 We're really excited to have three amazing professionals here today, and we're going to talk about some issues, you know, some things we want to talk about such as ed tech, adult learner engagement, and you know outreach. So today on our panel, we have some amazing people, and I'll get started giving you a little bit of information about each one of them. So first up, we have Jeff Wald. Jeff is a serial entrepreneur, board member, and best-selling author. He does keynotes, and he's also an investor. Jeff is co-founder and chairman of two new technology startups, Bento Engine and Sonero. Jeff's previous company, WorkMarket, an enterprise software platform that enables people, or sorry, enables companies to engage and manage freelancers was acquired by ADP in 2018, where he served as senior leadership team until 2020. Mr. Wald also founded several other technology companies, including Spinback, a social sharing platform, and it eventually got purchased by Salesforce, which is really cool. He began his career in finance and serving as managing director at Activist Hedge Fund Barrington Capital Group, and vice president at venture capital firm Glenrock in various roles in the M&A group at JP Morgan Chase. So wonderful, wonderful to have Jeff. And then moving on, I'll introduce our second round table panelist. It is Lassie Freeman, who is the director of corporate partnerships at Zipcode Wilmington. Zipcode Wilmington is a nonprofit, 12-week coding camp, and it's in Delaware where she's responsible for corporate relationships and other strategic partnerships with ultimate responsibility of helping to place Zipcode graduates in paid technology jobs. Founded in 2015, utilizing the paper success model, Zipcode Wilmington has successfully reskilled and upskilled over 500 full stack object-oriented software developers and data engineers in Python and SQL. With the minimum education requirement of a high school diploma, 86% of their graduates have landed and remained in coding jobs, earning an average salary of $74,000, and historically 31% of their graduates are women and 33% are underrepresented minorities in tech. And our third panelist on our round table is Holly Hycanon. A lifelong entrepreneur, Holly brings nearly three decades of experience to the world of independent work. She is an expert advisor for the National Association, such as being a trustee on the Committee for Economic Development and chair of the same Committee's Advancing Women and Corporate Leadership Committee. She also serves as board advisor for the Conference Board's Human Capital Center. Holly is also a founding member of the Coalition of Workforce Innovation, and as a tireless advocate for common sense reform, Holly brings her fight for the rights of independent workers to the halls of Washington, D.C., and the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies. Holly launched iWorker Innovations to meet the unique needs of the independent workforce and iWorker Innovations partners with national firms and associations to provide bundled portable benefits to create a business and social safety for independent workers. So thank you, Jeff, Lassie, and Holly. We're happy to have you here today and we're really excited to talk about some cool perennial issues that are happening in the world of ed tech, adult learner engagement, partnerships, funding, innovation, and how we can move the needle and make sure that we show up and are responding to what's happening right now. So to get us started, let's see. We're here because of ed tech. We have teams in the competition who are creating possibilities through their apps and learning management systems, and we're always thinking about what's the new thing. So I want to start with the question. How can technology-based solutions such as AI, robotics, and other emerging technologies bridge the digital skills gap? Let's jump in. Go ahead, Jeff. I'm going to jump in. I'm going to white man this and just go. Go first. So sorry about that. So when you look at the history of work, which is what my book was about, what can we learn from the last three industrial revolutions as we plan for the fourth industrial revolution, you always see these skills gaps develop over time. There are certain skills. They get massively in demand because of technological innovation or process innovation, and the education system can't catch up. And in future industrial revolutions, the pace of change was slow enough that the education system catching up, as Nish said, the education system takes time to catch up, was kind of okay. I mean, it was suboptimal, but it was kind of okay. Now it's not. We can't wait for the traditional education system. We need new technologies and new processes to bridge these digital gaps because they are very, very acute in the near term and are causing a lot more disruption this time around than they have historically. That'd be my kind of perspective. Thank you. I think next I'll go to Lassie. So same question. How can technology-based solutions such as AI, robotics, and other emerging technologies bridge the digital skills gap? Thanks. First of all, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Congratulations to the prize finalists. This is really, really exciting, and I'm so happy about the work that you're doing, particularly the scalability of it all. I'm going to piggyback a little bit on what Jeff said, but I'm also going to push back and challenge