They Haven't Graduated Yet, but They're Already Tackling the Big Problems of 2045 - Duncan Kane, SVP at Toshiba

In this episode of The TechEd Podcast, Duncan Kane, Senior Vice President at Toshiba America, shares insights from nearly two decades of working at the intersection of industry and education. Drawing from his leadership in STEM outreach, Duncan explains why Toshiba sees early STEM engagement not just as a good cause—but as a strategic investment in the future of innovation and the workforce.

One way Toshiba brings this vision to life is through its long-standing partnership with the National Science Teaching Association on ExploraVision, a science competition that challenges K–12 students to design technologies 20 years into the future. But as Duncan explains, the program isn’t really about competition—it’s about creativity, purpose, and helping students see themselves as future innovators. The conversation explores what happens when kids take ownership of real-world problems, the importance of dreaming big (with or without big budgets), and how industry can play a more active role in developing STEM talent.

Listen to learn:

• Why students are more innovative when they don’t know what’s “impossible”
• How choosing personally meaningful problems changes how kids approach STEM
• What happens when students design technology for the year 2045
• Why Toshiba believes building a STEM pipeline starts in your own backyard
• What schools risk losing when STEM programs are first on the chopping block

3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:

1. Students come up with more creative solutions when they haven’t yet learned what’s “impossible.” Duncan explains that younger students are often more willing to dream big because they haven’t developed the cynicism or constraints that come with adulthood. In ExploraVision, fifth graders have proposed ideas like AI-powered glasses that interpret sign language and wearable devices to predict seizures—solutions rooted in bold thinking, not technical limitations.

2. When students choose problems that matter to them, STEM learning becomes personal and powerful. Many teams in ExploraVision choose issues they’ve encountered firsthand, like a relative’s epilepsy or local environmental concerns. That personal connection drives deeper engagement and creativity, whether it’s robotic honeybees to help pollinate crops or fire-resistant materials inspired by mushrooms.

3. Building a future STEM workforce doesn’t require a billion-dollar initiative—it starts locally. Duncan urges companies to start in their own communities, supporting local students and educators in ways that feel personal and authentic. Toshiba’s partnership with NSTA and the success of ExploraVision demonstrate how consistent, community-rooted efforts can scale to national impact—reaching 450,000 students over 33 years.

Resources in this Episode:

• To learn more about ExploraVision, visit: exploravision.org
• ExploraVision partner NSTA (National Science Teaching Association): nsta.org

Additional resources from this episode

• ExploraVision Winners: See details on this year’s winners + previous years
• Discover more from the

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question, and that question isthis, regardless of what world
that you're in, regardless ofwhere you make your living or
where you spend your time,whether that's education,
whether that's technology,whether that's manufacturing,
wherever that is. Think aboutthis for a minute. What is
technology in that space gonnalook like two decades from

(00:34):
today, 20 years from today? Andif you think about that question
for a moment, and answer doesn'timmediately come to mind. You're
like, wow, that's a pretty deepquestion. I'll have to spend
some time thinking about it.
You'll understand exactly whytoday's guest is doing the work
that he is doing with studentsand getting them to imagine
their futures. We're going to godeep on that with the guests.

(00:57):
We're really excited to welcometo the studio of The TechEd
Podcast. My guest this week isDuncan Kane. And Duncan is the
Senior Vice President at acompany that almost every one of
us have heard of, and thatcompany is Toshiba. Duncan, such
a pleasure to have you with uson The TechEd Podcast. Really
looking forward to thediscussion today. Well, I'm
really glad to be here. Thankyou. Let's start out with who is

(01:18):
Duncan Kane. You've spent agreat deal of your career at
Toshiba. You've been in rolesfrom HR to strategy to corporate
services. So tell us about yourcareer and also what led to now
this fascination with thisreally important topic that
being STEM education.

Duncan Kane (01:37):
I've worked for Toshiba about 16 years, but I've
been an HR guy since about thebeginning. So I've been doing it
about 40 something Wow, forcompanies in the paper industry
and Wall Street, other kinds ofthings. And as a HR guy, I'm a
people person. My job is tofind, encourage, motivate,
talent. And so for me, where doyou find talent? You grow talent

(02:01):
and explore vision. And my workwith Toshiba, both with explore
vision and with our STEMFoundation, are all about, how
do we get the children of todayexcited about STEM and
considering that as a career andsomeday, potentially actually
being a Toshiba employee?

Matt Kirchner (02:18):
Well, here at The TechEd Podcast, where we are all
about securing the AmericanDream for the next generation of
STEM and workforce talent.
Whenever I hear somebody say,I'm all about trying to make
sure that young people areexposed to and excited about
STEM your mission and ourmission super, super aligned as
is. It sounds like the missionof your employer, Toshiba, where
you see this talent development,you see STEM education and

(02:40):
supporting STEM education asreally a strategic priority for
the organization, not just a wayof doing good or giving away
money or or what some might callphilanthropy. So why is it that
Toshiba has such a focus on STEMis it because you're growing
your own talent? Are there otherreasons why they're so focused
on science, technology,engineering and math.

Duncan Kane (03:01):
So, you know, look in the programs I'm involved
with, K through 12 explorevision. I mean, we're not hiring
third graders to work forToshiba. What we're trying to do
is create an environment inwhich the love of science,
technology, engineering, mathand those kind of related fields
are something and they competewith all the other things that
are going on in kids' lives,we're trying to figure out a way

(03:24):
to make sure that that kid whohas that interest in science,
that that's promoted throughouttheir school time career, and
that they eventually considerdoing that in college and
eventually decide to do that fora living, and if we don't
encourage those kinds of things,There are lots of other forces
out there, good and bad soccergood, but they compete. And so

(03:47):
what we're trying to do is tomake sure that those kids have
support and interesting thingsto do in this field. You

Matt Kirchner (03:53):
know, as a parent of two kids, myself, it's really
interesting. Number one, you'reright. It's amazing the
competing of priorities thatthey have, from athletics to
academics to maybe other clubsor organizations that they're
involved in, lots and lots ofthings, pulling at their time
and making sure that they stayfocused on, certainly all of
those, but also in terms of whatthose competing forces might be,

