The Future of Tech Learning: STEAMBridge's Innovative Approach to STEM! with Joel Scharlat
Empowering the Youth Through STEM: A Conversation with Joel Scharlat, Founder of Steambridge
Joel Scharlat, the Founder of Steambridge, discusses his organization's role in empowering middle and high school students by offering training in technology. Scharlat emphasizes the importance of hands-on learning and primarily focusing on areas like drones, computer building, robotics, and 3D printing. Moreover, Steambridge incorporates innovative thinking and entrepreneurism into its programming. They are also developing a program that evaluates an individual's innovation style, aiming to help students understand their workstyle better and how they can leverage it in a team environment. While Steambridge’s mission is primarily focused on younger students, the platform is also open for other age groups interested in the STEM field, including career transitioners.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
01:22 The Birth of Steambridge
01:54 Joel's Journey from Military to Entrepreneurship
03:07 Building a Nonprofit from Scratch
03:52 The Impact of the Pandemic on Education
04:25 The Success of Summer Camps
05:53 Expanding the Reach of Steambridge
06:30 The Transition from Nonprofit to Business
06:51 The Growth and Impact of Steambridge
07:43 The Importance of Hands-On Learning
08:54 The Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Tech
14:01 The Role of Engagement in Learning
17:21 The Future of Steambridge and STEM Education
30:49 The Need for Tech Integration in Education
31:10 The Power of Hands-On Learning
31:33 The Shift in Educational Programs
32:06 The Importance of Teamwork in Learning
32:42 The Philosophy of Steam Bridge
34:58 The Role of Entrepreneurship in Education
36:56 The Impact of the Nexflex Entrepreneur Program
41:21 The Future of Steam Bridge's Programs
47:54 The Importance of Understanding Business Fundamentals
52:47 The Potential for Adult and Family Programs
55:45 The Ideal Partners and Resources for Steam Bridge
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Transcript
Today on the pod, I've got my good friend Joel Scharlat.
Speaker:Joel is the founder of Steambridge, which is a STEM company aimed at training
Speaker:middle and high school age students in technology that gets them hands
Speaker:on critical thinking in areas such as drones, building computers, robotics, 3D
Speaker:printing, have the opportunity to observe and even participate in some of the.
Speaker:Programs and the energy in the room is just absolutely amazing.
Speaker:The students are totally in immersed in what they're doing.
Speaker:In addition to some of the platforms of just the tech hands on training.
Speaker:They're developing a kind of like a, if you're familiar with personality tests,
Speaker:this is something where it talks about how your innovation part of your brain
Speaker:works and they're getting as aimed at.
Speaker:Middle school and high school age kids.
Speaker:I've taken it.
Speaker:It's very aimed at adults, but it is spot on.
Speaker:It absolutely drills down to how you function in a team environment,
Speaker:how you work well with others.
Speaker:Um, I find it fascinating.
Speaker:I hope you enjoy my conversation with Joel as he is trying to bring
Speaker:more life after school practical skills and critical thinking and
Speaker:soft skills together as students are preparing to enter the workforce.
Speaker:Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two
Speaker:one.
Speaker:Joel.
Speaker:Thanks for taking the time to be here.
Speaker:Give a little background on, some of the stuff you're doing with steam bridge.
Speaker:Some of your background with the military and how you've got
Speaker:yourself into STEM programming.
Speaker:I think there's a lot of stuff that's out there in the educational field where
Speaker:we're trying to get a lot of new people into the workforce, you know, but starting
Speaker:it earlier and earlier and earlier ages.
Speaker:But before we get into all that, why don't you take a couple of minutes and
Speaker:give a little bit about your background.
Speaker:Yeah, thanks, John.
Speaker:Appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Speaker:Always happy to talk about STEM and STEAM education and what we're working on.
Speaker:So a little bit about me.
Speaker:My name is Joel Charlotte.
Speaker:I'm the CEO, founder of STEAMbridge.
Speaker:Prior to that, I was an active duty Marine officer, spent 20 years in the
Speaker:Marine Corps, did 13 years on active duty and about seven years in the reserves.
Speaker:Started out flying helicopters.
Speaker:That's probably for a whole nother podcast.
Speaker:You and I can talk about all sorts of aviation and fun related things.
Speaker:But I did, after flying, I did have the opportunity to go
Speaker:to Naval Postgraduate School.
Speaker:So the Marine Corps was kind enough to pay for my master's degree.
Speaker:While I was there, I also had the opportunity to go work for a think tank.
Speaker:The CNO used to run a think tank called the Strategic Studies Group.
Speaker:So I spent six months working there, getting to think big thoughts.
Speaker:And really that's kind of where I came out of that opportunity with the
Speaker:idea of XR security which of course we can also talk about on another
Speaker:podcast but that's another business that I've got and a consulting side.
Speaker:So after I left active duty again, spent about seven years in the reserves.
Speaker:Did a lot of government contracting things, started out in business
Speaker:development, figured out how that whole world worked proposal writing, capture
Speaker:did a little bit of time in operations, kind of worked my way through and all the
Speaker:different companies I worked, spent a lot of time learning how to run a business.
Speaker:Again, everything from business development all the way through operations
Speaker:and, you know, recruiting and those kinds of things because I knew one
Speaker:day I wanted to run my own company.
Speaker:So spend a lot of time doing that had the opportunity about four
Speaker:years ago to run a nonprofit.
Speaker:So knew both of the co founders of Cyberbites Foundation.
Speaker:They were just starting out and came down, talked to both of them and.
Speaker:Worked out as a fit and said, Hey, you know, I'm looking for something to run.
Speaker:They were, they had something to run.
Speaker:So kind of worked out pretty well.
Speaker:It was a very interesting experience because we started from nothing.
Speaker:We had a building.
Speaker:We didn't have a, you know, we didn't even have a budget per se.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So got to help build that from again, nothing up to where it is today.
Speaker:Part of that.
Speaker:that we ran were summer camps, right?
Speaker:So the origin story of Steambridge, if you will, really starts
Speaker:from Cyberbites Foundation.
Speaker:So we started out, we had the same sort of sob story that everybody
Speaker:else did with the pandemic.
Speaker:Doors opened to the facility in October of 2019, and by 2020 we were all Shut down.
Speaker:So the business model for the Cybervice Foundation relies
Speaker:very heavily on the building.
Speaker:And so since nobody was coming in, the next thing the board
Speaker:wanted to do was run summer camps.
Speaker:So we said, all right, let's do that.
Speaker:You know, not knowing how to run a summer camp, what it entailed.
Speaker:We actually took the opportunity to build a camp had a very good relationship.
Speaker:With the young Marines, and so partnered with them, brought them
Speaker:in 20 kids from all over the U.
Speaker:S., taught them cyber security drones, and then a little bit
Speaker:of robotics, all in one week.
Speaker:And the kids got to go home with what they, what they built and
Speaker:what they did for that week.
Speaker:So, we ran that as, as a camp for the young Marines had a great.
Speaker:story written up about us in the Fredericksburg local newspaper.
Speaker:And the first lady of Virginia actually saw it and, and reached out to us and
Speaker:said, Hey, if you run another one, we'd love to you know, come and talk.
Speaker:And so that's what we did.
Speaker:We ran a second one for the community, had another 20 kids come in.
Speaker:Ran the same identical camp.
Speaker:This time we had the first lady of Virginia there to come speak.
Speaker:She was a huge STEM advocate and she still is a huge STEM advocate.
Speaker:And so she had loved the opportunity to come in and talk.
Speaker:We also just happened to find out, I guess, I don't know if that's
Speaker:quite the right way to say that, but we, we ran in the second camp.
Speaker:We set up some demos for the kids.
Speaker:And so inside of the, with those demos, we had virtual reality.
Speaker:We had 3d printing.
Speaker:We had a couple of other different emerging technologies could not get
Speaker:the kids away from a 3d printer.
Speaker:And so we looked at it and said, okay, there's something here.
Speaker:We built a curriculum in a matter of two weeks, I think, maybe three weeks.
Speaker:Found a local company Jellybox iMade3D makes the Jellybox, found them he was
Speaker:willing to build some printers for us.
Speaker:And so we ran a 3D printing camp that same summer.
Speaker:So that first summer we ran 60 kids through.
Speaker:The next summer we ran 350 kids through based on a relationship that we had with
Speaker:the Marine Corps Junior ROTC program.
Speaker:And so that also allowed us then to kind of go worldwide because there's Marine
Speaker:Corps JROTC units in Korea, Japan.
Speaker:I don't think Guam had it at the time, maybe they did, but you know, we, we
Speaker:sent out drone kits to these kids, mailed them out and then put them on
Speaker:a zoom call and build it with them.
