September 12, 2023 • 61 mins
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Carol Ann Dykes Logue is a treasure in the Central Florida technology, STEM and STEAM communities. Carol Ann is the Director of Programs & Operations at UCF Innovation Districts & Incubation Program. Her outlook on life is about being blessed with opportunities that have opened doors in the STEM, STEAM and tech industries that women dream of having. She shared the hardest lesson that she learned that changed your life is that a person’s fears and insecurities are not my fault. Insightful for all of us to remember so that we don’t carry baggage into our own lives and others around us. As we moved into the future of 2030 discussion, she shared that she saw the military using robotic dogs to guard the perimeter of a base. Shades of Black Mirror. Tune in to hear more from Carol Ann about ethical dilemmas moving into the future of 2030 and more about pearls of wisdom that were dropped throughout the show.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Hi, my name is IsabellaJohnston, the Intern Whisperer.
Our show is brought to you byEmployers 4 Change and today's tip
of the week continues our focus onunconscious bias in the area of beauty.
Now, beauty bias is a socialbehavior where people believe that
attractive people are more successful.
Competent and qualified.
(00:32):
While appearance, race aside, is notprotected by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, it is a form ofbias that is prominent in the workplace.
Many people connect beauty tohigher levels of intelligence,
social skills, and physical health.
This works to the advantage anddisadvantage of attractive workers.
(00:55):
So while appearance race aside isnot protected by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, it is a form ofbias that is prominent in the workplace.
Many people connect beauty tohigher levels of intelligence,
social skills, and physical health.
This can work to the advantage and thedisadvantage of attractive workers.
(01:17):
Physically attractive workers cango On to earn up to 15 percent more
than less attractive workers, butattractive candidates may also be
discriminated against by hiringteams due to perceived entitlement.
So how can you avoid beauty bias?
(01:37):
Well, to avoid that company should createstructured recruiting and interview
processes so that the team will be ableto compare applications and interviews.
Equally, and reduce the risk of biasphone screenings, as opposed to video
calls and unbiased technologies canalso help teams identify top candidates.
(02:00):
So, welcome to the interim whisper ourshows all about the future of work.
Today's guest is, so I want to welcomeCarol Ann Dykes Logue to the show.
She is the director of programsand operations, uh, person
over there at UCF innovationdistricts and incubation program.
She is, this is how I define her.
She is a community builder, a womanin tech that is highly regarded in our
(02:24):
community, and I consider a futurist.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you, Isabelle,and thank you for that.
Yeah, I'll take that introduction.
Okay.
Well, this is true though.
This is how I see you.
Um, so UCF, I know ithas eight incubators.
You're like a legend in all of this areaof central Florida, but I usually kick it
(02:44):
off so that we talk about five words thatdescribe you and why those five words.
So we went over this a little bit.
And if you need some prompting, it'sokay, but I know you came up with six.
So you're allowed to probably comeup with different ones this time.
That's fine.
That's fine.
I'll help you though.
The first one you said is.
Well, it's the last oneyou said positive positive.
(03:05):
Yeah.
Yes, which I Define myself that way andmany others do too because I do tend
to be optimistic and a lot of that isbecause of my faith, but also because I
look past the dark and the Not so goodin the world, and I just assume that
(03:30):
everybody I meet is really special andhas their own unique story and has.
Something that I can learn fromor some way I can help them.
They have a place on this earth,whether I ever really know what it
is or not, but, and there's justso much to be thankful for in life.
That's true.
I was really, um, I rememberwhen I first met you.
(03:53):
And you were down at, I know we're alittle bit off course here, but it was
the first time I met you and you're downat the UCF incubator and research park.
And I was talking to you about my ideaand you were saying, okay, now you need to
go back and you need to write a businessplan and you put me on the right path.
And that was the first time andyou're so knowledgeable and you
(04:14):
just, you touch more people's livesthan I think that you ever know.
I believe that.
Yeah.
I think that we all do.
Sure.
Yeah.
That ripple effect.
Yes.
You touch one person.
That person touches somebody else, oryou say something in the crowd or a
speech or presentation or on a podcastthose of you out there and you just
(04:35):
never know many times what impact it has.
Because that's true with.
My life to people that I've heardor people that I've met really just
in passing or watched from afar.
And had a big impact from so positive.
That was 1 word.
I know that I'm curious.
I can go down a rabbit hole real fast.
(04:58):
If I hear a word or.
The name, or somebody mentioned something,or a question pops into my head and I just
want to find out where did that come from?
What does that mean?
What's behind that name?
What's the history of that?
There's so much.
(05:19):
Around me around us in our world thatwe just are curious about how often do
you drive down a street or drive througha little town and you see the name of
the street or the name of the town andthink, I wonder why it's called that.
Thank goodness with the internet thesedays, there's a lot that we can find
(05:40):
and it's fascinating what we learnabout things or what's the name of
the company where it's behind that.
What's the story?
I always ask entrepreneurs or almostalways I try to remember when I meet
an entrepreneur for the first time.
Tell me the story behind thename of your company, because
it says something about them.
Words mean something or just so manythings anyway, part of it goes back to
(06:05):
just my, my background, I think too,but, um, I, I love to learn about things.
I'm just really curious.
I think that I'm, and many other peoplewould describe me as a connector.
I don't think I came up with thatword earlier, but that tends.
To be 1 of the things I find that I do,no matter what professional role I'm
(06:27):
in, it's something I get excited about.
It is just a gift that I've beengiven to use to see those potential
connections and want to make connectionsfor people because I feel like it's.
Something that would be helpful to them.
Certainly that.
Oh, what other words?
(06:47):
You said blessed.
Oh, blessed.
Oh, goodness.
That's why I didn'tstart out with that one.
I don't know, because I, because I gaveyou positive and I am positively blessed.
I just, I just am.
And certainly in so many ways froma material perspective and privilege
to live in Orlando and United Statesof America and in a place that's not.
(07:13):
Racked by war famine and allsorts of things that so many
people in the world go through.
I don't go through every day,wondering where my next meal is going
to come from or not having a bed tosleep in or worried about walking
out of my house or being shot below.
I guess we could be, but Idon't I don't worry about that.
(07:33):
Yeah, because it just.
So blessed to be where I am to havethe professional environment that
I have to have the friends I haveabsolutely beyond blessed to have
the family that I have, the husbandthat I have and just, just blessed.
So you also said resourceful.
I think you're very much so becauseyou work in a school environment.
(07:56):
We all know that schools, no matter howbig they are, they really don't have these
massive budgets that people think they do.
So how do you do it withlike Practically zero budget.
Yes, so it is an interesting task to beEntrepreneurial in an academic environment
(08:16):
and as you know, the other half ofmy role at UCF is with the Department
of Defense, the federal government.
So there's another interesting challengethere to be resourceful and support
and serve customers and get fundingfrom customers through a university
to do very entrepreneurial things.
(08:38):
So, but a lot of times it's, it'snot so much about the amount of
money you have or resources you have.
It's how you look at what theproblem is and what the need is.
And many times you don't need theamount of resources that you might.
That thought you did initiallyuntil you really get into it.
(09:01):
So, and just resourceful in solvingproblems and not taking no for an
answer, going back to being positive,always believing that there is
a way to get from here to there.
It may not be obvious and there maybe a lot of people along the way
that think there are not because theymay not understand or they may not
see it's okay to think differently.
(09:24):
So you just.
Keep asking nicely.
Yeah, that's very true.
You mentioned, um, Energetic.
Mmm.
You go to a lot of events.
I do, and I go to a lot fewerthan I used to, actually.
But, you know, part of it is because Asthe world has come out of a very unusual
(09:47):
time when we were all very isolatedand events quit happening and we all
went virtual and there's still a lotof virtual connectivity in this world.
I have seen in this community and Ithink in general, because I'm fine.
I'm on airplanes more nowagain that there's just.
This desire to be together in person,because that is an innate part of who
(10:11):
we are as humans and the understandingthat there's a richness there to being
in person that you're not going to get.
But for me, and in this community,and in the roles that I have at
UCF, it's important to be out inthe community and connect with.
(10:32):
Organizations across the communityand give visibility to the incubation
program to the Central Florida techgrowth certainly be an ambassador
for and I don't get enough sleep.
I understand.
And I do have an ability to.
Move pretty quickly throughthings for the most part and get
a lot done be pretty efficient.
(10:54):
A friend of mine.
Decided a little while ago thathe'd come up with a superhero name
for me and said, it's the bluras you're always moving so fast.
Yeah, that would be true.
That would be true.
Um, alright, so now we move on to the nextsection where, where did you go to school?
(11:16):
What was your major?
How did you end up to where you are now?
Because I know you've been herefor a long time, long time in
central Florida and not by design.
Most much of my careerhas not been by design.
But let's start back at thebeginning very, very short quickly.
I am much too many folks surprise avery simple farm girl from Arkansas.
(11:42):
I grew up on a farm, I mean,in the middle of nowhere.
Went to a very small public schoolsystem in eastern Arkansas and utterly,
completely blessed to have grown up inthat environment that so few people today
grow up in that kind of agriculturalrural environment where you really
(12:03):
are in nature that close to the earth.
You, you see where food comes from.
You see where it goes for life cycle.
You see the life cycle, you understandthe power and the importance of nature
of weather, all sorts of things.
So that is where I, uh, was blessedto grow up, went to the university
(12:27):
of Arkansas where I just was.
Headed to med school, as far as Iwas concerned, because of some other
things I've been exposed to early inlife, but got a little sidetracked
while I was in undergraduate school.
My undergraduate degree was in premed, butI had worked in the library part time at
the University of Arkansas, Fayettevillecampus and was really fascinated by.
(12:53):
knowledge, information management,and the really, really, really early
days of electronic information.
That was really early in those days.
I thought, oh gee, now I'm really torn.
I really love this stuff, thisinformation management, but I really
love healthcare and medicine and biologyand what in the heck am I going to do?
(13:17):
I did a little research because I amcurious and just stumbled on the fact
that I could go and get a master'sdegree in library and information
science with a specialization inhealth care, which is what I did.
I graduated from University ofArkansas, drove south to Baton
Rouge, Louisiana to Louisiana StateUniversity, where I completed a
(13:38):
master's in library information science.
When health care ended up applyingfor 1 job when I was about to graduate
and that was back in Arkansas at theUniversity of Arkansas Medical School,
where I was blessed to be offered aposition there because of background I
had and work there for a number of years.
(14:01):
Early days of online databases becausea lot of the early online databases
really started in medicine and defense.
So, does that make you a librarian?
I am a librarian and I am proudto say that I put my glasses on
and put my hair in a bun and Ican, I can meet that stereotype.
(14:21):
But, uh, you, but that's.
Very unlikely you'll run into too manyof these days in that world because
libraries and it's interesting alittle sidetrack, but today it's been
wonderful to watch the progression oflibraries media centers because they
really are a heartbeat of a community.
So many times.
And if you look at our orangecounty public library system
(14:44):
and how extraordinary it is.
Yeah, it's a file.
They've evolved to.