(04:15):
or the different options orconsiderations they might have
in terms of where they'respending their time so, so
important to make sure that STEMis at least part of that
portfolio. You know, you used aninteresting term in your in your
last answer, you said a love ofSTEM. How do we foster that love
of STEM to where a studentreally feels as passionate and

(04:36):
as excited about their STEMcoursework as they might be
about being on the soccer teamor the gymnastics team or going
to that boy scout meeting,

Duncan Kane (04:44):
you give them an opportunity to do creative, fun
and rewarding things, becausepositive reinforcement. So in
some education, it's memorizingformulas and facts and stuff.
That's not what we're about whenwe talk about explore. Vision
we're talking about, how do youuse those tools to solve
problems? How do you use thosetools to make a difference? I

(05:07):
mean, part of our corporateethos is making a difference in
the world today. And so how dowe extend that down to kids, so
that they can actually seethemselves making a difference,
and they can bring those dry,necessary facts that they have
to learn. But how do they bringthem to life and do fun and
exciting things with them?
Absolutely, as

Matt Kirchner (05:29):
you talk about the ethos of an organization
like Toshiba and saying, youknow, making the world a better
place as part of that, you know,it's another great word, the
reason that an organizationexists, in this case, to do
good, really, really importantaspect of the work that you're
doing at Toshiba through explorea vision, and that's a term
you've used now a couple times.
Is deep into the podcast. Maybewe should take a moment to make

(05:49):
sure our audience knows exactlywhat that's all

Duncan Kane (05:52):
about. It's been something we've been doing for
the last 33 years. It is a Kthrough 12 science competition
that we've engaged with about450,000 students over the last
33 years, and I've been sort ofthe corporate sponsor, the
executive sponsor of theprogram, for a little bit more
than a decade. I work with agreat team that puts it

(06:14):
together. But what it does is itasks kids the question that you
asked at the outset of theprogram, which is, think about
something a problem, and thinkabout what it would take over
the next 20 years to solve thatproblem using the principles of
scientific method andmathematical analysis, whatever.

(06:35):
But you know, those sort of STEMkinds of things come up with a
solution. Consider the positivesand negatives, consider what
still needs to be done, and thencommunicate interesting.

Matt Kirchner (06:47):
So I want to make sure those numbers aren't lost
on our audience. So just onemore time, how many years and
how many students?

Duncan Kane (06:52):
So 33 years, and by the way, we're already approved
for 34 already working on it,and about 450,000 students over
that period of time

Matt Kirchner (07:02):
that, I mean, that's the size of a large city.
I mean, that's an incrediblenumber of students that you've
managed to touch over thatperiod of time. Tell us a little
bit more about the program youtalked about students solving a
problem that'll exist in 20years, or thinking about what
the future will look like in 20years. Let's go a little bit
deeper on the student experienceand what they're actually

Duncan Kane (07:20):
doing a couple of things that make, I think,
Explorer vision unique. Wealways work in teams. We're
talking about groups of two tofour kids working together. We
have four different age groups,K through three, four through
six, seven through nine and 10through 12. They get together,
they find the problem and thestories and how they find their

(07:40):
problems are cool all bythemselves. They either know
somebody who has some dreaddisease, they've read something
in the paper, whatever, and theytake it as sort of a personal
responsibility to take a look atit and figure out how to fix it.
Example, our last awards winner,we had a fairly young group of
kids in that three through sixarea that had read about that

(08:03):
62% of honey bees died over thislast winter, and their solution
was to create a robotic honeybee, huh? And those kinds of
stories, they know someone whohad cancer or they had epilepsy
or whatever, and they want tohelp, and they want to use
science to do that fascinating.

Matt Kirchner (08:22):
So, I mean, you think about, I mean, just your
honey bee example, and theimportance of their role in
germinating agriculture and soon, and the risk that happens
when we don't have a balance innature as it would relate to
honey bees as an example. Andhere are these students. And I
mean, you talk about, how oldwere these students, third grade
through sixth grade. Remind meon the age of those students. I
think they were fifth gradersthis year. Yes, right. So 1011,

(08:46):
year olds are like, hey, what ifwe create a robotic honey bee to
do the same thing that? Youknow, not that we don't want to
have honey bees, but if they'redying and we need more of them
to make sure that ourenvironment is in balance and so
on, let's create an old roboticversion of that. These are some
pretty heady projects. Andcertainly, you know, anybody
who's been around any individualwho suffers from epilepsy

(09:07):
certainly relate to the benefitsof something like that. So
they're coming up with aproblem, a big, big problem, and
then talking about solutions.
How does that process work? Dothey have a mentor that works
for them? Are they going throughkind of a syntax of steps, or
how has that involvement cometogether? They have a coach,
generally, as a science educatoror someone like that, and they
sometimes have another adultinvolved to help, some guide and

(09:30):
provide and sometimes it's ridesand cookies. As their work is,
they spend a lot of time onthis, right? But this is their
stuff. And when you talk tothese kids, it is really their
ideas and that they're coming.
They do research. They figureout what the big barrier to
creating the solution is. Theyread about potential solutions.

