Building Resilience, Entrepreneurship and Opportunity Across Southeast Asia

By: Dr. Tobias Endress

The third session of the Building Back Better speaker series brought an energetic and highly interactive conversation to AIT Downtown Campus on 24 June 2026. Hosted by Dr. Tobias Endress, the session welcomed Stacie Phyo, EdTech founder and entrepreneur, for an open discussion on resilience, purpose-driven entrepreneurship, and building opportunities across Southeast Asia.

Stacie shared the story behind her first venture, Pace Forward, an online language-learning business she established after returning to Myanmar. What began as a response to a practical

gap soon developed into a wider mission: helping working professionals improve their language skills without having to fit traditional classroom schedules into already demanding lives.

The model offered flexible, one-to-one online tutoring and became particularly relevant during the COVID-19 period, when online learning rapidly moved from a convenient alternative to a necessity. Yet Stacie explained that the decision to continue building the company was not only commercial. Many of the tutors were university students supporting themselves and, in some cases, their families. Growing the business therefore meant creating work and income opportunities for others at a difficult time.

The discussion offered a refreshingly honest perspective on entrepreneurship. Stacie described bootstrapping as demanding but valuable, as it kept the team closely focused on the people who mattered most: their customers. With revenue coming directly from learners, the company had to understand their needs, deliver practical value and continuously improve the learning experience.

However, resilience also meant responding to uncertainty. Disruptions to connectivity and wider instability in Myanmar had a significant impact on an online learning business. These experiences encouraged Stacie to think more carefully about diversification, risk and regional expansion.

Her move into Thailand demonstrated that expansion is rarely a simple matter of copying successful model from one market to another. Although Myanmar and Thailand are geographically close, she found that customer behaviour, motivations and willingness to invest in language learning differed substantially. The business had to revisit its assumptions, conduct new market research and identify a more focused niche of professionals, promotion-seekers and internationally oriented learners.

This willingness to learn from the market also shaped Stacie’s second venture, Tutearn. Originally developed as an internal system to manage the growing operational complexity of Pace Forward, Tutearn evolved into a B2B SaaS platform for tutoring centres, training providers and other education businesses. The platform addresses practical challenges such as scheduling, tutor payroll and coordinating part-time teaching staff—areas that may appear unglamorous, but are essential for sustainable growth.

The conversation also explored the relationship between business and social impact. Although

Pace Forward is a for-profit company, several of its initiatives have a clear social purpose. Its Study Plus Work pathway, for example, supports learners in strengthening their skills before preparing them to become tutors themselves. This model links education, employability and

income-generation opportunities.

Stacie also introduced a new nano-learning product developed by Pace Forward. Designed for younger learners with changing media habits, the app delivers short, mobile-first learning content in a format closer to the short videos many users already consume daily. The intention is to make educational content more accessible while using advertising to keep the platform free for learners.

Artificial intelligence was another topic that generated strong interest. Stacie described AI as a useful tool for accelerating content development and business processes, while emphasizing that it should not replace academic judgement or human quality control. Content is still reviewed by educators, and human tutors remain central to the learning experience—particularly in language earning, where interaction, encouragement and contextual understanding continue to matter.

Beyond her businesses, Stacie spoke about Women4Women, a regional mentorship platform

she co-founded to connect women entrepreneurs across ASEAN with experienced mentors.

The initiative emerged from her own experience of having to learn many aspects of

entrepreneurship through trial, error and practical experience. By creating more accessible

peer support and mentorship, the platform aims to help founders navigate challenges with

greater confidence.

The lively Q&A reflected the diverse interests in the room. Participants asked about funding,

customer acquisition, course design, tutor quality, international expansion, language-learning

markets and the operational realities of growing businesses across Myanmar, Thailand and the

Philippines. The discussion remained practical throughout, with Stacie openly sharing both

the opportunities and the limitations she has encountered.

The session concluded with a clear message for aspiring founders: entrepreneurship is rarely a straight path, and resilience is not simply about enduring uncertainty. It is about listening closely, adapting quickly, building responsibly and staying connected to the communities a venture seeks to serve.

Through her experiences in education, technology and social impact, Stacie Phyo offered participants an engaging example of how entrepreneurial ambition can be combined with a genuine commitment to creating opportunity for others.