Speaker:So, so we've done all sorts of stuff kind of fast forward to I think last year
Speaker:went to the board and said, Hey guys, we built this, got it where we wanted to,
Speaker:where I wanted to get it to at least.
Speaker:We were in the next stage of it, you know, kind of that growth stage, not the
Speaker:startup stage so much, but went to the board and said, Hey, there's a, there's
Speaker:a model here with the summer camp.
Speaker:So I want to take them and run a business.
Speaker:So they were kind enough to agree and steam bridge was formed.
Speaker:So in 2022, we formed we ran some camps that summer alongside the
Speaker:cyber bites foundation camps.
Speaker:And then the following year, which would have been last year, 2023, you
Speaker:know, since inception, we've interacted with, I think, over 2, 000 kids you
Speaker:know, which is a great number for one year, a year and a half, maybe.
Speaker:And so really
Speaker:No, that's awesome.
Speaker:Love, love what we do.
Speaker:I, you know, like I said, obviously we go, we go back to
Speaker:those early cyber bytes days, you know, just for anybody listening.
Speaker:So I.
Speaker:It was 1 of those things when I, you know, I was looking for
Speaker:something to kind of get involved in.
Speaker:I volunteer here or there come up to cyberbites to 1 of the, you know,
Speaker:they would do the monthly the monthly meetings to the CBNE as they called them
Speaker:cyberbites networking events.
Speaker:CB and ease.
Speaker:If you hear that, see that phrase on the on the Internet, but it
Speaker:was coming up to it was actually that 1st lady of Virginia's event.
Speaker:I was actually there that day when she
Speaker:did a virtual presentation and it was it's crazy.
Speaker:To feel it was filling the energy in the room, you know, the kids
Speaker:were excited, you know, they have, they had all their stuff out there.
Speaker:It's like you said, trying to pull them away from that was impossible.
Speaker:They were engrossed in what they were doing.
Speaker:They absolutely loved the skills that they were learning and been
Speaker:able to, I think it's a thing that tangible thing of putting your
Speaker:hands on something that I, that
Speaker:I don't know how much and, and, you know, I gotta, I gotta watch myself with my
Speaker:wife being in the, in the public school system, but getting that, getting that
Speaker:hands on stuff versus just, Theoretical book learning facts dumped into your
Speaker:head where you're to get, you've, you've created a way for them to learn
Speaker:a bunch of those different skills from the coding, the programmatic features
Speaker:and then physically putting something together and learn how that works.
Speaker:And then you've got that practical application to it.
Speaker:I don't, is that something, is that 1 of the things out of all the stuff that,
Speaker:you know, obviously stuff we did a bunch of different things while we were there.
Speaker:But that's the one that you, that kind of fed you the most, most like, you
Speaker:know, to take where you wanted to go.
Speaker:Hey, let me, there's a thing here, not just the business where I can make
Speaker:money at it, but there's a thing here.
Speaker:There's an energy around this.
Speaker:Is
Speaker:that, was that part of it?
Speaker:There is.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:It was absolutely part of it.
Speaker:And I'll tell you, if you go back to those first camps that we ran, you know, we,
Speaker:again, I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker:I mean, I'll be the first to admit that.
Speaker:I'm the director of operations for a nonprofit.
Speaker:I'm a military, you know, aviator.
Speaker:I've done command and control type things.
Speaker:And here I am trying to figure out how to keep kids entertained for a week.
Speaker:And so, you know, we, we kind of just went back, or at least I
Speaker:did, I, I think part of it's luck.
Speaker:You know, I mean, my dad used to say, sometimes it's
Speaker:better to be lucky than good.
Speaker:And I, and I think we had probably just a little bit of luck in
Speaker:there in the sense that we had.
Speaker:All the right people in the room.
Speaker:So we had, we had found partners who were willing to try this new thing with us.
Speaker:So, you know, we had a drone company and they were doing drone
Speaker:classes, but they weren't doing them quite the way we were doing them.
Speaker:You know, and then we had, you know, we brought a cybersecurity company.
Speaker:Company and to help teach them how to hack websites and do
Speaker:all these fun kind of things.
Speaker:You know, we gave them ethics classes on top of that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But, but we, we found a way to combine all three.
Speaker:And I mean, I still remember sitting in meetings with, with these partners.
Speaker:And they were like, there's no way we can do this.
Speaker:You're trying to fill out, you know, there's no, we can't do this bubble.
Speaker:And I said, just, let's just try it.
Speaker:And so we did, and that's kind of the lucky part, you know, and then we, we fell
Speaker:into the build portion because we had.
Speaker:A robot kit we were using, it was a micro bit robot based off of,
Speaker:you know, a program with Python.
Speaker:And so we had to do a lot of thinking around, okay, these
Speaker:kids may or may not know Python.
Speaker:How do we teach them that?
Speaker:How do we give them just enough knowledge?
Speaker:And that kind of became our mantra in the sense of, of just
Speaker:give them enough knowledge to be.
Speaker:Dangerous, if you will, but really what that means is you're giving them enough
Speaker:knowledge and the tools by letting them take those things home with them so
Speaker:that they can continue to learn, you know, some of the best compliments we
Speaker:get are from kids that come back, you know, and and or from parents and say,
Speaker:Hey, you know, we just got one this last summer where the kids super quiet.
Speaker:You know, but, but apparently likes computers, right?
Speaker:And just opened up in the class.
Speaker:And, and so that's what, that's what I like, right?
Speaker:Like, yep, we make money.
Speaker:Look, I, I like money.
Speaker:I like making money.
Speaker:You know, but in reality, it's the fact that we get to educate the kids.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and I think the other part of it too, the, the part I don't
Speaker:talk about a whole lot is that, you know, with a national security
Speaker:background being in the military, I.
Speaker:I still think about national security, right?
Speaker:So how are we going to stay ahead with, or at least match, right?
Speaker:Like we've got China and all these other pacing, you know, threats now.
Speaker:And, you know, one of our favorite conversations, even inside of,
Speaker:of STEM is, you know, let's talk about why we don't use DJI drones.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Let's talk about other things like that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And we still have a very national security mindset.
Speaker:So I think for me, it's those kinds of things.
Speaker:It's how do we get the next generation of kids interested?
Speaker:And I'll tell you one last thing on, on sort of how, you know, as we
Speaker:were starting this again, it was in the middle of the pandemic, right.
Speaker:And, and we shut schools down.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and you and your wife know this more than, than anybody else.
Speaker:But, you know, we were one of the very few countries that shut schools down, right?
Speaker:Like other countries managed to figure out how to do it.
Speaker:And so our kids fell behind and we are still feeling that, right?
Speaker:Like I just saw a news article the other day, SAT scores are
Speaker:still not where they need to be.
Speaker:Well, how do we compete in a global environment?
Speaker:If we're shutting down schools, right?
Speaker:And so, you know, we started to take a longer look at, okay,
Speaker:how do we help the schools?
Speaker:How do we, because a lot of the teachers aren't ready to teach
Speaker:these kinds of things, right?
Speaker:Like how to build a PC or how to build a 3D printer.
Speaker:There's a few out there.
Speaker:They're out there, but they're, they're the minority.
Speaker:They're not, they're not out there.
Speaker:They probably have one class that they teach.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like doing this.
Speaker:So, so for us, it's a matter of, of being able to help, you know, bringing
Speaker:these kids back up to speed, getting them interested, and then as we've evolved
Speaker:this, now we get them connected with, with professionals, with academics,
Speaker:so they can see a path forward.
Speaker:So, so long answer to your, to your short question, but you know, for
Speaker:us, you're right, it's way more than
Speaker:How much, yeah.
Speaker:And, and again, it was more of those things when you, when you see
Speaker:something that's got an energy, when you, when everybody's out there.
Speaker:You know, they're, they're, you know, talking about entrepreneurship.
Speaker:There's like, what's, I don't have a good idea or something like that.
Speaker:And then you see this spark or you feel it.
Speaker:Like I said, when I would go to some of those things, there'd be this thing
Speaker:where you feel the inner, you could feel the energy in a room, you know, when
Speaker:you feel energy in a room and you also know when you walk into a room that's
Speaker:dead I've been in, you know, been in
Speaker:both.
Speaker:and there was definitely energy in the room and we'll talk
Speaker:about some of the other, other,
Speaker:stuff, you know, the ones like I was involved with in the past
Speaker:year, but you talked about.
