Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #286 Community College to NASA Rocket Scientist: Aisha Bowe on Going to Space on Jeff Bezos Rocket & STEM

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EYL #286 Community College to NASA Rocket Scientist: Aisha Bowe on Going to Space on Jeff Bezos Rocket & STEM · Earn Your Leisure

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• 1:54
  Speaker 8: She's like, you're going to learn that in life sometimes
• 1:57
  Speaker 8: having exposure to disadvantage is truly the advantage because most
• 2:00
  Speaker 8: of us don't really know what we're doing. We just
• 2:01
  Speaker 8: pretend to know, and so you just need to put yourself.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Out all right. Gosh, welcome back, Alisia. This is a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: very special episode. We're back home and we got Aisha
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: bo So this is a first of sorts. They always say,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: like the smartest people. When I was a kid, they like,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you're a rocket scientist, Like.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: Take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Yeah for sure,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Well maybe it does.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Well, we have a rocket scientist, so X, NASA scientist
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and Stemboard CEO and now is an entrepreneur and she
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: has a company called Lingo where she teaches kids about
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: stem It's recognized by in five thousand as one of
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the fastest growing companies. Recently raised two million dollars. And
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: you see the rounds, right, and you have a few
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: other businesses as well. And it's a good conversation because
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: started from struggling academically community college to literally being what
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is known as the smartest profession in the world. Can
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: we mention the space thing?
• 3:05
  Speaker 8: Absolutely?
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  Speaker 4: And then definite.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So she's also the first African American woman astronaut
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: with Blue Origin, right, and that is a space program
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: with NASA that's actually set to launch, I believe in
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: fall September.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: September, Well, you got to mention the founder of Florid
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and guys that we may know, Jeff Bezos.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, And so you're going to go out
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of space in September. One of the few people ever
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: in the history of the world to go out of space.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: If you look at it, it's very few people in
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the history of the world that is actually going out
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: of space. I believe you're one of the only the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: only three black women have ever gone out of space.
• 3:48
  Speaker 9: Right, but I'll be so astronaut, rocket scientists, entrepreneur, stem enthusiast, teacher,
• 4:00
  Speaker 9: and UH relationship expert as well.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: We talked about the motivational speaker.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Motivational speaker, you have a you have a book too.
• 4:08
  Speaker 8: Right, working on the book, working on the book.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So yeah, this is a lot. There's a lot to unpack.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: The first and foremos, thank you for joining us, appreciate.
• 4:15
  Speaker 8: It, Thank you for inviting me.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: All right, and you're from DC, right and blue exactly.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I greeted you by saying, go blue. So congratulations to them.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: We are sorry for what happened to our alliance, but
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: there's always next year.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So congrats again to the yout them.
• 4:36
  Speaker 8: What we say about that, right, The moral of the
• 4:38
  Speaker 8: story is when you're up, stay up, don't stop working
• 4:42
  Speaker 8: when you think you're ahead.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: That's a fact. Life lesslie, that's a fact. So let's
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: get into this. I want to talk about the entrepreneurship,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: talking about space, talking about all of that stuff. But
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: let's start at the beginning. So how do you actually
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: go from struggling in high school to going to community
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: college to becoming a rocket scientist at NASA. That seems
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: like that's a track to somebody that is a genius
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: early on in school, that has straight a's, that is
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: advanced algebra, and what exactly is a rocket scientist? Anyway?
• 5:18
  Speaker 8: I think that what happens in life is that when
• 5:21
  Speaker 8: you're growing up, you listen to what people around you say,
• 5:25
  Speaker 8: and you think they know, but oftentimes they're just guessing
• 5:29
  Speaker 8: they don't really know. And so at that point in
• 5:32
  Speaker 8: time in my life, I wasn't focused on the books
• 5:34
  Speaker 8: because there was a lot of other stuff going on
• 5:36
  Speaker 8: at home. They were lucky if they saw me, and
• 5:40
  Speaker 8: I was happy to occasionally be there, but I was
• 5:44
  Speaker 8: focused on just making it through the day, not so
• 5:47
  Speaker 8: much making the grades. And so what happened was I
• 5:51
  Speaker 8: leave this high school environment after, you know, talking to
• 5:53
  Speaker 8: guidance counselors and things, and so the famous kind of
• 5:57
  Speaker 8: story here is that my high school guidance counselor suggested
• 5:59
  Speaker 8: that I should be a cosmetologist. And that was like
• 6:02
  Speaker 8: the first time that I actually felt mad. And there's
• 6:04
  Speaker 8: really nothing against it. It was that that was all
• 6:08
  Speaker 8: that she thought I was capable of being. And I
• 6:11
  Speaker 8: started asking myself, why do I think the way that
• 6:14
  Speaker 8: I do about what's possible for me? Like who really
• 6:18
  Speaker 8: tested whether or not what people are telling me is
• 6:21
  Speaker 8: true or not? So I end up in community college
• 6:24
  Speaker 8: not doing all the first semester, and I have this
• 6:26
  Speaker 8: moment where it's like.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: God, your GP in high school two point three one three,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So that's like a C average, right, because two point
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: ohero is a C average. Three point ohs a B
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: average right, four point ohs a A average. So you, like
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: a CUSC C student shout out to the C students.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: C's get degrees.
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  Speaker 8: The C students are running the company's AC start working.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: C students run the world.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: C students are running this company right now.
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  Speaker 8: I have this paper at my house to this day
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  Speaker 8: as motivation, literally, like I look at it. I want
• 7:01
  Speaker 8: to make it into cleanex tissues so people could boo
• 7:03
  Speaker 8: whoo into it when they visit me, because it really
• 7:05
  Speaker 8: shows like it's not where you start, it's how you finish.
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  Speaker 8: And I still say this day, don't know why we
• 7:10
  Speaker 8: need to measure it to three one three, But they
• 7:12
  Speaker 8: did that. So two point three would have been fine.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So two point three GPA in high school, you go
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: to community college and you just all right? So what
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: happens at community college?
• 7:21
  Speaker 8: So I like bomb the first semester. I think I'm
• 7:23
  Speaker 8: going to be a business student, study economics, econ had
• 7:26
  Speaker 8: math in it. I didn't know how to study, didn't
• 7:28
  Speaker 8: have any self confidence. I find myself in my room.
• 7:32
  Speaker 8: It's like dark, dramatic, it's everything. It's like I just
• 7:37
  Speaker 8: don't know what I'm gonna do. And I have this thought, well,
• 7:40
  Speaker 8: why do you think that you're not capable of anything great?
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: Like why do you get up every day and look
• 7:46
  Speaker 8: at yourself and feel bad? Like why do you allow that?
• 7:50
  Speaker 8: And so I thought, but I was gonna just do
• 7:53
  Speaker 8: something crazy like take out a piece of paper and
• 7:55
  Speaker 8: make a dream list and escape to this fantasy land.
• 7:59
  Speaker 8: But then I realized, like in the Immortal Wards of Tupac,
• 8:02
  Speaker 8: the dreams are.
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  Speaker 1: Real, rest and peace of pop.
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  Speaker 4: That's a fact.
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  Speaker 8: So this list, which I you know to this day,
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  Speaker 8: I remember it was very short, very simple. I want
• 8:15
  Speaker 8: to look at myself and feel good, right, I want
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: to say my name and feel respected. I want to
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  Speaker 8: go to college. And if I go to college. I
• 8:26
  Speaker 8: want to study something that is outrageous, that's impressive that
• 8:30
  Speaker 8: every single time I introduce myself, I'm going to feel
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  Speaker 8: proud to say. And I kind of put in rocket
• 8:36
  Speaker 8: science because that's the thing, right, Like that's like the
• 8:39
  Speaker 8: unachievable dream. And so it was sort of like this
• 8:41
  Speaker 8: hitting the prayer, but it was like this hidden prayer
• 8:45
  Speaker 8: of like, well, look, if I put this in there,
• 8:46
  Speaker 8: then like I will truly know that God is real,
• 8:48
  Speaker 8: I will be good for the rest of my life.
• 8:50
  Speaker 8: But that that was the list.
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  Speaker 1: So okay, so you have this awakening after the first
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  Speaker 1: semester in junior college that you want to be a
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  Speaker 1: rocket science Yeah, so then you start doing better in school.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming, let's tell.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: You, like, because I don't even feel like that.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: It almost seems like I want to do better, but
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: sometimes I just may not have the capability. Had you
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: always had the capability to be a great student, especially
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: in mathematics or was that something that you found after
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  Speaker 2: this moment, this epiphany.
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  Speaker 8: In a sense, So I think what I found was
• 9:25
  Speaker 8: the courage to try, because when I started telling people
• 9:29
  Speaker 8: about my dream, they're all like, oh, no, you're crazy,
• 9:31
  Speaker 8: that's never going to happen. Da da da da da.
• 9:33
  Speaker 8: Like nobody was a fan. They literally thought that I
• 9:35
  Speaker 8: had lost it. And so that actually allowed me the
• 9:38
  Speaker 8: safe space to just focus in on myself and what
• 9:41
  Speaker 8: I wanted to do. It was like a blessing in disguise.
• 9:43
  Speaker 8: I just kind of get to go in stealth mode.
• 9:45
  Speaker 8: And it wasn't an overnight success. It was as though
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: I was consistently accomplishing small things that turned into bigger things.
• 9:55
  Speaker 8: So while I transitioned out of Community College to Michigan Aerospace,
• 9:58
  Speaker 8: I think I filled every single class that first semester
• 10:01
  Speaker 8: Michigan Eraro. But that's okay. I took the beating and
• 10:03
  Speaker 8: was like, well, if I made it this far, I
• 10:05
  Speaker 8: can continue to make it. And so I realized that
• 10:09
  Speaker 8: there was no such thing really as failure. It was
• 10:11
  Speaker 8: just more learning. Right, some of those lessons are going
• 10:13
  Speaker 8: to hurt more than others, but if you can be
• 10:16
  Speaker 8: informed by them, then you can succeed. So like the
• 10:20
  Speaker 8: second time, maybe I take that class and get a B.
• 10:22
  Speaker 8: And that's what I committed to. I just committed to
• 10:25
  Speaker 8: the process and to the long game, and over that
• 10:29
  Speaker 8: I got better and better until I got to the
• 10:30
  Speaker 8: point where I was like, there isn't anything that I
• 10:33
  Speaker 8: can't do that I can't come back from. I know
• 10:36
  Speaker 8: what it's like to be broke. I know what it's
• 10:37
  Speaker 8: like to be hungry. I know what it's like to
• 10:38
  Speaker 8: have no hope. So what is it if I see
• 10:45
  Speaker 8: a grade and perceived failure? No, take it again and
• 10:47
  Speaker 8: do it again.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: So you go from community college to ann Arbor, Michigan.
