Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. This season
Speaker 1: of Smart Talks with IBM is all about new creators,
Speaker 1: the developers, data scientists, CTOs, and other visionaries creatively applying
Speaker 1: technology in business to drive change. They use their knowledge
Speaker 1: and creativity to develop better ways of working, no matter
Speaker 1: the industry. Join hosts from your favorite Pushkin Industries podcasts
Speaker 1: as they use their expertise to deepen these conversations, and
Speaker 1: of course, Malcolm Gladwell will guide you through the season
Speaker 1: as your host and provide his thoughts and analysis along
Speaker 1: the way. Look out for new episodes of Smart Talks
Speaker 1: with IBM on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, and learn more at IBM dot
Speaker 1: com slash smart talks.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast
Speaker 2: from Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio and IBM. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. This season,
Speaker 2: we're talking to the new creators, the developers, data scientists,
Speaker 2: CTOs and other visionaries who are creatively applying technology in
Speaker 2: business to drive change. Channeling their knowledge and expertise, they're
Speaker 2: developing more creative and effective solutions no matter the industry.
Speaker 2: Our guest today is doctor Derek Warren, Associate Dean and
Speaker 2: Director of Graduate Programs at the Southern University College of Business.
Speaker 2: After a thirty two year career at IBM, Derek chose
Speaker 2: to become a professor, and as a professor in the
Speaker 2: business school of a historically black university, it's his job
Speaker 2: to make sure Southern University students acquire the skills they
Speaker 2: need to remain competitive in the modern job market. For Derek,
Speaker 2: that's where cybersecurity comes in. But nearly half a million
Speaker 2: unfilled jobs in the US alone, the industries demand for
Speaker 2: professionals with technical experts is staggerant. In an effort to
Speaker 2: bridge the gap, in twenty twenty two, IBM announced a
Speaker 2: collaboration with twenty HBCUs to establish a Cybersecurity the Leadership
Speaker 2: Center at each of them. Through this partnership, hbcu' students
Speaker 2: have gained access to IBM training, software and credentials at
Speaker 2: no cost to them, with the aim of building the
Speaker 2: vibrant and diverse workforce cybersecurity urgently needs. In today's episode,
Speaker 2: you'll hear how Derek is using IBM's skills build a
Speaker 2: suite of courses focusing on business and tech to arm
Speaker 2: his students with the knowledge necessary to stand out to employers,
Speaker 2: and his approach to inspiring creativity and himself and his students.
Speaker 2: Derek spoke with doctor Lory Santos, host of the Pushkin
Speaker 2: podcast The Happiness Lab. Laurie is a professor of psychology
Speaker 2: at Yale University and an expert on human cognition and
Speaker 2: mental well being. Okay, let's get to the interview.
Speaker 3: Derek, tell us a little bit about your role at
Speaker 3: Southern University System.
Speaker 4: I am the Associate dean and director of Graduate Programs
Speaker 4: for the Southern University College of Business. I'm also an
Speaker 4: associate Professor of management as well as the single point
Speaker 4: of contact our SPOCK as we like to call it,
Speaker 4: for our relationship with IBM Global University Programs.
Speaker 3: And so, then walk me through your role at IBM, Like,
Speaker 3: how does that connect to your role at SUS today.
Speaker 4: Well, I am a thirty two year IBM alumnus. I
Speaker 4: started with IBM right out of college. I graduated from
Speaker 4: Southern University in computer science and after getting those job
Speaker 4: ovels with IBM, I started in Tampa, Florida there and
Speaker 4: had a very vibrant, exciting and fulfilling career with IBM
Speaker 4: and after returning to so Than after retiring, got a
Speaker 4: call from a colleague at IBM Vice President said, you
Speaker 4: need to speak to someone in IBM Global University Programs
Speaker 4: because we have these spectacular programs and HBCUs don't seem
Speaker 4: to be taking advantage of them enough. So I said, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm happy to listen. We did that first conversation, I said,
Speaker 4: these would be fantastic for Southern University, primarily I'm At
Speaker 4: that time, I was director of Alumni for Southern University,
Speaker 4: and my thinking was these programs could help not only
Speaker 4: level the playing field, but further differentiate us and our
Speaker 4: students by providing access to these in demand technologies that
Speaker 4: were offered through IBM Global University Programs. So the technologies
Speaker 4: focused around artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data science,
Speaker 4: design thinking, the Internet of Things, and quantum computing. Providing
Speaker 4: that access was something that I definitely wanted Southern University faculty, staff,
Speaker 4: and students to be involved in.