Speaker:Setting something up different than what some of those other vendors, when you
Speaker:were searching out for the vendors to help participate, you know, because you've got
Speaker:a vendor to supply you the 3D printers, you got vendors for the, you know, I
Speaker:don't know how you're doing the computers, but the the drones and kits and things
Speaker:of that nature, what was 1 of those?
Speaker:What was some of that stuff that you were looking to do slightly different
Speaker:than what everybody had been doing?
Speaker:To some degree of success in the past.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So we engagement, right?
Speaker:I will tell you, I think engagement is key with, with the, with the
Speaker:kids, with the young adults.
Speaker:The other thing that I will tell you is.
Speaker:Is another thing I was thinking through was a challenge.
Speaker:You've got to find something that challenges these kids.
Speaker:You know, I, I think they probably get a bad rap that, you know, they just sit
Speaker:around and play video games all day or they're antisocial, but I will tell you,
Speaker:one of the most engaging things we do is a demo of all things, just a demo.
Speaker:If a school wants us to come out or an organization wants to
Speaker:come out and just show drones.
Speaker:I did this with the Cub Scouts the other night.
Speaker:I bring a set of drones.
Speaker:And I, and they're block based, the programming, so anybody can do it.
Speaker:And I just give them a challenge.
Speaker:I say, Hey, you're starting at this table.
Speaker:I want you to take off and go land on that other table.
Speaker:And I can keep kids engaged for 40 minutes at a time by just giving them a challenge.
Speaker:And we see it time and time again, where if you, we, we have kids who,
Speaker:there were a couple of summer camps that we can talk through stories of.
Speaker:You know, when you get to the older kids, they can drive, right?
Speaker:And the course would be over for the day.
Speaker:And we would go back to work because we still have a foundation to run.
Speaker:And I'd come back an hour later and there's still kids in there, right?
Speaker:The kids who can drive didn't go home because they're stuck on something
Speaker:or they enjoy what they're doing.
Speaker:And we were just like, dude, you gotta go home, man.
Speaker:I can't let my staff go until you go home.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So please go home.
Speaker:Your printer will be here tomorrow.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like just, so it's, it's a combination of engaging activities.
Speaker:And that, that challenge, right?
Speaker:Like we give them something to prove that they can, that they've learned something.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, and, and that, that engagement conversation comes up over and over.
Speaker:And I think just because I've been doing this for four years now.
Speaker:You know, like I I, I've been talking to a variety of cybersecurity companies
Speaker:lately about how we build a cyber course.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Well, cyber's a pretty dry topic, right?
Speaker:And, and, and so we are constantly looking for whatever that engaging thing is.
Speaker:And some, some people don't get it.
Speaker:And I, and I have, I, I can tell now, right?
Speaker:Like I, I know if I'm talking to you about, Hey, let's build a cyber
Speaker:course, and we immediately go to, alright, well let's load up Kali Linux.
Speaker:Okay, well.
Speaker:That's probably not the right thing to do, right?
Speaker:Like there's too much that we have to teach.
Speaker:We're going to bore the kids, you know?
Speaker:And, and so we have ways, you know, I have things I tell my
Speaker:instructors on, Hey, here's ways you can engage your kids early, right?
Speaker:Do it early, get them engaged.
Speaker:And then we keep them engaged longer.
Speaker:And, and we've got battle scars.
Speaker:I mean, we've had some, some camps and some workshops that, you know,
Speaker:I just walk in and I'm like, if I could cancel this now, I would, right?
Speaker:Because we're, we're just not, we're not engaging them.
Speaker:And to your point, you can tell.
Speaker:I mean, when the kids.
Speaker:You know, this thing gets picked up, right?
Speaker:Like, which, yeah, then you know, you know, you've lost them.
Speaker:So, so yeah, I mean, it's, again, it's a combination of engagement
Speaker:Is that something when you're looking at this model?
Speaker:Because right now are everything's primarily in those
Speaker:the short formats, correct?
Speaker:You're still doing everything primarily and we call the boot camps.
Speaker:You know, this course is a week.
Speaker:Maybe something is two weeks.
Speaker:Is that something that, you know, you talked about mentioning the schools
Speaker:to get something that's that's the longer version of some of these things.
Speaker:Is that something that you're looking into versus just the.
Speaker:Quick hits quick in quick out type of stuff
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So we are actively engaged with a middle school in Suitman, Maryland
Speaker:right now where we're doing about three hours a week and about a, no,
Speaker:about two hours a week for 21 weeks.
Speaker:And so we're pumped.
Speaker:It's about a seven week cohort.
Speaker:So we're doing that.
Speaker:three times.
Speaker:And so we do have longer formats.
Speaker:I think if you look at the time, you know, hours is sort of that great equalizer.
Speaker:We always sit somewhere between 20 and 40 hours.
Speaker:We are working on longer courses.
Speaker:But yeah, for us, our, our goal is to get the kids Interested.
Speaker:Okay, so we do have somewhere we can get them college credit.
Speaker:We do have somewhere they get certifications out of it, but our goal
Speaker:is really to just engage the kids and get them interested and then hand them
Speaker:over to universities or colleges or agencies that might want to hire them or
Speaker:other places where they can get further certifications, those kinds of things.
Speaker:So our goal isn't that long term engagement, at least not right now.
Speaker:Our goal is just that initial
Speaker:So I was at a I was invited out to Louisa public high school
Speaker:March or May of last year when the in months, I forget which one.
Speaker:Anyway, they had won a grant for a 2 year program for anybody in high school.
Speaker:So you sign up and it was kind of a, I don't call it a skill stacking.
Speaker:But everybody kind of got to roll through various versions of a lot of the
Speaker:stuff was very, I saw some of it, but not exactly, not everything in detail.
Speaker:Like I have with, with your camps, with your camps and having some
Speaker:of the hands on where it was like, Hey, they got the coding, they got
Speaker:to roll through these programs.
Speaker:And then kind of toward the end of it, they were able to pick more
Speaker:of a specialty that they may want to go into as you're looking at
Speaker:this versus, you know, you've got the camps and maybe, like you said,
Speaker:I would see kids come in there.
Speaker:Hey, we're doing the PC camp.
Speaker:Then we're going to do the drone camp.
Speaker:You would see some of the same ones or some would dip in.
Speaker:Some would dip out.
Speaker:You wouldn't see them again.
Speaker:Are you structuring some of the camps for like a pyramid scheme where I
Speaker:don't want to say that's probably the wrong term, but but a pyramid where
Speaker:you're getting the foundational skills
Speaker:that, hey, if you learn the coding in drones, Man, this will translate
Speaker:to 3D printing or vice versa, whichever one fits your model stack.
Speaker:So you've got a, again, you've got your individual course, but then
Speaker:you're starting to get that longer tail on the backside of different
Speaker:skill sets for the students.
Speaker:Is that something you're
Speaker:looking at?
Speaker:We absolutely are.
Speaker:It's taking a little bit of time to develop.
Speaker:You know, I think last year our focus was really on just getting operations
Speaker:up and running making sure we had the processes in place running.
Speaker:You know, we actually wound up running about 13 different workshops last year
Speaker:on top of some in school stuff and some after school stuff that we did.
Speaker:But to your point we have You know, for us, if you look at
Speaker:everything that we sort of focus on, we can interrelate all of them.
Speaker:And so, you know, the first thing I think our conversations really centered
Speaker:on when we were talking about trying to build that stackable, if you will,
Speaker:like you were saying is, is exactly what you mentioned programming.
Speaker:So we do, we can't teach Python.
Speaker:In a day or two enough that we can make it useful by Friday.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so what we've been talking to our different organizations that can help
Speaker:us maybe make a two week long course.
Speaker:So one week you go and you learn python and then the next week you come back to
Speaker:us and you program drones or you program IOT or, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker:IOT is a good one to be able to mix in with a lot of other things, right?
Speaker:So we're looking at IOT and maybe XR.
Speaker:IOT and drones, you know, like being able to actually connect everything together.
Speaker:So the idea is absolutely is okay.
Speaker:How, and, and we have an AI course that we're developing this summer, which
Speaker:is, which is, is a lot, if you, it's, it's designed to be a five week course.
Speaker:Okay, with the fifth week being the culmination.
Speaker:So the previous four weeks can either be standalone, or you can come to all
Speaker:four so that that fifth week you put you put you put in use everything you've
Speaker:learned in the previous four weeks.
Speaker:So we are doing that to various degrees.
Speaker:But that's exactly the point, though, is.
Speaker:We have to, like these courses as standalone is great, but if I'm not
Speaker:showing you how these things interact and how, you know, I mean, it's almost
Speaker:a systems engineering mindset, right?
Speaker:Like you can't have a standalone, I can't have a silo that's just drones, right?