it. So prior to COVID-19, zip code Wilmington was an in-person training institution, and we thought the only way that you can really do this in a highly valuable way is face to face, like many educational organizations. After COVID or prior to COVID actually really quickly pivoted to a virtual model, and after that we've gone to hybrid and realized that we could train people just as well virtually as we could in person, and so it disrupted our previously held assumption that the only way we could do this was face to face. But I think it's accessing and finding people where they are and changing our definition of what it means to be educated and learned. I think a lot of Americans, I don't know worldwide if this idea is still widely held, but we think of you go to four-year college, maybe you get a master's degree, maybe get a doctor, and I'm done. Okay, or high school diploma, I'm done. I've learned what I'm supposed to learn, and so we've got to go through this process, Jeff, of changing the way that we do that and creating these ways of getting credentials, of getting a specific skill, of making it more of a regular way of living that I'm always going to be learning. I'm always going to have to get an additional education or new skills in order to keep up. So digital tools, yes, but first for me, there's a mindset shift that has to occur and it has to be on demand. It has to fit the way, the lifestyle of people, the learners that we want to reach, and so how do we connect those things? First, shifting the mindset, and when they're here, if you build it, they'll come. But first is getting people to look for opportunities to reskill, upskill as a regularly occurring thing. This is just what I do. Thank you. Thank you, Lossy. I have an agreement, Lossy. For usual, you are correct. No, are you? Yeah, I'd love to hear from Holly next on that question. Yeah, actually, Lossy, I see we're definitely in alignment with our thinking. I am actually right outside of Detroit in a more rural area, and I think that we need to really take technology and start to look at and assess communities and really what type of work is actually available around you. So actually two cities from me right now. It's a very rural area. A lot of the children literally go into mechanics or running heavy equipment, farming even. How do we help those children assess what their skills are? Well, I should say children or young adults, right? So we're talking around 25 is the reskilling of the participants today. But how do we help them look at even the opportunities which are quickly changing? You know, when I referenced being right outside of Detroit, 2008 crash, a lot of brilliant IT professionals, engineers lost their jobs overnight. And what did they do? How did they refigure this out? It was very challenging. And that's actually what made me go into what I'm focused on now, which is independent work. And people being in charge of their own destiny and finding their own work and placing themselves and having the ability to even assess themselves. So I definitely think that we have an ability to use technology and artificial intelligence to assess communities, assess the work that's actually there and the work that can be produced. And then you start to fill in the gaps of what the heck do I need to do to make myself more, you know, applicable to X and X business? So that's kind of my my two cents right there. And I've got a lot to say about the rural community, but we can save that. Thank you. Thank you so much, Holly. And I love what you say, looking at what technology can do to prepare someone for an opportunity, but also what are the opportunities that are out there? Because we could all be training to be goat herders, but hey, there's no demand for goat meat or goat milk or, you know, there, you know, so we have to make sure that we're actually attuned to what's happening now. There was a weird example, but hey, you guys are just saying about online learning and really using technology. You know, with the pandemic, everybody had to pivot a shift. If you weren't already on board, it was a bit tougher than usual. I know last year saying like prior to the pandemic, you guys were already shifting some of that coding training to online and more virtual means. And a good question would be, you know, definitely to the pandemic, many barriers were already in place for online learners and they have been removed because increasingly there are ways to get more access, but new barriers have emerged. For you, what you have seen, what are the implications for the future of work when considering changes in online blended and digital learning now that we're in the pandemic? So I'll say our first person to go, I'll say Lassie. Oh, she got me. I'll just, I'll speak to something and forgive me if I'm a little bit random or around the, all around the place, but we work in software development. So we're training software developers, data engineers. And as many of you have probably seen in this industry, there are a lot of neurodiverse people who are extremely talented in this field. And so wild tech is great. There might be some gaps and I'm not an expert in it, but there might be some gaps that we see emerging with people with neurodiverse backgrounds needs, need to interview way of engaging way of learning. And so we're all about trying to meet the learner where they are and providing them an educational experience that