As many libraries have to meet theneeds of community and yet be still
that fundamental basic resource forfor reading and comprehending and
exploring the world through well,they fill a gap that we haven't had to
because they've taken some classes awaythat were in a secondary education.
(15:09):
And they turn them into like maker spaces.
So there's like sewing labs, there's 3Dprinting, if that's what you want, they
have all kinds of things, resources andcomputers and exposure to technology.
Yes.
So, yes.
So that's part of my background.
I was there in little rock, uh,ended up, uh, through a marriage.
(15:32):
Moving to San Diego, where I wasactually just working in, in an
accounting firm for a while, thisis another long part of the story.
My husband at the time decidedhe wanted to go back to college.
He was in the Marine Corpsand I wanted to go to officer
school, get his college degree.
We looked at a list of universities.
(15:52):
We said, well, we don'treally want to go north.
We're both from Arkansas.
We live in San Diego.
Let's just go across country.
The University of.
Florida, because they were on the list.
We're of course going to pay for it.
Right.
So we did, that's how I endedup in Florida at the university
of Florida at the time.
It's pretty rural there too.
Yeah, it was at the time.
Yeah.
(16:13):
Gainesville is not quiteas rural as it used to be.
And it's a magnificent universitytown with a really world class
university that I'm proud to have beenon the faculty of for quite a while.
Initially I was in the library there.
A couple of years after I gotthere, and this is where the
connection starts to make sense.
(16:34):
I was approached by a centeranchored in the College of
Engineering at University of Florida.
It was funded by NASA and was oneof their technology transfer and
commercialization support centers.
They knew I had that deep, what wasthen an unusual background in online
database information retrieval.
(16:54):
I had a scientific backgroundand they said we really need.
You okay, well, tell me more soundedlike an interesting opportunity.
So, I went across the street andjoined the faculty at the college of
engineering, where I was very blessedto be for a number of years, working
(17:15):
with companies that were interestedin partnering with NASA and other
federal agencies to pull innovationout of the agency and commercialize it.
Build business plans around it.
Go after, this was the really earlydays of the small business innovation
research, SBRTTR programs, otherthings like that, doing a lot of
market research to support them, tosupport NASA's decision about what even
(17:36):
made sense to try to commercialize.
Working with other agencies becauseof that, because NASA was one
of the few, they really the onlyagency that had a true national
tech transfer network at that time.
I was there for a while,then, uh, got recruited by.
A gentleman that had privatized a programout of the defense intelligence agency
(18:01):
that we'd actually been supporting throughthat center at University of Florida.
And he decided that I was thecandidate he needed as a vice
president for information services.
So, join that firm and, uh, was down inSouth Florida for a little while with
them working with, um, some defense.
Companies and some other interestingorganizations doing some unclassified
(18:26):
research information research forthem after a couple of years, got
a call from University of Florida.
Same center said, we've got abrand new program that we're
we've been funded by NASA to run.
And we really would likeyou to come back and run it.
Circumstances in life were justsuch that that was a good, good move
(18:47):
at the time for me and the family.
So we went back to Gainesville whereI was with that same center working
across the Southeast part of the U.
S.
and work, uh, universities andcompanies and multiple federal agencies.
And it was through that role thatI became familiar with a number of
(19:07):
folks at the University of CentralFlorida, because you UCF, was.
Part of our Southeast regionalnetwork to help carry out the
work we were doing for NASA.
So I met Dr.
O'Neill and Dr swallow and several ofthe other folks that had been really
instrumental and at UCF in the earlydays, watch them start this thing
(19:29):
called an incubator even helped.
Do a little work with some of thecompanies early on, and on 1 of my visits
to Orlando to visit our office at UCF, Dr.
O'Neill approached me andsaid, I really need to help.
And you kind of seem toknow how to do this time.
So what you think about coming?
(19:50):
Was that when the school was called FTU?
No, no, it was only FTU forthe first couple of years.
My dad went to school there fora second master's and it was FTU.
Yeah, so I don't, don't remember when thename officially changed, but that was in
the early 70s when that name changed, tookplace because UCF 60 years old this year.
So still a fairly young university tobe the second largest in the country.
(20:13):
That is true.
Yeah.
So the incubation programs.
This is the 23rd year forthe incubation program.
I, I came not at the very beginning,a few years into it, but just another
example that as you've seen, orhopefully heard in my story is that
most of my career path, it's not beenbecause I went looking for something.
(20:37):
It is because I was somewhere feelingvery blessed with what I had the chance
to do and was learning and contributingand somebody that I met along the
way thought I had some of what theyneeded to fill a role that they had.
(20:58):
And that really is howmy journey has unfolded.
So you probably didn't know this,but my first two years of college
was at University of Florida.
No, I didn't.
So go Gators.
All right.
Yes.
Yes.
I pledged a sorority house there.
And then I transferred to FSU,did the walk of shame, got sent
(21:18):
home because I flunked out.
Went back to school and I putmyself through Rollins College and
took my education classes at UCF.
So I'm pretty.
You're pretty equal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know a lot of those schools.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's different whenyou're paying your own bill.
It is.
I made A's.
There's no worries.
(21:38):
Um, I have another unrelated question.
So you lived on a farm.
Okay.
When I was a kid, I grew upin Kansas and very rural.
And I always had, but wedidn't live in the country.
Um, always had an idea thatthis would be so much fun.
Don't really know why it would begreat to live on a farm, have a giant
(21:58):
mud puddle diving board, and just.
Swim in the mud.
Did you do that?
Well, we have a mud puddle,but we had irrigation ponds.
So then some of them were prettydarn big and irrigation channels.
Yeah.
We actually could kind ofrow down in a little boat.
So, yeah.
(22:19):
Oh, okay.
So I was going, you know, how yougo to a spa and you're thinking it's
going to be a, a mud, a mud facial.
Right.
And I'm going.
That would be like the best mud facialever is like, well, the muddiest, the
muddy spots that we had on the farm wereactually where we were raising hogs.
So I would not recommendthat as a mud bath.
(22:39):
The hogs, that was the hog mud bath.
I didn't.
So did you have crops or wedid cotton, soybeans, peanuts.
Raised hogs.
Wow.
Yeah.
Chickens?
No chickens.
Pigs.
That's a, that's a lot.
Did you ever, this is like a gruesomething, but did you ever partake
(23:02):
in slaughtering them for food?
No.
They would get sent off in the truck.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yes.
And for those that are listeningthat are vegetarians, I do
understand the, the issues that that.
That brings because there's a reality andof, uh, the world and farming still is.
(23:23):
Yeah.
What was that book?
There was one about a slaughterhouse.
John Sinclair wrote it.
Yes.
I vaguely remember whatyou're talking about.
I think it's called The Slaughterhouse.
Yes.
I'm not sure.
I'll have to look it up.
Anyway, going back over here, whatis the hardest lesson that you
learned that changed your life?
That's a wonderful question toreflect on and it's an easy one
(23:48):
for me to answer because we do tendto remember pain and those lessons
that are most painful stick with us.
It took me a long time.
To get to the point in my life ina, and this was when I was in a
particular situation and particularwork environment, especially that I
(24:08):
had to learn the lesson that someoneelse's insecurities and fears.
And feeling threatened by another person,I didn't need to take ownership of
that, even though it felt very personal.
(24:28):
A lot of times the way it played out, butit, I came to realize that whether it was.
If there'd been somebody elsein the same role, it, they would
have treated them the same way.
Mm hmm.
Gave me a heart of compassion forsomeone that it's been very hard
(24:51):
for me to care for and respect evenas I came to understand that, that
it was not, it was not personal.
It was.
Fear and insecurity.
Mm hmm that they were grappling withand that's a very sad way to live
(25:12):
life Mm hmm and as I came to see thatin that situation it just really has
helped me see it more and more in peoplethat I Encounter because I think so
many people are so many of us We fearsan innate part of who we are and it
(25:32):
manifests itself in so many differentways many times it looks like Arrogance,
it looks like meanness, can look liketimidness, anger, anger's a big one.
Yeah, but I have through readingthe scripture through just a lot of
(25:57):
observation of people and coming tosee myself very clearly, I really
have come to believe personally thatFear is the fundamental emotion that
we all deal with and are driven by.
And very often we're unaware of it.
(26:20):
We don't know that that's the nameof it, what we're feeling because
it manifests itself as we weretalking about in some other way.
This ties into, uh, your favorite quoteand we looked this one up, so I'll read
it because you can expound on it for sure.
I thought it was beautiful too.
You said, um, earth, the earth iscrammed with heaven and every common
(26:44):
bush of fire with God, but onlyhe who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit aroundand pluck blackberries.
Yeah.
Thinking back to the words.
I responded with about describing myselfpositive, curious, optimistic, part of me.
(27:07):
There's So easy.
It's always been easy.
This is not new peopleout there listening.
There's nothing new in history.
Really?
This just go read your history books, youknow, and times have been darker times
have been worse There's other than inthe Garden of Eden there's not been a
(27:27):
time when there wasn't darkness and eviland violence and greed and reasons to be
fearful for life and suffering is justPart of who we are as humans, uh, right
now, unfortunately, however, there is somuch goodness in this world and people.
There's so much beauty in nature.
(27:49):
There's just so much.
I look at, I look at this wall, the color.
I mean, Look at that color.
It's really vibrant, right?
To a flower shop.
Walk into a botanical garden and doyou not marvel at, well, could, where
could this creativity have come from?
Look at art.
(28:09):
You walk into this building, which is artsand entertainment, and just think about
the gifts that people have been given.
You walk out in nature, you look atthe ocean, you go to the mountains,
you just, you read a book and how dopeople come up with this stuff, right?
There is just.
There's so much to be grateful forand there's so much that brings
beauty and joy for me and life.
(28:32):
And that's how I see life every day.
You know, that's, that's really a, awonderful thing to see because it's,
there's a, a quote that comes froma pretty woman when Julia Roberts
is, you know, laying in bed and shesays it's so easy to believe the bad
stuff, but it's, it's hard to believethe positive to be intentional.
(28:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have to.
I don't watch.
And that's what you're saying.
And I intentionally shield myselfat times because human nature
will take you down that path.
I don't watch a lot of news on TV.
I, I'll listen to some radio stations.
I'll listen to some podcasts, but Ichoose, I'm thoughtful about what I put
(29:19):
in my brain, what I let my eyes see, notbecause I'm trying to shield myself from
What reality because it's there and I'mvery realistic about human trafficking.
You're being a good steward.
Yes, I don't need to see the darkness.
It's there.
It's easy to see, but I do haveto be intentional about not
(29:43):
letting the darkness suck me in.
I agree.
Yep.
And those are choices.
Everything in life is a choice.
We can choose to go to the right,to the left, think positively, think
negatively, just everything is a choice.
Um, what are you most grateful for?
(30:04):
I am so grateful that God loves me andforgives me and that he's chosen to
bless me with the most amazing husband,incredible children and absolutely amazing
circle of friends and acquaintances.
And ability to just find joy and littlethings and not be dependent on the
(30:30):
external things to be joyful and grateful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just realize everythingwe have, it's already met.