Speaker:Because there's so much that goes into drones other than just flying
Speaker:them or even just programming.
Speaker:So, so, yeah, we are working on it.
Speaker:It's a, you know, longer process than we'd like, but we were getting a few courses
Speaker:With some of these, once, once somebody goes through either the, let's say,
Speaker:whether they're going through one course or they're going through many.
Speaker:What's kind of the hope that you're looking for with these?
Speaker:Because again, most of these that, you know, they're middle school, high school
Speaker:age students, are, are you hoping that they actually enter some of the skill,
Speaker:the programs that you are like drones?
Speaker:Hey, somebody takes an interest in aviation, whether it's drones or
Speaker:whether it's no kidding, you know, I've got a private pilot's license.
Speaker:You were a pilot in the Marine Corps, you know, things of that nature is,
Speaker:or is it just trying to open up their mind to different critical thinking?
Speaker:As they go make their choices going down the road,
Speaker:Yes, so it's it's both.
Speaker:I mean, for me, honestly, for me, if I could get.
Speaker:What I would like to see are those kids engaged in STEM futures.
Speaker:And, and, and, you know, the, the greatest one of the best examples was
Speaker:the first year we ran a cyber course and we had a young Marine, a female
Speaker:young Marine come in and, you know, we were talking, we did the intros
Speaker:and said, okay, why are you here?
Speaker:Or, you know, tell me something, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:What do you want to learn this week?
Speaker:And, you know, we get to this one young lady and she's like, I.
Speaker:She's like, I'm, I don't know why I'm here.
Speaker:my
Speaker:parents, my parents made
Speaker:what are you interested?
Speaker:Yeah, well, we, we have a couple of those, too.
Speaker:We've had a couple of those.
Speaker:But, you know, she, she, she says, well, I like people, so I don't think I would
Speaker:really be interested in cybersecurity.
Speaker:I said, alright, that's not true, right?
Speaker:Like, the whole social engineering aspect of cyber security is, is all about people.
Speaker:So we actually introduced her to a cyber security professional who
Speaker:did social engineering, right?
Speaker:Like just to get to show her that, you know, and I think
Speaker:the problem, not the problem.
Speaker:I think part of, part of what we do is, is like you said, we just
Speaker:open their eyes to the fact that, okay, are you interested in drones?
Speaker:Well, maybe you don't want to fly drones, but let's talk about.
Speaker:Material science.
Speaker:What are drones made of?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, let's talk about just energy, size, weight, and power.
Speaker:Okay, let's talk about the different uses.
Speaker:Oh, you're collecting data?
Speaker:Well, what are you going to do with that data?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, you're collecting images, telemetry, so you get off into data science.
Speaker:And 3D printing is the same way.
Speaker:You may not be interested in actually 3D printing, but let's talk about 3D design.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Let's talk about materials.
Speaker:I mean, you can print in just about anything these days.
Speaker:So, so the, what we try to do again is introduce them to various parts of
Speaker:that again, additive manufacturing.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, there's so much that's contained inside of that.
Speaker:And really inside of all of these, you know, in our IOT, our
Speaker:basic IOT course is literally the building block of everything.
Speaker:It's circuits, it's.
Speaker:It's, you know everything about circuits.
Speaker:Okay, what's a, what's a transistor do?
Speaker:What's a, you know, like, well, what does all that do?
Speaker:And just giving them the basics so that they can then go home
Speaker:and, and hopefully learn more.
Speaker:The other thing I'll say too, is what I really like is when I get
Speaker:students back as instructors.
Speaker:Right, because they like what we're doing and they come back and we've had one
Speaker:of my assistant instructors this summer was one of our first students, right?
Speaker:And he's back.
Speaker:And so you know, I love seeing that just because I think that's another
Speaker:way to get those kids engaged, right?
Speaker:Like, you can teach it.
Speaker:You can do it.
Speaker:There's multiple ways.
Speaker:So I like seeing the
Speaker:And one of the things we're talking about the instruction thing,
Speaker:you know, a rule I've heard when you're talking about teaching.
Speaker:Somebody else.
Speaker:You only have to be one step ahead of the person below you to teaching that.
Speaker:So having just, and
Speaker:then
Speaker:I may have said that
Speaker:yeah, I, I see it.
Speaker:I, I've seen it, I've seen
Speaker:it repeatedly, but also it reinforces that for them 'cause it's still
Speaker:new to them going through that.
Speaker:That's, that's super cool.
Speaker:I didn't realize that that was that, that had been taking place with that.
Speaker:'cause that's a good way.
Speaker:'cause how hard is it to find.
Speaker:You know again, we'll talk about one of the entrepreneurship thing here in
Speaker:a little bit, but to get, you know, for, for the after school programs,
Speaker:how hard is it to go get instructors, other professionals in the industry
Speaker:to come speak to the students?
Speaker:So it's, it fits in everybody's schedule because that seems
Speaker:that that would be a little
Speaker:bit of a, not just you're building the courses, you've got to get
Speaker:all the materials together.
Speaker:Oh, hold up.
Speaker:There's 12 of these going on.
Speaker:I can't go teach 12 of these.
Speaker:I gotta go find somebody to go fill the gaps in that.
Speaker:Is that, how's,
Speaker:how's the reception been on that side?
Speaker:So, so that is our, that is probably our most talked about our biggest
Speaker:conversation inside of the company, right?
Speaker:Because I don't think and not, I don't think I know there's no shortage
Speaker:of people willing to help, but to your point, it's the scheduling.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Because most of our instructors are, industry professionals, they're
Speaker:out there, they've got a full time job or they're teachers and it's I
Speaker:can't pull them out of the classroom to go teach one of my courses.
Speaker:So, I mean, the good news is, is around the summertime
Speaker:that gets a whole lot easier.
Speaker:I am learning rather quickly, but if you want a teacher over the summer,
Speaker:the conversations have to happen now in January you know, it's, I, I'm, and I
Speaker:just had a teacher as a matter of fact, out Loudon County emailed me yesterday.
Speaker:He was one of my cyber instructors over the summer.
Speaker:He's like, Hey, I'm planning my summer vacation.
Speaker:I'm like, dude, it's January, man.
Speaker:Oh, I,
Speaker:but they do.
Speaker:So
Speaker:I hear that from my wife.
Speaker:So, I mean,
Speaker:Hey, hey, I'm going on a road trip for two months.
Speaker:I'll see you in August.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, so I think the hardest part is just getting them.
Speaker:It's, it's the, it's the scheduling, right?
Speaker:Like, again, there's no shortage.
Speaker:There are a lot of people out there who want to help.
Speaker:We get companies coming to us.
Speaker:We just had a drone company come to us and say, Hey, we're thinking Stendron.
Speaker:You know, so, which, so again, there's no shortage out there.
Speaker:It's, Getting them to take time off, you know, or, or, you know, ideally
Speaker:it'd be finding a company who goes, Hey, this is, this is community service.
Speaker:You know, you don't need to take day off.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like this part of our, our ethos.
Speaker:So, you know, by all means take a paid day, go teach.
Speaker:So it's hard, but we're slowly building our, our Rolodex for all
Speaker:you kids out there, Rolodex, the old
Speaker:If you don't say
Speaker:card system.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:to lost me.
Speaker:So
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:what,
Speaker:So, what's the, what's the reception been?
Speaker:Cause you know I always say being associated with the school system, some of
Speaker:the school systems over, over the years, what has been the reception when you go
Speaker:approach either to, to say, Hey, do you have students that want to participate in
Speaker:this or what programs are you offering?
Speaker:Because My personal experience having some of those conversations
Speaker:is it's very closed off.
Speaker:Oh, we got this covered.
Speaker:And it's like, I know you don't,
Speaker:but there's defensive mechanism that kicks in to there where you're like,
Speaker:no, no, no, I'm here to help supplement or, you know, things of that nature.
Speaker:What's that been like with some of the school systems?
Speaker:So to your point about the, hey, we got it covered, you know, I mean, I'll tell you
Speaker:what I learned early on is you know, when we were still in the foundation, we were
Speaker:going out to go see a A school, right?
Speaker:I won't name any names, but we went to their website to go check them out.
Speaker:And, and you know, Matt and I were like, I have no, like, what
Speaker:are we going to do for them?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, you, you look at their website, they're doing drones, they're doing
Speaker:all sorts of cool, like high end stuff.
Speaker:And we're like, what can you get there?
Speaker:And you're just like, you guys have an awesome marketing, right, like team
Speaker:and what, and that's not to take away because they are doing really good things.
Speaker:But the point of that is that, you know they're not always, they're advertising.