really leverages their strengths and talents. And so I think that might be a challenge with some of the digital tools that we'll really have to explore and some smarter people than me will need to figure out what that looks like. Thank you. Thank you. I think we assume that because there's more access, there's programs, people are giving away tablets and laptops and phones that'll everybody's good and just log on and do it, but not thinking about meeting the worker or the learner where they are to ensure that they can enroll in the program and actually succeed through it. And for those that were used to a more hands-on, you know, partner or mentor or coach, how does that relay virtually? Definitely. Let's see. Jeff, what is your opinion on implications for the future of work when considering changes that have occurred to online learning and digital learning during the pandemic? You know, these are new modalities. And anytime we see a new technology introducing the world of work, it's suboptimal in its first implementation. It needs to iterate, as with any technology that's brought to market. And so I get concerned that people think, oh, remote work is great or remote learning is great, and that's it. No, it isn't it. You know, you touched on a few very, very important things around first the digital divide. Just because we are doing online learning doesn't mean everyone has access to broadband internet. Doesn't mean everyone has access to a quiet space in which to do that work. Everyone doesn't have access to the Oculus headset or other things for a VR training module. I think a lot about the mentoring and the soft skills that go into the classroom environment and all the other kind of learning. It's important to remember humans are a social animal. We actually don't want to be sitting by ourselves, you know, connected via digital connection 24-7. When you look at, and I can only speak about this in kind of the world of work, which is where my learning is. Most people don't want to go fully remote. That's what all the survey data would say. That's what all of the early indications from workplaces are. They want a more flexible work schedule. They don't want to be there nine to five, five days a week, much like a student may not want to be there in the classroom all the time, you know, on a rigid schedule. They want that flexibility, but that flexibility shows that they do want to be in the office some of the time bordering on the majority of time, because humans are social animals and so I worry about the digital divide. I worry about the mentoring and the soft skills and I am very conscious of just human psychology in these new changes. Yeah, definitely because it can be isolating. We're having to take into account the mental toll of almost being required to socially distance for so many years, especially for those social butterflies and those who tend to flourish in those environments. It definitely is different and I think it's taking the opportunity for us to all slow down and really be retrospective, but prospective and how do we take the best of both worlds and make it work for moving forward because we definitely have changed. The days of even everybody going to the office is no longer. We're really seeing that people can be productive and work, be productive and learn and gain skills by not physically in a building all the time. And I think as we get to a point with the hybrid model of figuring out what works best for the student, what is their, you know, learning method and how can we make sure that we're teaching them in the way that they're willing to receive that ensures their success, because it's not that what I can't see you. I can't micromanage you. Therefore, I don't trust that you're doing what you're supposed to do. You have to be trustful of the student, of the worker who's here for the opportunity and let them do their thing, but in a manner that honors them, their time, the things that have going on outside of the work or class as well. Holly, how do you feel about that? What new challenges are springing up now in the pandemic that we have pivoted to a lot more virtual learning online, blended and digital? Yeah, so it's a great conversation because about six months ago, I decided to be really, really honest. I lead, you know, a few different groups and one day leading my decided to start it out with, you know, everybody goes around, how are you doing? I said, to be honest with you, I'm dying on Zoom. And I really meant it. Like it's hard. I'm very extroverted. Right. So we have a lot of learners right now that have totally moved into a complete mobile, you know, virtual world in their homes. Some of them like just that they don't have a quiet place so they don't have any, any, you know, place to even, you know, call their own space. So even focusing is really a challenge. I'd say, you know, there's a lot of challenges that have already come to the light. And I think we're dealing with them. And I want to be totally honest, I don't know what those future challenges are going to be. But I can tell you something I'm already seeing a major trend of is really how do we assess and deal with the emotional, spiritual health of people, you know, the mental health aspects are really a challenge. And I think that that's going to be a bigger barrier than we are giving light to right now. And I also believe that there's some way to use technology to assess that, you