• 10:52
  Speaker 8: Would you study at Michigan aerospace engineering and space systems engineering?
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: From a financial standpoint? Is that in your mind right?
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Because you're thinking community college is going to cost me
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: one thing, I'm going to the University of Michigan. This
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: is this is going to be an expensive process. I
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: have to make it right, Like failing classes is one
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: thing in high school because it's like, yeah, you can
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: do a summer school and do it. You fail in college,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: there's a price associated with that, and redoing it, there's
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: a price associated with that. So how much did the
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: financial impact of what you the decisions you would make
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: in and have on you.
• 11:25
  Speaker 8: That's such a good question. You know that first semester
• 11:29
  Speaker 8: when I failed all those courses at Michigan because that
• 11:32
  Speaker 8: was real money, right, I was living off of like
• 11:34
  Speaker 8: three hundred dollars a month and some of those classes
• 11:37
  Speaker 8: six hundred dollars a credit hour. I literally took out
• 11:39
  Speaker 8: a life insurance policy on myself so that if I
• 11:42
  Speaker 8: died during college, my parents wouldn't have to pay that
• 11:45
  Speaker 8: money back because I didn't I mean, I didn't come
• 11:47
  Speaker 8: from people who could pay for college, and so here
• 11:49
  Speaker 8: I am. I got in. I'm terrified, I'm failing classes,
• 11:53
  Speaker 8: and all I can think about is how I don't
• 11:54
  Speaker 8: want to stick somebody else with that debt.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: A real thought, It's a real thought.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: So is that further more encouragement to say, I have
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: to do this, this is my path.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: Now I've decided to do it.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I have to make it so when you when you fail,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: you're allowed to take because sometimes you start failing courses
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: and you know, they call you into administration like.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Hey, this this may not be for you. We may
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: have to let you go from the school.
• 12:23
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I definitely had a few of those meetings,
• 12:27
  Speaker 8: but I just I refuse to commit to the idea
• 12:30
  Speaker 8: that I couldn't do it. I was just like no, right, Like, look,
• 12:34
  Speaker 8: if I can go from being in high school and
• 12:38
  Speaker 8: not doing so well, to being in community college to
• 12:42
  Speaker 8: being at this point I'm gonna make it out, and
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: between taking more classes than I probably should have so
• 12:51
  Speaker 8: I could have gotten out sooner, which didn't necessarily help distress.
• 12:55
  Speaker 8: I think I lived on red Bull and Burritos for
• 12:57
  Speaker 8: at least a year. Everything that I encountered just made
• 13:02
  Speaker 8: me feel like, when I leave this place, I want
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: to rewrite the script on how people do this, because
• 13:08
  Speaker 8: you can and you will to.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: By the time you graduate from Michigan, what was your GPA?
• 13:12
  Speaker 8: Oh I nearly four pointed my masters?
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Huh, sorry, So you get it together. You graduate from
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: from college, right then you go to you have a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: master's program that you go, Yeah, where is that?
• 13:22
  Speaker 8: Also at Michigan?
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: So you say, in Michigan, be a master's program? What's
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the masters?
• 13:26
  Speaker 8: So my master's is in space systems engineering with a
• 13:29
  Speaker 8: focus on nanosatellites, like satellite the size of a shoebax.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So by that time, you you're fully entranced into the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: academic world and you're you're doing good.
• 13:38
  Speaker 8: Yes, But the cool part about this part was I
• 13:40
  Speaker 8: transitioned from a program that was mostly theoretical to a
• 13:43
  Speaker 8: program that was practical, like we were doing real things,
• 13:46
  Speaker 8: we were building with their hands, and that type of
• 13:49
  Speaker 8: learning I got. I'm not necessarily like a design and
• 13:52
  Speaker 8: airplane on the back of a napkin person. But if
• 13:54
  Speaker 8: you give me something and you tell me to make something,
• 13:57
  Speaker 8: then I can do it. And that's when I really
• 14:00
  Speaker 8: learned about the power of like learning styles and like
• 14:03
  Speaker 8: if you don't learn something the first time, it's not
• 14:05
  Speaker 8: because you can't learn it, it's that you may not
• 14:07
  Speaker 8: have found the person that can teach it to you
• 14:11
  Speaker 8: in the way that you learn.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, that's the problem with American school and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they only teach in one way exactly. So okay, so
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: now you figure that out. You graduate from your master's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: program flying colors.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, can you say the degree again?
• 14:29
  Speaker 8: Space systems engineering?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Space systems Engineering. So what happens after that?
• 14:35
  Speaker 8: So I have this amazing conversation and I want to
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: like shout out to all those people who see more
• 14:41
  Speaker 8: than you than what's on paper. I'm getting ready to
• 14:44
  Speaker 8: graduate and I meet somebody who is running an engineering
• 14:50
  Speaker 8: program at NASAIN Silicon Valley, and it was my job
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: to take them on a tour the school. You know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 8: do all those things you do when you're just trying
• 14:57
  Speaker 8: to get out of college. And he says to me, hey,
• 15:02
  Speaker 8: I think you should apply. I think you'd be really
• 15:05
  Speaker 8: good for this job. And I was like, look, I
• 15:06
  Speaker 8: understand that I'm doing well now, but I came from
• 15:10
  Speaker 8: all of this, you know, all this background, and I'm
• 15:13
  Speaker 8: not really sure that I can make it. And he
• 15:15
  Speaker 8: looked me downe the eye and he was like, what
• 15:18
  Speaker 8: you've been through counts for something, right, He's like, you're
• 15:21
  Speaker 8: going to learn that in life sometimes having exposure to
• 15:26
  Speaker 8: disadvantage is truly the advantage because most of us don't
• 15:28
  Speaker 8: really know what we're doing. We just pretend to know,
• 15:31
  Speaker 8: and so you just need to put yourself out there.
• 15:34
  Speaker 8: I still didn't give him my resume. It's terrible. I
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: should have done it the first time. But then he
• 15:38
  Speaker 8: sent me an email the next week and he was like, look,
• 15:41
  Speaker 8: I just need you to send me your resume so
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: that I can round out my recruiting efforts at this school.
• 15:48
  Speaker 8: And it was at that moment that I was like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 8: why am I going to be another person that doubts me?
• 15:53
  Speaker 8: There are so many other people who do that, who
• 15:56
  Speaker 8: invest in doing that. I've just had someone tell me
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: that everything that I overcame matters. Let me put myself
• 16:02
  Speaker 8: out there, and that's how I ended up getting the
• 16:06
  Speaker 8: internship and then six years later I was still there.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Prior to the internship at NASA, what was the goal, right,
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: you have this degree, but when you went to school,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: you had the idea, I'm going to get this degree,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: but I'm going.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: To be what what was it?
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't know.
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: Look.
• 16:25
  Speaker 8: Look, I literally had like what three or four goals
• 16:28
  Speaker 8: and I had accomplished them, and I was in school
• 16:30
  Speaker 8: like I don't know, because I didn't think anyone was
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: going to hire me. I mean, there isn't exactly a
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: NASA in Michigan. I had never been. Oh, I don't
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: know anywhere without my parents. I had no idea where
• 16:40
  Speaker 8: I was going to go and what I was going
• 16:41
  Speaker 8: to do. I just knew that I was going to
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: have a degree, and I was told that people needed
• 16:44
  Speaker 8: a degree.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So once you start, you get the internship in NASA,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and then you get a permanent job in NASA, and
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: then that job is what scientists job.
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: I was working as a mission engineer for the Small
• 16:57
  Speaker 8: Spacecraft Division. Okay, because I get there, I have a badge,
• 17:01
  Speaker 8: I'm supposed to be there. I'm looking around and I'm like,
• 17:04
  Speaker 8: this is dope. I love everything about it. And I
• 17:09
  Speaker 8: start asking questions in meetings and I'm like, I spent
• 17:12
  Speaker 8: all this time questioning myself and I should have been
• 17:15
  Speaker 8: questioning you, because you get into these rooms and it's
• 17:18
  Speaker 8: the same style of thinking over and over and over again.
• 17:23
  Speaker 8: And the questions I'm having are being welcomed, and the
• 17:26
  Speaker 8: things I'm working on are making progress, and I'm like, oh, no,
• 17:29
  Speaker 8: you need me now, Now I have confidence. Now I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 8: going to stay here. And so I transitioned from that
• 17:35
  Speaker 8: internship into that job.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So what were you doing as your job? What's your job? Details?
• 17:40
  Speaker 8: Job was fun. The first couple of years. We're working
• 17:43
  Speaker 8: on small spacecraft and our objective was to build car
• 17:46
  Speaker 8: seats for nanosats, because you want to make sure that
• 17:48
  Speaker 8: your satellite gets there safely on that bumpy ride out
• 17:51
  Speaker 8: of the atmosphere. That was fun. I got to travel around,
• 17:55
  Speaker 8: I got to meet a lot of interesting people and
• 17:57
  Speaker 8: stand out some small now large space companies. The next
• 18:03
  Speaker 8: opportunity I had was working on commercial aviation. So you
• 18:07
  Speaker 8: know when you fly to point A, from point A
• 18:09
  Speaker 8: to point B. You ever wonder how you might have
• 18:12
  Speaker 8: left late but got there on time, that's us because
• 18:16
  Speaker 8: we optimize the trajectories for different situations when you're going
• 18:20
  Speaker 8: through the neighborhood. So NASA, FAA, private research all get
• 18:24
  Speaker 8: together to make sure that you can fly safely and efficiently.
• 18:28
  Speaker 8: And so my publications are on flight trajectory optimization for
• 18:31
  Speaker 8: the commercial airspace.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: So what exactly does that mean? That means that you
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: are taking a left when you should have been taken
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a right so you can get there quicker.
• 18:38
  Speaker 8: Means you get a shortcut, taking a shortcut, taking a.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Shortcut, but you mapped out the roadmap in the sky
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to see what the most efficient way of traveling is.
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: Yes, so that means a big effort, right. We got
• 18:50
  Speaker 8: a lot of players on the team, but that was
• 18:51
  Speaker 8: essentially what all of my research was on and looking at.