Speaker:Well, they're doing good things, but there's always room to do more.
Speaker:Now, the flip side of that is very similar to your conversation.
Speaker:I cannot tell you how many times I go into a school and I say, Hey, here's
Speaker:this great entrepreneur program that we have, you know, we'd love to teach it.
Speaker:Oh, we already do that.
Speaker:You know, you just kind of like, Where, right?
Speaker:Like, but I've also learned that some of those you just can't there's you learn
Speaker:over time how those conversations go, you know, and so you learn that, okay,
Speaker:this person is not interested in this and that person, I might be able to convince.
Speaker:And so you just learn to just sort of, hey, cool.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Glad you got it covered.
Speaker:If that sounds like you don't need us, right?
Speaker:Like, have a nice day.
Speaker:Which is, part of it's kind of unfortunate because the kids
Speaker:will never get exposed to that.
Speaker:At least not through that official channel, right?
Speaker:Like, there's more than one way to get in.
Speaker:I mean, if, if you know the teachers directly and you get those
Speaker:motivated teachers and those that, that, that want that curriculum.
Speaker:They'll bring you in and then you don't have to come in from the top, you know,
Speaker:from the, from the administration.
Speaker:You can come in from the bottom and the teachers, which is probably a better
Speaker:way to do it anyway, because they are the most invested in their students
Speaker:and their learning and what they want.
Speaker:So but yeah, I mean, it's, it, they're, it's a mixed bag.
Speaker:I mean, you get some people that are like, holy smokes, this is awesome.
Speaker:We need this.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then we're like, cool, let's do this.
Speaker:And then you get those that are like, we already do it.
Speaker:and that's what
Speaker:Cool, man.
Speaker:it goes back to the whole, the whole set up again, the structure of again, the
Speaker:hands on the engagement piece of that, because at least, you know, the little
Speaker:bit I remember from being in school.
Speaker:I mean, you're sitting there, you're carrying around 8 books.
Speaker:Maybe you get to touch something in a chemistry class in high
Speaker:school or something like that.
Speaker:I mean, after you get through kindergarten and playing with
Speaker:blocks, I mean, at that point, it's just pencil and paper and stuff.
Speaker:And that with the, I see the way the world, you know, the way
Speaker:the world is shifting with the way the tech is in everything.
Speaker:Kids are getting, getting the, you know, the hands on equipment much earlier.
Speaker:That the way that learn what needs to be taught and how they need
Speaker:to learn it needs to completely adjust in a way that it's going to.
Speaker:You know, com stick.
Speaker:And to me that's always been how, how fast can you get something in
Speaker:their hands that's, that's tangible.
Speaker:And again, not everything is,
Speaker:like I said, you, you, you can do, you can integrate coding into a robotics program.
Speaker:You can integrate coding into the drone.
Speaker:You can integrate coding into all those things to get that hands-on experience.
Speaker:So it's just not that theoretical piece.
Speaker:And I think that.
Speaker:There needs to be more of a shift to some of those things.
Speaker:And I know when I went back to my 20 year high school
Speaker:reunion, like six years ago, seven years ago, there was a lot
Speaker:of programs in the school that my life may have been different that
Speaker:I'm seeing start to get out there.
Speaker:But to me, you know, seeing some demos of that stuff, it still
Speaker:seemed out of date to a degree.
Speaker:It's like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker:You're at least planting seeds, but is it really still, you know, are we in 2024?
Speaker:Mindset with how fast the stuff's
Speaker:evolved because of all the regulatory policy crap that they've got to go
Speaker:through to get Approved curriculum from the federal government to the state to
Speaker:the, to the local to the local industries how, when you structure the courses to
Speaker:get some of that engagement piece, are we talking about a lot of individual work?
Speaker:You're talking a lot of stuff that's based on teams, so, so kids are forced to have
Speaker:to work together because I know growing up with, you know, you'd never want to be
Speaker:part of the team project that was graded because there was always that person
Speaker:that was usually me that was forced to like, Oh my God, I'm not ruining my grade
Speaker:because of these clowns type of situation.
Speaker:So how do you structure the makeup of the course as it goes along,
Speaker:So we, our philosophy inside of steam bridge is build code do and so what
Speaker:that means is we try to find projects that there's a physical build component.
Speaker:That's that hands on piece.
Speaker:We do have exceptions to that.
Speaker:Like, right now we're using a pre built drone kit.
Speaker:Not much we can do about it, except we're looking at building
Speaker:our own drone kit so that we can have that build component back.
Speaker:The code piece is really about teaching the kids how to use that technology.
Speaker:So in the case of 3D printers, there's no actual coding, but we
Speaker:teach them how to calibrate it, how to maintain the printer, right?
Speaker:We teach them how to go out and find.
Speaker:Print that will actually print and what to look for.
Speaker:And then we teach them how to design their own 3D images so that they can print.
Speaker:And then the do is always some sort of challenge at the end of the week
Speaker:to again, show me what you've learned.
Speaker:Throughout the week we, so when we first started back at the,
Speaker:at Cyberbytes Foundation, we didn't have the entrepreneur and
Speaker:innovation thinking piece, right?
Speaker:So, so we didn't have that, but, but we were always still looking for ways.
Speaker:To, to do the teamwork piece, right?
Speaker:The, the, the most fundamental way we do that is put kids in pods of four.
Speaker:So when they're building something, they're there, they can ask
Speaker:questions of each other, they can, you know, socialize, do whatever.
Speaker:But they're there, you know, there's never a.
Speaker:You know, young adult sitting alone by themselves, no matter
Speaker:how much they want to, they're
Speaker:seen it.
Speaker:Some of them do.
Speaker:So, and some of them do.
Speaker:And, and, but, but we, look, we, we almost take a tough love approach
Speaker:to all of this, you know, like we, we just, your, your parents or
Speaker:somebody has paid for you to be here.
Speaker:You know, I've paid for my instructors to be here.
Speaker:We're all going to learn.
Speaker:We're all going to have a good time, right?
Speaker:And so we don't we don't let them play on their phone.
Speaker:We don't let them sit by themselves.
Speaker:We don't let them sit by themselves playing on their phone, right?
Speaker:Like, I mean, if we've Just a simple example, if a student is done,
Speaker:because we'll build in stages as an example, if a student's done with
Speaker:that step, we walk over and say, okay, Johnny, you're done, go help, right?
Speaker:Go stand up, go help, right?
Speaker:And so it helps build that leadership, right?
Speaker:Like that, just that communication skills, because they've got to learn
Speaker:how to help other people that may or may not want that help, right?
Speaker:And And we don't, again, they're not going to be allowed to just sit there,
Speaker:you know, in the middle of camp.
Speaker:So, but as we're developing it, so years, you know, since we've left CBF, or since
Speaker:I've left CBF, and since Steambridge has been up and running, we've added what
Speaker:started out as an entrepreneur program.
Speaker:It's a grant through Nexflex an advanced manufacturing institute.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:And, and we, so we, we get access to their curriculum.
Speaker:And then, so we get to teach it, right.
Speaker:And, and so it's really cool.
Speaker:It's a great program.
Speaker:Our grant with them will end, I believe this summer.
Speaker:And, but we're going to take that curriculum.
Speaker:We already are.
Speaker:We're taking that curriculum and we're adding some innovative thinking to it
Speaker:so that we're adding a lot more value to our workshops than just the tech piece.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So if you go through and you look at what it is we do, we have a hard skills piece.
Speaker:So you're building that technology.
Speaker:We teach you soft skills, and that could be as you know, it could be the
Speaker:Hey, Johnny, stand up and go help.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But it's also problem solving, conflict resolution, teamwork, communication.
Speaker:It's all these things that we, we build into the workshops.
Speaker:And then the third piece Is that innovative and
Speaker:entrepreneurial thinking, right?
Speaker:So how do we create students?
Speaker:How do we create youth who are, who understand how they operate, how
Speaker:they work in a team and how they can add value to an organization?
Speaker:And that organization can be a school club.
Speaker:It could be their church.
Speaker:It could be, you know, their summer job, right?
Speaker:So understanding the entrepreneurial pieces, teaching them how a business runs.
Speaker:through some exercises and some things that they may not realize all fit together
Speaker:and then the innovative thinking pieces.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:How do I work with like, what's my innovation style?
Speaker:And how do I work with John?
Speaker:Who's a different innovation innovator?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So, so we teach all of that because again, we believe what we're
Speaker:really doing is preparing kids.
Speaker:To be productive members of society, right?
Speaker:So, so how do we add value?
Speaker:How do we help them add value to, to their to their lives
Speaker:and to the world around them?