(09:52):
Those solutions come from allkinds of places. Someone had a
project a couple of years ago,and it was a particular kind of.
Beetle that created moisture outof the air, and they applied
that biological principle to amachine that would create water.
I mean those kinds of things.
And by the way, I understand thefifth grade ones. By the time we
get to high school, I barelyunderstand what they're talking

(10:15):
about. Absolutely, I'm not anengineer. I'm not a scientist.
Met and then those folks, theyare scary smart and scary
innovative. Sounds like it, andit's a lovely thing. Yeah,
without question. Anytime yousee that kind of innovation with
students that are thatintelligent, it is magical to
see and see some of thesesolutions, you know, in the

(10:35):
terms of the beetle creatingmoisture and then applying that
to, you know, so it'sbiomimicry, is what we call
that. So taking something that'soccurring in in nature and then
mimicking it in a man madedevice to accomplish the same or
a similar outcome, that's somepretty high level thinking. Also
kind of speaks to anybody who'sa mentor or a coach. You don't
necessarily have to be an expertin something in order to be able

(10:56):
to use it or facilitate it. AndI think that's probably a
really, really good message aswell. So is this happening
inside of a school program? Areyou partnering with districts
and schools, or is it separatefrom the traditional education
environment? How do students andteachers get engaged here? Well,

Duncan Kane (11:11):
I was a little remiss. We have a partner in all
this, Matt, and that's theNational Science Teaching
Association. Okay, they've beenour partner the entire 30 years
of this, and we partnered withNSCA, because what they are is
science educators, and we wantedsomeone had reached into the
grades that we were looking at.
And so science teachers,elementary school teachers who

(11:32):
teach science those kinds ofthings, was those are our folks
that we reach out to asadvocates and expediters kids do
the work, but hey, like I said,You gotta get these kids
together. You gotta provide themtime. You've gotta provide them
with some guidance and stuff.
And so it's really important wehave those kinds of people out

(11:53):
there, and NSTA gives ustremendous access and reach in
that environment.

Matt Kirchner (11:59):
Do you know how Toshiba originally got connected
with the NSTA we were

Duncan Kane (12:03):
at about our 25th anniversary here in the United
States. And so we were lookingfor is something to sort of
celebrate that. And look, we'rea tech company, right? Of
course, we're known for lots ofthings, some of which we don't
need to do anymore, but we're atech company. And so when we
said, hey, how do we celebrateand make a difference in our
communities? How do we celebratethe kind of company we are? And

(12:27):
we were looking for this kind ofa program. The NSCA is someone
that we reached out to, and theyhelped co found this program
with a guy by name Arthureisenkraft, who's, by the way,
Arthur is still our head judgeand is still involved in the
program, and they came up withthis format that has changed a
little bit over time, butessentially is still true to

(12:48):
that original concept that wecame up with 33 years

Matt Kirchner (12:51):
ago. So I will tell you even more than 33 years
ago, I had my very first if youremember the Walkman, right, you
put your cassette tape in. Iknow I'm totally dating myself
and probably embarrassing myselfwith this story. I got one when
I was 13 years old. You know, Icould put any tape in there that
I that I wanted to listen to aton of great music back then,
still listen to some of thatmusic today. That was a Toshiba
Walkman, by the way. So that wasmy first introduction to your

(13:14):
company, and certainlytremendous respect for the
innovation and technology. And,you know, as I was just brushing
up a little bit for thisepisode, the number of different
market number of differentmarket spaces and technology
spaces that Toshiba is in isabsolutely mind boggling. So
amazing company doing amazingwork. So talk about the
competitive side of what you'redoing at explorer vision, as

(13:36):
these students are going throughthe process, is the end game to
win a competition. Obviously,they're learning incredible
technology and inspiring careersand so on along the way. But
what are they after as they'regoing through these projects,

Duncan Kane (13:47):
it is a competition, though the value of
it is in participation, frankly,but we do and a first stage of
judging is actually we do itwith the nscas assistants and
stuff, and then we pair theseall down they need to meet
certain criteria. Then we haveregional winners, and we have
winners in each of six regions.
And then we go to a finaljudging, where we actually use

(14:09):
scientists and people fromplaces like NASA and others to
try to do a final review. And inthe end, we pick one first place
team in each of the four agegroups, and then we pick a
runners up in each of those fourgroups. And then we celebrate
their winning by bringing themand their families to

(14:30):
Washington, DC. They spend a dayon Capitol Hill talking about
their projects with theirsenators and congressmen and
people like that. Next day, webring them into the National
Press Club, where they recordradio and television. We usually
have a science promoter whocomes in and helps them do those
kinds of things, Mr. Fascinator,this particular this year. And

(14:52):
then we have an award ceremony.
The Embassy of Japan shows upthis year. The. Number two guy
in all of Toshiba showed up. Wehave people from the US Patent
Office show up. And then in theend, Bill Nye shows up, huh? The
Science Guy. Love it, yeah. BillNye has been involved with us

(15:12):
for about the last 23 years.
Unbelievable as a real promoterand program. What

Matt Kirchner (15:18):
an amazing, amazing experience for those
students is, you know,especially, I mean, all of them,
right to your point, this isn'tit's, Hey, you know, the winners
get a trip to Washington, DC.
They get to go up to the hill.
And I've done that numerous,numerous times. There's nothing
like the feeling of walking pastthe flags at the front door of
your Senator, your congressperson's office. It just has
this incredible feeling talkingabout their project and so on,

(15:40):
meeting Bill Nye, I mean thatthat's really cool along the
way, though, for those studentsthat maybe don't get all the way
to Washington, DC, incrediblelearning that they're getting.
They're learning about thescientific method, they're
learning about planning. They'relearning about ideation. I want
to go a little bit deeper intothat, but before we do, do you
have any examples of projectsthat have maybe gone even beyond
that? Award in Washington, DC,and maybe inspired a student to

(16:03):
commercialize a project or totake it to a next step, anything
like that.

Duncan Kane (16:07):
We've had a couple of groups talk to the patent
office, but we kind of step out.
We don't own these ideas. Thekids do Sure. Okay, so we kind
of stepped out by that point oftime. What we do know is that
the kids that we talk to, thekids that we talk to, the kids
that we know, our regionalwinners, our national winners,
that we make a difference intheir lives. By the way, we also
give them a scholarship, moneyfor scholarship, $10,000 savings

(16:29):
bonds for the winner, 5000 forthe and by the way, as expensive
as college is, that may notsound like a lot of money. It
adds up, by the way, over timethat. But what we've been told
by kids is that that amount ofmoney made a difference about if
they went to school, where theywent to school, what they
studied, those kinds of things,and that's all we're trying to

(16:51):
do. We're not trying to to guidepeople in a particular area that
Toshiba might be interested in.
We're trying to encourage thatbroad participation in the
science community well, and