• 18:55
  Speaker 8: When you're getting these shortcuts, how do you minimize the
• 18:57
  Speaker 8: field burns? You can reduce emissions.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: You're doing any emissions that you like, Studying wind patterns
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: and all this tool.
• 19:03
  Speaker 8: Mostly maneuvers, Like what kind of maneuvers can you give
• 19:07
  Speaker 8: the pilots so that they can, you know, shorten the
• 19:10
  Speaker 8: route and maybe reduce to the speed from at certain
• 19:13
  Speaker 8: points so that you can apply more efficiently.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: So how does the process of doing that? What do
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you have to study to know that information?
• 19:21
  Speaker 8: So that comes down to radar locations, right, kind of
• 19:26
  Speaker 8: like where all the points are, what air traffic controls doing,
• 19:30
  Speaker 8: how much traffic is there? And then like you said,
• 19:33
  Speaker 8: weather things of that nature. I mean, we were really
• 19:36
  Speaker 8: looking at large scale stimulations and then putting forth ideas
• 19:41
  Speaker 8: about well if we make it a little bit more
• 19:44
  Speaker 8: efficient here, then that's going to mean this there.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: So this is an executive position.
• 19:50
  Speaker 8: No, I'm a worker bee, So I.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Mean it sounds really important, right, Like this is a
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: very this is a very important position, especially when you're
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: talking about commercial airlines. How much is somebody in this
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: space making at the position that you were at that time?
• 20:04
  Speaker 8: Oh my goodness, I remember it was literally like one
• 20:07
  Speaker 8: hundred thousand and one cent, like literally on hundred thouan thousand,
• 20:13
  Speaker 8: because I was obsessed with this idea of making six figures, right,
• 20:17
  Speaker 8: and so every single year I kept the list of
• 20:22
  Speaker 8: every single thing that I would do. And so this
• 20:24
  Speaker 8: is like a little bit of like a work suggestion, right,
• 20:27
  Speaker 8: I would take what the organization's objectives were I would
• 20:31
  Speaker 8: look at what I was doing and I would break out, Okay,
• 20:33
  Speaker 8: I went to this seminar, this, this supports this professional
• 20:37
  Speaker 8: development goal. I went to this thing in the community
• 20:39
  Speaker 8: that supports this goal, and I would have the receipts.
• 20:42
  Speaker 8: And so whenever my supervisor went to review me, I'm like, well,
• 20:45
  Speaker 8: this is what I did. This is how many people
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: I impacted, this is how much time I spent. And
• 20:49
  Speaker 8: then here are all my publications, all my conferences. How
• 20:52
  Speaker 8: could you not mark me exceptional because I wanted those promotions.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So and then that's the last job that you have
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: had NASA. We had another job.
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: That was the last job I had at NASA.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: And so what made you leave NASA.
• 21:07
  Speaker 8: I was going into the community and I was talking
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: to kids, and I was so excited to talk about
• 21:12
  Speaker 8: the work that I had worked so hard to be
• 21:15
  Speaker 8: able to represent, and all they wanted to do was
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: talk about who I was and how I got there.
• 21:20
  Speaker 8: And I realized that there was a gap because those
• 21:23
  Speaker 8: students were like, wait a second, you mean this wasn't
• 21:27
  Speaker 8: what you always wanted to do. You mean you didn't
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: know how you're going to pay for college.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: But you did it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: And oh, by the way, you're wearing a pink blazer
• 21:35
  Speaker 8: and you're wearing makeup. How does all this fit together?
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: And after going to school after school, I was like,
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: there's a real disconnect here right, Like I can't go
• 21:43
  Speaker 8: into these classrooms and have the kids looking at me
• 21:45
  Speaker 8: like I'm an alien. I want to normalize this. So
• 21:49
  Speaker 8: how do I create a way to found a business
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: that helps people realize that they can do this too?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Started a business?
• 22:02
  Speaker 8: I had the idea, and I say it that way
• 22:05
  Speaker 8: because once again I didn't have successful family members that
• 22:10
  Speaker 8: I could go to for money or people that thought
• 22:12
  Speaker 8: that my idea was going to be anything. And so
• 22:15
  Speaker 8: I started the idea. And it took me two years
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: from having that idea to actually getting enough traction to
• 22:23
  Speaker 8: transition from my job to run the idea full time.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: What was that that transition? Like you said that you
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: were the work would be, but now you're the entrepreneur.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: We spoke to Robert Smith, who comes from engineering, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: that was one of those things for him as well.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: It was all right, I'm I'm an engineer by trade,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: but now I'm an entrepreneur.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: I'm a CEO. What were you going through during those
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: two years while you're trying to figure.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Out, who were you leaning on to figure out how
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: do I navigate this new space that I'm in. I'm
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: already a rocket scientist, but an entrepreneur this is new.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: Well, one of the things that happened was I realized
• 23:00
  Speaker 8: how expensive it was to be knowledge poor, right, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 8: I had given up Delisa my permit, which now all
• 23:10
  Speaker 8: the way my parents are like what like what Like?
• 23:13
  Speaker 8: My mom was just like, there's just you mean, you're
• 23:15
  Speaker 8: giving up your jobs and now's the right for this business.
• 23:18
  Speaker 8: And I'm like, I'm going to be bigger than this business.
• 23:20
  Speaker 8: You just don't know. And so I got up an
• 23:23
  Speaker 8: hour earlier and an hour later, and I started reading
• 23:26
  Speaker 8: about successful people. And one of the things that I
• 23:29
  Speaker 8: noticed was a lot of people had the destination in mind,
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: but they had no idea how they were actually going
• 23:35
  Speaker 8: to get to that point. It was just a series
• 23:37
  Speaker 8: of things that happened that may have looked fortuitous, but
• 23:42
  Speaker 8: was really the universe and their environment reacting to their
• 23:46
  Speaker 8: desire to get to where they wanted to go. And
• 23:49
  Speaker 8: so I'm meeting people, I'm making connections, I'm going to meetups,
• 23:53
  Speaker 8: I'm you know, hiring consultants and trying things and just
• 23:56
  Speaker 8: a lot of failure. And all of this led me
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: to finding mentors who I think they just recognize the
• 24:05
  Speaker 8: desire to figure it out, and we're willing to provide
• 24:08
  Speaker 8: a little bit more guidance to take me the rest
• 24:09
  Speaker 8: of the way.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: So what's the first company that you started?
• 24:13
  Speaker 8: Stemboard?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So talk about that and you know challenges and the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: idea and the vision behind it.
• 24:18
  Speaker 8: Started Stemboard a decade ago. We are an eight figure
• 24:24
  Speaker 8: business and I've got nearly fifty people working for me
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: full time in several states. I started the business literally
• 24:31
  Speaker 8: with the dollar and a dream, and it took maybe
• 24:35
  Speaker 8: I would say, three to four years before I really
• 24:39
  Speaker 8: started to see the revenue that validated that business. And
• 24:43
  Speaker 8: this is why I think, especially for minority entrepreneurs, it
• 24:47
  Speaker 8: is so expensive to be broke. If you can take
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: the time and you can do your side hustle and
• 24:54
  Speaker 8: let that side hustle build while you have a job,
• 24:57
  Speaker 8: I highly recommend it because all money I used to
• 25:00
  Speaker 8: spend trying to figure it out, going to conferences that
• 25:03
  Speaker 8: I didn't need to invest in, hiring people that I
• 25:06
  Speaker 8: didn't know what I was looking for and a hire.
• 25:09
  Speaker 8: I didn't have to worry about that as much because
• 25:11
  Speaker 8: I still had a job. When I transitioned out of
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: the job, all those gambles on talent and decisions just
• 25:18
  Speaker 8: became more weighty. But we are an engineering firm. We
• 25:23
  Speaker 8: support government clients, mostly large clients, and we were actually
• 25:27
  Speaker 8: been recognized not only by INK five thousand twice as
• 25:31
  Speaker 8: one of the fastest growing companies in America, but BUY
• 25:34
  Speaker 8: the Small Business Administration and by the Department of Defense
• 25:37
  Speaker 8: is one of the premier contractors.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: So you.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Do consulting work for what is that? He did your
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: company do?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So?
• 25:44
  Speaker 8: We provide engineering expertise in data science, data analytics, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 8: enterprise IT modernization, which can sound like a lot of words,
• 25:52
  Speaker 8: but basically we provide very good engineering advice when it
• 25:56
  Speaker 8: comes to data consulting.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: So you make systems for these large companies to make
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: their businesses run easier.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, so you don't actually do to engineering work, you
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: just consult.
• 26:06
  Speaker 8: We actually do the engineering work.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so my team is all engineer so we not
• 26:11
  Speaker 8: only consult, but we also implement.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: So is an engineering firm?
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Pretty?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: So who is the you start do you start small
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: businesses and lead to large enterprises. Did you have connections
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: being in Silicon Valley but NASA? Did you rely on
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: those resources to help you get.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Your first clients?
• 26:33
  Speaker 8: So let me frame it this way. When I was
• 26:35
  Speaker 8: an engineer and I as a worker be i'd have
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: to go out. I've talked a whole bunch of people,
• 26:39
  Speaker 8: and one of the pieces of the device that I
• 26:40
  Speaker 8: give is a lot of the people who have already
• 26:43
  Speaker 8: hired you can be some of your first clients. And
• 26:47
  Speaker 8: so I essentially where I could right went back and said, hey,
• 26:52
  Speaker 8: I'm a business on my own. Now are there opportunities
• 26:55
  Speaker 8: for you either to come on as an employee or
• 26:58
  Speaker 8: for you to support me?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: And how did that go?
• 27:01
  Speaker 8: It went well, it went really well. There are a
• 27:05
  Speaker 8: lot of people who I worked with who were like, well,
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: I know what your reputation was when you were at NASA,
• 27:10
  Speaker 8: and that's what attracted us to work with you now.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: So okay, So you get that up and running, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: then the next business that you start is the stem business.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: It is so talk about that.