Speaker 3: So today's episode is all about the need for diversity
Speaker 3: in cybersecurity. So talk about the role that diversity should
Speaker 3: be playing in cybersecurity today.
Speaker 4: Diversity in and itself offers the opportunity to introduce and
Speaker 4: to include broader perspectives, different trains of thought. And when
Speaker 4: you think about cybersecurity and the dangers of it and
Speaker 4: the number of bad actors that are at play there,
Speaker 4: you need as much diverse thinking to help solve these
Speaker 4: problems as possible. And cybersecurity is one of the hottest
Speaker 4: feels available. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs. I
Speaker 4: believe the forecast is somewhere around between three and five
Speaker 4: hundred thousand current cybersecurity job openings, and that is anticipated
Speaker 4: to grow certainly by the year twenty twenty five. So
Speaker 4: we're going to need a workforce that is inclusive, that
Speaker 4: has the opportunity for very thoughts so that we can
Speaker 4: avoid blind spots and pitfalls, that allows all of us
Speaker 4: to work together to solve these problems. And the other
Speaker 4: thing about cybersecurity is that it is adaptive, so it
Speaker 4: is changing every day. As soon as we get a
Speaker 4: fix for one particular exposure area, the hackers figure out
Speaker 4: a way to introduce a new one around it. So
Speaker 4: it's going to take us constantly working together, the good
Speaker 4: actors working together to help combat the forces of evil.
Speaker 3: That are out there in the world today, and I
Speaker 3: think this is where education can be so pivotal to
Speaker 3: make sure that we have that diverse workforce who has
Speaker 3: the right training. And so you've said before, the education
Speaker 3: is the great equalizer in a world that is not
Speaker 3: always fair. A little bit more what you mean by
Speaker 3: that statement.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, I live by that statement. I do feel
Speaker 4: that education can help one overcome poverty. Education can help
Speaker 4: expose individuals to new opportunities. As part of our college specifically,
Speaker 4: we have a goal of poverty elimination, and I firmly
Speaker 4: believe that using education will help individuals who may not
Speaker 4: have been afforded access to economic benefits growing up. Learning
Speaker 4: new items, new areas, especially in these hot demand areas,
Speaker 4: can certainly help one secure jobs. Education has also been
Speaker 4: proven to help with discipline discipline problems. It's been proven
Speaker 4: to help to mitigate crime. It's been proved even to
Speaker 4: help individuals think differently about and to appreciate the world
Speaker 4: that we live in. And that's why I believe education
Speaker 4: clearly is something that can help cure many of the
Speaker 4: eels that currently exist in the world today.
Speaker 3: I agree with you completely about this philosophy, but I'm
Speaker 3: curious how that philosophy applies to your work with IBM
Speaker 3: and Southern University System.
Speaker 4: Well, the IBM initiative clearly introduces just a whole array
Speaker 4: of technology assets to our university community. So I'm a
Speaker 4: firm believer. Another mantra that I have is that there
Speaker 4: is no business without technology and no technology without business.
Speaker 4: So as such, these assets and the training that is
Speaker 4: provided helps, especially here in the College of Business, which
Speaker 4: is where I sit. I am firmly of the believe
Speaker 4: that all of our business majors need technology as a foundation.
Speaker 4: So my business majors learn about artificial intelligence. They are
Speaker 4: learning about chat, GPT and the other GPTs that are
Speaker 4: out there even as we speak. They need to understand
Speaker 4: cloud computing because everything that we do today touches the
Speaker 4: cloud in some way. They need to understand the role
Speaker 4: cybersecurity plays and why having a strong zero trust posture
Speaker 4: is important regardless of what industry that they're working in.