Matt Kirchner (17:04):
it almost makes you wonder, I mean, certainly
$10,000 I mean, depending onwhere you're going to school,
can go a long, long waydepending upon the choices that
students are making. That's noinsignificant amount of money. I
also have to believe that theexperiences that students have,
and certainly the students thatwin, either regionally or
nationally, those storiesprobably make it into a lot of
college applications andprobably inspire a lot of lot of

(17:26):
career pathways into individualSTEM programs at colleges and
universities. Really, reallyimportant. And I'm sure you've
got other students that areprobably going direct to
workforce when they're done withthe process as well and taking
their learning into theworkplace or going to the
military. I mean, there's allkinds of educational
opportunities as we bothrecognize as students leave high
school, and really important torecognize all of them, but also

(17:47):
so important to recognize thisincredible influence you're
having on students careers. Doyou have any specific or even
general examples Duncan aboutwhere students are taking this
learning post secondary? Anyinteresting career examples of
either as a career a studentchose, or were a student, a
specific one, or in general,they ended up,

Duncan Kane (18:03):
oh, sure, we bring alumni back, by the way, we
bring back people who have wonthe program before, and they're
one of our guest speakers at ouraward ceremony. It's been
something we've been doing for awhile. Right now, this year in
Washington, we had a two timewinner. By the way, he can't use
the same team has to be in adifferent team both times. He
was in different two times. Andhe is now a PhD candidate, I

(18:29):
mean, and he's won relativelyrecently. He's a PhD candidate
talking about diseasetransmissions between animals
and people. Wow, we've hadpeople that were very involved
in the COVID research and theCOVID vaccine, we've had people
who have done this in in ruralareas, up in Alaska and things
like that, I mean, and thosestories are just so inspiring,

(18:52):
and it's one of the reasons thatI and my team remain sort of
very excited about this, veryenthusiastic and I'm kind of
Chief cheerleader. Other peopledo most of the work. I'm kind of
Chief cheerleader right now,

Matt Kirchner (19:05):
yeah, but fantastic advocate for the
program and the work of thesestudents. That's an impressive
accolade and an impressive levelfor that student to reach and
doing important work. As soon asyou mentioned, you know, the
transfer of disease betweenanimals and humans, my brain
went to the bird flu, orcertainly to COVID, and you
mentioned that you've got folksdoing incredible work there as
well. So it's gotta be justincredibly rewarding for you and

(19:27):
for the people that you workwith Duncan to know that you've
been at least a part ofinspiring those kind of careers.
How does that make you feel whenyou hear stories like that? I'll
go back to Toshiba values, andby the way, I had a small hand
in developing the Toshibavalues. So our four values are,
do the right thing, find abetter way, consider the impact,

(19:48):
create together. And so Ibelieve in those things as a
member of the Toshiba executiveteam, and this is a program that
hits on all cylinders for me. Bythe way, you mentioned Boy
Scouts. Is one of thosedistracting things. I'm a long
term Boy Scout and, you know,codes of conduct and things like
that. I was raised it says youneed to make a difference in the

(20:09):
world, big or small. And look,I'm not going to be the guy who
invents a cure for cancer or anyof those kinds of things, but if
I can help a kid be the personthat does, then I've done my
part. No question about it.
That's personal. Absolutely.
That's a great example, and it'sa really you think about whether
the leverage of a teacher in aclassroom or you think about the

(20:30):
leverage of a volunteer. It'snot just the work that you're
doing on any individual day, butthat work repays itself over and
over and over again. The BoyScout example wasn't an
accident. It wasn't justsomething that came to my mind.
My father in law is an EagleScout. I'm an Eagle Scout, and
my son is a third generationEagle Scout, so on different
parts of the family, butcertainly proud of that, and not
just because it's a great thingto be able to say you did, which

(20:52):
is fine, but it's about all thevalues that you learn going
through there and understandinga code of conduct and who you
have a responsibility to, andthat it's about so much more
than yourself. And I think whatyou're you know, what you're
finding, both individually andhave found, and probably could
teach people like me that lessonis just this incredible effect
that you can have on people'slives when you're when you're
doing the right things for theright reasons, as you talked

(21:14):
about making an impact, findinga way. That's the process. I
didn't get imperfect, but I gotclose. That's the process that
these students are going throughas they're thinking about the
future. I mentioned that wewanted to get into a little bit
Duncan, this idea of ideationand kind of thinking about where
things can go. I was struck aswe were preparing for this
episode by this question. Andyou asked students at explorer

(21:35):
vision, you asked students toimagine technologies 20 years
into the future. And it reallynever occurred to me to spend
time thinking about that. It'sreally kind of a mind blowing,
creative, almost freeing, way tothink about technology
advancements, where you kind ofjust take whatever barriers you
might be thinking about in termsof technology and say, What
could things be like? You know,in our case, in the year 2045,

(21:57):
why is it so important forstudents to think about
technology, not just in terms oftoday or tomorrow, but 20 years
out,

Duncan Kane (22:04):
I think, for a couple reasons. One, these are
kids that are not even yet incollege, and so their
opportunities to contribute andthings like that are going to be
sometime in the future. There'sa lot to learn in the meantime.
The real challenge of science isfiguring out what has already
gone on and then applying thatto some future problem. And
we're trying to bring that kindof thinking to the fore, because

(22:26):
if you're just thinking about,okay, how am I going to solve
something tomorrow, you're notbeing as creative, and you're
limited to what you can dotoday. What we're asking people
to do is dream, and that's aword I use every now and again.
It's not a very scientific word,but I think we need to get
people to dream. And one of thecool things about working with
these kids is they don't know itcan't be fixed. As we get to be

(22:50):
adults, we get a little morecynical. Sorry, but we get a
little more cynical about whatcan and cannot be done when we
ask a fifth grader to thinkabout something 20 years in the
future, by the way, that's alifetime, more than a lifetime
for them. But what it allows todo is dream and dream big. So it
doesn't ask them to just say,hey, how do we fix this thing