know, and maybe hopefully some of the participants are looking at those kinds of things. There are certain triggers, you know, we each as humans have created habits and ways of thinking and thought patterns and all these little things inside of our own self that, you know, not everybody is assessing. How do we get to the root of those to help us learn and engage better? I definitely think we do have to find a way to get to a more present space, though, you know, and we need to put more time and resource into our communities. Some things have to go back to the basics, like it or not. Or I think we're going to really lose a lot of people that have so much value to add to the future generations. Thank you. Thank you. And lastly, Jeff, do you have anything additional to add as we continue to speak on this? I'll add to what Holly said that we had a lot of students who deferred will wait until it's in person. So there are people that prefer that, that want that human engagement. So while we were training people for the work environment that they went into, a lot of our students who graduated over the last two years have gone directly into jobs where they've never set foot in the office. And so that was a reality. It was kind of a benefit. We were training people in the same way that they would then be working. But you do miss out on that human element. You do miss out on a lot of those professional development skills and networking skills. And even being on time, we've not tested that yet. A real program was getting there early. Early is on time. If you can get somewhere, you've got half the battle down. But if all you have to do is roll out of bed and push a button on your screen, are we really pressure testing people in the same way that you have to when you manage your time to physically get to a workspace or environment? Or is that going to even be necessary? Will it be optional? I do think that technology, from my perspective, is also widening the opportunities for people in terms of geography that we've seen that now you can work anywhere for the most part in the world by not having that physical requirement of being there creates opportunities, changes, real estate algorithms for us in some strange way that I don't know how we're going to see that play out also in the future. So I'll just throw in some data here on the current state of the labor markets. Because I think that people tend to over-index to the narrative. And the narrative right now is, oh, all work is going to go remote. Hard no. All work is not going to go to remote in any way, shape, or form. Start with the data that only 42% of the US workforce can work remotely. Most people can't work remotely. People in transportation, logistics, and retail in manufacturing can't work in a remote context. So when this conversation starts, it starts with the minority of the labor force. And then many people in what could be done as remote work don't do remote work. And so the highest end estimate is that remote work will move from 3% of the labor force before the pandemic. And remote work has a very specific definition of more than 50% of the time you do not go into the office. And it has that definition because of tax nexus. Because if you're 50% of the time in a location, you establish tax nexus there. So it is tracked. People that have flexible work, it's very difficult to track. We don't know if you go to the office one day a week, two days a week. But if you go a third day a week, that's now 60%, we track you. And so the highest end estimate is that 3% pre-pandemic would go up to maybe 7%. And that's the scope of the change we're talking about here. And I assume a very similar set of data patterns exist within the education system. I don't know what I haven't studied it. So it's not appropriate for me to talk on it. But it is appropriate to bring up the point that we need to, in these conversations, base them in data and evidence. And not in the narrative, because people get caught up in that narrative, oh, everyone's going remote. No, only certain types of work that is available to only certain types of workers can go remote. And then to our earlier points, most people that will still opt to be in the office some of the time. Yeah, definitely. And I see that there are some comments in the chat, just speaking from an attendee who had neurodiverse daughters. One is in college and she's just concerned that employers will be willing to look past her social limitations and welcome her and her neurodiverse peers as they are in the office or continuing through a virtual space. But one thing that she said our daughter did miss was that community. So thank you guys for being active in the chat and in your own way, contributing to the conversation. And as we're talking about that more human-centered, human-centric thing, we talk about adult education because what we're working on right here with rabbit rescaling is rescaling and upscaling for adults 18 and older here in the US. And so traditionally, teaching models are aimed at youth. And how can individual adults learn? It really depends on their life. It depends on situational, familial, employment needs, learning styles. And a good question is how can adult learners empower themselves to accomplish their educational pursuits? And what systems are most important to support them in getting there? So let's see, Holly, would you be willing to go first? I'd rather hold