Speaker 4: Understanding data science and how to get insights out of
Speaker 4: data so that you can make better decisions and you
Speaker 4: can solve bigger problems is extremely important. Design thinking, which
Speaker 4: touches on creative problem solving, critical thinking specifically from a
Speaker 4: customer perspective is very important if you're going to help
Speaker 4: and my view, create a better customer experience for the
Speaker 4: clients that you serve out there. And again, everything we do,
Speaker 4: including our podcast today, is touching the Internet of things.
Speaker 4: And I won't even get into quantum computing. That's not
Speaker 4: I'm not expert in that space, but I will tell
Speaker 4: you a lot's happening there as well. So introducing our
Speaker 4: university family to these in demand technologies, to me, is
Speaker 4: a priority and it's part of my purpose being here.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's clear you're bringing the work that you
Speaker 3: did with IBM, you know, into your role as a
Speaker 3: professor and kind of training the students. But I'm curious
Speaker 3: how your work with IBM shaped your initial desire to
Speaker 3: go into academia in the first place.
Speaker 4: Well, that's an interesting question, Laurd. My parents were educators,
Speaker 4: so learning has always been at the forefront of my
Speaker 4: life when it comes down to it. I still remember
Speaker 4: my dad, who was a football coach in a small
Speaker 4: town in North Louisiana, Colled Bastrip, Louisiana, would take me
Speaker 4: to games or would have me sit in this class.
Speaker 4: Same with my mom. Primarily taught at the elementary school
Speaker 4: level and still does a lot of work in our
Speaker 4: hometown in North Louisiana. They really, truth be told help
Speaker 4: shape my desire to always continually learn and the importance
Speaker 4: of education. In fact, I tell people to this day
Speaker 4: that I didn't realize I had a choice of going
Speaker 4: to college or not going to college. I always thought,
Speaker 4: you know, it was part of that progression that I
Speaker 4: didn't realize until after I graduated from college that really
Speaker 4: I could have chosen not to go to college. I'm
Speaker 4: glad that I did not make that choice, but I
Speaker 4: never realized I had a choice in the battle. So
Speaker 4: that and then jumping into IBM. From the first day
Speaker 4: that I joined IBM in Tampa, Florida, with the IBM
Speaker 4: Information Network, at that time, we were immersed in education.
Speaker 4: We were always being encouraged to learn. Learning equals growth,
Speaker 4: Learning equals promotional opportunities. Learning equals just in a sense, happiness.
Speaker 4: So I get joy when I'm learning, and that's helped
Speaker 4: with my desire to share what I've gained from my
Speaker 4: experiences with IBM with my students, with my peers and colleagues,
Speaker 4: with my bosses here at Southern University and other HBCUs
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 3: And so while we through an example of how this
Speaker 3: partnership really comes to life in the.
Speaker 4: Classroom, Well, I'll give you a pretty recent example. We
Speaker 4: recently sponsored here on the campus a symposium and we
Speaker 4: called that symposium cyber TIP. So see why I be TIP,
Speaker 4: and the TIP stands for Talent Initiative Program. And we
Speaker 4: used our partnership with IBM to introduce cybersecurity concepts to
Speaker 4: virtually every college on campus and every discipline, and we
Speaker 4: brought together students. We advertised it, brought students together and
Speaker 4: challenged them to come up with different cybersecurity topics in
Speaker 4: a variety of areas. So we had ad majors, we
Speaker 4: had nursing majors, we had engineers, our civil engineers, mechanical engineers,
Speaker 4: we had finance accounting. All disciplines basically were challenged to
Speaker 4: come up with a cybersecurity related topic that they could
Speaker 4: relate to, and we awarded the top ten presentations. So
Speaker 4: there were fifty presentations. The top ten received additional recognition
Speaker 4: and believe it or not, Laurie I was blown away.
