how can we leverage AI to make learning more engaging, effective, and accessible for everyone?

As the Co-Founder & CEO of DataCamp, Jonathan Cornelissen has helped grow DataCamp to upskill over 10M+ learners and 2800+ teams and enterprise clients. He is interested in everything related to data science, education, and entrepreneurship. He holds a Ph.D. in financial econometrics and was the original author of an R package for quantitative finance.

Yusuf Saber is a technology leader and entrepreneur with extensive experience building and scaling data-driven organizations across the Middle East. He is the Founder of Optima and a Venture Partner at COTU Ventures, with previous leadership roles at talabat, including VP of Data and Senior Director of Data Science and Engineering. Earlier in his career, he co-founded BulkWhiz and Trustious, and led data science initiatives at Careem. Yusuf holds research experience from ETH Zurich and began his career as an engineering intern at Mentor Graphics.

In the episode, Richie, Jo and Yusuf explore the innovative AI-driven learning platform Optima, its unique approach to personalized education, the potential for AI to enhance learning experiences, the future of AI in education, the challenges and opportunities in creating dynamic, context-aware learning environments, and much more.

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Try the AI-Native Courses:
Intro to SQL
Intro to AI for Work

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