• 27:26
  Speaker 8: I'm looking at stemboard, I'm saying to myself, we are
• 27:30
  Speaker 8: going out there and we had this mission of a
• 27:35
  Speaker 8: portion of revenue every year was going to be reinvested
• 27:38
  Speaker 8: back into the community because I wanted to from the
• 27:41
  Speaker 8: ground up build a talent pipeline. That was my mission
• 27:45
  Speaker 8: when I came out of NASA's I want to see
• 27:47
  Speaker 8: people and tell them my story and I want to
• 27:49
  Speaker 8: own the highlights and the low lights so that students
• 27:53
  Speaker 8: know that they can build their own businesses, that they
• 27:56
  Speaker 8: can change the future of their community. And that allowed
• 28:00
  Speaker 8: us as a company to say, we're going to take,
• 28:03
  Speaker 8: you know, minimum ten percent of the revenue that we generate,
• 28:07
  Speaker 8: and we're going to build our own educational programs, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 8: we're going to go into inner cities Baltimore, Atlanta, Saint Louis,
• 28:14
  Speaker 8: all these areas, and we're going to donate our time
• 28:17
  Speaker 8: and we're going to work alongside these kids, and we're
• 28:19
  Speaker 8: going to help them build companies. We're going to help
• 28:21
  Speaker 8: them apply for college. I mean, this is stuff that
• 28:24
  Speaker 8: we've been doing for the entirety of the foundation of
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: the company, and it ended up becoming such a needed
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: thing that it grew into its own company on its own.
• 28:37
  Speaker 8: And I you know, as somebody who never thought that
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: they were going to be an engineer, right I didn't
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: decide to do sinceil I was eighteen, and my academic
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: journey didn't really start to get good until I was
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: building with my hand and I could learn that, like
• 28:53
  Speaker 8: that fire, that passion that I had for hustle really
• 28:55
  Speaker 8: could translate to dollars. I wanted to bring that to
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: kids where they were and that's what LINGO is. We
• 29:03
  Speaker 8: spun it out, we grew it, and in the last
• 29:06
  Speaker 8: two years we've been put in the hands of nearly
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: ten thousand students. And one of my favorite things is
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: we support up bound. We're taught in schools. You know,
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: We've got everything from Princeton Day School as a client
• 29:18
  Speaker 8: to Albany State University in Georgia. Right, We've got HBCUs,
• 29:22
  Speaker 8: We've got PWIS. We have it all. And that to
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: me is what I truly feel is a legacy because
• 29:28
  Speaker 8: I don't need you to become an aerospace engineer, but
• 29:31
  Speaker 8: I do need you to be successful, and I need
• 29:33
  Speaker 8: you to understand that you may not need a four
• 29:35
  Speaker 8: year degree to be successful. All you need is confidence
• 29:38
  Speaker 8: in yourself and a little bit of know how and
• 29:41
  Speaker 8: the ability to learn things on the Internet, and you
• 29:44
  Speaker 8: can make a lot of things in life happen.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: How involved all with the selection of the students in
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: the schools because STEM has been set and that has
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: been pushed for the past I say, ten to fifteen
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: years inside of schools for those non STEM is science, Technology, Engineering,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: and math. But it seems like, especially in the schools
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I've been in, the STEM kids are the brightest kids
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: based on their grades. Right, So technically if that was
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: the case, then at the time you wouldn't even been
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: inside the program. So how are you making sure that
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: it's curate from kids with all academic prowess?
• 30:15
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: how we architected the program. My head of the business
• 30:22
  Speaker 8: who runs education. He's the only person that I know
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: who had a lower high school GPA than me. He
• 30:29
  Speaker 8: did at one point eight, became a PhD nuclear science,
• 30:32
  Speaker 8: the only black man to do it in the entire country.
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: The year that he did it. Right, we all got
• 30:38
  Speaker 8: together as an executive team, we said, how do we
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: design this for people who don't have parents that can
• 30:44
  Speaker 8: help them with their homework and people who don't have
• 30:46
  Speaker 8: teachers that have the training to help them execute it.
• 30:49
  Speaker 8: So first thing was all of our lessons are online,
• 30:52
  Speaker 8: self paced modules. We are teaching you, the kids. The
• 30:56
  Speaker 8: other thing was we aligned it to national learning standards
• 30:59
  Speaker 8: so we can be taught as part of you know,
• 31:02
  Speaker 8: Next Generation Science Standards or CSTA K through twelve, which
• 31:06
  Speaker 8: the importance for that is a lot of the schools
• 31:09
  Speaker 8: are under pressure to teach the standard. Well, now you
• 31:11
  Speaker 8: can introduce our box as part of that standard. And
• 31:14
  Speaker 8: the other thing is we specifically go to areas that
• 31:18
  Speaker 8: need our help. Our idea is to be capacity building,
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: so we want to develop the content and we want
• 31:24
  Speaker 8: to train the teachers, and that's where we spend our
• 31:26
  Speaker 8: time empowering educators. I spent time teaching eighth grade and
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: East Saint Louis loved it, loved it. We'll be back
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: there again this year, and I've had students. So one
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: of my favorite lessons is what we call trap Lingo,
• 31:39
  Speaker 8: where we teach the kids that music is really like
• 31:42
  Speaker 8: voltage drops, right, And we had the kids code their
• 31:45
  Speaker 8: favorite songs and so all of a sudden, you have
• 31:48
  Speaker 8: meg on a micro controller and the kids don't want
• 31:51
  Speaker 8: to leave the class. And that kid's telling me that
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: he wants to be a producer and he wants to
• 31:56
  Speaker 8: make music and the parents coming in and saying, I
• 31:59
  Speaker 8: have no I ever had to come into the school
• 32:01
  Speaker 8: other than to take my kid after bad behavior. And
• 32:05
  Speaker 8: now he's telling me to come in and tell and
• 32:06
  Speaker 8: see what he built that day because he's proud of it.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: That is what we do.
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: And when you look at education, you guys know this well,
• 32:13
  Speaker 8: there are very few things in the school district that
• 32:15
  Speaker 8: are actually made by us or made by an American company,
• 32:19
  Speaker 8: And like, that's what I want to contribute, right for me,
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: The legacy is the story, the idea that you can
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: be anything and you can build anything.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: So you have a STEM program that you have offerings
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: through different school districts, and you can purchase it as
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a parent as well.
• 32:37
  Speaker 8: You can so you can go direct online and you
• 32:40
  Speaker 8: can buy from us. But what I like to do
• 32:42
  Speaker 8: is get corporations to pay for the kids. So our
• 32:45
  Speaker 8: whole strategy is to work with big corporations and they
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: then donated to the schools, Like we just worked with
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: Wells Fargo to have them donate about twenty five thousand
• 32:54
  Speaker 8: dollars worth of product to a school in New Orleans.
• 32:57
  Speaker 8: That's how we operate because I don't want you as
• 33:00
  Speaker 8: a student to have to pay for that. I want
• 33:02
  Speaker 8: you to get that for free.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: Right, that makes sense. It's like a company like Amazon
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: can come in by give it to a school district
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: and it's.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: An online program.
• 33:11
  Speaker 8: So it's two parts. They get the box that they
• 33:14
  Speaker 8: can build with at home. The box has a board
• 33:18
  Speaker 8: that's open source, so you don't have to just do
• 33:20
  Speaker 8: our lessons. You can do any lesson that's a no
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: we know based online, which is why people really like it. Right,
• 33:25
  Speaker 8: you buy something a lot of times and you get
• 33:27
  Speaker 8: trapped into just what they made. You can do our stuff,
• 33:30
  Speaker 8: you can do other lessons. You do that at home.
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: Our lesson box supports at least eight lessons. So you
• 33:37
  Speaker 8: go online, you get a class, you like it, great,
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: do another one. So it's a mixture of building at
• 33:42
  Speaker 8: home with your hands and being educated online.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: So this is if it sounds like it's an activity
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: base model or a project based model.
• 33:50
  Speaker 8: That was the project based learning model, Well yes it
• 33:53
  Speaker 8: is Arc five motivation.
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: There you go.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: So the whole point of STEM is to get kids
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: out obviously more into science and technology and engineering and
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: math with the career path of what being a computer programmer, coder,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: an engineer, like what's the career path?
• 34:12
  Speaker 8: So I like to look at this a little bit
• 34:13
  Speaker 8: differently because I think that all careers now are STEM careers.
• 34:17
  Speaker 8: So I don't even think about it as you have
• 34:19
  Speaker 8: to be interested in science and math. I look at
• 34:21
  Speaker 8: it as do you have twenty first century skills? Like
• 34:25
  Speaker 8: can you interact with the environment around you? Like this
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: microphone is hardware, this phone is hardware, this camera's hardware.
• 34:32
  Speaker 8: So what I want is for students to feel empowered
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: to know that they can participate in this economy by
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: being able to build, and that they can create startups
• 34:42
  Speaker 8: and that they can raise money and that they can
• 34:45
  Speaker 8: try to be entrepreneurs on their own. That's really what
• 34:48
  Speaker 8: I'm after.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: So is this domestic or does this have a global
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: international feel to it?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like the brightest minds is everywhere, right,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: so you need to pick the entire globe.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: So how did you guys go about doing that?
• 35:03
  Speaker 8: So I've had the honor of being invited to keynote
• 35:07
  Speaker 8: in a dozen countries. I'm a US State Department Global speaker,
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: and there was this trip that I went on to
• 35:13
  Speaker 8: South Africa and it just changed my life. I was
• 35:15
  Speaker 8: at a school called bains Villa, and this girl or
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: a cafeteria. They don't even have an auditorium, right, This
• 35:22
  Speaker 8: little girls maybe like four feet five, stands up and says,
• 35:27
  Speaker 8: I'm really inspired by your story. But you need to
• 35:30
  Speaker 8: go back and you need to make something that the
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: world can learn from. And you can give us a book,
• 35:35
  Speaker 8: but it's better if you make something that teaches the skill.
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: Lingo was created as an independent business a year and
• 35:43
  Speaker 8: a half from that trip, and we now have been
• 35:47
  Speaker 8: used in nearly all of those keynotes as an English
• 35:51
  Speaker 8: language technical teaching tool because you don't even have to
• 35:53
  Speaker 8: know English to complete Lingo. We color coded it. So
• 35:57
  Speaker 8: I did a workshop in Bishkekstan and the students were
• 36:01
  Speaker 8: able to finish their kit even though we had to
• 36:04
  Speaker 8: have a translator help us talk to each other. And like,
• 36:07
  Speaker 8: that's the power of this box, and like that's really
• 36:10
  Speaker 8: what I want to give to the world. I want
• 36:13
  Speaker 8: to give the world hope and inspiration because if they
• 36:16
  Speaker 8: can see me and black women teaching them how to
• 36:18
  Speaker 8: code online, they know that they can do that. And
• 36:22
  Speaker 8: pretty much everywhere people are looking for the playbook for success.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: So as far as artificial intelligence is that part of
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: the program and what shit what you got to use
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the article intelligence at NASA.