Speaker:So, way
Speaker:Yeah, and let me jump in and I want to do story time with John here for a
Speaker:second about the next flex entrepreneur program, just to get the point, you know,
Speaker:the, the point of cross of what I saw firsthand for anybody else that may hear
Speaker:this is like, Whoa, that's kind of cool.
Speaker:So the way we had set up, I had the opportunity to teach that entrepreneur
Speaker:program for 4 weeks last summer.
Speaker:And so you would have the first week was drones.
Speaker:I think for me, I don't, I'm going to get them all mixed up.
Speaker:That was six months ago.
Speaker:But the first week was drones.
Speaker:I walk in at Monday at lunchtime.
Speaker:I'm like, Oh, Hey, wait, Hey guys, by the way, we're getting
Speaker:ready to go do this other project.
Speaker:So keep eating
Speaker:your lunch while I walk through this and no kidding.
Speaker:During the course of the week.
Speaker:It was in a sprint style format, so it was between 30 and 60 minutes for four
Speaker:days where I would walk through the fundamentals of building a business plan.
Speaker:The 1st day was coming up with an idea.
Speaker:Who is your target market?
Speaker:Who is your partners that you need?
Speaker:How would you price it?
Speaker:How would you market it?
Speaker:Who would you sell it to and rapidly walk them through this
Speaker:process of being able to do that?
Speaker:And
Speaker:they would stay working in their pods.
Speaker:This is not
Speaker:solo, so they would be in their groups of 3 or 4 in some cases, too.
Speaker:I think the last week that I was there and it was funny.
Speaker:Talking about that first Monday, it was kind of like pulling teeth, you know,
Speaker:they were, it was extremely like pulling
Speaker:kind of.
Speaker:Tuesday, a little bit the same by Wednesday.
Speaker:It was a little bit better that you could start seeing the wheels click.
Speaker:And so the punch line to this was on Friday.
Speaker:We would bring in three professionals from the community that they would have
Speaker:to pitch their business idea to and answer questions and that got everybody kind
Speaker:of amped up and I never told them we all we'd give a prize to the winner that the
Speaker:speakers picked had I had nothing to do with it, but the speakers would pick a
Speaker:winner and give them a small gift card or
Speaker:something like that.
Speaker:And I may have told them like the day of.
Speaker:Because during the course of that week, you always had some groups that
Speaker:would take it super serious, some were lackadaisical, but almost everybody
Speaker:by Thursday when they know they were going to have to get up in front of
Speaker:some strangers that they had never met before, that they knew owned businesses
Speaker:or high level professionals, you know, I think nerves were kicking in, but that
Speaker:desire to succeed kicked in and you could see them really grasping on top of it.
Speaker:And I would see because we
Speaker:would actually have this one kid.
Speaker:I don't remember his name.
Speaker:But the transformation of this kid over the course of 3 weeks that
Speaker:came in there he was, I believe in the 2nd week no, not Cody.
Speaker:This is a different kid Cody.
Speaker:So let me I'll tell the story about Cody real quick.
Speaker:Cody was in 3 summer camps in a row.
Speaker:So the 1st week he did the project
Speaker:just like everybody else.
Speaker:The 2nd week.
Speaker:He sees me walk in, and I see his eyes roll a little bit in the back of his
Speaker:head, and I'm like, dude, just do it.
Speaker:It makes the teams even you'll be all right.
Speaker:He did it.
Speaker:No
Speaker:problem.
Speaker:He had a leg up because he went through it before.
Speaker:And by the 3rd week, he's back in the 3rd week.
Speaker:And I remember at the end before before the 3rd week, he was back.
Speaker:He goes.
Speaker:Are you coming back next week?
Speaker:And then it was like, yes, I am.
Speaker:And then I said, I said, so the goal, I said, dude, I'm not gonna
Speaker:make you do it three times in a row.
Speaker:So he became my assistant and he was no kidding walking around.
Speaker:He had been through it enough.
Speaker:I was able to be a hands off a lot and he was walking the stu the kids through the,
Speaker:the pods when they had questions, Hey, you need to do this, because they would get.
Speaker:Big white papers where they would draw, you know, they would draw their
Speaker:stuff out as their presentation piece.
Speaker:And he actually introduced the presenters
Speaker:that for that last week.
Speaker:So that was a cool experience, I think, for him, and he really enjoyed doing
Speaker:that last week after he went through it.
Speaker:But the transformation you talked about the ones that were introverted, the kids
Speaker:that sit there and they think they're in their video games all the time.
Speaker:They don't
Speaker:speak.
Speaker:They're behind their device.
Speaker:And there was a, there was a student that was in there in the PC building camp.
Speaker:Would not participate for life of anything.
Speaker:And, you know, there's nothing that I can do or anybody else
Speaker:to do to shake him out of that.
Speaker:The parents were like, he doesn't talk.
Speaker:Well, he came back two or three times in a row, and by that third last
Speaker:one, he was fully presenting, he was engaged, he was talking to other kids
Speaker:to the point everybody else there had noticed it as well, because there
Speaker:was a couple duplicates went from being almost a shut in in a group.
Speaker:To completely have bust out of his shell and was talking to strangers
Speaker:and was talking to the presenters.
Speaker:And that was just some of the power of some of the stuff that was
Speaker:going on that they were exposed to.
Speaker:it is a it is a great program, right?
Speaker:Like, and you and I know, I mean, we're revamping that program.
Speaker:And so there, there are things that can be fixed, but it's, it's great.
Speaker:I mean, we, alongside those two stories, there's the story of that you know,
Speaker:I don't remember his name either, but, you know, he was our sleeper.
Speaker:Remember, like he would be sleeping in the class and, and, you know, we
Speaker:wound up having to call his mom and, you know, Oh, we just got in late
Speaker:last night, but hey, this is week two and you're still sleeping, you know?
Speaker:So, so, you know, we get those kids and obviously we can work with them and,
Speaker:and, and bring them back up to speed.
Speaker:But I'll tell you by that Friday, you know, that you were talking about
Speaker:the big white papers that they, you know, the big stick up sheets that
Speaker:they write on, well, he rolled his up.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:To take it home.
Speaker:And then he rolled up his you know, his business plan sheet as well, right?
Speaker:Like the business canvas sheet as well and rolled it up to take it home because
Speaker:he, he was, and I told his mom, I said, look, you know, we started this week out.
Speaker:We had some issues.
Speaker:I said, but you may want to talk to your son about business, right?
Speaker:Or you may want to have, make an introduction for him to somebody who
Speaker:may own a business or maybe your boss or just cause I, and I pulled it out of
Speaker:his backpack right in front of his mom.
Speaker:I was like, okay.
Speaker:We normally keep these, but he can take it home, right?
Speaker:Like this is cool for him.
Speaker:So he thoroughly enjoys it.
Speaker:So you never really know what they're going to like pick up on.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so for us, you know, we try to make it broad enough that, that we
Speaker:can hit as many people as possible, but those are all great, like.
Speaker:Great stories, right?
Speaker:So, so this year, what we're working on is, is taking that same curriculum.
Speaker:We're adding, you know, we're working with an innovation coach
Speaker:to bring in, okay, how do you know, how do you think innovatively?
Speaker:How do you do those kinds of things?
Speaker:And then putting those two courses together, but then really.
Speaker:Making it a little bit more coherent or seamless, if you will, right?
Speaker:Because to your point, like, and I'm running a, I'm running
Speaker:an x flex course right now at this middle school in Suitland.
Speaker:And it is pulling teeth, right?
Speaker:Because it's an abrupt stop.
Speaker:You're going, hey, we're going to do all these cool drone things.
Speaker:And by the way.
Speaker:Now we're going to put the brakes on today.
Speaker:We're going to talk about entrepreneur programs.
Speaker:So it meets the need, but it's not where it needs to be.
Speaker:So we're working on that.
Speaker:So we can make it a little bit more fluid
Speaker:Can you talk about that, that teamwork evaluation thing?
Speaker:I mean, I've seen it.
Speaker:I've let my wife see it, but, and I know that's a work in progress with
Speaker:it is, but can you talk a little bit more about how that functions
Speaker:and what your hope is for that?
Speaker:Once you kind of get all the bugs kinked out of it in a little bit more detail.
Speaker:Because I equate it to like a you know, the evaluation sheet
Speaker:that I had went through where you're answering the questions.
Speaker:Strongly agree.
Speaker:You know, the Breyers, Meigs, Briggs said that
Speaker:probably wrong because some people get really hung up on that,
Speaker:but but, you know, that, that, that formula to understand who you
Speaker:are when it comes to innovation.
Speaker:And gut
Speaker:feeling and things of that nature.