Speaker 4: A student that I mentored with a freshman female received
Speaker 4: the top price, and she gives the cybersecurity and supply
Speaker 4: chain and she was a business major, so you would
Speaker 4: almost think cybersecurity, that's going to be somebody in sciences
Speaker 4: and engineering and so on and on. But a freshman
Speaker 4: student did a topic on cybersecurity and supply chain her
Speaker 4: minor and supply chain management, and she actually was awarded
Speaker 4: the top presentation, So I was extremely excited. Another one
Speaker 4: that got high ratings was cybersecurity in the fashion industry.
Speaker 4: And then you had cybersecurity with regard to plant sciences
Speaker 4: and agriculture. And then to see the creativity with the
Speaker 4: students and how they researched the topics and their skill
Speaker 4: in presenting their skill and responding to questions, their skill
Speaker 4: in saying, hey, here's the problem, here are some recommended solutions.
Speaker 4: Just to see that growth made me extremely happy.
Speaker 3: I love hearing about the breath with which they're using
Speaker 3: cybersecurity in the classroom. That you can apply it in
Speaker 3: egg or in fashion, in all these domains. It also
Speaker 3: means that students who leave who maybe not going into
Speaker 3: cybersecurity themselves, understand the problems that come up in whatever
Speaker 3: industry they're in exactly. But you've also been using IBM
Speaker 3: Skills Build for coursework and certification. Can you tell us
Speaker 3: a little more about what skills build is and how
Speaker 3: you've leveraged all these resources.
Speaker 4: We use skills builds specifically to augment our existing courses.
Speaker 4: For example, I taught a business analytics course this past semester.
Speaker 4: That business Analytics course uses IBM Skills Build Data Science
Speaker 4: course as its course content. I use all of the modules.
Speaker 4: There are eight to nine modules that touch on landscape,
Speaker 4: data science, case studies, the future trends, touches on all
Speaker 4: of those things that I use. It as both an
Speaker 4: eight week course and a sixteen week course depending on
Speaker 4: the modality that is delivered. When they exit that course,
Speaker 4: they not only exit with three credit hours. If they
Speaker 4: exit the course successfully completing the course content, I should
Speaker 4: say they not only exit with three credit hours in
Speaker 4: data science data analytics, they also receive a stackable credential
Speaker 4: and data analytics which they can of course take with them.
Speaker 4: They can share it on LinkedIn, they can share it
Speaker 4: on Facebook or Twitter. Basically use it to showcase the
Speaker 4: skills that they've required in that space. And the same
Speaker 4: occurs with cybersecurity, with cloud and with the other Skills
Speaker 4: Build offerings. Skills Build also touches in other areas such
Speaker 4: as mindfulness. Skills Bill has courses on entrepreneurship, which is
Speaker 4: extremely important to our College of Business, as we try
Speaker 4: to push and promote an entrepreneurial mindset, as we try
Speaker 4: to push and promote financial literacy, as we work to
Speaker 4: encourage digital literacy, and we actually use skills Build as
Speaker 4: part of many of our community initiatives. So our surrounding
Speaker 4: community and the world, we've introduced skills Build to them also,
Speaker 4: And now that I think about it, Laurie, we've actually
Speaker 4: we did a trip to Ghana last June. We'll be
Speaker 4: going back this June. The most popular session of the
Speaker 4: trip was when I introduce our Ghanian colleagues to skills Bill.
Speaker 4: Because it is international, I introduced them to Skills Bill.
Speaker 4: They allowed me to teach one of the classes. This
Speaker 4: is an extremely large university, it's ka nus Kwama and
Speaker 4: from a University of Science and Technology. I introduced it
Speaker 4: to a class and within a week, within a week,
Speaker 4: we had over three hundred students that had taken the
Speaker 4: Design Thinking Course, which is a two hour self paced
Speaker 4: course of fourteen lessons. Over three hundred students had taken
Speaker 4: the course. By the time I returned to the US
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks later, over eight hundred students had
Speaker 4: taken the course. So the impact of Skills Build and
Speaker 4: the exposure to these technologies and these stack credentials, to
Speaker 4: me has not just a US impact, but it has
Speaker 4: a global impact.
Speaker 2: I love how excited Derek Getz when he talks about teaching.