We have what we need and then wehave abundance because we have so
much that we want and yeah, andthat we can just go get without.
Thinking about it too often.
Mm hmm.
Almond joys.
Yum.
(30:51):
Ooh, coconut chocolate.
Yeah, much better.
Yeah But in other countries I mightnot be able to get that that's
right Uh who in your life has hadthe biggest impact and how so my
I was blessed that she lived in the same,in the community close by where I grew up.
(31:16):
So I really grew up on the family farmthat my grandfather had started and
my grandfather ran the little generalstore in the town nearby and spent a
lot of days and nights and time at mygrandmother's house and at her side.
She was a remarkable woman who was.
(31:36):
Determined and she was very curious.
She was a writer.
She was a historian.
She made some really remarkablecontributions to discovering history
behind towns and cities and wouldstill remember putting on boots
and long pants and long sleeveshirts and tromping through just
(32:01):
growth in the forest to find long.
Overgrown graveyards, because shedid two whole books of graveyards,
burial plots, ancestry.com.
She was into Genealogy before.
Yes.
She did a lot of Genealogy and notjust, not just family Genealogy,
(32:22):
but just historically, you know,who grew up in this area, who's
buried here going back a long time.
Is that considered a part of the census?
It sounds like it was.
It's contributed to that.
Certainly she started a historical club.
She helped start the library in a smalltown, a close by the farm where I grew up.
And just, she was a, just a verystrong, positive woman, five children.
(32:50):
But when she was a Jesus girl, shewas, she was one of the first, one of
the first women to graduate from theuniversity she went to, you know, so just.
Very influential and, um, I personalitywise, I tend to be a lot like her and
I remember clearly growing up when mymother would get most irritated with
(33:13):
me, she would just shake her headand say, just like your grandmother.
Thank you.
It's not a bad thing.
Oh, and she, she took me traveling.
I have my first airplane, my first, my.
Her few international trips, it was mygrandmother took me with her on trips.
Did, was she married?
(33:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the grandmother, notas much the grandfather.
Right.
Yeah.
He was, he didn't liketo do that stuff so much.
He stayed and ran the store andthen he did pass away earlier, uh,
quite a few years before she did.
So, yeah.
So a little bit ofentrepreneurs in your life too.
You said they had a store, so.
Yeah.
I think being a farmer is a lot like.
(33:53):
It's a lot like, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's really hard.
Farming.
It's, it's high capital and, and alot of cost and a lot of, a lot of,
very demanding, very unpredictable.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Uh, let's see.
What would you like to be remembered for?
(34:14):
Being kind and bringingout the best in people.
I think you do that.
Helping them be their best self,however you want to word it.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
That's all that really matters.
And that and the legacy we live.
That's the legacy we leave.
How we touch otherpeople and our children.
(34:35):
Yeah.
Children are our legacy.
You have children?
Yes, I have a son and two stepchildren.
All grown, all off on their own,still waiting for grandkids.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Do they live here?
They do not.
My son and daughter in law justarrived in Anchorage, Alaska.
They're both physicians.
She's in the Air Force.
(34:55):
Wow.
So she's just started her job asan internal medicine doctor at
the Air Force base there and sonjust accepted a position with a.
Positions group, so they're up inbeautiful Anchorage, Alaska for a while.
Have you been there?
Not yet, but I will begoing to say the least.
Yeah, yeah.
(35:16):
I can't wait.
Stepson in Atlanta, thriving,doing extraordinarily well
in his real estate finance.
Background, working for a developmentcompany up there and stepdaughter and
her husband that live in Nashville.
She's an extraordinary,talented, um, salon stylist.
(35:37):
And her husband, Jack is actually the leadguitarist and songwriter for Jelly Roll.
For those who might be familiar with JellyRoll, who is a, quite a phenomenon these
days, swept the country music awards.
I'm going to have to go look that one up.
So we're going to take a break andacknowledge our sponsor, Transcend
(35:58):
Network, and we'll be right back.
Transcend Network helps early stagestartup founders find product market
fit through weekly experiments, receivefundraising support, and build a global
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The Intern Whisperer is affiliated withEmployers 4 Change, and we thank them.
(36:18):
Transcend Network for beinga sponsor of our show.
So we're back to thesecond half of our show.
We talk about the future ofjobs, industries, and 2030.
So this is anybody's game,you know, throw the die.
It's, it's all good.
Um, what do you think 2030is going to look like?
Because some people pull from the Jetsons.
Some people go to Terminator.
(36:39):
I don't know.
It could be anything, right?
So what do you thinkit's going to look like?
2030, seven years from now.
Well, we're halfway through the year.
So we are so six and a half years.
And the pace of innovation, these that I'mexposed to in the universe that I'm in, we
will certainly see a lot more autonomousrobotics, artificial intelligence, machine
(37:05):
learning, immersive technologies, noneof which are new, by the way, yes, have
all been out there for a very long time.
But like, many innovationstiming is everything.
Circumstances are everything and manytechnologies as new discoveries have been
(37:26):
made are really rising to the forefrontto come together because all those things
that I mentioned, immersive technologies,robotics, autonomous, they all feed
each other and there's just been anenormous amount of scientific discovery.
So I see certainly a lot more efficiency.
We're already seeing that with.
(37:46):
Autonomous and robotics and ai,and that will continue to automate.
That word scares a lot of people,but it's really just about bringing
efficiency to not take away jobs.
That's not the point.
It is to free up tedious tasks, tedioustasks that we really don't benefit from
(38:08):
spending an enormous amount of manual timeand energy on when it's so our listeners.
Copy and paste copy.
That would be a tedious task.
Yeah, there's lots of themthat actually come to that.
But, uh, we will see a lot ofindividuals in the workforce that are
(38:29):
a lot more of the continuous learning.
We see that now, but I, that willaccelerate because increasingly we cannot.
Survive and thrive or understandthe world we're in without
continuously learning new skills.
So everybody out there, don't beafraid, get on YouTube, get on
(38:51):
LinkedIn learning, go to your library.
You know, there's so many ways tojust take short courses and learn
about things and upscale yourself sothat you're aware of what's going on.
What I hope we see.
And I'm going, being my optimistic self,I'm going to say we will also see in
(39:13):
this increasing world of automation andefficiency that we will see as humans
that we become more humanly engaged aswe remove that burden of the tediousness.
I think we have two choices, either weisolate from each other, or we choose to
(39:38):
use that to connect because we have thetime and we have reason to connect because
we are gifted as human beings to have thehighest, most complex level of a brain
possible We're made for relationship.
We're made for relationships.
Mm hmm.
We're made for creative thinking.
(40:01):
AI and all that's great, butit is not going to reply.
We're a long ways.
Um, replacing a human brain, nomatter how efficient it may seem.
You know what I like is the fact that youoversee eight incubators, Volusia, right?
It's Volusia, Seminole, Orange, RossiolaCounty, and soon to be nine, Lake County.
(40:22):
We open Lake County in September.
Wow.
That's a lot.
So I sit here and I thinkabout everything that you see.
These are all kinds ofstartups all the way across.
They could be flying cars.
They could go and be.
Um, I think I know over at the, um, thebranch where Michael is on colonial is,
um, it was like, it was a race Spartan.
(40:45):
Was it Spartan?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember whenthey were like nothing.
Same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you've seen a lot of amazingconcepts come out of it.
You're also a part of, uh, likewhat we do with synapse, there's
the photon, uh, photonics.
Botanics.
Yeah.
That's out there.
That's a part in research parkway.
(41:06):
You're exposed to so much.
It's like, I think you would be, youguys out there would be some of the best
judges as yeah, this is what's coming.
It's, it's not hard to see becausethere's, there's two different
views of what trends are.
One is the technological trends,which tend to lag market trends.
(41:31):
Because we see the world that I'vebeen in most of my career, I see a
lot of stunning innovation, a lot ofamazing technology that is developed,
but the market's not ready for it yet.
So, though, you have to balance those2 just because there's a lot of buzz
about technology stuff doesn't mean thatyou're going to see it in the market yet.
(41:55):
Um, so I look at market conditions and.
What's being adopted?
What's being utilized?
Okay.
I know you probably can't say,but do you see Jetson flying cars?
Oh, yeah.
I mean Lilliam's already building there.
They're Wow air taxi Heliportin Lake Nona the German company.
They've they announced a few years agoAnd does it look like the Jetsons George
(42:19):
Jetsons car it it looks a little nicerthan that I know and actually we've
had Two or three companies apply tothe incubator in recent years that they
are air air taxis autonomous air taxis.
That absolutely is a real thing,and it will not be too long
before we see that actually in usefederal aviation administration.
(42:44):
You go to their next gen center where theylook at the future airport of the world
and they're monitoring and simulating thatair taxis are absolutely part of that.
So you've gone to groundswell right overthere and I go down there quite often.
Yeah.
So, um, I always sit here and I think,you know, how could we go to space in
(43:04):
more lightweight but safe vehicles?
I, that show I told you about the futureof, they were talking about having,
um, a hotel that would be on the moonand we would be able to stay there.
And there was, uh, Okay.
When I, I listened to it again last weekand they were talking about how there's
(43:26):
just deep oceans of water on the darkside of the moon that people don't know.
I so would love to follow youfor a week and just see all of
the cool stuff that you see.
I, yeah, I, I definitely want to.
There's people that I knowthat I say that about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know Baron Mills, he's over therewith, um, the phototonics, right.
(43:47):
College, our college ofoptics and photonics.
And then also with theFlorida photonics cluster.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So many cool things.
Well, have you seen robots out there?
Do they have robots?
So I don't know.
They're functional robots, of course,like the Boston dogs, for example, uh,
if you were to go, well, you can't goto some of the areas of Patrick space
(44:11):
for space here on the space coast,they have robotic security guards.
And I've had the chance to actually,in fact, I had space for some of the
guardians come to groundswell for anevent that I hosted when I was there
and they brought one of the robots.
Okay.
That's straight from black mirror.
(44:31):
Okay.
Yeah.
I was sharing about it,but yeah, it's really cool.
And, uh, these robots aremonitoring the perimeter of,
uh, Patrick space force base.
And so that's.
Not real new.
No, it's not.
There's robots in a restaurant inOsceola County that deliver your food.
Yes, table.
Absolutely.
(44:52):
Yes.
And I think we'll see thoseincreasingly certainly because
it's a matter of great efficiency.
If you go into a lot of healthcare hospitals, these days, you
see robots that deliver them andso that's been around for a while.
Just maybe hasn't been asadopted as extensively as
we're starting to see it now.
Other than.
Mhm.
(45:12):
An industrial sites, which most peopledon't see, most of us aren't walking
around manufacturing floors very oftenwhere they've had enormous amount
of robotics for a very long time.
If you go into any, I was recentlyover in, um, hungry and had a
chance to tour out his largest.
(45:34):
Manufacturing facility on the planet andthe robotics in there were just stunning,
but that's how they make all those.
So let's also point out the, um,UCF, the health center that's out
there in Lake Nona and the WhitHouse and all of those cool things.