Speaker:Can you talk about that a little bit more detail?
Speaker:Yeah, so we're working with, launchstreet is the name of the company.
Speaker:And what that, that test that you have taken, I've taken, a couple
Speaker:of others have taken is called the innovation quotient IQE.
Speaker:I can never remember what the E stands for.
Speaker:But what it is, is exactly what you said.
Speaker:It's almost like a personality test, but it's geared towards innovation.
Speaker:I think I will tell you, I think it's.
Speaker:Pretty dead on.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then you've made the same statement.
Speaker:So, you know, which I think it's good news.
Speaker:And so what our goal is, you know, we started working with Tamara over there at
Speaker:at launch street a little over a year ago.
Speaker:And we're taking our time because we want to make sure we get it right.
Speaker:So the, the, the.
Speaker:Evaluation that you took and then I took is the adult version of that, right?
Speaker:So tomorrow works primarily with organizations, very large organizations
Speaker:teaching them the exact same thing.
Speaker:How do you think innovatively?
Speaker:How do you break out of the box?
Speaker:How do you understand?
Speaker:You know, hey, John's doing something that looks weird to me,
Speaker:but it's normal for him, right?
Speaker:Like, and in the sense of, like, Thought processes and things like that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, so for me, you know, I'm very futuristic and this is one of the
Speaker:things that have pulled out for me.
Speaker:And I even told Tamara, just a side conversation about how accurate it is.
Speaker:I said, you know, until, you know, because I spent a lot of
Speaker:time working in a think tank.
Speaker:I spent a lot of time working at the headquarters level of the Marine
Speaker:Corps, you know, and, and I would sit around in these sort of brainstorming
Speaker:sessions and I would just get frustrated because I'm like, man, you guys are
Speaker:all trying to solve a problem that's like tomorrow, I want to solve.
Speaker:Like next year's problem, right?
Speaker:Because if we don't start on that now, we're just going to be behind and
Speaker:I'm the only one in the room, right?
Speaker:Like he thinks like that.
Speaker:And I, and I told Tamara said, I always felt that I was, I was out of place.
Speaker:Like I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker:I didn't belong there, et cetera.
Speaker:And I said, until you put a name to it and told me what it was I was doing.
Speaker:I didn't realize that that's how I innovate and now I embrace it, right?
Speaker:And I'm like, Hey, this is who I am.
Speaker:So what we're working with her on is taking that, that evaluation and bringing
Speaker:it down to the youth level so that we can provide that same experience to the To
Speaker:the young adults and say, okay, take this, you're going to take this assessment.
Speaker:Now you've seen it, you get a 10, 15, whatever, 20 page, right?
Speaker:PDF.
Speaker:And that was the first thing I told her.
Speaker:I said, there's no way you are not going to hand a 15 or 20 page
Speaker:PDF to a kid and one expect them to read it, much less absorb it.
Speaker:And so we've been working on infographics and how do we engage them?
Speaker:What platforms is it, you know, Twitter.
Speaker:And of course now we have, you know issues with.
Speaker:Okay, you're I'm interacting directly with your kid and, you know, so
Speaker:we're working through all of that and how we deliver it and that's
Speaker:why we're taking our time doing it.
Speaker:But the idea is this is exactly that.
Speaker:If I can show you and put a name to your innovation style, teach you how to
Speaker:take that innovation style and interact with somebody who has a different.
Speaker:Innovation style so that we could be successful in a group, right?
Speaker:And that group, again, going back to what I said earlier, could be your school.
Speaker:It could be your classroom, a school organization.
Speaker:It could be your church group.
Speaker:It could just be a non profit you're volunteering at.
Speaker:It could be a for profit company you're working at, right?
Speaker:Like, so we combine that then with the.
Speaker:With the entrepreneur piece, right?
Speaker:So that you understand how a business works and where you can
Speaker:fit in inside of that business.
Speaker:So, so that's our goal.
Speaker:But you've seen it again and you've even made comments on it that,
Speaker:that it's not kid friendly yet.
Speaker:And we know that.
Speaker:the concept is the con.
Speaker:Yeah, the concept is great.
Speaker:Yeah, the language, the way the questions are written, the way the breakdown is at
Speaker:the end, definitely is adult oriented.
Speaker:If you've taken any of those personality tests or something along that line,
Speaker:but definitely see how that would function with the Within the, the
Speaker:youth setting as they're going,
Speaker:when you start tying in all the pieces of this together.
Speaker:And you start reading the news, you know, you got your, the economic cycles
Speaker:of recession, we're going through all of these freaking tech layoffs
Speaker:again, you know, cause of overhiring, which to me is the dumbest thing in
Speaker:the world from lack of pre planning.
Speaker:Don't think anybody at a fortune 100 is any smarter than any
Speaker:of the small business owners.
Speaker:Everybody's the same.
Speaker:But is your, vision and hope is that you're creating a bunch of innovators
Speaker:that kind of go out on their own and start charting their own path versus
Speaker:looking for that old school traditional, I'm going to go get the nine to five job
Speaker:at Google or Amazon to get laid off six months later because they decided now
Speaker:we don't need you anymore type of stuff.
Speaker:Because that's, I mean, as we're doing this in January of
Speaker:2024, this is still ongoing.
Speaker:And also they're making record profits from the same time period.
Speaker:So what, how do you, how do you have an envision, you know, with
Speaker:that as the end goal mission piece?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So for us I will say we're trying to help both of those groups, right?
Speaker:Like I will tell you, I love being an entrepreneur, right?
Speaker:Like I love having my own business.
Speaker:I'm not going to say I own my own time.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But, but, you know, just the fact that I'm, I'm making the decisions.
Speaker:The business grows and shrinks based on my, you know, based on my input
Speaker:into the business, I'll also tell you that being an entrepreneur is
Speaker:not for the faint of heart, right?
Speaker:Like, because there are times where you're like, ah, I don't know when
Speaker:that paycheck's coming, you know, and things like that, but, but so it's
Speaker:not for everybody, but I'll tell you what we, when we talk to the kids.
Speaker:The definition of an entrepreneur, we, or even entrepreneurialism, right.
Speaker:If we're making up our own words, right.
Speaker:But is the fact that again, I go back to how do you add value to an organization?
Speaker:So you can be that person who goes to big tech, to Google, to Microsoft, whatever.
Speaker:But I want to teach you how to be that person who doesn't get laid off.
Speaker:Right, because if I teach you how to add value, if I teach you what a
Speaker:business actually is and how it runs in the different pieces, and you're
Speaker:a marketer, well, I can still teach you how, how does marketing affect
Speaker:the rest of the business, right?
Speaker:Like, how does it fit in?
Speaker:And then how do you be innovative inside of that marketing
Speaker:department so that you're meeting?
Speaker:The larger goals of the company, right?
Speaker:Like, because every company has goals.
Speaker:And if all the employees are working towards those same goals, then the
Speaker:company is going to prosper, right?
Speaker:And, and the employees will as well.
Speaker:So if we teach you those kinds of things, you're going to be just as valuable
Speaker:inside of a big tech company as you are, if you were to start your own business.
Speaker:So both.
Speaker:more publicly advocating for, you know, the businesses scorecard or scorebook
Speaker:is, you know, can be right is revenue.
Speaker:And if you're teaching in an early age, those fundamentals of business, they can
Speaker:ask, you know, if they go get a job, they can start asking the right questions.
Speaker:What is my impact positively as a call center or as driving
Speaker:revenue or things of this nature?
Speaker:What is my intrinsic value to here that I know again, the value that I bring.
Speaker:So I know how to increase that.
Speaker:So not only do you benefit that I can
Speaker:benefit down the road, and I think a lot of times that gets lost in the, you
Speaker:know, in the cogs of, you know, some of the larger organizations or the smaller
Speaker:organizations want to keep that stuff.
Speaker:We, we don't disclose that information.
Speaker:Well, how do I know I'm supposed to be on your team?
Speaker:How do I know I'm adding value?
Speaker:I show up every day.
Speaker:I do what I'm saying, but I don't know I'm truly bringing value.
Speaker:And I think that helps open up
Speaker:the right questions for that.
Speaker:And the other word that we use is ownership, right?
Speaker:So, so how do I teach somebody how to take ownership of that marketing task, right?
Speaker:Like you may be a marketing intern, but to your point, what is your value, right?
Speaker:Like what am I doing that increases the value of this company?
Speaker:And you should know that and am I teaching you that right out the gate?
Speaker:No, but I'm giving you the fundamentals of how to do that.
Speaker:I'm teaching you about the business.
