The Moment Deveren Fogle Realized Uluru Needed to Exist: Rethinking Gaps in Today’s Education System

For all the noise around modern education, new apps, new platforms, new “innovations”, one quiet truth never seems to change: students are drowning in work they don’t know how to manage. They bounce between assignments, tools, and expectations, often without the guidance they truly need. The system keeps giving them more to do, but not the thinking skills required to handle it.

This is the world Deveren Fogle, Co-founder and CEO of Uluru, stepped into after building a career that crossed law, education, and executive function coaching. Working across these fields gave him a rare perspective: the real barrier in education is not content. It’s the lack of metacognitive and executive function support, the very skills that help students plan, stay focused, and move through challenges without shutting down.

Seeing the Problem No One Was Naming

The turning point didn’t arrive with a dramatic moment. It came quietly, in the form of a sixth grader juggling five different math platforms in a single week. One night it was Khan Academy, the next it was IXL, then a worksheet, then a stack of flashcards from a random website. Multiply that by the 500-plus EdTech tools now circulating in U.S. schools, and a pattern emerges: students are given variety, not support.

Schools excel at providing content. What they struggle to build are the internal skills required to use that content effectively. Students are expected to absorb information, stay organized, regulate emotions, and push through difficult work on their own, skills that adults often struggle with themselves.

When Deveren left the classroom and moved into private practice, this gap only became clearer. He worked alongside psychiatrists and psychologists who handled students with ADD, ADHD, anxiety, and complex learning profiles. Some were brilliant but scattered. Others were capable but overwhelmed. Many were labeled “unmotivated” simply because no one had taught them how to manage their own cognitive load.

In case after case, the problem was not intelligence or effort. It was the absence of metacognitive guidance, the “how” behind learning.

The Turning Point That Set Uluru in Motion

As Deveren’s work with students grew, so did the results. Families saw an unusual shift: their children were not just finishing assignments; they were understanding how to think through them. This caught the attention of Owen Lewis, MD, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, who asked Deveren to meet for coffee. What followed was a series of conversations examining why Deveren’s students were progressing faster than those working with other practitioners.

Those discussions widened when he connected with Deborah van Eck, who would become ULURU’s President and Co-founder. Together, they looked honestly at the modern education landscape. Families were frustrated. Students were overwhelmed. Schools were stretched thin. And at the center of it all was the same missing piece: executive function was still treated as optional, even though it shaped everything about a student’s daily life.

The three of them saw an opportunity, not for another curriculum tool, but for a system that could guide students through the mental steps behind learning. Something real-time. Something grounded in how the brain actually works. Something accessible to every family.

That framework became Uluru.

Bringing Clarity to a Crowded Landscape

Uluru was built to answer a need the system had ignored for years. Instead of piling on more content, it helps students build the habits that determine whether they can handle the content they already have. Planning, motivation, time management, and reflection, Uluru guides these internal processes in small, daily steps.

It also gives parents something they rarely receive: clarity. Instead of wondering why a child is stuck or falling behind, they finally see what’s happening and how to support it.

The gap Deveren saw wasn’t abstract. It was lived, daily, by students across the country. Uluru exists to close that gap, one skill at a time.