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: That was so when I was at NASA, there were
• 36:41
  Speaker 8: definitely there was research on it, but that wasn't necessarily
• 36:44
  Speaker 8: in our area and satellites. Now we're definitely employing that
• 36:49
  Speaker 8: with like machine learning algorithms and even some of the
• 36:51
  Speaker 8: stuff that we're doing with lingo, right, creating custom learning paths, right,
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: having a being able to log into your account and
• 36:59
  Speaker 8: have somebody that greets you and is like your lingo bot.
• 37:03
  Speaker 8: That's really where I think things are going. But AI
• 37:06
  Speaker 8: predated my career at NASA.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: How important is how important is all? Right? Technology, that's important,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: right obviously, but science, engineering and math? How important is
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: that for the average person.
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: I mean, I think it's really important, But I think
• 37:27
  Speaker 8: it's all about like bringing it into perspective, right, Like
• 37:31
  Speaker 8: if somebody didn't have a decent concept of math or forces,
• 37:36
  Speaker 8: that chair wasn't going to hold you up. Same thing
• 37:39
  Speaker 8: with technology, microphone. I mean, some of the most amazing
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: things are electronics. Like the quality, it's it's insane. I mean,
• 37:48
  Speaker 8: I think there's just like a lot of really really
• 37:50
  Speaker 8: practical things that people don't necessarily associate with stem subjects
• 37:58
  Speaker 8: that when you make them accessible, it becomes relatable and
• 38:03
  Speaker 8: thereby more interesting, and it helps you think better to
• 38:07
  Speaker 8: absolutely like, look, I'm a serial plant killer. I tell
• 38:10
  Speaker 8: anybody who wants to know, I kill plants. And I
• 38:13
  Speaker 8: took this complaint into a meeting that I had with
• 38:15
  Speaker 8: my team, and the team was like, well, we can
• 38:18
  Speaker 8: make a temperature and humidity sensor, so you know, if
• 38:20
  Speaker 8: that plan is thirsty, I'm like, bet bring it. And
• 38:23
  Speaker 8: one of the activities that we have now is plant
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: health and so to be able to now go, I
• 38:28
  Speaker 8: can have a relationship with my plant, and I can
• 38:32
  Speaker 8: build a sensor that goes into my plant to make
• 38:34
  Speaker 8: sure that my plan is health.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: Earners, what's up?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: You have a walk into a small business and everything
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: just works like the checkout is fast, there, seats are digital,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: at a pop up market, or even one of our
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: merch partner. Square makes it easy for them to take payments,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: one simple system. If you're a business owner or even
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down
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  Speaker 2: visit Square dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn
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• 39:40
  Speaker 2: can keep pushing your vision forward. This episode is brought
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  Speaker 2: to you by P and C Bank. A lot of
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• 40:27
  Speaker 6: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 40:39
  Speaker 6: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 40:58
  Speaker 6: one hundred thousand dollars legal aliens have been arrested. If
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: you were here illegally, your next you will be fine
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: will never return. But if you register using our CBP
• 41:13
  Speaker 6: home app and leave now, you could be allowed to
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: return legally. Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump,
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: America's laws, border and families will.
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: Be protected sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 41:27
  Speaker 8: And that's them. Yes, but now you've just taken that
• 41:31
  Speaker 8: field and you've made it accessible, and who knows what
• 41:34
  Speaker 8: that person is going to create because they just felt
• 41:36
  Speaker 8: a censor for them to talk to the plant in
• 41:38
  Speaker 8: their house.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: You got to talk to your plans. That's a fact.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: That's a fact. My mom has had the same plan
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: for over twenty seven years. Yes, I show you after
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: this she talked, she knows, but that's natural she knows.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: But to have a sense that makes it a lot easier.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: And in order to get the boss off the ground?
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: Is this way you raise capital?
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: Yes to start lingal so, I mean, we know, we
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: hear about it.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: The percentages that minority founders, you know, are able to
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: have access to. What was that like for you, obviously
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: being minority, being a woman a founder talk about that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: I really liked being an outsider in the sense it
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: was similar to when I started to start the business
• 42:18
  Speaker 8: from NASA. At first, people were telling me, hey, you've
• 42:22
  Speaker 8: got to go with a pitch deck, go to the valley,
• 42:24
  Speaker 8: go to vcs. But the vcs weren't trying to rock
• 42:27
  Speaker 8: with me. They didn't think that there was a market
• 42:30
  Speaker 8: for what I was looking to do. Business has been
• 42:33
  Speaker 8: around for ten years. Y're wrong, right, So one of
• 42:36
  Speaker 8: the things that I'd like to say is stop taking
• 42:38
  Speaker 8: advice from people who haven't done what you're trying to
• 42:40
  Speaker 8: do with LINGO. I'm like, eh, I don't think I
• 42:43
  Speaker 8: want to raise venture capital. I know what the stats are.
• 42:46
  Speaker 8: They're terrible. How do I look at the model and
• 42:48
  Speaker 8: how do I flip the model on its head? Because
• 42:50
  Speaker 8: that's what I do. And when I looked at it,
• 42:53
  Speaker 8: I said, vcs get their money from family offices. Why
• 42:57
  Speaker 8: don't I try to hit up a couple of family offices.
• 42:59
  Speaker 8: Now I know why people don't typically hit up family offices,
• 43:03
  Speaker 8: but I was determined once again to try, and I
• 43:06
  Speaker 8: had the time, and oh, by the way, I had
• 43:09
  Speaker 8: the patience because I'm already running a business that's successful
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: that I've had for ten years. So let's try to
• 43:15
  Speaker 8: figure this out. So I made a list of family
• 43:18
  Speaker 8: offices who were in businesses that I thought that could
• 43:20
  Speaker 8: be strategic investors. And the gamble that I made was, well,
• 43:25
  Speaker 8: if I can get a multi billion dollar family who
• 43:29
  Speaker 8: has the right investment mindset and is willing to support
• 43:33
  Speaker 8: me and understands the long term of what I'm looking
• 43:35
  Speaker 8: to do, can I also bring in traditional capital, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 8: the answer was yes. So I did a founder led
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: seed round where I brought in a million and a
• 43:44
  Speaker 8: half from a family office, and then I went to
• 43:47
  Speaker 8: the other v sas and said, do you want to play?
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: How did that work out?
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: It worked out well because if I've already brought in
• 43:54
  Speaker 8: a million and a half and you're going to chip
• 43:56
  Speaker 8: in one hundred thousand dollars, that million and a half
• 43:58
  Speaker 8: is going to help your hundred thousand dollars. So I
• 43:59
  Speaker 8: basically de risk around for you. And that's one of
• 44:02
  Speaker 8: the areas that I've been big on telling other minorities
• 44:06
  Speaker 8: to pursue is what I call friendly patient capital. I
• 44:10
  Speaker 8: call my investors like they're my dad. I'm like, hey,
• 44:13
  Speaker 8: what do you guys do? And here's what I'm working on.
• 44:15
  Speaker 8: And part of the things that were not, you know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 8: non negotiable for this family was that you were going
• 44:22
  Speaker 8: to do good and you were going to do well right.
• 44:24
  Speaker 8: It's not just the dollar, it's about the legacy. And
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: so when I tell them that kids in Ghana are
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: doing our kids have the video, love it. They're like,
• 44:34
  Speaker 8: that's what you're supposed to do, right, go out and
• 44:36
  Speaker 8: make that impact, whereas some people who have you know,
• 44:40
  Speaker 8: domestic vcs are not necessarily as lucky to have people
• 44:43
  Speaker 8: who think in that way.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: So, okay, so you raise the money that helps you
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: with infrastructure and employees. I'm assuming, So are you raising
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: more money? What's to goal?
• 44:54
  Speaker 8: Yes, you can definitely hit me up if you want
• 44:56
  Speaker 8: to send a.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Check how much you're trying to raise.
• 45:01
  Speaker 8: I would like to raise about a million more and
• 45:07
  Speaker 8: plot a path to our Series A. And I'll tell
• 45:09
  Speaker 8: you why. Some of our clients are big firms talking
• 45:16
  Speaker 8: Semens General Dynamics. General Dynamics has been a customer's ours
• 45:19
  Speaker 8: for the last three years. Microsoft buys from us, right,
• 45:23
  Speaker 8: we have big companies who have engineers who buy from US.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: What do they they buy the software, They buy the
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: kids so they can teach the employees.
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: They have their employees go into the schools, or they
• 45:34
  Speaker 8: provide it as capacity building for the schools that they sponsor.
• 45:39
  Speaker 8: And as I started to do this, we started talking
• 45:41
  Speaker 8: to school districts. Shout out to Syracuse School District. And
• 45:45
  Speaker 8: I'm realizing that this mission and this need is even
• 45:49
  Speaker 8: bigger than I knew. Like when I thought about it,
• 45:51
  Speaker 8: I was like, oh, we're just going to ship out
• 45:52
  Speaker 8: some kids, but it's really become about how can we
• 45:56
  Speaker 8: help make a district better? And that is a problem
• 45:59
  Speaker 8: of a much larger magnitude, and it takes more time.
• 46:03
  Speaker 8: And we're also now building custom kids, like we're about
• 46:06
  Speaker 8: to drop three whole space lessons. We got a climate satellite,
• 46:09
  Speaker 8: we got a buggy coming out. That buggy's a moon rover,
• 46:12
  Speaker 8: and we also have a rocket launch. And in building
• 46:16
  Speaker 8: all all this content, I'm like, you know what, bo,
• 46:18
  Speaker 8: we need to take a little bit more capital, take
• 46:21
  Speaker 8: our time, and really do something that is going to
• 46:25
  Speaker 8: move the needle.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: How many lessons are inside these kids?
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Because I'm thinking, and this was an elementary middle school
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: and obviously high school probably different, but it felt like
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: they were just for semesters, and so there was a
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: semester worth of lessons and there was a new set
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: of kids. So those four semesters of kids in the
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: grade every year. How many lessons are inside of your
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: kids right now?
• 46:47
  Speaker 8: So it depends on what you want. And this is
• 46:50
  Speaker 8: the beauty of it, because we design this to be flexible.