(23:12):
right now? It allows them todream big. And I think that
that's part of it. I've saidthis, and it's probably not
original, but almost everytechnological thing that we use
today in our lives at one pointwas someone's dream or someone's
imagination, and we are tryingto encourage that by that longer
term thinking,

Matt Kirchner (23:33):
well, there's no question, and I just I love what
you're saying, because it reallyspeaks to three or four of the
things that I hold super, Superdear. There's a couple of things
that I think about a lot whenwe're talking with educators.
And I have a lot ofconversations with teachers, and
we see like these amazing stemlabs being put together, or labs
around applied artificialintelligence or advanced
manufacturing. And in somecases, these can cost 1,000,002

(23:56):
million, $3 million don't haveto, but can. And a lot of times
we get teachers who will look atanother district or look at
another college or look atanother school and say, you
know, why won't somebody give methe money to do that? And my
answer is always, well, you haveto have a dream big enough for
somebody wanting to fund it. Andso we're not worried today about
what your budget is. Let's comeup with a dream so big that

(24:19):
nobody can say no to it, andyou're doing exactly that, which
I think is really, reallyimportant. Another thing that I
spend a lot of time thinkingabout is, and we get the
question a lot in our ed techcompanies, we have a lot of
young people running aroundthose businesses, as you can
imagine. And you know, we can goout, and sometimes we do. You
find people deep into theircareer that are super seasoned
and really experienced and whatit is that they're doing. And we

(24:42):
hire those folks, more oftenthan not, we're going out and
finding 2223 24 year old kids,not because we're saying, you
know, whatever your age is hasan impact on whether or not you
can be employed here. But a lotof times through the interview
process, those individuals willrise up to the top of the. List,
because specifically what you'retalking about, which is, I can

(25:04):
take somebody who's well intotheir career, and they've got a
lot of experience, they've alsogot a lot of mental hurdles that
say, Well, this can't be done,or that can't be done. I take a
younger person and put theimpossible in front of them.
They don't know any better, andso they're willing to just dive
in and say, Sure, I'll try that.
I'll do that. They don't knowthat what you're asking to do is
them to do is impossible. Andreally, in the same sense,
that's exactly what you're doingat explorer vision, is you're

(25:27):
asking these young people to dothese things that might be
impossible, or might be yourword was cynical. Maybe somebody
a little bit deeper into theirlife might be cynical about what
is possible, but these youngerpeople, they don't know what's
impossible, and so you come upwith a solution like, let's
create a robotic bee, or youcome up with a solution like,
let's solve for COVID. Talkabout some of these projects.

(25:48):
You mentioned a couple of them.
Do you have others that come tomind that might be really
fascinating to our audience? I

Duncan Kane (25:55):
think so. But let me just back up a second. The
other reason for the idea is youdon't need $100,000 lab to dream
for sure, and when we lookacross the school districts,
there are different levels offunding all over the place.
Okay, no doubt, what we'resaying is it doesn't matter
where you are, it doesn't matterwhere your school district is.

(26:16):
It doesn't matter how cool yourscience lab is or isn't. You can
think of an idea, and we're notasking you to build a robotic
bee. We're asking you to dreamabout it and to think about it.
And you don't need a big lab todo that. And so if the time
frame was shorter, everyonewould want to go in the lab and
start doing experiments. That'snot really our process. And I'll

(26:37):
give you an example just answeryour question. We had a young
age group personal reasons. Theyhad some people that were deaf
and they were using signlanguage. And so their idea was
to create glasses that wouldread sign language and translate
it into the ear of the personwearing the glasses. Wow,

(26:58):
because sign language is hard tolearn, for sure, and is subtle
sometimes. And so they had aproblem, they came up with this
solution. They said, hey, theglasses will great. The AI will
can be embedded in the glasses,and it literally can talk in
that person's ear and makecommunications between that
person who's using sign languageand someone who doesn't really

(27:18):
understand it. That works,right? But, I mean, if you go
back in our history again, wehaven't seen anyone file a
patent for worth billions ofdollars, but we had a device in
our early days that you couldrecognize as what we think of as
a smartphone today. Those arethe kinds of things we've seen
young kids saying, hey, here islife preserving clothing a kid

(27:41):
falls in the water, it sensesthat it's in the water, and it
inflates, and it causes them tofloat. And I think there was a
tragedy that may have occurred,or they read about some sort of
a tragedy, and they wanted tofind a solution to the problem.
We saw kids using it's a bigthing with my Cillian these
days, and they're buildingfireproof housing materials that

(28:04):
not only are sort of fireproof,but actually help suppress the
fire. Have been a bio Mimic,mimicry kind of a thing. And
those are the kinds of thingsthat we look at and just go, Oh
my God. What a creative idea.
And 20 years from now, maybethat's possible, like the mobile
phone, the smartphone is today,and maybe not, but maybe it, it
opens up a path that leads to asolution that is an off branch

(28:29):
of that idea, absolutely, andthat's what we're trying to
encourage. There are lots ofthings that don't work out. In
science, you have an idea, youtest it, theory is not right?
And that idea that not everygreat idea you have is going to
work out is a little bit part ofthis too.

Matt Kirchner (28:46):
There's no question about it. Yeah,
absolutely. I mean, we always goback to the Thomas Edison
finding, you know, 10,000 waysnot to develop the electric
light bulb before he finallyfigured it out that one's used
so often. It's, it's almostcliche, but, but it's a perfect
example. And as somebody thatspent my entire career. Now, I
don't even know any 35 yearswhatever, it's been trying to be
innovative, trying to come upwith new ideas, changing

(29:08):
manufacturing spaces, changingproduction models, coming up
with new products. You're right.
Not all of them work. You learnsomething, though, from every
single one of them. And I wouldsay that you almost learn more
from your failures than you dofor your successes. And the
other things that I found overthe years is that the more times
you fail early on, as you get alittle bit deeper into it, you
recognize what to steer clearof, and so your success rate

(29:28):
goes up as well. And we're juststarting that that much earlier
with these students, which is,which is absolutely, absolutely
incredible. You met, youmentioned the funding a little
bit. And of course, the examplethat I was offering was in terms
of getting teachers dreamingabout the future and what could
be, and whether they're seekingmoney or they're seeking a great
idea or they just want greatoutcomes for their students, all
of which are important. Nobody'sgoing to invest in you. Nobody's

(29:50):
going to jump on board unlessyou have a dream that's big, and
certainly you're teaching thesestudents how to dream big at a
at a really, really early age.
Doesn't mean that. The fundingisn't important. In fact, I know
Toshiba recently released areport that talks about how
Americans view the importance ofSTEM and then funding of STEM.
And one of the things that youfound was that that funding, at

(30:13):
least in the eyes of theAmerican people, is a huge
barrier to great STEM education.
What do you think that tells ustalk about that study a little
bit, or about that report andwhat Toshiba learned from that.

