About Arena

Our founding team, working alongside educators.

Arena’s two co-founders come from industry and use AI in their work. We share what we’ve learned with families and schools, alongside the educators who know their students best.

The founding team
Phillip An

Phillip An

Co-founder

Caltech · Harvard · Schwarzman ScholarsMcKinsey · Goldman Sachs · Y Combinator

Phillip studied Computer Science at Caltech, worked at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, and earned an MBA and a master’s in engineering from Harvard. He co-founded Homebase, the first company from Vietnam backed by Y Combinator, was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, and was a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua. He designs and teaches every Arena program himself.

His parents were Chinese immigrants who cleaned houses in South Africa before they could move the family to America, so he could go to the right schools. Their whole life was a bet on education, and it worked. Co-founding a Y Combinator company then showed him how people at the edge of technology learn: by trying the newest tools as soon as they appear. Arena grew out of a simple hope that the next generation finds a path that works for them as well as his did.

LinkedInphillip@arenaschool.org

Jing Jing Yang

Jing Jing Yang

Co-founder

International School of Beijing · Brown · Schwarzman ScholarsApple · Deloitte · Kimi (Moonshot AI)

Jing Jing grew up at the International School of Beijing, from elementary school through high school graduation. She studied Economics and Behavioral Decision Sciences at Brown, taking two years off in the middle to co-found a company and intern at financial and technology firms, and conducted research with Microsoft AI / Microsoft Research Asia. She went straight on to a master’s at Tsinghua as a Schwarzman Scholar, then joined Kimi at Moonshot AI.

Education became her passion through her younger sister. Jing Jing helped map out her sister’s path through school and saw how much of it came down to knowing early what was possible. She has also seen firsthand, from inside hiring processes, how much employers now care about AI literacy. She is not an engineer, yet she makes websites and tools with AI. That is exactly what Arena helps students learn.

LinkedInjingjing@arenaschool.org

Questions for the whole team? contact@arenaschool.org

What we nurture

Agency, taste, craft.

When AI can make almost anything, students need to know what's worth making, whether it's good, and how to finish it.

Agency

Choosing what's worth solving.

Taste

Telling which version actually works.

Craft

Finishing it well.

How our programs build all three →

If this sounds like the education you want for your students or your child, talk to us.

Contact us →