Let's talk about some of that.
(45:54):
What is the medical?
I know it's the UCF medicalcenter, but there is a.
Health incubator that's outthere in that Lake Nona area.
That is one of our UCO incubators.
Our life sciences incubator.
There you go.
It's on the 2nd floor of theguide will building in Lake Nona,
and it is a biotech incubator.
(46:17):
That's what it was built.
The physical facility was builtfor, because it's the only
facility in central Florida with.
Biotech life sciences, laboratories likethat, that you can rent for a few years as
a young company and then graduate out of.
And we've been fortunate to havea number of companies that have
(46:38):
successfully graduated out of there.
We have a few offices in there as well,and we have other companies that are
not in the lab, but they're workingon digital health care solutions
or other products that they don'tactually need that laboratory space.
But that's where that.
Incubator needed to be becauseit is in the health center of a
(47:01):
cluster of health care industries.
There's a lot more to like, no, no,obviously the health care, but that is
where you see a college of medicine isour newly announced college and nursing
building will be built right there.
Our teaching hospital is right there.
Our Burnett college of biomedicalsciences is all right there
clustered around along with.
(47:22):
The largest VA hospital in the country,Morris Children's Hospital, University
of Florida's pharmacy department,our UCF Cancer Center as well, so,
uh, the Veterans Administration'sNational Center for Simulation and
Training and Healthcare is rightthere, too, next to the VA hospital.
So, there's just a lotof really extraordinary.
(47:45):
Research and application and clinicalhealth care taking place there
and our incubator is part of thatresearch and commercialization.
I don't know.
It's just like.
You said there's going to be nine.
I can just imagine that, you know, youspend one day at your office and then
you're checking out all of the other ones.
(48:07):
I would think even if you do thatonce a month, that's nine outings
just to see what's going on.
Yeah.
So this week, uh, yesterdayI was up in winter Springs
incubator for part of the day.
Tomorrow I'll be at our Lake Nonaincubator for part of the day.
That office looks gorgeous.
And then Friday I'll be up in the.
They don't at our relish incubators.
Yeah, really cool.
(48:28):
Really cool stuff that'sgoing on over there.
Um, what ethical dilemmas doyou foresee with all of this
stuff that's coming out here?
Because this is usually myquestion is just because we
can, does that mean we should?
It never means we should.
Yeah.
I, I like the Walmart greeters.
(48:48):
I like going into a McDonald'sand having somebody tell me hello.
And I don't think we'll see robots there.
No, there is.
There's actually a McDonald's and Ibelieve it's here in Central Florida.
There is no humans in it.
You just go in, get yourfood and it comes out.
You know, I can perhaps sort of see thatin some of the fast food, the restaurants.
(49:09):
I, I don't know.
And I, and it's a mixed perspective inmy mind because as someone who coaches
business owners and entrepreneurs, there'sbusiness decisions to be made sure we
want these companies to stay in business.
And yet we complain greatly.
There's a robot or they stop doing thingsor stop providing services and other
(49:34):
things because oftentimes we just, wedon't necessarily understand the business
drivers behind it and the challengesthat they may be having as a business,
obviously, but yeah, the cost of hiringan hourly wage, you know, has, has
gone up, but there's this place whereI never worked in a restaurant when I
was growing up, I, I did other jobs,but those are the jobs that have helped.
(49:56):
People get more of thecustomer service skills.
I sometimes think that we shouldall be required to work in a
customer service facing position.
No, I've worked in retail.
Yeah, retail.
That's another one.
Yeah.
Hospitality.
I was in movie theaters and retail.
Yeah.
And yeah, it just gives youa different perspective on.
(50:17):
Oh, yeah.
It gives us an empathy, I think,and an understanding that we don't
get otherwise if we've not beenon the other side of the table.
Back to your question aboutethical dilemmas, that's.
Always an issue with technology,it's, it's an issue as a human, right?
Let's take technology outof the picture as humans.
(50:40):
Every day, every hour, every minute ofevery day, I make choices about decisions.
What's right?
What's wrong?
Am I going to lie about this?
Am I going to tell the truth?
Am I going to give that person?
What's really.
I owe them.
Am I not every there's life is justa series of ethical decisions in many
(51:04):
ways when it comes to technology.
It's no different because thetechnology itself just like money.
There's nothing evil about money.
There's nothing evil about technology.
So don't get angry with AI.
Don't get angry with the robot.
(51:26):
The choice is how somebodydecides to use the technology.
So the ethical decision is a humanissue and really has nothing to
do with what the technology is.
Human nature is such that there willalways be those that choose to use.
Anything technology or not for personalgain at the expense of other people.
(51:51):
So the reality we face.
You, we're going to take alittle quantum jump over here.
You mentioned something earlier aboutOpenAI, and I pulled this quote up here,
and it was only released six hours ago.
It says, OpenAI, the company behindChatGPT, has removed its AI classifier
tool meant to inform users whether textis created by artificial intelligence
(52:14):
due to its low rate of accuracy.
The company made the announcement onJuly 20th on its blog, saying that
the tool is no longer available.
That begs the question, wasthat an ethical choice or not?
To me, on the surface, I would say...
No, that's wrong.
(52:36):
I mean, one of the challengeswith AI is how do you know?
Yeah, it's the whole large languagedata pool that is, you know, being
able to, and then that interestingpart of that reason that you read
because of its low level of accuracy.
Yeah.
Well, if I go down that thread,then I think, well, maybe, yes,
(52:56):
maybe they should have removed itbecause if it was giving a lot more.
False positives then I mean, do we wantto covet test or a flute to history?
Yes, strep throat test or whateverthat has a very low level of accuracy.
Mm hmm.
Is it better to not have it at all?
Mm hmm.
So the question in my mindand that's a new story.
(53:19):
So I wonder what's the source of it?
Is it really accurate?
What's the backstory?
Mm hmm.
What are they?
Doing to fill that void because aresponsible company, which open AI
has generally tended to be a veryresponsible company from what I've seen.
And there may be listenersthat violently disagree with.
(53:39):
That's okay.
But I would ask that question.
What are they going to do now?
Because.
1 of the issues with as we know, andnow we have the federal government,
our federal government tryingto figure out how to regulate.
So this will all be interesting.
But companies companies in thesereally bleeding edge technologies
(54:03):
areas have a lot of ethical.
The limits and choices.
Yeah, there was this fear.
We're in these fourthindustrial revolution, right?
The fifth one's right around the corner.
If we're not already in it, I think weare So when we see these kinds of things
that come out go back to Stone Age.
Well, we used to write Hieroglyphicson walls we move fast forward We got
(54:26):
the printing press because you knowIt's all made by hand with monks and
then we got the printing press then wejump quantum leap again The Internet.
Oh, my God.
Everybody's terrifiedof the Internet ChatGPT.
Is just the same as the Internet.
It's just putting all ofthat information together.
It's just a better version.
(54:47):
So here's the thing I go withwhen the Internet was up.
Well, it's on the Internet.
It must be true.
Oh, and the same logic.
It's chat.
It must be true.
It was printed.
Off the printing press in thenewspaper, it must be true.
Now it's on the internet.
It must be true.
Now it's AI.
It must be true.
Come on, people.
Be curious.
Yeah.
(55:07):
And that goes back to thewhole thing about ethics.
You need to ask the why.
You need to not just be afraid.
Right.
Or blindly assuming thatjust, just because, right.
Be curious.
Yeah.
That's why.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because that is how we distinguishhumans, humanity from what we're creating.
(55:29):
We are creating this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was like, yeah, thisis our thing, you know?
Yeah.
So we can be good stewards of it.
We can shepherd it, uh, wellinto whatever we want it.
To be honestly, so we are, it's sohard to believe we're at the, like
the end, we're almost at the end.
I've never had this much of a luxuryof having a long conversation with
(55:52):
you because we are always at eventsand it's like, there's a line.
Then we get interrupted by somebody.
The longest conversation I've ever hadwith you is when we go to the game jams
and I get to spend like 10 minutes.
So go, wow, that's a long time.
So anyway, uh, best mentoring advice thatyou want to share with our listeners.
(56:17):
Recognize that you are very likelyto be best mentored by someone who
is surprisingly different from you.
That's true.
Very true.
Working with entrepreneurs.
In our mentoring program mm-hmm.
. And when we ask them what kind ofprofile would you like to see in your
(56:42):
mentor, they often, it's somebodyfrom the same industry, you know,
that's done this and it's donethis and, and it looks like them.
Uh, in a lot of ways, it oftendoes, and that that may be
what they need at the time.
But many times we find that through our.
curation process for our mentoringprogram, we end up suggesting that
(57:03):
they meet with somebody that theywould never have picked on their own.
And those usually tend to be themost impactful mentoring situations.
So recognize that it may be,you may need somebody radically
different from yourself.
But even before that, I'll give twopieces bogo here, recognize that
(57:29):
we're, we're mentored every day.
We let ourselves be.
Mm hmm.
Mentoring tends to, I think in manyof people's minds, have this structure
to it, you know, and, and the rightkind of mentoring relationship it
can, but there's just so many waysthat we get mentored every day in
ways we often don't even recognize.
(57:51):
Think about those people in your,your world, those of you that are
listening, think about who you're around.
Repeatedly, maybe, and maybe youdon't even talk to them a lot, but you
watch them, you hear them, you see howthey behave, you see how they treat
other people, you see how they makedecisions, or maybe it is a situation
(58:11):
where you're fortunate to have achance to interact with somebody, and
you don't think of it as a mentoringrelationship, but you realize that you're
being mentoring, influenced by them.
They are challenging you to thinkabout who you are, why you do
things, how you do things, and tothink about things differently in
(58:31):
ways that make you a better person.
So I'm going to add on to that.
I teach three, uh, three andfour year olds at church.
I think they're the best teachers forme on how to handle adults, but I'm
even going to go another step further.
farther, whichever.
I think that I learned more from adog, a pet, how animals interact, and
(58:53):
how we should be treating each other.
Dogs are the best examples of empathy,you know, and they They don't yell at you,
you know, well, sometimes if you, theymay try to bite you, but that's because
you hurt them because they're afraid.
So as someone who does a lot ofvolunteer work for a small dog
(59:13):
rescue, we could do another pod.
Oh my gosh.
On what you learn from working.
Volunteering with animals, rescueanimals of any sort, but particularly
dogs, I think, because the uniquerelationship humans have with canines.
Yeah.
Very nice.
So we always share ways ourlisteners can connect with you.
(59:35):
We have up here, the incubator.ucf.edupage, we put up your linkedin profile.
Is there another way thatpeople can connect or follow you
facebook, twitter, instagram?
I do have a facebook page.
I do have a twitter account c adykes, but i'm not that hard to find.
(59:58):
I don't think so.
I've been told.
Gotcha.
Well, we'll make sure that weshare that, um, on the close card.
And I just want to thankyou so much for being here.
It's been a joy, Isabella.
Oh, my gosh.
It's, it's always such anhonor to spend time with you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you all for stickingwith us and listening.