• 46:54
  Speaker 8: You can have two to three semesters worth in your
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: kid if you want. It's all about what you ask
• 46:59
  Speaker 8: us for. So we developed content for every lesson for
• 47:04
  Speaker 8: the classroom, and you could teach that over semester. You
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: could teach it over too.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: So school districts aren't really buying it for you. For
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: the most part. Is corporations as buying it.
• 47:15
  Speaker 8: It's mostly been corporations. If you're out in the district,
• 47:18
  Speaker 8: hit me up. I mean, I think the challenge right
• 47:21
  Speaker 8: is there's a lot going on in the district environment,
• 47:24
  Speaker 8: and we've got some good connections and we're making progress.
• 47:28
  Speaker 8: But this is where I'm not ashamed to say I
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: need help. The people who purchase from us, they love us.
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: But I started to realize what we were really up
• 47:38
  Speaker 8: against when it comes to like ads and marketing and
• 47:40
  Speaker 8: all that stuff. And that's really why I was like,
• 47:43
  Speaker 8: I got to go back to the drawing board and
• 47:45
  Speaker 8: raise more money because I did not know how expensive
• 47:48
  Speaker 8: it was to really advertise and read some of these people.
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: Is it a price point issue?
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like schools wet so much money on
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: some of the most ridiculous things, and they do it
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: repetitively every single and so when you're approaching schools or
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: school districts, are they saying, well, it's the price point.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: We don't have it in the budget this year. What
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: is the resistance you feel? Because every school has them,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: so I'm just trying to feel what would be the resistance.
• 48:14
  Speaker 8: So we actually do not see resistance once we get
• 48:19
  Speaker 8: in front of the right person. What I see is
• 48:21
  Speaker 8: the amount of money that I have to invest to
• 48:24
  Speaker 8: have somebody reach out, form the relationship, do the presentation,
• 48:30
  Speaker 8: put the proposal in front of whoever has to make
• 48:32
  Speaker 8: the decision, close the deal and then get paid can
• 48:35
  Speaker 8: be roughly six to eight months, and that's really where
• 48:39
  Speaker 8: we have to support the operation until they can close
• 48:41
  Speaker 8: the deal. And so the challenge in my mind is
• 48:44
  Speaker 8: how can we do more of these deals and shorten
• 48:46
  Speaker 8: the time.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: So what's the ultimate vision for the company.
• 48:51
  Speaker 8: My vision for Lingo would be to not only be
• 48:56
  Speaker 8: a global provider of immersive STEM experiences like I would
• 48:59
  Speaker 8: like to get to the point where some of our
• 49:01
  Speaker 8: boxes interact with Oculus, but to combine that with the
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: entrepreneurship thing. Because when I teach the Lingo box in
• 49:08
  Speaker 8: the Bahamas, and I've had this camp for nearly ten years,
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: I couple it with entrepreneurship and then I give kids
• 49:15
  Speaker 8: money to go out and try to run their business,
• 49:18
  Speaker 8: because I believe that you don't have to have a
• 49:21
  Speaker 8: college degree to be a multi millionaire. You just need
• 49:25
  Speaker 8: to have entrepreneurship skills. And it's like a muscle. The
• 49:29
  Speaker 8: more that you exercise it, the stronger that you're going
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: to get. So I want students trying to build their
• 49:34
  Speaker 8: first startup when they're twelve or they're thirteen, because by
• 49:37
  Speaker 8: the time they're twenty, they're going to be beasts.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: So how is it for you to be a go
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: from being an employee to be an entrepreneur?
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 49:47
  Speaker 8: I feel like my strength in this situation is knowing
• 49:53
  Speaker 8: that there's so much that I don't know. Like when
• 49:56
  Speaker 8: I was an employee, when I would go to work
• 49:58
  Speaker 8: every day, all I wanted to do is be respective
• 50:00
  Speaker 8: for the things that I know. And as an entrepreneur,
• 50:04
  Speaker 8: all I want to do is go out and speak
• 50:06
  Speaker 8: to people and tell them that I don't know right
• 50:09
  Speaker 8: so that I can be made better by the things
• 50:10
  Speaker 8: that they know. That is my goal, just be able
• 50:16
  Speaker 8: to listen and support and have people improve the things
• 50:20
  Speaker 8: that I create.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: That's not on the personal level as the entrepreneur, but
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: you're also the CEO. Yeah, and so there's people that
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: are relying on you for their leadership. So walking into
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: that role, how's the dynamics been for you?
• 50:34
  Speaker 8: You know, like I shifted when he asked me that
• 50:36
  Speaker 8: question because the question really strikes at home because I
• 50:39
  Speaker 8: spent so many years as a woman professional just wanting
• 50:43
  Speaker 8: to be seen as being good enough. And when I
• 50:47
  Speaker 8: let go of that, I realized that my strength is
• 50:51
  Speaker 8: being authentic and being empathetic. And when I took a
• 50:54
  Speaker 8: step back, I was crowding out the sun because I
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: was trying to always lead and be strong and also
• 50:59
  Speaker 8: other's stuff. And so when I said to the team
• 51:02
  Speaker 8: for both businesses, he I want to make space for
• 51:07
  Speaker 8: you to bring your gifts. That's really when I started
• 51:09
  Speaker 8: to see exponential growth. So I have this concept of
• 51:12
  Speaker 8: eighty twenty. You hire somebody eighty percent for the things
• 51:15
  Speaker 8: on the resume that you know that they can that
• 51:18
  Speaker 8: they can do, and the twenty percent that they can
• 51:20
  Speaker 8: bring to the table that you haven't discovered yet, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 8: you cultivate that person and they will take you to
• 51:26
  Speaker 8: places that you never you never knew that you would go.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about going to space. So what is
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the program that you're going out of space? How did
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: you get involved in that? And are you just going
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: up coming back down? Is there observation that you're going
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: to be doing when you're up? Like, what's what's happening
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: with that situation?
• 51:47
  Speaker 8: So I'm going to be flying the space on the
• 51:50
  Speaker 8: new Shepherd vehicle with Blue Origin. We will be coming
• 51:53
  Speaker 8: up and we will be coming back down, and I'm excited.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: About how long will you be out of space?
• 51:58
  Speaker 8: The total trip? So the round trip is a roughly
• 52:02
  Speaker 8: I don't know, less than an hour, and it's about
• 52:04
  Speaker 8: ten minutes of microgravity.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Ten minutes out of space. Yes, so twenty five twenty
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: minutes coming up, ten minutes out of space, then twenty
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: minutes come back go.
• 52:14
  Speaker 8: I think so. And I think we got to fix
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: our hair before we can get out, so there's some
• 52:17
  Speaker 8: time there.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 52:20
  Speaker 8: So I will be the first to tell you that
• 52:23
  Speaker 8: I never thought that I was going to be leaving
• 52:25
  Speaker 8: the Earth's atmosphere. I don't even like turbulence on commercial flights,
• 52:29
  Speaker 8: and so for me, this is a try it before
• 52:34
  Speaker 8: you buy it situation where I get to try space
• 52:36
  Speaker 8: and it controls scenario. Once I started working at NASA
• 52:40
  Speaker 8: and meeting amazing astronauts. I never thought that I could
• 52:43
  Speaker 8: be them. And this is what I like about life
• 52:45
  Speaker 8: and karma in the world is like, right, when you
• 52:47
  Speaker 8: think that you can't be something, life will show you
• 52:51
  Speaker 8: that you can. And I said to myself many years ago,
• 52:55
  Speaker 8: one of these years, I'm going to apply to be
• 52:57
  Speaker 8: a NASA astronaut. I'm going to go to the International
• 52:59
  Speaker 8: Space Station. And somehow I manage not to do it
• 53:02
  Speaker 8: for a year after year after year, and all of
• 53:05
  Speaker 8: a sudden, I have the opportunity to be a Blue
• 53:07
  Speaker 8: Origin astronaut. And my goal is to complete this and
• 53:11
  Speaker 8: if I like it, which I'm probably gonna love it,
• 53:14
  Speaker 8: I'm going to turn around. I'm going to apply to
• 53:16
  Speaker 8: be a NASA astronaut.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: What's the preparation light for this?
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I remember maybe it was last year they had Michael
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: Strahan and he was going through it and they had
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: to take some time off from Good Morning America.
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: What do you have to do? What are they putting
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: you through to get you prepared for this moment?
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: So they have a trading program in their facility in
• 53:36
  Speaker 8: Van Horn, Texas. That's mandatory. But in addition to that,
• 53:39
  Speaker 8: you can do a host of other things. And so
• 53:42
  Speaker 8: I'm participating in a microgravity flight. I'm looking to fly
• 53:47
  Speaker 8: on a fight or flight with the jets, like real fast.
• 53:50
  Speaker 8: I like to go fast. I'm looking to do a
• 53:52
  Speaker 8: high altitude skydive. And then in addition to that, for me,
• 53:56
  Speaker 8: this is about bringing it home. Right, there's so many
• 53:59
  Speaker 8: you My family are like what is NASA doing for me?
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: What's space doing for me? Like why does any of
• 54:04
  Speaker 8: this matter? And so I've been reaching out to organizations
• 54:08
  Speaker 8: HBCUs in high school so that I can either fly
• 54:11
  Speaker 8: a patch for school or do experiments like I would
• 54:16
  Speaker 8: like to partner with HBCU and do an experiment on
• 54:18
  Speaker 8: orbit right, or fly a sensor. I really want the
• 54:22
  Speaker 8: outcome of this to not be oh, you know, like
• 54:24
  Speaker 8: that's like ten minutes I wanted to be. This was
• 54:27
  Speaker 8: something that made me believe, or inspired someone to believe
• 54:34
  Speaker 8: that they could reach for the stars and realize that
• 54:36
  Speaker 8: it was only the beginning.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: To take this flight. I know it's expensive.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: So were you chosen, like did you have to apply
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: it to become one of the Bloori astronauts or was
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: there a sponsored event like Okay, this is the person
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: we're putting forth as our choice.
• 54:54
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it's really cool. I got a call all the
• 54:59
  Speaker 8: blue from this lady named Nancy Conrad, and it just
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: so happens that that first day when I was at NASA,
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: when I had a badge and I was decided to
• 55:07
  Speaker 8: be there, I met Nancy. Nancy is the wife of
• 55:10
  Speaker 8: Pete Conrad, who's an apollo astronaut. I remember seeing her
• 55:13
  Speaker 8: and being like, wow, like one day I hope to
• 55:17
  Speaker 8: speak with her. Fast forward right over a decade. She's
• 55:20
  Speaker 8: calling me and she's like, look, there's this mission coming up.