Duncan Kane (30:23):
We're still trying to digest the findings a little
bit, but I do budgets all thetime. Matt and budgets talk
about priorities. So I canargue, and I believe that there
are some funding issues outthere, but for me, what I think
it's telling us is ourpriorities may not be in the
same place, because we're notputting our money where our
mouth is. And I'm just going totell you, Toshiba as a company,

(30:45):
the United States as a country,we need to continue to invest in
science and science education,because it is, in fact, the
foundation of our success overdecades and decades and decades.
By the way, it doesn't matter ifwe're talking about Toshiba or
the United States or the world,today's society is what it is
because of the investments thathave been made in technology and

(31:07):
technology education. It justis, and we are believers of
fact. And so from a fundingstandpoint, look, I think we
need to use the money wisely. Ithink that our priorities
sometimes get a little it gets alittle obscure about where money
is going and things like that,but the funding problem will be
fixed if, in fact, ourpriorities about what's

(31:28):
important get fixed. I was justin a group of interns that we
have in our Texas facility, andabout half the interns are
engineers. But if you take alook at how many kids are
deciding to go into engineeringor hard math kinds of things.
Those are things we need toworry about. We need to continue

(31:48):
to invest in those things,because the pace is accelerating
all the time. And Matt, youmentioned you've been doing what
you've been doing for 30something years. I've been doing
what I've been doing for 40something years, you and I tell
you, the day I walked intocorporate America, there wasn't
a cell phone, laptop, faxmachine to be found. And the

(32:12):
change in the 40 something yearsI've been doing this, but not
only how we do but how we thinkabout work, we don't do work the
way you used to do it, andtechnology is the difference.
The biggest thing I worry aboutis we live in a technological
society, and I'll make thissimple. I have a really complex
car, but I'm not sure I haveanybody who knows how to fix it

(32:34):
when it breaks, and that may bean oversimplified example, but
we live in a technology world,we need to make sure that people
that are there to support thattechnology, because even though
history may sound fun, the 18thcentury was not as good as
today.

Matt Kirchner (32:52):
Yeah, no question about that. We talk about
funding in in technicaleducation and STEM we certainly
are 100% aligned. And theincredible importance of
continuing to invest astechnology advances at rates
faster than it has ever advancedbefore. It's just mind boggling.
What's happening in all thesespaces, including, but not
limited to artificialintelligence. So so much
advancement there super, superhard to keep up with the rate of

(33:16):
advancement. But what we findwhen we talk to public policy
makers, and this is alwaysinteresting to me, you're right.
You're gonna have differences onwhere we invest and how we
invest the money, and how wemeasure the impact and the
outcomes we've had three or fourweeks ago, maybe a little bit
longer. Senator Tammy Baldwin,senator from my home state of
Wisconsin, joined me on thepodcast. You know, nobody would

(33:37):
argue that on the politicalscale. She's certainly further
to the left. We had Doug Burgum,who's now the Secretary of the
Interior, former governor of thestate of North Dakota, on with
us. Nobody's gonna argue that heisn't to the other end of the
spectrum. It's interesting,though, as I talk to public
policy makers, as I've talked topeople both at the state and
federal level, making thereally, really important
decisions for where money getsspent in education, nobody tells

(33:59):
us STEM is a bad idea. Nobodytells us technical education is
a bad idea, which is awesome.
The American people told Toshibathat stem and tech ed are a
great idea. So we all agree onthat, and so we've got that
going for us. It's just aquestion of how we put that
money and investments to work.
Because you're right, in thisage of AI, when answers can come

(34:19):
to us at our fingertips. We'reso so far beyond the the age of
the calculator, which isprobably just emerging as you
were talking about being aroundbefore the fax machine, and I
was certainly around before theubiquitousness of cell phones
and laptop computers, althoughwe did have the compact
computers that were about thesize of a small suitcase that
you carry around to do workearly and in my career,
certainly incredible changes intechnology, we need to continue

(34:43):
to invest in STEM and technicaleducation. When you kind of
dream about the future, 20 yearsfrom now, and the importance of
innovating, what are some of therisks do you think to our
country and to our students ifwe don't make the kinds of
investments that we're talkingabout? I

Duncan Kane (34:58):
think that if we slow down. Progress, and there
are real problems in the world.
And by the way, all goodsolutions tend to have
consequences. Okay, which iswhat one of our values is
consider the impact. So newenergy sources, great. We have
new energy sources, but theycome with some challenges with
them, and that ever evolvingtechnology with people, then who

(35:19):
can essentially deal with thesenew consequences is we don't
have those folks, then thoseconsequences get bigger and
bigger and bigger the worldchanges. The solutions that we
have that work for a world of 5billion people are not going to
work for a world of 10 billionpeople, and so I think we need
to continue to innovate in thosekinds of ways. I think that

(35:43):
things that we have taken forgranted in our generation, if we
don't continue to progress,maybe we don't continue to take
some of those things forgranted. Yeah,

Matt Kirchner (35:55):
do you don't take them for granted because you
don't have them, and all of asudden it's like, wow, remember
when, or you know you're notadvancing at the same rate as as
we were, or that the rate ofother countries and other
cultures and so on. So, sotremendous risk