(01:00:18):
Thank you to our sponsor, Cat5Studios and our video production
and editing team, Dave LaPorte,Tommy Myers, and Andrew Piggott.
Music is by Sophie Lloyd.
Visit Employers 4 Change at www.e4c.tech.
To learn how you can create real diversityand inclusive culture while skilling
(01:00:42):
your people for the future of work.
We also want to thank you for supportingthe Intern Whisperer by subscribing
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And please be sure to leave usa comment and share the show.
Hi, my name is IsabellaJohnston, the Intern Whisperer.
Our show is brought to you byEmployers 4 Change and today's tip
of the week continues our focus onunconscious bias in the area of beauty.
Now, beauty bias is a socialbehavior where people believe that
attractive people are more successful.
Competent and qualified.
(00:32):
While appearance, race aside, is notprotected by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, it is a form ofbias that is prominent in the workplace.
Many people connect beauty tohigher levels of intelligence,
social skills, and physical health.
This works to the advantage anddisadvantage of attractive workers.
(00:55):
So while appearance race aside isnot protected by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, it is a form ofbias that is prominent in the workplace.
Many people connect beauty tohigher levels of intelligence,
social skills, and physical health.
This can work to the advantage and thedisadvantage of attractive workers.
(01:17):
Physically attractive workers cango On to earn up to 15 percent more
than less attractive workers, butattractive candidates may also be
discriminated against by hiringteams due to perceived entitlement.
So how can you avoid beauty bias?
(01:37):
Well, to avoid that company should createstructured recruiting and interview
processes so that the team will be ableto compare applications and interviews.
Equally, and reduce the risk of biasphone screenings, as opposed to video
calls and unbiased technologies canalso help teams identify top candidates.
(02:00):
So, welcome to the interim whisper ourshows all about the future of work.
Today's guest is, so I want to welcomeCarol Ann Dykes Logue to the show.
She is the director of programsand operations, uh, person
over there at UCF innovationdistricts and incubation program.
She is, this is how I define her.
She is a community builder, a womanin tech that is highly regarded in our
(02:24):
community, and I consider a futurist.
So welcome to the show.
Thank you, Isabelle,and thank you for that.
Yeah, I'll take that introduction.
Okay.
Well, this is true though.
This is how I see you.
Um, so UCF, I know ithas eight incubators.
You're like a legend in all of this areaof central Florida, but I usually kick it
(02:44):
off so that we talk about five words thatdescribe you and why those five words.
So we went over this a little bit.
And if you need some prompting, it'sokay, but I know you came up with six.
So you're allowed to probably comeup with different ones this time.
That's fine.
That's fine.
I'll help you though.
The first one you said is.
Well, it's the last oneyou said positive positive.
(03:05):
Yeah.
Yes, which I Define myself that way andmany others do too because I do tend
to be optimistic and a lot of that isbecause of my faith, but also because I
look past the dark and the Not so goodin the world, and I just assume that
(03:30):
everybody I meet is really special andhas their own unique story and has.
Something that I can learn fromor some way I can help them.
They have a place on this earth,whether I ever really know what it
is or not, but, and there's justso much to be thankful for in life.
That's true.
I was really, um, I rememberwhen I first met you.
(03:53):
And you were down at, I know we're alittle bit off course here, but it was
the first time I met you and you're downat the UCF incubator and research park.
And I was talking to you about my ideaand you were saying, okay, now you need to
go back and you need to write a businessplan and you put me on the right path.
And that was the first time andyou're so knowledgeable and you
(04:14):
just, you touch more people's livesthan I think that you ever know.
I believe that.
Yeah.
I think that we all do.
Sure.
Yeah.
That ripple effect.
Yes.
You touch one person.
That person touches somebody else, oryou say something in the crowd or a
speech or presentation or on a podcastthose of you out there and you just
(04:35):
never know many times what impact it has.
Because that's true with.
My life to people that I've heardor people that I've met really just
in passing or watched from afar.
And had a big impact from so positive.
That was 1 word.
I know that I'm curious.
I can go down a rabbit hole real fast.
(04:58):
If I hear a word or.
The name, or somebody mentioned something,or a question pops into my head and I just
want to find out where did that come from?
What does that mean?
What's behind that name?
What's the history of that?
There's so much.
(05:19):
Around me around us in our world thatwe just are curious about how often do
you drive down a street or drive througha little town and you see the name of
the street or the name of the town andthink, I wonder why it's called that.
Thank goodness with the internet thesedays, there's a lot that we can find
(05:40):
and it's fascinating what we learnabout things or what's the name of
the company where it's behind that.
What's the story?
I always ask entrepreneurs or almostalways I try to remember when I meet
an entrepreneur for the first time.
Tell me the story behind thename of your company, because
it says something about them.
Words mean something or just so manythings anyway, part of it goes back to
(06:05):
just my, my background, I think too,but, um, I, I love to learn about things.
I'm just really curious.
I think that I'm, and many other peoplewould describe me as a connector.
I don't think I came up with thatword earlier, but that tends.
To be 1 of the things I find that I do,no matter what professional role I'm
(06:27):
in, it's something I get excited about.
It is just a gift that I've beengiven to use to see those potential
connections and want to make connectionsfor people because I feel like it's.
Something that would be helpful to them.
Certainly that.
Oh, what other words?
(06:47):
You said blessed.
Oh, blessed.
Oh, goodness.
That's why I didn'tstart out with that one.
I don't know, because I, because I gaveyou positive and I am positively blessed.
I just, I just am.
And certainly in so many ways froma material perspective and privilege
to live in Orlando and United Statesof America and in a place that's not.
(07:13):
Racked by war famine and allsorts of things that so many
people in the world go through.
I don't go through every day,wondering where my next meal is going
to come from or not having a bed tosleep in or worried about walking
out of my house or being shot below.
I guess we could be, but Idon't I don't worry about that.
(07:33):
Yeah, because it just.
So blessed to be where I am to havethe professional environment that
I have to have the friends I haveabsolutely beyond blessed to have
the family that I have, the husbandthat I have and just, just blessed.
So you also said resourceful.
I think you're very much so becauseyou work in a school environment.
(07:56):
We all know that schools, no matter howbig they are, they really don't have these
massive budgets that people think they do.
So how do you do it withlike Practically zero budget.
Yes, so it is an interesting task to beEntrepreneurial in an academic environment
(08:16):
and as you know, the other half ofmy role at UCF is with the Department
of Defense, the federal government.
So there's another interesting challengethere to be resourceful and support
and serve customers and get fundingfrom customers through a university
to do very entrepreneurial things.
(08:38):
So, but a lot of times it's, it'snot so much about the amount of
money you have or resources you have.
It's how you look at what theproblem is and what the need is.
And many times you don't need theamount of resources that you might.
That thought you did initiallyuntil you really get into it.
(09:01):
So, and just resourceful in solvingproblems and not taking no for an
answer, going back to being positive,always believing that there is
a way to get from here to there.
It may not be obvious and there maybe a lot of people along the way
that think there are not because theymay not understand or they may not
see it's okay to think differently.
(09:24):
So you just.
Keep asking nicely.
Yeah, that's very true.
You mentioned, um, Energetic.
Mmm.
You go to a lot of events.
I do, and I go to a lot fewerthan I used to, actually.
But, you know, part of it is because Asthe world has come out of a very unusual
(09:47):
time when we were all very isolatedand events quit happening and we all
went virtual and there's still a lotof virtual connectivity in this world.
I have seen in this community and Ithink in general, because I'm fine.
I'm on airplanes more nowagain that there's just.
This desire to be together in person,because that is an innate part of who
(10:11):
we are as humans and the understandingthat there's a richness there to being
in person that you're not going to get.
But for me, and in this community,and in the roles that I have at
UCF, it's important to be out inthe community and connect with.
(10:32):
Organizations across the communityand give visibility to the incubation
program to the Central Florida techgrowth certainly be an ambassador
for and I don't get enough sleep.
I understand.
And I do have an ability to.
Move pretty quickly throughthings for the most part and get
a lot done be pretty efficient.
(10:54):
A friend of mine.
Decided a little while ago thathe'd come up with a superhero name
for me and said, it's the bluras you're always moving so fast.
Yeah, that would be true.
That would be true.
Um, alright, so now we move on to the nextsection where, where did you go to school?
(11:16):
What was your major?
How did you end up to where you are now?
Because I know you've been herefor a long time, long time in
central Florida and not by design.
Most much of my careerhas not been by design.
But let's start back at thebeginning very, very short quickly.
I am much too many folks surprise avery simple farm girl from Arkansas.
(11:42):
I grew up on a farm, I mean,in the middle of nowhere.
Went to a very small public schoolsystem in eastern Arkansas and utterly,
completely blessed to have grown up inthat environment that so few people today
grow up in that kind of agriculturalrural environment where you really
(12:03):
are in nature that close to the earth.
You, you see where food comes from.
You see where it goes for life cycle.
You see the life cycle, you understandthe power and the importance of nature
of weather, all sorts of things.
So that is where I, uh, was blessedto grow up, went to the university
(12:27):
of Arkansas where I just was.
Headed to med school, as far as Iwas concerned, because of some other
things I've been exposed to early inlife, but got a little sidetracked
while I was in undergraduate school.
My undergraduate degree was in premed, butI had worked in the library part time at
the University of Arkansas, Fayettevillecampus and was really fascinated by.
(12:53):
knowledge, information management,and the really, really, really early
days of electronic information.
That was really early in those days.
I thought, oh gee, now I'm really torn.
I really love this stuff, thisinformation management, but I really
love healthcare and medicine and biologyand what in the heck am I going to do?
(13:17):
I did a little research because I amcurious and just stumbled on the fact
that I could go and get a master'sdegree in library and information
science with a specialization inhealth care, which is what I did.
I graduated from University ofArkansas, drove south to Baton
Rouge, Louisiana to Louisiana StateUniversity, where I completed a
(13:38):
master's in library information science.
When health care ended up applyingfor 1 job when I was about to graduate
and that was back in Arkansas at theUniversity of Arkansas Medical School,
where I was blessed to be offered aposition there because of background I
had and work there for a number of years.
(14:01):
Early days of online databases becausea lot of the early online databases
really started in medicine and defense.
So, does that make you a librarian?
I am a librarian and I am proudto say that I put my glasses on
and put my hair in a bun and Ican, I can meet that stereotype.
(14:21):
But, uh, you, but that's.
Very unlikely you'll run into too manyof these days in that world because
libraries and it's interesting alittle sidetrack, but today it's been
wonderful to watch the progression oflibraries media centers because they
really are a heartbeat of a community.
So many times.
And if you look at our orangecounty public library system
(14:44):
and how extraordinary it is.
Yeah, it's a file.
They've evolved to.
As many libraries have to meet theneeds of community and yet be still
that fundamental basic resource forfor reading and comprehending and
exploring the world through well,they fill a gap that we haven't had to
because they've taken some classes awaythat were in a secondary education.
(15:09):
And they turn them into like maker spaces.
So there's like sewing labs, there's 3Dprinting, if that's what you want, they
have all kinds of things, resources andcomputers and exposure to technology.