• 55:24
  Speaker 8: I think you'd be a really really good fit. How
• 55:27
  Speaker 8: about you apply this time. I didn't say no. I
• 55:30
  Speaker 8: put my application forward and it happened to work out
• 55:35
  Speaker 8: that I was in the position to join the crew.
• 55:39
  Speaker 8: Now back to the money thing. Even if I had it,
• 55:42
  Speaker 8: I don't know if i'd want to spend it. And
• 55:44
  Speaker 8: the reason for that is there's a lot of support
• 55:48
  Speaker 8: for space and for science right and go to African proverb,
• 55:52
  Speaker 8: it's like, if you want to go you know, fast,
• 55:55
  Speaker 8: go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
• 55:58
  Speaker 8: So I went out to sponsors and I said, look,
• 56:02
  Speaker 8: I want to know if you're going to back me
• 56:04
  Speaker 8: on this flight, and they have and so I'm getting
• 56:08
  Speaker 8: ready to announce some significant brand partnerships. But we really
• 56:13
  Speaker 8: are going to challenge the way that people look at
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: going to space, and I'm excited to have amazing brands
• 56:18
  Speaker 8: behind me to do it.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: So what is the purpose of going in space? You
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: work for NASA. You work for NASA, an organization that's
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: devoted for space. Some people debate if we ever actually
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: got to the moon the conspiracy theorist out there, but
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: even if we did get to the moon, what really
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: had Like why was the purpose of going to the moon?
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: You really think about it, right, Like, went to the
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Moon sixty years ago. I get it. It was a
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: race against the Russians and we put the American flag
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: on the moon, very typical of America. But when you
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: really think about it, what's the point?
• 56:57
  Speaker 8: But I'm like, those same people love their state ofllite
• 56:59
  Speaker 8: TV and their right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: So that's the point.
• 57:02
  Speaker 8: I mean, space for the benefit of Earth is really
• 57:07
  Speaker 8: the theme, and it's the theme of you know, Blue
• 57:09
  Speaker 8: Origin and what happens is there's all this amazing research
• 57:13
  Speaker 8: that's done in space. Your memory from Mattress Space, there's
• 57:19
  Speaker 8: all the stuff that comes out of that, but people
• 57:21
  Speaker 8: don't know that it came from space, and so they
• 57:23
  Speaker 8: don't associate with space.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm giving you to platform to educate people,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: including myself, on the benefits of spending trillions of dollars
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: over the last fifty years of going to space. Like
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: this is your open platform to educate the world on
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: the benefits of American tax dollars being spent to go
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: to space.
• 57:41
  Speaker 8: So one of the things that I really enjoyed about
• 57:45
  Speaker 8: working on space missions was it helped me understand how
• 57:49
  Speaker 8: much research is done in order to help humans fight
• 57:55
  Speaker 8: diseases and infections that wouldn't be possible without space. And
• 57:59
  Speaker 8: so one thing that happen weapons is if something is
• 58:01
  Speaker 8: launched into space, it tends to mutate and it's called virulent.
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: And so you see researchers working with pharmaceutical companies to
• 58:10
  Speaker 8: introduce new antibiotics and new treatments that if you can
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: kill it in space, you can kill it on Earth.
• 58:17
  Speaker 8: And so that directly relates to our ability to just
• 58:22
  Speaker 8: go outside right, to be able to interact. And I'm
• 58:25
  Speaker 8: not talking about vaccines. I'm talking about basic things that
• 58:30
  Speaker 8: allow us to be able to better protect people. In
• 58:33
  Speaker 8: addition to that technology, right when we look at the
• 58:36
  Speaker 8: artificial heart valve, there are so many things that are
• 58:40
  Speaker 8: small that benefit people day to day. And then beyond that,
• 58:47
  Speaker 8: you know climate and the world like the world is
• 58:51
  Speaker 8: becoming ever smaller place, and a lot of what we
• 58:55
  Speaker 8: know about climate change came from studies from space and
• 58:58
  Speaker 8: the impact on that that is far reaching. And so
• 59:03
  Speaker 8: when you know, when people ask me about space, I'm
• 59:05
  Speaker 8: just like, it's it's not so much about the moon
• 59:08
  Speaker 8: and all the dollars that are spent. The dollars that
• 59:10
  Speaker 8: are spent are actually spent in the hopes of spending
• 59:13
  Speaker 8: less dollars. Right, if you build something the first time,
• 59:16
  Speaker 8: it's typically more expensive, but if you repeat it, it
• 59:19
  Speaker 8: becomes cheaper. That's why you get these large price tags.
• 59:22
  Speaker 8: But the ability to be able to say people in
• 59:24
  Speaker 8: fifty years aren't going to die from cancer, that's really
• 59:28
  Speaker 8: what we're after. When we look at space, it's a lot.
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: There's a lot going on there, especially when when you
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: think about technology. You talked about satellites.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: We you know, we've been following starlink and all that,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: but also the the debris that's up there, is an issue.
• 59:45
  Speaker 8: That's a job, that's a startup. So this is somebody
• 59:48
  Speaker 8: a billion dollar idea, right there?
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: They have a startup that well you want to elaborate
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: on that because that that's something that that's that's a
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: real issue.
• 59:56
  Speaker 8: No, that's definitely an issue. But this is why I
• 59:59
  Speaker 8: love it because it's on super sci fi, right, Like,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 8: why don't you create a space trash company? Go right ahead?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 8: But there's a lot of debris in space. And I mean,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 8: once again, space is a large place, but there's no
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 8: shortage of jobs, startups read opportunity for people to pursue
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 8: in space.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: I was just gonna is there is there like a
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: race to Mars?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: Is that?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Is that what we're headed with this? Like I'm looking
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: at well, like humans, we haven't been tomorrow? Rovers well
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: humans I'm talking about is there a right right? Because
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at humans. Have humans been to Mars? They
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: have not that you can say so from a standpoint
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: of like we're watching the wealthiest people in the world.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 8: Mm hmm.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Explores space expiration, whether it's Elon or Jeff Bezos, Like
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: we said, is that the race?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Is that?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: What is headed?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 8: I wouldn't necessarily say that that was where it was headed.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 8: I mean I think like when I look over I
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 8: don't know the last thirty years, what's amazing is this
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 8: idea that you now have a private industry that can
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 8: contribute to something that used to only be the domain
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 8: of governments. And I feel like that's the takeaway. And
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 8: when we throw out Besos and Branson and Elon, why
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 8: can't we have the black version or the Hispanic version, right,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 8: Like why not somebody else who is not like them?
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 8: Because a lot of their money came from entrepreneurship in
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 8: startups and they decided to go and pursue space because
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 8: that was the passion. So for me, it's sort of
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 8: like we have this model, there are these guys, and
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 8: I want it to be like Basos, Branson, bo.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: So it's it's right in line. What do you say
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: to the flat eartherers?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 8: You like satellite TV? Right, That's that's my whole response,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 8: and like, don't come for me on Twitter, don't come
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 8: for me in the dms. Like there are a lot
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 8: of things that people rely on every day that requires
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 8: there to be a rotation of that thing. If you
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 8: think that your satellite just goes left to right and
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 8: left to right again. I can't help you.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: That's a good answer.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: So are people in Australia that when you say, I'm like,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: are people in Australia standing standing upside down?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 8: We're always standing right side up.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: We'll always gravity of rotation.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: The axis of the Earth.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, so the Southern hemisphere if we're standing right side
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: up the world, the northern hemisphere, the Southern hemisphere, so they're.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: Right set up for where they are.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: The gravity allows it's a legitimate question.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Look, I read a lot of these conspiracy theory situations,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: so so you.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 8: Know what's funny about conspiracy is like sometimes conspiracy is
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 8: a name for like whistleblower, right, and like you're really
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 8: getting the drop, But then sometimes it's just weird news.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: What about aliens?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 8: That's an interesting question.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: Are you allowed to answer that?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 8: Well, well, I'll just look at it from a probailistic standpoint, right,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 8: because who's to say that we're not the aliens?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Well, we are aliens if there's all the life form
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: the aliens to them.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 8: So this is why I need people to get involved
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 8: in the stem fields, like you too could be responding
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 8: questions like this at work on the class, on your job.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: So do you think that the aliens? You think that
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: they are?
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: So?
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 8: I think that when I first logged into chat GPT,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 8: my very first query was returned to me all of
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 8: the most reputable sightings of UFOs in history do it.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 8: It's a great search. There's a lot of really good stuff.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 8: And the reason for that is I'm committed that I
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 8: don't know what I don't know. And from a math perspective,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 8: if you've ever seen the sun, the sunset in Africa,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 8: which I know you guys have, and see how many
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 8: stars out there, it's hard to believe that there isn't
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 8: something else. Now what is that else? Is that else
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 8: a dog on another planet?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: Is it a plant?
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know organism right, I.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 8: Mean, but I think that we should inspire people to
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 8: figure it out. Like I belong in the camp of
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 8: let's figure it out.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: So there's a high probability that this other life forms
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: outside of.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 8: There's a Drake equation, and the Drake equation says that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 8: that probability is one. Therefore it is most likely possible.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: Did Drake equations. The Drake equations like the rapper Drake.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 8: He can take credit for that, but it's it's not
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 8: not that Rake, No, it's literally yeah, No, it's just
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 8: his name, the sciences scientist.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Yes Drake, Yes, Okay, Okay.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: That's a lot. Well, let's talk about your next move. Okay, intended?
