Trusting the Mess: Katrina Stevens on Breakthrough by Design

What does it take to spark innovation, not just in Silicon Valley, but around the world? For Katrina Stevens, President and CEO of The Tech Interactive, the answer starts with curiosity, play, and a willingness to “trust the mess.”

Recently, Katrina joined Deloitte’s Breakthrough by Design podcast to share her journey and her philosophy on learning, leadership, and creativity. It’s a chance to hear directly from the first educator and the first woman to lead The Tech, and to learn more about the values shaping her leadership.

Learning Through Messy Experimentation

One of Katrina’s core beliefs is that progress doesn’t come from having everything perfectly planned. Instead, it comes from experimentation.

“Breakthrough really means trusting the mess, sitting in that discomfort, and pushing through it till you get to a breakthrough.”

At The Tech, this approach shows up everywhere: from exhibits that invite visitors to prototype and play, to The Tech Challenge, where students spend months testing, failing, and refining their ideas before proudly showcasing them.

Katrina explained that people often hesitate to experiment because they feel pressure to avoid failure. That mindset, she noted, is especially strong in education systems that emphasize rote learning and high-stakes outcomes. To counter this, The Tech designs challenges where failure is not only expected but celebrated as part of the learning journey.

This philosophy has been especially powerful in The Tech Challenge Kenya, where education has traditionally focused on memorization. To help teachers and students grow more comfortable with experimentation, training begins with small, forgiving challenges. Once participants see that they can take risks and still succeed, they gain the confidence to tackle bigger, more complex problems.

The results have been inspiring: in 2025, more than 4,800 Kenyan students from hundreds of schools participated in showcase events, building devices from recycled materials to solve real-world problems like delivering supplies to rural communities. But The Tech Challenge isn't just about building technical skills. Participation has shown to help students learn resilience, creativity, and teamwork: essential soft skills that will help them all aspects of their lives.

Play Unlocks Creativity

Katrina also emphasized how play rewires the brain and quiets the inner critic, making room for new ideas:

“Play allows the brain to not be locked in. It quiets the inner critic and opens up possibilities you might never have thought about before.”

Play also creates space for laughter and connection, especially in groups. When teams play together, they often feel safer trying new things and more willing to share bold ideas.

At The Tech, this philosophy comes to life in spaces like Tech Studio, where visitors are given open-ended materials like cardboard, fasteners, wheels, and pulleys, and asked to solve design challenges with no single “right” answer. Some stay for 20 minutes, while others spend all afternoon iterating and testing.

Katrina also noted that The Tech’s teacher training programs encourage educators to experience this kind of hands-on play themselves before bringing it into their classrooms. This helps them become comfortable with the “mess” of discovery and modelling resilience for their students.

Even with new technologies like AI, Katrina sees play as essential: digital tools can help people visualize ideas quickly, but pairing them with tactile, low-tech materials keeps creativity accessible to everyone. The most powerful breakthroughs, she emphasized, often happen when digital play and hands-on play meet.

A Path Shaped by Curiosity

Katrina’s career has taken her on an exciting journey from the classroom to government to tech and global impact. She has been a teacher, principal, edtech entrepreneur, and served in the Obama Administration’s Office of Educational Technology, where she led the Future Ready Schools movement and helped shape the National Education Technology Plan. Later, at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, she oversaw a $200 million portfolio of grants focused on improving learning for students facing the greatest challenges.

Each step, she says, came from curiosity: “I would see another part of the ecosystem and want to understand it and see if I could improve it.” Her curiosity now drives her leadership at The Tech, where she’s committed to inspiring the innovator in everyone, whether in Silicon Valley, Kenya, or beyond.

“We’re all innovators. The key is helping people see themselves that way.”

For Katrina, leading The Tech isn’t just about running a science and technology center. It’s about creating spaces where people of all ages can discover that they, too, are innovators.