Yes.
So, yes.
So that's part of my background.
I was there in little rock, uh,ended up, uh, through a marriage.
(15:32):
Moving to San Diego, where I wasactually just working in, in an
accounting firm for a while, thisis another long part of the story.
My husband at the time decidedhe wanted to go back to college.
He was in the Marine Corpsand I wanted to go to officer
school, get his college degree.
We looked at a list of universities.
(15:52):
We said, well, we don'treally want to go north.
We're both from Arkansas.
We live in San Diego.
Let's just go across country.
The University of.
Florida, because they were on the list.
We're of course going to pay for it.
Right.
So we did, that's how I endedup in Florida at the university
of Florida at the time.
It's pretty rural there too.
Yeah, it was at the time.
Yeah.
(16:13):
Gainesville is not quiteas rural as it used to be.
And it's a magnificent universitytown with a really world class
university that I'm proud to have beenon the faculty of for quite a while.
Initially I was in the library there.
A couple of years after I gotthere, and this is where the
connection starts to make sense.
(16:34):
I was approached by a centeranchored in the College of
Engineering at University of Florida.
It was funded by NASA and was oneof their technology transfer and
commercialization support centers.
They knew I had that deep, what wasthen an unusual background in online
database information retrieval.
(16:54):
I had a scientific backgroundand they said we really need.
You okay, well, tell me more soundedlike an interesting opportunity.
So, I went across the street andjoined the faculty at the college of
engineering, where I was very blessedto be for a number of years, working
(17:15):
with companies that were interestedin partnering with NASA and other
federal agencies to pull innovationout of the agency and commercialize it.
Build business plans around it.
Go after, this was the really earlydays of the small business innovation
research, SBRTTR programs, otherthings like that, doing a lot of
market research to support them, tosupport NASA's decision about what even
(17:36):
made sense to try to commercialize.
Working with other agencies becauseof that, because NASA was one
of the few, they really the onlyagency that had a true national
tech transfer network at that time.
I was there for a while,then, uh, got recruited by.
A gentleman that had privatized a programout of the defense intelligence agency
(18:01):
that we'd actually been supporting throughthat center at University of Florida.
And he decided that I was thecandidate he needed as a vice
president for information services.
So, join that firm and, uh, was down inSouth Florida for a little while with
them working with, um, some defense.
Companies and some other interestingorganizations doing some unclassified
(18:26):
research information research forthem after a couple of years, got
a call from University of Florida.
Same center said, we've got abrand new program that we're
we've been funded by NASA to run.
And we really would likeyou to come back and run it.
Circumstances in life were justsuch that that was a good, good move
(18:47):
at the time for me and the family.
So we went back to Gainesville whereI was with that same center working
across the Southeast part of the U.
S.
and work, uh, universities andcompanies and multiple federal agencies.
And it was through that role thatI became familiar with a number of
(19:07):
folks at the University of CentralFlorida, because you UCF, was.
Part of our Southeast regionalnetwork to help carry out the
work we were doing for NASA.
So I met Dr.
O'Neill and Dr swallow and several ofthe other folks that had been really
instrumental and at UCF in the earlydays, watch them start this thing
(19:29):
called an incubator even helped.
Do a little work with some of thecompanies early on, and on 1 of my visits
to Orlando to visit our office at UCF, Dr.
O'Neill approached me andsaid, I really need to help.
And you kind of seem toknow how to do this time.
So what you think about coming?
(19:50):
Was that when the school was called FTU?
No, no, it was only FTU forthe first couple of years.
My dad went to school there fora second master's and it was FTU.
Yeah, so I don't, don't remember when thename officially changed, but that was in
the early 70s when that name changed, tookplace because UCF 60 years old this year.
So still a fairly young university tobe the second largest in the country.
(20:13):
That is true.
Yeah.
So the incubation programs.
This is the 23rd year forthe incubation program.
I, I came not at the very beginning,a few years into it, but just another
example that as you've seen, orhopefully heard in my story is that
most of my career path, it's not beenbecause I went looking for something.
(20:37):
It is because I was somewhere feelingvery blessed with what I had the chance
to do and was learning and contributingand somebody that I met along the
way thought I had some of what theyneeded to fill a role that they had.
(20:58):
And that really is howmy journey has unfolded.
So you probably didn't know this,but my first two years of college
was at University of Florida.
No, I didn't.
So go Gators.
All right.
Yes.
Yes.
I pledged a sorority house there.
And then I transferred to FSU,did the walk of shame, got sent
(21:18):
home because I flunked out.
Went back to school and I putmyself through Rollins College and
took my education classes at UCF.
So I'm pretty.
You're pretty equal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know a lot of those schools.
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it's different whenyou're paying your own bill.
It is.
I made A's.
There's no worries.
(21:38):
Um, I have another unrelated question.
So you lived on a farm.
Okay.
When I was a kid, I grew upin Kansas and very rural.
And I always had, but wedidn't live in the country.
Um, always had an idea thatthis would be so much fun.
Don't really know why it would begreat to live on a farm, have a giant
(21:58):
mud puddle diving board, and just.
Swim in the mud.
Did you do that?
Well, we have a mud puddle,but we had irrigation ponds.
So then some of them were prettydarn big and irrigation channels.
Yeah.
We actually could kind ofrow down in a little boat.
So, yeah.
(22:19):
Oh, okay.
So I was going, you know, how yougo to a spa and you're thinking it's
going to be a, a mud, a mud facial.
Right.
And I'm going.
That would be like the best mud facialever is like, well, the muddiest, the
muddy spots that we had on the farm wereactually where we were raising hogs.
So I would not recommendthat as a mud bath.
(22:39):
The hogs, that was the hog mud bath.
I didn't.
So did you have crops or wedid cotton, soybeans, peanuts.
Raised hogs.
Wow.
Yeah.
Chickens?
No chickens.
Pigs.
That's a, that's a lot.
Did you ever, this is like a gruesomething, but did you ever partake
(23:02):
in slaughtering them for food?
No.
They would get sent off in the truck.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yes.
And for those that are listeningthat are vegetarians, I do
understand the, the issues that that.
That brings because there's a reality andof, uh, the world and farming still is.
(23:23):
Yeah.
What was that book?
There was one about a slaughterhouse.
John Sinclair wrote it.
Yes.
I vaguely remember whatyou're talking about.
I think it's called The Slaughterhouse.
Yes.
I'm not sure.
I'll have to look it up.
Anyway, going back over here, whatis the hardest lesson that you
learned that changed your life?
That's a wonderful question toreflect on and it's an easy one
(23:48):
for me to answer because we do tendto remember pain and those lessons
that are most painful stick with us.
It took me a long time.
To get to the point in my life ina, and this was when I was in a
particular situation and particularwork environment, especially that I
(24:08):
had to learn the lesson that someoneelse's insecurities and fears.
And feeling threatened by another person,I didn't need to take ownership of
that, even though it felt very personal.
(24:28):
A lot of times the way it played out, butit, I came to realize that whether it was.
If there'd been somebody elsein the same role, it, they would
have treated them the same way.
Mm hmm.
Gave me a heart of compassion forsomeone that it's been very hard
(24:51):
for me to care for and respect evenas I came to understand that, that
it was not, it was not personal.
It was.
Fear and insecurity.
Mm hmm that they were grappling withand that's a very sad way to live
(25:12):
life Mm hmm and as I came to see thatin that situation it just really has
helped me see it more and more in peoplethat I Encounter because I think so
many people are so many of us We fearsan innate part of who we are and it
(25:32):
manifests itself in so many differentways many times it looks like Arrogance,
it looks like meanness, can look liketimidness, anger, anger's a big one.
Yeah, but I have through readingthe scripture through just a lot of
(25:57):
observation of people and coming tosee myself very clearly, I really
have come to believe personally thatFear is the fundamental emotion that
we all deal with and are driven by.
And very often we're unaware of it.
(26:20):
We don't know that that's the nameof it, what we're feeling because
it manifests itself as we weretalking about in some other way.
This ties into, uh, your favorite quoteand we looked this one up, so I'll read
it because you can expound on it for sure.
I thought it was beautiful too.
You said, um, earth, the earth iscrammed with heaven and every common
(26:44):
bush of fire with God, but onlyhe who sees takes off his shoes.
The rest sit aroundand pluck blackberries.
Yeah.
Thinking back to the words.
I responded with about describing myselfpositive, curious, optimistic, part of me.
(27:07):
There's So easy.
It's always been easy.
This is not new peopleout there listening.
There's nothing new in history.
Really?
This just go read your history books, youknow, and times have been darker times
have been worse There's other than inthe Garden of Eden there's not been a
(27:27):
time when there wasn't darkness and eviland violence and greed and reasons to be
fearful for life and suffering is justPart of who we are as humans, uh, right
now, unfortunately, however, there is somuch goodness in this world and people.
There's so much beauty in nature.
(27:49):
There's just so much.
I look at, I look at this wall, the color.
I mean, Look at that color.
It's really vibrant, right?
To a flower shop.
Walk into a botanical garden and doyou not marvel at, well, could, where
could this creativity have come from?
Look at art.
(28:09):
You walk into this building, which is artsand entertainment, and just think about
the gifts that people have been given.
You walk out in nature, you look atthe ocean, you go to the mountains,
you just, you read a book and how dopeople come up with this stuff, right?
There is just.
There's so much to be grateful forand there's so much that brings
beauty and joy for me and life.
(28:32):
And that's how I see life every day.
You know, that's, that's really a, awonderful thing to see because it's,
there's a, a quote that comes froma pretty woman when Julia Roberts
is, you know, laying in bed and shesays it's so easy to believe the bad
stuff, but it's, it's hard to believethe positive to be intentional.
(28:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You have to.
I don't watch.
And that's what you're saying.
And I intentionally shield myselfat times because human nature
will take you down that path.
I don't watch a lot of news on TV.
I, I'll listen to some radio stations.
I'll listen to some podcasts, but Ichoose, I'm thoughtful about what I put
(29:19):
in my brain, what I let my eyes see, notbecause I'm trying to shield myself from
What reality because it's there and I'mvery realistic about human trafficking.
You're being a good steward.
Yes, I don't need to see the darkness.
It's there.
It's easy to see, but I do haveto be intentional about not
(29:43):
letting the darkness suck me in.
I agree.
Yep.
And those are choices.
Everything in life is a choice.
We can choose to go to the right,to the left, think positively, think
negatively, just everything is a choice.
Um, what are you most grateful for?
(30:04):
I am so grateful that God loves me andforgives me and that he's chosen to
bless me with the most amazing husband,incredible children and absolutely amazing
circle of friends and acquaintances.
And ability to just find joy and littlethings and not be dependent on the
(30:30):
external things to be joyful and grateful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just realize everythingwe have, it's already met.
We have what we need and then wehave abundance because we have so
much that we want and yeah, andthat we can just go get without.
Thinking about it too often.
Mm hmm.
Almond joys.
Yum.
(30:51):
Ooh, coconut chocolate.
Yeah, much better.