Duncan Kane (36:08):
there basic things like potable water, basic
things, I mean, those are thingsthat as the population gets
bigger, and I read the bigthirst, I think was the book I
read on water scarcity in theworld, and it's going to take
really bright people usingreally powerful tools to solve
those kinds of problems thatcontinue to emerge. By the way,

(36:30):
I wrote a really small littlething. We're AI people too, by
the way, by the way, AI isnothing to be afraid of. It's a
tool. It's a little lessunderstandable than maybe some
of our other tools. But I'll behonest, I don't understand
really how the internet workseither. I just use it, yeah. And
one of the things we go back toexplore vision, what I said
about AI is it's not how itworks, it's the questions we ask

(36:54):
it and how we ask the questions.
They call that queryengineering. Now, sure, I think
yep, or prompt engineering Yep.
And so what I say, it's askinggood questions and asking good
follow up questions and testingthe answer. And that's what
we're trying to do with explorea vision is to get people who
know how to do that ask goodquestions, ask good follow up

(37:17):
questions, think about what theanswer is and say, hey, does
this really make sense? And it'snot just AI that's always been
true at some level, it justhappens faster. Incredibly

Matt Kirchner (37:28):
important, as you're talking about asking
great questions, is a couple ofthings that come to mind. First
of all, just this last weekend,my daughter, who's a data
scientist, works in consultingin Chicago, was home and
introduced me to an app, andwe'll link it up in the show
notes. It's an app where youliterally go in and you're
trying to trick an AI intogiving you the password to
something, and so you have toask it questions in certain ways

(37:51):
that you trick it into givingyou the password. And the whole
idea behind that app, it'sactually a website, is that it
gets you to ask better andbetter questions of your AI. It
gets you to do your queryengineering or your prompt
engineering in more effectiveand more efficient ways. And
that has applications in reallife too. Not that AI isn't real
life. It's certainly a, youknow, it's an integral part of

(38:11):
so many of our lives now, butasking great questions, knowing,
thinking, how to synthesizeexactly what you're asking for,
coming up with creative ways ofasking those questions. Really,
really important. And on the onthe topic of creative questions,
I've got another one for you,Duncan, and that's this.
Certainly Toshiba has made it apriority to invest in STEM
education and technicaleducation, and to volunteer and

(38:34):
to fund this program and to havethe vision, literally 33 years
ago, incredible, incredibleforesight. What advice would you
have for other companies andlarge and small, certainly
Toshiba as a behemoth, but largeand small in terms of why it's
so important to take an activerole in investing in stem with
your time and your treasure? I

Duncan Kane (38:54):
think the answer might be a little different,
depending on your business, butmaybe not. The answer is, you
think again, cliche. You got tothink about the big problem, the
global problem. But my advice tocompanies is starting your own
backyard. Start in your owncommunities. However you define
that. Okay, is that anindustrial community? Is that a

(39:14):
geographical community doesn'tmatter, but work in your own
backyard make a difference inyour place where it's important
to you and to your employees.
One of the things that explorevision does for us is it's
something to be proud of for ouremployees. When we ask, Hey, are
we making a difference in theworld? We can point out. And so
I would say to other companies,find stuff that your employees,

(39:36):
one, you can make a difference,and two that your employees can
be proud of your participation.
And if I'm not an accountant, Ican't measure that if I'm an
accountant, but I can tell you,as an HR guy, I absolutely can
measure that in engagement, inmorale and all those kinds of
things. And it makes adifference. It makes a
difference in how people seeyour company. It makes a

(39:59):
difference about. How they seeyour products. It makes a
difference in how they see yourreputation in the world. And
those things, if I talk to mymarketing people and stuff like
that, they tell me, Hey, thesethings make a difference in the
success of the company. And ifwe're successful, then we can
contribute even more.

Matt Kirchner (40:17):
So many of the things that make successful
companies successful are, infact, immeasurable. I agree with
you 100% I mean, we talk about alot of times people are like,
well, what is the ROI on ourmarketing? Or what is the ROI
doing one more event? Or what isthe ROI on on having a technical
education podcast, for example,is just one more example. The
truth of the matter is that themagic inside of a company, the

(40:37):
culture of that company, what itfinds, is important, the values
that it lives those are thingsthat are almost important to
measure economically on a microscale, but in terms of the macro
scale and the overall success ofthat business, not just
economically, but in terms ofthe impact that it has on the
world. Really, really important.
So you and I are are certainlyaligned on that idea as well.
Duncan is that some of the mostimportant things we can do

(40:58):
aren't necessarily measurable interms of pennies and dollars,
but are measurable instead interms of the way they inspire
our team to do even greaterthings, in the way they inspire
our customers, our suppliers andand the people with whom we do
business. So that aspect of itcertainly very, very important.
You know, I have a good friend,actually several good friends,
as I'm thinking about it, thathave large companies, billion

(41:19):
dollar companies, that sponsorrace teams. You know, it's
whether they're sponsoring aNASCAR team or they're
sponsoring a funny car team,whatever it is. And I've asked
them, you know, how do youjustify that investment? And
they're like the engagement thatour employees have with a sport
like NASCAR, and the fact thatthey see our logo on a car, they
can cheer for that team. Theycan be a part of that. They can

(41:41):
wear the apparel. The impact ofthat is immeasurable in terms of
the pride that they have intheir organization. Is just one
example. I've got to believe theimpact that Toshiba is having on
the world of STEM and technicaleducation and technology in
general, just immeasurableexperiences and pride for your
teammates and for your employeesand for everybody connected with
your brand to be a part of that.