Speaker:Because we can tailor the course, that next flex now soon to be our
Speaker:innovative thinking, you know, course, we can tailor that to you know, I
Speaker:just started a conversation with a teacher in London County here.
Speaker:He teaches, he's a CTE teacher, right?
Speaker:A computer and technical education teacher, but he teaches finance.
Speaker:Right, so I'm trying to say so.
Speaker:So he's considered CTE and finance.
Speaker:Well, I told him, I'm like, we could run this entire program, but let's
Speaker:just focus on the how do we price this?
Speaker:What's the market, right?
Speaker:Like, we can run an entire course around flexible hybrid electronics
Speaker:or whatever technology, but we only focus on that on that piece, right?
Speaker:So we can give them the solution.
Speaker:And now I can teach them a little bit more about how to price
Speaker:inside of a business, right?
Speaker:So, so the idea is again to create a value added employee, right?
Speaker:That is value add on their own, right?
Speaker:They can figure that part out.
Speaker:They can see at least or know to your point.
Speaker:Who do I even go talk to?
Speaker:What are the conversations I should
Speaker:critical thinking piece.
Speaker:Don't wait to be told, go
Speaker:seek it out.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Got two things before we wrap.
Speaker:Is any of the stuff that you're working on now, are you, because there's a, you know,
Speaker:in cybersecurity field, there's a lot of stuff around people transitioning careers.
Speaker:I'm sure that's happening in other industries.
Speaker:Are you looking at any of this beyond?
Speaker:The middle school, high school age range for adults for other programs.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So we already do.
Speaker:We run at the 18 to 24 right now.
Speaker:So we work with a couple of agencies inside of Virginia that focus on
Speaker:that, that post high school 18 to 24.
Speaker:We have also put out, but a little bit more on the fun side.
Speaker:We've put out like 3D printer courses that are weekend builds.
Speaker:You know, we're starting to, to team up with some breweries
Speaker:and some vineyards and stuff.
Speaker:So again, it's a little more fun, but the idea there still is that, Hey, if your
Speaker:kids are interested in this technology.
Speaker:You know, you should probably at least look into it, right?
Speaker:So if I can build a 3D printer with an adult, let them take
Speaker:it home, and maybe they can introduce it to their kids, right?
Speaker:Or they can now have that conversation with their kids if they're not
Speaker:already 3D printing, right?
Speaker:Or the, hey, look how cool dad is, right?
Speaker:Like, or mom is because I brought home this 3D printer, right?
Speaker:Like, so, so but I'll tell you too, along that same note, we've
Speaker:also run some courses for families.
Speaker:Like, we'll bring in, like, really young kids, like, 7 or 8 years old.
Speaker:And we will, we did a 3D printer build with them over the weekend.
Speaker:But we required the families to be there, right?
Speaker:Like it's a really cool family activity to build a 3D printer.
Speaker:And again, have that same conversation.
Speaker:And these seven or eight year olds are like, give them a couple of
Speaker:years and give them a couple of years with access to a 3D printer.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, I mean, I'll tell you, I have a, my son, there's three
Speaker:3d printers in the house.
Speaker:There's probably a dozen drones.
Speaker:There's robots.
Speaker:There's sumo robots.
Speaker:There's all sorts of stuff.
Speaker:And he has carte blanche, right?
Speaker:To them all.
Speaker:And he just like, I'll be away and he'll call me and say, Hey dad, the 3d
Speaker:printer stopped, or like is messing up.
Speaker:Do you want me to stop it?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:He knows how to stop it.
Speaker:You can clean it up and you can restart the print.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, he's eight.
Speaker:I mean, like, like, I'm scared about, you know, the next couple
Speaker:years as he really starts to get
Speaker:You're worried he's going to beat you.
Speaker:I mean it's, you know what?
Speaker:Go.
Speaker:Like, let's, like, that's perfect.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Because, I mean, as a parent, I want I want my kid to be better than I am.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like I want that.
Speaker:And I want that for all the kids, right?
Speaker:Like I want all these kids to have access to this technology
Speaker:so that we can see what they do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because I don't have to prescribe how to use it.
Speaker:I just want to teach you how to use it.
Speaker:And I want to see how you use it because that's where that
Speaker:innovation is going to come.
Speaker:curious what drunk adults would make on a 3d printer after they
Speaker:get the fundamental skills down.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We, we were going to limit the number of beers on that course, but yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's, it'll be
Speaker:So, I mean, I know, so now after we've talked about this, you've got your
Speaker:core fundamental courses you've been doing for a few years and you're still
Speaker:experimenting with some other ones to kind of see what, you know, product
Speaker:market fit for some of the other
Speaker:ones out there as, as you're trying to grow.
Speaker:What are like the ideal partners?
Speaker:What are the ideal resources that you need or that you're on the lookout for
Speaker:to help you further the mission along?
Speaker:So we love when we're looking to actually run a workshop, we partner with like
Speaker:nonprofits or community organizations.
Speaker:You know, we, our camps are, are higher priced because again, the kids are
Speaker:going home with whatever they built.
Speaker:So we, we like to find organizations that can help support that because, you
Speaker:know, going out to the public with a 3, 000 per student cost is pretty amazing.
Speaker:You know, probably not doable in most areas.
Speaker:But when we're looking for partners to execute or to like anybody that
Speaker:just wants to tell their story, right?
Speaker:Like, and within our ecosystem or within what we teach.
Speaker:So we teach inside of, you know, aerospace.
Speaker:So we do drones and we're going to look into like model rocketry and things
Speaker:like that advanced manufacturing.
Speaker:So 3D printing and then advanced 3D design.
Speaker:We're actually working on that course for next year.
Speaker:We have an AI course this summer.
Speaker:So again, that's like a five week course, but the kids are going to
Speaker:start learning large language models.
Speaker:They're going to learn how to do music using AI.
Speaker:We're going to teach them about Bitcoin and blockchain and all right.
Speaker:So, so in, and then of course our e sports, which right now is a,
Speaker:is a build your own PC course.
Speaker:We have IOT but then we also have like XR.
Speaker:So anybody inside of those industries who wants to just come and tell their story.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Or do you want to come teach?
Speaker:We'll teach you how we teach.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like we'll train you on the material and how we teach and those kinds of things.
Speaker:I'll even pay you.
Speaker:That's the value of a for profit company, right?
Speaker:Like I'll even pay you.
Speaker:So, you know, I haven't, again, I have instructors who are
Speaker:teachers who are students, right?
Speaker:Like high school and college.
Speaker:Like, if you are comfortable standing in front of a computer.
Speaker:Group and you have enough technical knowledge to be able
Speaker:to handle what we're doing.
Speaker:I'll hire, I'll bring you on, right?
Speaker:Because we, we have a need for instructors, but so organizations or
Speaker:people who are interested in telling that story or engaging with the kids.
Speaker:And one of my favorite stories.
Speaker:Was when we were helping Stafford County and we were bringing in guest speakers.
Speaker:We would put together a list of everything that like this particular
Speaker:class wanted to hear about.
Speaker:One of them was cybersecurity.
Speaker:We brought in this, we brought in a cybersecurity expert from a highly
Speaker:respected cybersecurity company.
Speaker:And he gets up in front of the class and he's like, I don't
Speaker:have any college degrees.
Speaker:I don't even have any industry certifications.
Speaker:And he's like one of the most well known, you know, at least
Speaker:inside of the community, right?
Speaker:Like hackers or, or cyber guys.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We love those stories, right?
Speaker:Because you get kids in there who are like, well, I don't want to go to college.
Speaker:Can we, you don't always have to, right?
Speaker:And so again, we just want to show these kids away.
Speaker:So if you are interested in doing that, we are interested in talking to you.
Speaker:Well, I appreciate the time today.
Speaker:This is great.
Speaker:Catch up.
Speaker:You know, like I said, I've seen this firsthand.
Speaker:I know the.
Speaker:The excitement that happens around the kids when they're in the programs
Speaker:and just just, it's awesome again, stuff that I wish that existed
Speaker:when I was their age that did not
Speaker:when your, your computer class involved learning how to format letters properly
Speaker:in different formats on a computer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:was the extent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:This Newfangled Electric typewriter.
Speaker:wants to reach out?
Speaker:What's the best way to reach out to you?
Speaker:So we are online, across pretty much every social media platform.
Speaker:, some form of Steam Bridge.
Speaker:So Steam Bridge Online or Steam Bridge, our website, you can go to steam bridge
Speaker:online.com, , or Joel at Steam Bridge net.
Speaker:Oldschool NET.
Speaker:Sounds good.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:I appreciate it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, thank you.
Speaker:I appreciate the opportunity.