Yeah But in other countries I mightnot be able to get that that's
right Uh who in your life has hadthe biggest impact and how so my
I was blessed that she lived in the same,in the community close by where I grew up.
(31:16):
So I really grew up on the family farmthat my grandfather had started and
my grandfather ran the little generalstore in the town nearby and spent a
lot of days and nights and time at mygrandmother's house and at her side.
She was a remarkable woman who was.
(31:36):
Determined and she was very curious.
She was a writer.
She was a historian.
She made some really remarkablecontributions to discovering history
behind towns and cities and wouldstill remember putting on boots
and long pants and long sleeveshirts and tromping through just
(32:01):
growth in the forest to find long.
Overgrown graveyards, because shedid two whole books of graveyards,
burial plots, ancestry.com.
She was into Genealogy before.
Yes.
She did a lot of Genealogy and notjust, not just family Genealogy,
(32:22):
but just historically, you know,who grew up in this area, who's
buried here going back a long time.
Is that considered a part of the census?
It sounds like it was.
It's contributed to that.
Certainly she started a historical club.
She helped start the library in a smalltown, a close by the farm where I grew up.
And just, she was a, just a verystrong, positive woman, five children.
(32:50):
But when she was a Jesus girl, shewas, she was one of the first, one of
the first women to graduate from theuniversity she went to, you know, so just.
Very influential and, um, I personalitywise, I tend to be a lot like her and
I remember clearly growing up when mymother would get most irritated with
(33:13):
me, she would just shake her headand say, just like your grandmother.
Thank you.
It's not a bad thing.
Oh, and she, she took me traveling.
I have my first airplane, my first, my.
Her few international trips, it was mygrandmother took me with her on trips.
Did, was she married?
(33:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the grandmother, notas much the grandfather.
Right.
Yeah.
He was, he didn't liketo do that stuff so much.
He stayed and ran the store andthen he did pass away earlier, uh,
quite a few years before she did.
So, yeah.
So a little bit ofentrepreneurs in your life too.
You said they had a store, so.
Yeah.
I think being a farmer is a lot like.
(33:53):
It's a lot like, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's really hard.
Farming.
It's, it's high capital and, and alot of cost and a lot of, a lot of,
very demanding, very unpredictable.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Uh, let's see.
What would you like to be remembered for?
(34:14):
Being kind and bringingout the best in people.
I think you do that.
Helping them be their best self,however you want to word it.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
That's all that really matters.
And that and the legacy we live.
That's the legacy we leave.
How we touch otherpeople and our children.
(34:35):
Yeah.
Children are our legacy.
You have children?
Yes, I have a son and two stepchildren.
All grown, all off on their own,still waiting for grandkids.
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Do they live here?
They do not.
My son and daughter in law justarrived in Anchorage, Alaska.
They're both physicians.
She's in the Air Force.
(34:55):
Wow.
So she's just started her job asan internal medicine doctor at
the Air Force base there and sonjust accepted a position with a.
Positions group, so they're up inbeautiful Anchorage, Alaska for a while.
Have you been there?
Not yet, but I will begoing to say the least.
Yeah, yeah.
(35:16):
I can't wait.
Stepson in Atlanta, thriving,doing extraordinarily well
in his real estate finance.
Background, working for a developmentcompany up there and stepdaughter and
her husband that live in Nashville.
She's an extraordinary,talented, um, salon stylist.
(35:37):
And her husband, Jack is actually the leadguitarist and songwriter for Jelly Roll.
For those who might be familiar with JellyRoll, who is a, quite a phenomenon these
days, swept the country music awards.
I'm going to have to go look that one up.
So we're going to take a break andacknowledge our sponsor, Transcend
(35:58):
Network, and we'll be right back.
Transcend Network helps early stagestartup founders find product market
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The Intern Whisperer is affiliated withEmployers 4 Change, and we thank them.
(36:18):
Transcend Network for beinga sponsor of our show.
So we're back to thesecond half of our show.
We talk about the future ofjobs, industries, and 2030.
So this is anybody's game,you know, throw the die.
It's, it's all good.
Um, what do you think 2030is going to look like?
Because some people pull from the Jetsons.
Some people go to Terminator.
(36:39):
I don't know.
It could be anything, right?
So what do you thinkit's going to look like?
2030, seven years from now.
Well, we're halfway through the year.
So we are so six and a half years.
And the pace of innovation, these that I'mexposed to in the universe that I'm in, we
will certainly see a lot more autonomousrobotics, artificial intelligence, machine
(37:05):
learning, immersive technologies, noneof which are new, by the way, yes, have
all been out there for a very long time.
But like, many innovationstiming is everything.
Circumstances are everything and manytechnologies as new discoveries have been
(37:26):
made are really rising to the forefrontto come together because all those things
that I mentioned, immersive technologies,robotics, autonomous, they all feed
each other and there's just been anenormous amount of scientific discovery.
So I see certainly a lot more efficiency.
We're already seeing that with.
(37:46):
Autonomous and robotics and ai,and that will continue to automate.
That word scares a lot of people,but it's really just about bringing
efficiency to not take away jobs.
That's not the point.
It is to free up tedious tasks, tedioustasks that we really don't benefit from
(38:08):
spending an enormous amount of manual timeand energy on when it's so our listeners.
Copy and paste copy.
That would be a tedious task.
Yeah, there's lots of themthat actually come to that.
But, uh, we will see a lot ofindividuals in the workforce that are
(38:29):
a lot more of the continuous learning.
We see that now, but I, that willaccelerate because increasingly we cannot.
Survive and thrive or understandthe world we're in without
continuously learning new skills.
So everybody out there, don't beafraid, get on YouTube, get on
(38:51):
LinkedIn learning, go to your library.
You know, there's so many ways tojust take short courses and learn
about things and upscale yourself sothat you're aware of what's going on.
What I hope we see.
And I'm going, being my optimistic self,I'm going to say we will also see in
(39:13):
this increasing world of automation andefficiency that we will see as humans
that we become more humanly engaged aswe remove that burden of the tediousness.
I think we have two choices, either weisolate from each other, or we choose to
(39:38):
use that to connect because we have thetime and we have reason to connect because
we are gifted as human beings to have thehighest, most complex level of a brain
possible We're made for relationship.
We're made for relationships.
Mm hmm.
We're made for creative thinking.
(40:01):
AI and all that's great, butit is not going to reply.
We're a long ways.
Um, replacing a human brain, nomatter how efficient it may seem.
You know what I like is the fact that youoversee eight incubators, Volusia, right?
It's Volusia, Seminole, Orange, RossiolaCounty, and soon to be nine, Lake County.
(40:22):
We open Lake County in September.
Wow.
That's a lot.
So I sit here and I thinkabout everything that you see.
These are all kinds ofstartups all the way across.
They could be flying cars.
They could go and be.
Um, I think I know over at the, um, thebranch where Michael is on colonial is,
um, it was like, it was a race Spartan.
(40:45):
Was it Spartan?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember whenthey were like nothing.
Same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you've seen a lot of amazingconcepts come out of it.
You're also a part of, uh, likewhat we do with synapse, there's
the photon, uh, photonics.
Botanics.
Yeah.
That's out there.
That's a part in research parkway.
(41:06):
You're exposed to so much.
It's like, I think you would be, youguys out there would be some of the best
judges as yeah, this is what's coming.
It's, it's not hard to see becausethere's, there's two different
views of what trends are.
One is the technological trends,which tend to lag market trends.
(41:31):
Because we see the world that I'vebeen in most of my career, I see a
lot of stunning innovation, a lot ofamazing technology that is developed,
but the market's not ready for it yet.
So, though, you have to balance those2 just because there's a lot of buzz
about technology stuff doesn't mean thatyou're going to see it in the market yet.
(41:55):
Um, so I look at market conditions and.
What's being adopted?
What's being utilized?
Okay.
I know you probably can't say,but do you see Jetson flying cars?
Oh, yeah.
I mean Lilliam's already building there.
They're Wow air taxi Heliportin Lake Nona the German company.
They've they announced a few years agoAnd does it look like the Jetsons George
(42:19):
Jetsons car it it looks a little nicerthan that I know and actually we've
had Two or three companies apply tothe incubator in recent years that they
are air air taxis autonomous air taxis.
That absolutely is a real thing,and it will not be too long
before we see that actually in usefederal aviation administration.
(42:44):
You go to their next gen center where theylook at the future airport of the world
and they're monitoring and simulating thatair taxis are absolutely part of that.
So you've gone to groundswell right overthere and I go down there quite often.
Yeah.
So, um, I always sit here and I think,you know, how could we go to space in
(43:04):
more lightweight but safe vehicles?
I, that show I told you about the futureof, they were talking about having,
um, a hotel that would be on the moonand we would be able to stay there.
And there was, uh, Okay.
When I, I listened to it again last weekand they were talking about how there's
(43:26):
just deep oceans of water on the darkside of the moon that people don't know.
I so would love to follow youfor a week and just see all of
the cool stuff that you see.
I, yeah, I, I definitely want to.
There's people that I knowthat I say that about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know Baron Mills, he's over therewith, um, the phototonics, right.
(43:47):
College, our college ofoptics and photonics.
And then also with theFlorida photonics cluster.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So many cool things.
Well, have you seen robots out there?
Do they have robots?
So I don't know.
They're functional robots, of course,like the Boston dogs, for example, uh,
if you were to go, well, you can't goto some of the areas of Patrick space
(44:11):
for space here on the space coast,they have robotic security guards.
And I've had the chance to actually,in fact, I had space for some of the
guardians come to groundswell for anevent that I hosted when I was there
and they brought one of the robots.
Okay.
That's straight from black mirror.
(44:31):
Okay.
Yeah.
I was sharing about it,but yeah, it's really cool.
And, uh, these robots aremonitoring the perimeter of,
uh, Patrick space force base.
And so that's.
Not real new.
No, it's not.
There's robots in a restaurant inOsceola County that deliver your food.
Yes, table.
Absolutely.
(44:52):
Yes.
And I think we'll see thoseincreasingly certainly because
it's a matter of great efficiency.
If you go into a lot of healthcare hospitals, these days, you
see robots that deliver them andso that's been around for a while.
Just maybe hasn't been asadopted as extensively as
we're starting to see it now.
Other than.
Mhm.
(45:12):
An industrial sites, which most peopledon't see, most of us aren't walking
around manufacturing floors very oftenwhere they've had enormous amount
of robotics for a very long time.
If you go into any, I was recentlyover in, um, hungry and had a
chance to tour out his largest.
(45:34):
Manufacturing facility on the planet andthe robotics in there were just stunning,
but that's how they make all those.
So let's also point out the, um,UCF, the health center that's out
there in Lake Nona and the WhitHouse and all of those cool things.
Let's talk about some of that.
(45:54):
What is the medical?
I know it's the UCF medicalcenter, but there is a.
Health incubator that's outthere in that Lake Nona area.
That is one of our UCO incubators.
Our life sciences incubator.
There you go.
It's on the 2nd floor of theguide will building in Lake Nona,
and it is a biotech incubator.