(42:03):
I know the educators that you'reworking with have that same
feeling and are incredibly proudof the partnership and the work
that you're doing withexploravision. I asked you for
advice for companies. Whatadvice would you have for
teachers who are interested inlearning more about explore

Duncan Kane (42:16):
vision? So exploravision.org, www, dot
explore vision. We have a webpage, those kinds of things.
I'll also make a pitch Matt, alittle out of scope, but I sit
on this foundation of the EVAAmerica Foundation, we give
grants to STEM teachers. So ifyou've got one of those STEM
teachers that's out there inMidwest America looking for a

(42:37):
place for money to do somethingcool, exciting, and we do that
too, awesome, and you look upToshiba America Foundation,
explore vision is aimed at kids,aimed at teachers. But if you're
a teacher that's looking for acool idea or a way to make
science interesting, explorevision is one of those things,
and we provide guides andinstruction and ideas about how

(43:01):
to get a team started. And ifyou're one of those teachers
that are saying, hey, look, I'vebeen doing this the same way for
the last 10 years, and I'mlooking for something to do a
little different, my advice is,check us out. And maybe this is
something that will resonate you

Matt Kirchner (43:14):
for sure, and we spend a lot of time around
educators, and we'll make sureto sing those praises loudly as
well, and make sure folks areaware of the great things
happening at the foundation. Andof course, as you suggest, we'll
make sure to link that up in theshow notes. It's going to be a
full set of show notes thisweek, which is absolutely
terrific. We've got time Duncan,I think, for two more questions
to squeeze in. You've been inthe workforce for a number of
years. You've acknowledged theperiod of time that you've been

(43:37):
involved in the workforce andbuilding an incredible career
across HR and strategy and allthe great work you're doing with
exploravision. Every one of ushas our own education journey,
our own kind of way of goingthrough life. As you reflect on
yours, is there something thatyou believe about education that
would surprise other people?

Duncan Kane (43:55):
I believe that education is absolutely ongoing.
I tell people now I have adegree in HR back in the day,
okay, everything I learned incollege is obsolete about five
times, right? Okay, and so Ithink the thing that people get
surprised at when I talk tothem, especially is that

(44:16):
learning needs to continue, andI'm a lifelong learner, and I
think it keeps me young. I thinkit keeps me informed. It allows
me to use these new devices thatevery time they put out a new
thing, I'm going, Oh, my God,how do I do this? But education
is not something that stops. Andby the way, that doesn't mean
you need to go back and get amaster's degree or a PhD or

(44:39):
whatever. It means that you needto continue to keep your mind
open. You need to continue tokeep your mind flexible, and you
should take advantage of thetechnologies that are out there,
or the local library that hasthat stuff.

Matt Kirchner (44:53):
No question this importance of being a lifelong
learner, certainly something welive every day here at The
TechEd Podcast. In fact, that'skind. Why we exist here is, is
because we're all lifelonglearners, and we want to
continue to inform our audienceand others. Your education,
you're right, doesn't stop atthe end of high school. It
doesn't stop at the end oftechnical community, college,
university, whatever level ofeducation you choose to attain,

(45:16):
it your education doesn't stopthere. In fact, in many ways,
it's just starting, and you're aperfect example of that. So we
think about where we are here atthis point of your life, Duncan,
with all the experience thatyou've been through, I want to
take us back for our finalquestion. It's a question we
love asking every single guesthere on The TechEd Podcast.
Let's go back to that 15 yearold Duncan Kane, and if you

(45:37):
could go back in time and givethat young man a little bit of
advice, knowing everything youknow now, what would that advice

Duncan Kane (45:43):
be? So at 15 years old, I wanted to be Jacques
Cousteau, yeah. Okay,underwater. Explorer,
absolutely. Well, Explorer, justin general, I remember watching
Jacques Cousteau, and I lookback on it now, and I had a real
love of math and science at thetime, and I moved around in high
school, went to three highschools, and probably because of

(46:06):
that discontinuity, got a littledisconnected from it. My 15 year
old self, I would probably say,hey, stick with it a little bit
more, and maybe you can be arocket scientist. Maybe you can
be that guy that's exploring atthe bottom of the Marianas
Trench. Maybe you can be the guythat's launching a probe to
Mars, those kinds of things. Bythe way, I've had a great career

(46:28):
being a words guy, but I stillmy 15 year old really did love
that stuff. I'm a bird watcherright now, so I there is still
that affinity for that side ofmy brain and my 15 year old, I
probably I might have ended upin a slightly different place
and been as happy or happierworking in stem like I thought I

(46:49):
was done

Matt Kirchner (46:50):
well, fair enough. And certainly that value
of saying maybe I should havestuck to stem, maybe I would be
that. Jacques Cousteau, you lookat all the lives changed through
your work here these past 16years in the 33 years of
explorer vision Duncan, and Iwill tell you that whether it's
somebody exploring the MarianasTrench or creating that next
missile or that next rocketship, I should say to Mars,

(47:12):
regardless of what that is, theimpact that you've had as you've
explored STEM education, you'veexplored the ways to change the
lives of young people and theirteachers in many ways as
impactful, if not in some waysmore impactful than some of
those other great scientificendeavors that you might have
explored, and who knows maybeyou've In fact, I probably have
no doubt that you've created atleast a handful of the

(47:34):
individuals that are doingexactly that kind of exploration
and advancement through yourincredible work at explorer
vision, This has been a reallyfun conversation, not just about
your work at Toshiba, not justabout your work at explorer
vision, but also these reallyincredibly well thought out and
deep opinions and beliefs aboutSTEM and TechEd. So Duncan Kane,
thanks so much for being withus. Well, thanks for having me.

(47:55):
It's been a real pleasure. Itwas in pleasure indeed to have
Duncan Kane from Toshiba, SeniorVice President, by the way, of
that organization on The TechEdPodcast. On this week's episode
of The TechEd Podcast, we mayhave set a record this week for
the number of different thingswe are going to link up for you
in the show notes, all kinds ofresources that Duncan mentioned
over the course of ourconversation. Check those out.

(48:15):
As you know, we tell you everyweek we have the best show notes
in the business, and this weekwill be no exception. When
you're done there, as always,head on over to social media. We
are all over LinkedIn. We areall over Tiktok. You'll find us
on Facebook. You will find us onthe gram That's right, we are on
Instagram as well. Wherever youconsume your social media, you
will find The TechEd Podcast.
Stop by. Say hello. We wouldlove to hear from you. Can't

(48:38):
wait to see you again next weekon The TechEd Podcast. My name
is Matt Kirkner. Thank you somuch for joining us. You.