“Most students don’t feel like they can build the future. But what if they could?” – Tomás Mora Selva

Education is supposed to prepare students for the future—but too often, it does the opposite. It traps them in rigid structures, teaching them to memorize, follow instructions, and stay within the lines. But what if learning wasn’t about absorbing failed models for meeting our needs?

In this episode of What if Instead?, hosts Mim Plavin-Masterman and Alejandro Juárez Crawford sit down with Tomás Mora Selva and Wei-Jou Huang. Mora, as co-creator of the Democratizing Innovation Institute, RebelBase, and Youth BCN, develops experiential learning methodologies and enables people from around the world to bring them to new populations. Huang works with Mora to expand the impact of the institute, while studying at the Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University. Together, they explore a radical shift—learning through building, step by step, until something real exists.

The Problem: Education Trains Students to Follow, Not Build

• Traditional education rewards memorization and formulaic problem-solving, but it rarely teaches students how to create solutions from scratch.
• Learning is framed as something students receive rather than something they do.
• As a result, most students don’t feel like they’re in a position to build their future.

The Shift: A Method That Makes Building Normal

Tomás has spent years designing a structured, yet flexible, method for learning by doing. His approach isn’t about feeding students information—it’s about guiding them through a system that turns ideas into real-world solutions.

Through his work at Youth BCN and RebelBase, he’s proving that education doesn’t have to be passive. Instead, students can:

• Take small, manageable steps toward creating something new.
• Learn by testing, refining, and iterating in real-world scenarios.
• Develop skills that lead to real innovation and impact.

This isn’t just an idea—it’s a process. And it’s one anyone can learn. As Wei Jou recounts: “He makes it very normal to say, ‘Okay, you can go first step, second step, third step … and in the end, you can build it. It’s far beyond the courses … a thing is possible to be built and to be solved, to be developed.’”