(46:17):
That's what it was built.
The physical facility was builtfor, because it's the only
facility in central Florida with.
Biotech life sciences, laboratories likethat, that you can rent for a few years as
a young company and then graduate out of.
And we've been fortunate to havea number of companies that have
(46:38):
successfully graduated out of there.
We have a few offices in there as well,and we have other companies that are
not in the lab, but they're workingon digital health care solutions
or other products that they don'tactually need that laboratory space.
But that's where that.
Incubator needed to be becauseit is in the health center of a
(47:01):
cluster of health care industries.
There's a lot more to like, no, no,obviously the health care, but that is
where you see a college of medicine isour newly announced college and nursing
building will be built right there.
Our teaching hospital is right there.
Our Burnett college of biomedicalsciences is all right there
clustered around along with.
(47:22):
The largest VA hospital in the country,Morris Children's Hospital, University
of Florida's pharmacy department,our UCF Cancer Center as well, so,
uh, the Veterans Administration'sNational Center for Simulation and
Training and Healthcare is rightthere, too, next to the VA hospital.
So, there's just a lotof really extraordinary.
(47:45):
Research and application and clinicalhealth care taking place there
and our incubator is part of thatresearch and commercialization.
I don't know.
It's just like.
You said there's going to be nine.
I can just imagine that, you know, youspend one day at your office and then
you're checking out all of the other ones.
(48:07):
I would think even if you do thatonce a month, that's nine outings
just to see what's going on.
Yeah.
So this week, uh, yesterdayI was up in winter Springs
incubator for part of the day.
Tomorrow I'll be at our Lake Nonaincubator for part of the day.
That office looks gorgeous.
And then Friday I'll be up in the.
They don't at our relish incubators.
Yeah, really cool.
(48:28):
Really cool stuff that'sgoing on over there.
Um, what ethical dilemmas doyou foresee with all of this
stuff that's coming out here?
Because this is usually myquestion is just because we
can, does that mean we should?
It never means we should.
Yeah.
I, I like the Walmart greeters.
(48:48):
I like going into a McDonald'sand having somebody tell me hello.
And I don't think we'll see robots there.
No, there is.
There's actually a McDonald's and Ibelieve it's here in Central Florida.
There is no humans in it.
You just go in, get yourfood and it comes out.
You know, I can perhaps sort of see thatin some of the fast food, the restaurants.
(49:09):
I, I don't know.
And I, and it's a mixed perspective inmy mind because as someone who coaches
business owners and entrepreneurs, there'sbusiness decisions to be made sure we
want these companies to stay in business.
And yet we complain greatly.
There's a robot or they stop doing thingsor stop providing services and other
(49:34):
things because oftentimes we just, wedon't necessarily understand the business
drivers behind it and the challengesthat they may be having as a business,
obviously, but yeah, the cost of hiringan hourly wage, you know, has, has
gone up, but there's this place whereI never worked in a restaurant when I
was growing up, I, I did other jobs,but those are the jobs that have helped.
(49:56):
People get more of thecustomer service skills.
I sometimes think that we shouldall be required to work in a
customer service facing position.
No, I've worked in retail.
Yeah, retail.
That's another one.
Yeah.
Hospitality.
I was in movie theaters and retail.
Yeah.
And yeah, it just gives youa different perspective on.
(50:17):
Oh, yeah.
It gives us an empathy, I think,and an understanding that we don't
get otherwise if we've not beenon the other side of the table.
Back to your question aboutethical dilemmas, that's.
Always an issue with technology,it's, it's an issue as a human, right?
Let's take technology outof the picture as humans.
(50:40):
Every day, every hour, every minute ofevery day, I make choices about decisions.
What's right?
What's wrong?
Am I going to lie about this?
Am I going to tell the truth?
Am I going to give that person?
What's really.
I owe them.
Am I not every there's life is justa series of ethical decisions in many
(51:04):
ways when it comes to technology.
It's no different because thetechnology itself just like money.
There's nothing evil about money.
There's nothing evil about technology.
So don't get angry with AI.
Don't get angry with the robot.
(51:26):
The choice is how somebodydecides to use the technology.
So the ethical decision is a humanissue and really has nothing to
do with what the technology is.
Human nature is such that there willalways be those that choose to use.
Anything technology or not for personalgain at the expense of other people.
(51:51):
So the reality we face.
You, we're going to take alittle quantum jump over here.
You mentioned something earlier aboutOpenAI, and I pulled this quote up here,
and it was only released six hours ago.
It says, OpenAI, the company behindChatGPT, has removed its AI classifier
tool meant to inform users whether textis created by artificial intelligence
(52:14):
due to its low rate of accuracy.
The company made the announcement onJuly 20th on its blog, saying that
the tool is no longer available.
That begs the question, wasthat an ethical choice or not?
To me, on the surface, I would say...
No, that's wrong.
(52:36):
I mean, one of the challengeswith AI is how do you know?
Yeah, it's the whole large languagedata pool that is, you know, being
able to, and then that interestingpart of that reason that you read
because of its low level of accuracy.
Yeah.
Well, if I go down that thread,then I think, well, maybe, yes,
(52:56):
maybe they should have removed itbecause if it was giving a lot more.
False positives then I mean, do we wantto covet test or a flute to history?
Yes, strep throat test or whateverthat has a very low level of accuracy.
Mm hmm.
Is it better to not have it at all?
Mm hmm.
So the question in my mindand that's a new story.
(53:19):
So I wonder what's the source of it?
Is it really accurate?
What's the backstory?
Mm hmm.
What are they?
Doing to fill that void because aresponsible company, which open AI
has generally tended to be a veryresponsible company from what I've seen.
And there may be listenersthat violently disagree with.
(53:39):
That's okay.
But I would ask that question.
What are they going to do now?
Because.
1 of the issues with as we know, andnow we have the federal government,
our federal government tryingto figure out how to regulate.
So this will all be interesting.
But companies companies in thesereally bleeding edge technologies
(54:03):
areas have a lot of ethical.
The limits and choices.
Yeah, there was this fear.
We're in these fourthindustrial revolution, right?
The fifth one's right around the corner.
If we're not already in it, I think weare So when we see these kinds of things
that come out go back to Stone Age.
Well, we used to write Hieroglyphicson walls we move fast forward We got
(54:26):
the printing press because you knowIt's all made by hand with monks and
then we got the printing press then wejump quantum leap again The Internet.
Oh, my God.
Everybody's terrifiedof the Internet ChatGPT.
Is just the same as the Internet.
It's just putting all ofthat information together.
It's just a better version.
(54:47):
So here's the thing I go withwhen the Internet was up.
Well, it's on the Internet.
It must be true.
Oh, and the same logic.
It's chat.
It must be true.
It was printed.
Off the printing press in thenewspaper, it must be true.
Now it's on the internet.
It must be true.
Now it's AI.
It must be true.
Come on, people.
Be curious.
Yeah.
(55:07):
And that goes back to thewhole thing about ethics.
You need to ask the why.
You need to not just be afraid.
Right.
Or blindly assuming thatjust, just because, right.
Be curious.
Yeah.
That's why.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because that is how we distinguishhumans, humanity from what we're creating.
(55:29):
We are creating this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was like, yeah, thisis our thing, you know?
Yeah.
So we can be good stewards of it.
We can shepherd it, uh, wellinto whatever we want it.
To be honestly, so we are, it's sohard to believe we're at the, like
the end, we're almost at the end.
I've never had this much of a luxuryof having a long conversation with
(55:52):
you because we are always at eventsand it's like, there's a line.
Then we get interrupted by somebody.
The longest conversation I've ever hadwith you is when we go to the game jams
and I get to spend like 10 minutes.
So go, wow, that's a long time.
So anyway, uh, best mentoring advice thatyou want to share with our listeners.
(56:17):
Recognize that you are very likelyto be best mentored by someone who
is surprisingly different from you.
That's true.
Very true.
Working with entrepreneurs.
In our mentoring program mm-hmm.
. And when we ask them what kind ofprofile would you like to see in your
(56:42):
mentor, they often, it's somebodyfrom the same industry, you know,
that's done this and it's donethis and, and it looks like them.
Uh, in a lot of ways, it oftendoes, and that that may be
what they need at the time.
But many times we find that through our.
curation process for our mentoringprogram, we end up suggesting that
(57:03):
they meet with somebody that theywould never have picked on their own.
And those usually tend to be themost impactful mentoring situations.
So recognize that it may be,you may need somebody radically
different from yourself.
But even before that, I'll give twopieces bogo here, recognize that
(57:29):
we're, we're mentored every day.
We let ourselves be.
Mm hmm.
Mentoring tends to, I think in manyof people's minds, have this structure
to it, you know, and, and the rightkind of mentoring relationship it
can, but there's just so many waysthat we get mentored every day in
ways we often don't even recognize.
(57:51):
Think about those people in your,your world, those of you that are
listening, think about who you're around.
Repeatedly, maybe, and maybe youdon't even talk to them a lot, but you
watch them, you hear them, you see howthey behave, you see how they treat
other people, you see how they makedecisions, or maybe it is a situation
(58:11):
where you're fortunate to have achance to interact with somebody, and
you don't think of it as a mentoringrelationship, but you realize that you're
being mentoring, influenced by them.
They are challenging you to thinkabout who you are, why you do
things, how you do things, and tothink about things differently in
(58:31):
ways that make you a better person.
So I'm going to add on to that.
I teach three, uh, three andfour year olds at church.
I think they're the best teachers forme on how to handle adults, but I'm
even going to go another step further.
farther, whichever.
I think that I learned more from adog, a pet, how animals interact, and
(58:53):
how we should be treating each other.
Dogs are the best examples of empathy,you know, and they They don't yell at you,
you know, well, sometimes if you, theymay try to bite you, but that's because
you hurt them because they're afraid.
So as someone who does a lot ofvolunteer work for a small dog
(59:13):
rescue, we could do another pod.
Oh my gosh.
On what you learn from working.
Volunteering with animals, rescueanimals of any sort, but particularly
dogs, I think, because the uniquerelationship humans have with canines.
Yeah.
Very nice.
So we always share ways ourlisteners can connect with you.
(59:35):
We have up here, the incubator.ucf.edupage, we put up your linkedin profile.
Is there another way thatpeople can connect or follow you
facebook, twitter, instagram?
I do have a facebook page.
I do have a twitter account c adykes, but i'm not that hard to find.
(59:58):
I don't think so.
I've been told.
Gotcha.
Well, we'll make sure that weshare that, um, on the close card.
And I just want to thankyou so much for being here.
It's been a joy, Isabella.
Oh, my gosh.
It's, it's always such anhonor to spend time with you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you all for stickingwith us and listening.
(01:00:18):
Thank you to our sponsor, Cat5Studios and our video production
and editing team, Dave LaPorte,Tommy Myers, and Andrew Piggott.
Music is by Sophie Lloyd.
Visit Employers 4 Change at www.e4c.tech.
To learn how you can create real diversityand inclusive culture while skilling
(01:00:42):
your people for the future of work.
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