Speaker 2: He's a genuine passion for exposing others to new knowledge
Speaker 2: they otherwise wouldn't encounter. And it's remarkable that he's using
Speaker 2: IBM Skills Build to do that work internationally, be it
Speaker 2: the cybersecurity of fashion in Louisiana or design thinking in Ghana.
Speaker 2: As Derek will explain to Laurie in a moment, that exposure,
Speaker 2: those first time experiences can spark a newfound creativity in
Speaker 2: a person. Let's listen on as Derek gets into the
Speaker 2: creative aspect of his work as an educator.
Speaker 3: So this season of Smart Talks with IBM is focused
Speaker 3: on the new creators, these visionaries who are creatively applying
Speaker 3: technology and business to drive change. Do you see your
Speaker 3: work as creative?
Speaker 4: Oh, without a doubt, without and I'm not trying. I'm
Speaker 4: not bragging when I say that I will about a
Speaker 4: sound like I'm bragging, But I really do believe that
Speaker 4: this has allowed me to level up, to say the least.
Speaker 4: So I think I am a creator of innovative and
Speaker 4: enhanced educational experiences for our students, for my peer faculty,
Speaker 4: for our deans and provos, even our university president, chancellor
Speaker 4: and the other chancellors on our other four campuses.
Speaker 3: And so when you speak to your students, how does
Speaker 3: diversity help cultivate creativity within this field of cybersecurity in particular.
Speaker 4: Well, it cultivates creativity clearly because it helps us understand
Speaker 4: each other. I believe one of my greatest experiences, and
Speaker 4: this occurred when I was with IBM. iBIM afforded me
Speaker 4: the opportunity of living abroad for over seven years. I
Speaker 4: lived in Tokyo for over a year. I lived in
Speaker 4: Shanghai for two plus years. I lived in Johannesburg, South
Speaker 4: Africa for a little of a year helping a large
Speaker 4: multinational corporation prepare for the World Cup, and then I
Speaker 4: returned to the US and did additional two years working
Speaker 4: with various clients of IBMS and then went back to
Speaker 4: Shinjin China, and so that exposure to different cultures, to
Speaker 4: diverse cultures, to individuals. Because some people think of diversity
Speaker 4: as black and white, it's not. Diversity includes thinking ways
Speaker 4: of thinking. Diversity is much more than just skin color
Speaker 4: and human beings. Diversity is in learning, it's in education.
Speaker 4: It's like you said just now, it's in cyber security
Speaker 4: because right now, the things that we are being hit
Speaker 4: with from a cyber standpoint, I was just reading that
Speaker 4: chat GBT got hit with a cyber attack. It it
Speaker 4: was hacked that they had to be taken down for
Speaker 4: a minute. So it's going to really involve us continuously
Speaker 4: being creative in order to pro actively address problems over
Speaker 4: the day as well as reactively address those that we
Speaker 4: can't anticipate that are certainly going to happen as we
Speaker 4: move forward. As educators, we've.
Speaker 3: Been talking so much about how you've used creativity in
Speaker 3: the classroom, but you know, as a colleague professor myself,
Speaker 3: I know that one of the perks of being in
Speaker 3: academia is that your students go off and they do
Speaker 3: all these amazing things in the real world. And so
Speaker 3: I'm curious if you've ever interacted with students after graduation?
Speaker 3: Have they taken this principle of creativity and applied it
Speaker 3: in their own work life? And if so, can you
Speaker 3: share some stories?
Speaker 4: Oh, without a doubt, Without a doubt. And a couple
Speaker 4: of my students that I'm extremely proud of. This student
Speaker 4: was out of our loss and one of our loss
Speaker 4: students who took the in fact, they took cybersecurity and
Speaker 4: I believe they took the data science courses after taking
Speaker 4: those courses. He developed and has developed and it's now
Speaker 4: in its second year a journal of IP law and technology.
Speaker 4: She created a journal. She created it as a student,
Speaker 4: was the first editor of course of the journal, and
Speaker 4: now that journal is going into his second or third year.