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: How did that come about? How's it going? Is it
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: still happening? You know you're host on Yeah, I think
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: your next moves, So let's talk about that.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 8: I'm really I mean, I'm really excited about it because
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 8: I get to travel around. I get to talk to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 8: entrepreneurs like I get to be asking the questions as
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 8: opposed to answering the questions, which is always a really
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 8: good position to be. We shot the first episode in Atlanta.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 8: I'm very excited about the guests. I don't know if
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 8: you've met her. Her name is Brianna Arps. She has
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 8: a perfume name Mudo, and she was one of the
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 8: recipients of a grant from Pharrell's Black Ambition, which I
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 8: thought was just an awesome way to open the season
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 8: for me, for them, for everybody, because she talks about
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 8: funding through grants and she lifts out grant sources. So
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 8: if you haven't seen her, if you haven't caught that.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 8: I really want people to catch the free knowledge and
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 8: the free money that comes out of that. We also
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 8: will be traveling around, so I've committed to twelve episodes,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 8: some of which will happen out south By Southwest. I
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 8: haven't been a Southwest really, I know, but it's really
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 8: hard to make the case to be there as an
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 8: engineering company, like an aerospace engineering company, small one. My
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 8: team just thinks I'm out like having fun and I'm like, no,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 8: I'm really working.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: Texas Homer Aerospace makes more sense.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 8: But they see me at south By West and they're
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 8: just like, she just haven't fun. But this year I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 8: get to go and actually be hosting. But I'm really
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 8: excited to be able to support inc in highlighting some
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 8: of these stories and you know, bringing maybe a different
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 8: perspective to the conversation, not only as a minority female,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 8: but as a founder. I just think we think about
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 8: things differently because of lack of resources.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: So okay, let's talk about relationships. You had mentioned off
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: camera your philosophy on relationships, and you have a similar
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: conversation that a lot of guests have had as far
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: as like successful black women where sometimes in today's society,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: it can be a detriment to our relationship or dating life.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: The more successful you are, right to who well, But
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 8: That's what we need to dig it and explore, right,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 8: And I'm going to light up around this conversation because
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 8: there are no shortage of men in my dms. Now
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 8: they may not be black men, but there are plenty
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 8: of men in my dms. And people think that I
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 8: don't date successful men, like, no, we're both CEOs.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: And but that's the narrative that you talk about what
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: you were talking about to us off camera.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 8: So I think one of the things that happens, I
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 8: think is the services I know, these brilliant, talented, successful
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 8: women who maybe being told by society that for some
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 8: reason they're less attractive. Heck, I've gotten it. I've gotten
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 8: to my own family barbecues. My great aunt has said, honey,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 8: it don't matter if he's a felony, take them anyway.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, that is not a felony. If he
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: has a legendary, if he's a felony, if he's a felony.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, she was alone.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 8: She just wants she just wants a grand baby.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever would say just settle.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: Just take told you like, I have to be.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 8: Careful because I would. I am concerned that, you know,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 8: some of the older folks might be trying to trade
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 8: me or sell me for something, right when when I
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 8: know when they had those conversations and they're like, I
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 8: want to lean in and figure out what's going on.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 8: But I think that what happens, right is the more
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 8: that you invest in yourself, the better the person who
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 8: you attract is. And I find that if you're lucky
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 8: enough to find somebody that you can grow with early on,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 8: definitely do that.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 8: But for where I'm at in life, the people who
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 8: I deal with and the people that I date are
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 8: so much better then the person that I would have
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 8: settled for in my twenty years or thirties. It's outrageous,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 8: just like the delta in quality. And so when people
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 8: are like, well, you know, being a CEO and things
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 8: like that makes you unattractive, is like, I don't understand
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 8: because I'm going to dinner with somebody who has thirty
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 8: five thousand employees, Like that's who I'm saying, seeing, that's
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 8: who's calling me.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: So you don't have a problem.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 8: I don't have a problem. When it comes to certain
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 8: areas of the population.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: So you as far as as far as white you have,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: you have a thing I'm reading the table white white
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: men are. That's the dating pool for you, you know,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 8: So here's what I'll notice is like I would not
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 8: necessarily say that it's white men. I think you can
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 8: broaden that. I think that there's just.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 8: I think there's a well and I think black men
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 8: of a certain age because if you've met a black
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 8: man that has been married, has kids, and is divorced,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 8: that is a whole different man than somebody who is
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 8: just like on the starting line somewhere right, Like that
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 8: experience comes with knowledge, and I can't tell you how
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 8: many guys sit with that said. I really wish that
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 8: I would have went with someone like you the first
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 8: time around, because they recognize the value of being able
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 8: to have somebody who is going to treat your business
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 8: like their own, who's going to be able to add,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 8: who's going to work hard, bring their connections, and then
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 8: also be able to support you when maybe you can't
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 8: support the family because you're building.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Do you feel, as I said, so we know that
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: the vice president, obviously everybody knows her husband is white. Right,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: do you feel a disconnecting some levels of having a
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: high level of success and not necessarily finding a black
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: counterpart or does that even matter to you?
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 8: I mean it's not. I mean, I'm sure he's out
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 8: there and he's probably watching this show, right. I don't
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 8: think that he doesn't exist. He absolutely exists. The question
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 8: is have I met him yet? And my I mean,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 8: my line is open. I definitely date black men. I
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 8: also date men who are not black, and it's all
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 8: about the best fit. Like, I'm meeting more and more
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 8: and you guys could probably lean in on this because
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 8: I'm meeting more and more black men who are taking
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 8: their time and they're building their empires and they're waiting
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 8: until they're thirty five to thirty six.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: Is it necessary? Is the union necessary?
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: Well, in a sense where we're meeting a lot of people,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: not just just women, but men are saying, you know what,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily want to get married.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's necessary for me where I'm at.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 8: I mean I think that that's really like a personal decision.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 8: I personally would like to be married. That being said,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 8: I think that as a culture, we have to have
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 8: honest conversation about pre nups. Right, A prenap is always
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 8: It's not always a bad thing. Like, how am I
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 8: going to take my sixty something employees into my relationship
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 8: with you and not make sure that they're protected? Yeah,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: I just I just think that those are certain things.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 8: But in the same way, like if you had certain
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 8: things before I came into the picture, I respect that.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 8: You know, maybe you want to make sure that those
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 8: things are managed in a certain way after we're together.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 8: So I think it has I think that that conversation
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 8: has to be widened. I also think that a marriage
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 8: is not always necessary to be in a strong partnership, right,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 8: It's really about what you want and what you need.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 8: But I believe in monogamy. I'm a serial monogamist. I
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 8: believe in that. That's just how I live. That's just
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 8: like how I like the role. And I also believe
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 8: in loyalty. I am very loyal and those two things
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 8: like loyalty and respect, As long as you have it,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 8: I feel like you can build and you can grow anything.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: How was it, how was it working at NaSTA as
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: far as being a black woman, Did you ever feel
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: any awkwardness or any you know, level of vibe that
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: was all.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean it was not exactly without its challenges,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 8: I shall say, But also part of that was just
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 8: me like learning myself. Like the first three years I
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 8: went in, I didn't really want to be seen as attractive,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 8: and so I would get like shirts that a little
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 8: bit too big and pants because I didn't really want
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 8: to have body or shape. I wanted to just know
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 8: that whatever ideas and things I had or being received
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 8: because of who I was. But once I started to
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 8: push all that to the side, I sort of realized
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 8: that it is not my job to fix you. It
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 8: is my responsibility to have the best possible experience and
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 8: grow from it. And as a result, I joined clubs,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 8: I built relationships with people who were not like me,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 8: and I had a lot of mentors who you know,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 8: to this day are still people I lean on who
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 8: are men who have backgrounds that are totally different than me.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 8: So some of it truly was me getting out of
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 8: my own way and just refusing to allow myself to
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 8: subscribe to what I felt was the status quo.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: At the time for sure. So before we leave, what
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: will be your advice to somebody, as you know, young
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. You know that might have
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: similar situation as far as you what will be your
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: advice as far as your pathway in life.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 8: If you're young, I would say, tell the right people
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 8: your dreams. And the question may be who are the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 8: right people, But it's the individuals who when you tell
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 8: them your dreams, they're going to be supportive and they're
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 8: going to agree to hold you accountable for what it
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 8: is that you want to achieve. Today as an adult,
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 8: I still have a support network I get every single
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 8: day and I work on my mindset. I have affirmations,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 8: I pray, I have goals. This success thing, it's a practice,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 8: it's a habit is something that you execute on a
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 8: daily and when you feel like you are weak or
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 8: you have an automatic negative thought, you need to be
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 8: able to call your friend and be like, hey, I
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 8: need you to tell me something good to get me
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 8: through the day. I think that matters a lot when
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 8: you're younger right communities and for the adults out there
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 8: right like, we're all role models to somebody. If somebody
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 8: tells you something that's crazy as long as it doesn't
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 8: hurt themselves. But if they're like, hey, I want to
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 8: build the next spaceship to Mars. You tell them they better.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: Well, I am rooting for you. We are rooting for you.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: It's interesting when you talk about the youth, you know,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: one of those things when people have future aspirations of
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: what they want to be. It's like, I want to
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: be an ass in that it just seems like the
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: most lofty goal ever that is not attainable. So to
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: see that you are now the person that we can
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: look to, it means a lot. So we are looking
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: forward to to supporting you as number six and we
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: are proud of you. I'll speak for the entire community.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: Oh before we leave, So, what does a rocket scientist
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: actually do? What did that job description? Actually? Because I
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: know what your job description, but like a rocket scientist
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: in totality, what is a rocket? What actually is a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: rocket scientist?
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 8: Yeah, and so there's a wide variety, everything from engines
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 8: to the vehicle to working on satellites. I talked a
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 8: little bit about the early days, but I left out
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 8: that we still to this day and Stumboard do a
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 8: lot with rockets, rocket launches, advisory services making sure that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 8: those things are safe. One of my favorite things which
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 8: I cannot wait to talk about later on after it
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 8: becomes public. Is the work that we do to make
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 8: rockets and satellite launches more accessible.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: You do drone work too.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 8: We don't really do any drone work right now, but
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 8: that's definitely an area that I'm interested in getting into.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. How can people
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: follow you on social media or any anything else that
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: you would want to leave as far as information for
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: your your program stuff like that.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so if you're like an eligible black man, hit
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 8: me up on the DMS. Listen you asked for that,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 8: ask for that.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, that's a qualified rocket scientists only.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: Please.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 8: We just need ambition. We don't need all that other stuff.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: And you got to listen to illmatic. There's a prerequisite.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: We're saying it now. That's a fact.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 8: But you can find me on I g at Ayshabo
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 8: all one word. If you're interested in the stem kits
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 8: and you want to work with us and do some
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 8: really good stuff in the community, go directly to stem
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 8: lingo dot com. And if you're interested in the mission
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 8: to space, you can catch some fun with me an
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 8: astronaut jumper on ashboat dot com.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: Did you have it Asian and gentlemen. Thank you guys
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: for hacking on to see next week peace.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 6: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 6: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 6: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 6: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 6: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 6: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 6: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 6: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 6: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 6: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 6: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 6: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 6: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 6: Do what's right, leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 6: border and families.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 7: Will be protected. Sponsored by the United States Department of
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 7: Homeland Security,