## Hi there, I'm Robert Ritz  I'm the [President of American University of Mongolia](#American%20University%20of%20Mongolia), [co-founder of ErdemAI](#Co-Founder%20of%20ErdemAI), [co-founder of Kraft](#Co-founder%20of%20Kraft), and [editor of MongolBeat](#Editor%20of%20MongolBeat). Most of my success comes from my amazing [family](#Family). Over the years I've done a lot of different things. I was an aide for a member of the US Congress, then a technology consultant, and now university administrator, professor, and business creator. I write semi regularly [here](#Latest%20Posts). I welcome email to [email protected]. You can also find me on [X](https://x.com/RobertERitz) and [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/robert-ritz). ## Latest Posts I write semi regularly about Mongolia, tech, and US politics. You can see the latest posts here. - [[From Russia with Less - Will Mongolia's Pumps Run Dry in 2024?]] - [[How much have the cost of goods and services increased in Mongolia since 2010?]] - [[Balancing Act - Mongolia's Wage Growth vs. Rising Living Costs]] ## American University of Mongolia [American University of Mongolia](https://letumongolia.com) was founded in 2012 (then called LETU Mongolia) with a mission to bring American higher education to Mongolia. We produce some of the best qualified business and data science graduates in Mongolia. Our alumni help run Mongolia's highest performing businesses. A big part of this success is a commitment to teaching *practical* things in the classroom in an all *English* environment. ## Co-founder of ErdemAI [ErdemAI](https://erdem.ai) is an AI company designed to solve Mongolian issues. Our first product is an AI chatbot customized to help Mongolians with their daily work. Most of our customers are professionals looking to make their jobs easier. This often includes translation, idea generation, and getting easy answers to questions. There is a huge lack of quality content on the internet in Mongolian, and ErdemAI helps bridge that gap. ## Co-founder of Kraft [Kraft](https://kraft.mn) is a furniture and cabinet manufacturing company. We use modern automated machines to produce high quality furniture at high speed for the Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia market. Our clients are furniture designers and installers. ## Editor of MongolBeat [MongolBeat](https://mongolbeat.com) is a daily newsletter delivering domestic Mongolian news translated to English. I built it for myself so I can quickly and easily read the most important Mongolian news stories each morning. The newsletter is completely automated using large language models to choose the articles and translate them to English. ## Family I'm married to Bayaraa Zorigt, a truly impressive human being I love traveling through life with. My most successful businesses are all in partnership with her. It's not unfair to say that most of my success is due to her. We have one son together. ## Orgs I started but failed at I do a lot of different things, but many of the things I've tried have failed. I count failure and quitting the same in this case, but neither are bad. I learned a lot through these experiences and I believe it's important to share our failures as much as our successes. - [StatesmanAI](https://web.archive.org/web/20230630142209/https://www.statesman.ai/) (2023) - An AI assistant for US federal policy professionals. The US Congress literally [banned](https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-congress-bans-staff-use-microsofts-ai-copilot-axios-reports-2024-03-29/) these tools internally. - [Datafantic](https://datafantic.com/) (2021-2022) - I wrote about different things using data science, made a bit of money but never really took off. - [Mongolian Data Stories](https://web.archive.org/web/20230321065108/http://mongoliandatastories.com/)(2016-2018) - I wrote about Mongolia using data, got me a lot of consulting gigs but ultimately I stopped. - MongolWear (2015-2016) - We manufactured Mongolian wool socks. I still have some of these socks, want some?