Speaker 4: To hear her say that our courses and this partnership
Speaker 4: with IBM inspired her to create that journal as a
Speaker 4: law student is probably one of my private accomplishments. The
Speaker 4: other accomplishment I'd like to mention is I get emails
Speaker 4: from students regularly that say, hey, I completed the IBM
Speaker 4: Skills Build course and cyber are and Data Science r
Speaker 4: INAI added it to my LinkedIn profile, and hey, I'm
Speaker 4: getting calls from a variety of companies, Google and Microsoft
Speaker 4: and Adobe and Meta, all these different companies. Now, because
Speaker 4: as you know, companies are using AI to kind of
Speaker 4: peruse through LinkedIn for keywords. But because they've taken these
Speaker 4: and completed these digital credentials, these stack of credentials, they're
Speaker 4: getting job opportunities and one in particularly because of the
Speaker 4: digital credential that they added, they were able to get
Speaker 4: promotional opportunities. So I've had several that have ridden me,
Speaker 4: you know, to thank me and say, listen, thanks for
Speaker 4: bringing this to us because I just received a new promotion,
Speaker 4: I've gotten a new job. So hearing that from our
Speaker 4: graduates and seeing that they're using what they're gaining through
Speaker 4: this partnership for their growth and success has been extremely
Speaker 4: fulfilling for me.
Speaker 3: That's great. And so you've said before that if you're
Speaker 3: not uncomfortable, you're not learning. How do you apply this
Speaker 3: philosophy to your own life and how do you encourage others,
Speaker 3: especially your students, to go outside their comfort zone.
Speaker 4: Well, that quote actually was derived from a quote that
Speaker 4: I heard Jenny Rimedi, who was IBM's first female CEO,
Speaker 4: who I admired greatly. She said, growth and comfort cannot coexist,
Speaker 4: and when you think about it, it can't. I mean,
Speaker 4: you got to get uncomfortable, you know. I tell my
Speaker 4: students all the time, you're going to suffer pain. You
Speaker 4: can suffer the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
Speaker 4: And I certainly would prefer to go through discipline then
Speaker 4: then regretting something that I did. So I really well,
Speaker 4: I'll give you a story when I was first offered
Speaker 4: the assignment in Tokyo and my family and I were
Speaker 4: in Tokyo. We arrived in Tokyo. Of course, Tokyo is
Speaker 4: one of the largest, if not the largest city metropolitan
Speaker 4: area in the world, with thirty plus million people. We
Speaker 4: got there, it was intimidating, extremely intimidating. Well, during that week,
Speaker 4: while we were god of huddled in our apartment, I
Speaker 4: remember hearing a presentation around the question when was the
Speaker 4: last time you did something for the first time? So
Speaker 4: I took that question and I created a challenge with
Speaker 4: my family. It was a family challenge, and that family
Speaker 4: challenge was listen, every week, we're going to have first
Speaker 4: time experiences. We're here in Tokyo. It's a brand new place.
Speaker 4: We're going to have first time experiences and then we're
Speaker 4: going to do report outs of playbacks at the end
Speaker 4: of the week, doing family meetings. So my daughter and
Speaker 4: I were the two that really took on the challenge.
Speaker 4: She's pretty competitive now, she's a PR EXECU in New
Speaker 4: York to this decade. But she and I, she was
Speaker 4: fifth grade at the time, but she and I took
Speaker 4: the challenge and so we used it to meet new people.
Speaker 4: We used it to explore and go different places. We
Speaker 4: used it just to have new X experiences, and it
Speaker 4: peaked our curiosity. It encouraged our competitive spirits, but most importantly,
Speaker 4: we just grew. We learned so much to that challenge.
Speaker 4: Through that, I climbed Mount Fuji in Tokyo, I walked
Speaker 4: two hours on the Great Wall of China. I was
Speaker 4: having so many first time experiences. I started losing count
Speaker 4: because they were occurring just on the hour, especially when
Speaker 4: I lived abroad. And when I think about it now,
Speaker 4: that's how I encourage my students to to get creative
Speaker 4: and stay creative by just seeking out those first time experiences,
Speaker 4: by using their curiosity to grow and to learn, and
Speaker 4: most importantly, to have fun.
Speaker 3: And so it's clear even from the short conversation that
Speaker 3: you have found your purpose in kind of you know,
Speaker 3: teaching everybody these amazing skills. And I know that one
Speaker 3: of your mantras is find your purpose, but I'm curious
Speaker 3: how you encourage your own students to find their purpose.
Speaker 4: Well, one exercise that I have students go through is
Speaker 4: I ask them a question. And normally they're puzzled by
Speaker 4: this question, and that question, Laurie is what's your genius?
Speaker 4: So when they say I don't know what I want
Speaker 4: to do, I don't know what I want to major,
Speaker 4: and I don't know what I want to do in life,
Speaker 4: say well, tell me this, what's your genius? And then
Speaker 4: say genius? What do you mean genius? You mean my IQ? Did?
Speaker 4: I say? No, what's your genius? And your genius is
Speaker 4: the intersection of what you love and what you're good at.
Speaker 4: So I asked them, tell me what you love. Tell
Speaker 4: me some things that you love. And they may say, oh,
Speaker 4: I love video games, or I love watching television, I
Speaker 4: love traveling, I love math. Then I asked them, I
Speaker 4: say what what are you good at? And then they
Speaker 4: step back and say, well, I'm good at helping people,
Speaker 4: at communicating, I'm good at this I said, and I say, well,
Speaker 4: your genius is the intersection of that, because you may
Speaker 4: love basketball but might not be good at it, so
Speaker 4: I wouldn't encourage you to. I would basically say, that's
Speaker 4: probably not your genius. But if you can find that
Speaker 4: intersection of what you love and what you're good at,
Speaker 4: that can lead you to your purpose. And that's what
Speaker 4: led me to mind. I enjoy being with people. I
Speaker 4: enjoy helping people learn. I enjoy the environment of colleges,
Speaker 4: high schools, and beyond. I enjoy seeing the sparkle in
Speaker 4: the student's eyes when they have an Aha moment of
Speaker 4: when they've been able to accomplish a credential or learn something.
Speaker 4: It's nothing like it and it really excites me a lot.
Speaker 3: Derek, this was a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for all the amazing work that you're doing, you know
Speaker 3: at HBCUs and beyond.
Speaker 4: My pleasure and I'm a big fan, Laurie of your podcast.
Speaker 4: Now I'm a subscriber.
Speaker 3: Well, now we're gonna have to get you on to
Speaker 3: talk about purpose on the Happiness Labs as stay tuned,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: Derek left us just now with a piece of wisdom.
Speaker 2: I'd like to reflect on that genius is the intersection
Speaker 2: of what you love and what you're good at. For
Speaker 2: students and young people still finding themselves, sometimes it takes
Speaker 2: a little help to discover where their talents and passions lie.
Speaker 2: By introducing his students to cybersecurity, Derek is trying to
Speaker 2: show that a person's genius intersection might exist somewhere they've
Speaker 2: never been before, which is why Derek's philosophy about first
Speaker 2: experiences is so relevant. It's only when we branch out
Speaker 2: into the unfamiliar that we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves.
Speaker 2: That kind of self discovery leads to the diversity of thought, culture,
Speaker 2: and perspective that workplaces are hungry for, be it in
Speaker 2: cybersecurity or beyond. What's important is that we challenge ourselves
Speaker 2: to continue exploring the unknown and find that genius that
Speaker 2: is unique to each of us. Smart Talks with IBM
Speaker 2: is produced by Matt Romano, David jaw Nische, Venkat and
Speaker 2: Royston Reserve with Jacob Goldstein. We're edited by Lydia gen Kott.
Speaker 2: Our engineers are Jason Gambrel, Sarah Bruguier, and Ben Holiday
Speaker 2: theme song by Gramascow special thanks to Carl mcgliori, Andy Kelly,
Speaker 2: Kathy Callahan, and the eight Bar and IBM teams, as
Speaker 2: well as the Pushkin marketing team. Smart Talks with IBM
Speaker 2: is a production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. To find
Speaker 2: more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm Glabwell. This
Speaker 2: is a paid advertisement from IBM.