off. Give me a moment on that one. Yep, that one. Let's see. Jeff, up, you're muted. I was passing to Lassie. I feel like I'm in a game show. I was pointing that way, because that's where Lassie is in my Zoom screen. Can you break it down into pieces? Maybe we can address them smaller. Pretty much the question we're talking about situations where teaching youth is different from teaching adults. Adults definitely have lives. You have children. You have their soccer practice. They can be caretakers for elderly parents or family members. And also the learning style is different. If you haven't been in a school or a class in a while, you're rusty. What's this new learning thing? There's a new math I hear of. But looking at that, how can adult learners empower themselves to accomplish their educational pursuits? And what systems are most important to help them meet that, being that they have those adult situational barriers? I'll share that that Zipcode Wilmington, our average age, the average age of our students is 35. So we are taking people who have done something else in life, whether they were a line cook, Amazon package delivery person, teacher on the back of a garbage truck with a minimum of high school diploma, they can come to Zipcode Wilmington. We find a lot of our recruits come by word of mouth. At this point, we've got over 500 graduates from Wilmington, Delaware, a state of a million people. So that's quite an accomplishment here. I would call that scale here. It really was a brand experiment. Our founders are just three local people who saw this gap between the jobs that were open and the statistic about the two million jobs that would be unfilled by 2020 and decided they wanted to do something about it. We have these people who are capable and so our motto is that that talent is distributed evenly. Opportunity is not how do you bridge that? So initially, our program and it has remained that way is three months. It's 12 weeks. It's short for a reason. It is full time and it's full on our students complete over 1100 hours of intensive training. It is cohort based. So I find that adult learners enjoy being part of a cohort, part of a team, part of a support network and they really do help one another cost the tape. Our motto is really no percent left behind and we have about a 98% graduation rate. I think also we provide scholarships and stipends we always have. We're one of the few programs that has a vet tech, which is a full scholarship for our veterans. And we also have a, you know, I think adults are really focused on the monetary. I can do anything for a short period of time if the payout is on the other end. And in our community, like so many other communities, there are lots of workforce development programs that have promised this or that or people have done what they have been told to do. You know, you told me to go through this. If I do this for three weeks or four weeks or six weeks, there'll be some reward and there has been no reward. So really how we measure ourselves is on the job placement rate. So while we don't guarantee jobs and I don't have guaranteed placements for them, my job as Corporate Partnerships Director is to find corporate partners that will hire those graduates. So we're only taking in as many as we can, can reasonably find jobs for. And so if you know that, if you can come in on average, our students come in and average and make about 28,000 by the time they leave zip code, they're earning an average. I've got to update our number Monica because now it's, it's, it's closer to $84,000 a year, the last couple of cohorts. That's a serious light at the end of the tunnel. So I think adults with proper support stipend through the program to get through, they can really manage it. And so that cohort based model, having a stipend and having a real real reward at the end that will get them out of the program forever. Like you don't have to see them again, are kind of some ingredients for us. Yeah, thank you for saying what the incentive was and the type of learning environment that seemed to net success for those who go through your program. I see those are some things that maybe our finalist teams are needing to know and understand what is working elsewhere, and maybe pivoting to make sure they have flexibility in their programs to be able to accommodate those. And Jeff, I saw your hand up. Well, this is why I wanted Lasie to go first. I mean, she knows like a thousand times more therapist than I do. I'll say this, you know, going back to college and going back into a classroom for some people at a later part in life has a stigma associated with it. So like, you know, they failed in their initial attempt at education, they have to go back. And so I've seen and read a lot about that and stigma plays such a powerful part in a lot of issues we have from a occupational standpoint, whether it's the trades right now, because people feel like, oh, if I become a plumber, I'm not a success plumbers are making six figures, and there is a massive shortage of plumbers and electricians and all kinds of other things. But there's this narrative that if you don't go to a four year college, you're not on the right educational path, which is just a false, false, false narrative. I will say that the notion of generational change for those of us that study the history of labor is usually a false narrative. Somehow that different, a new generation applies something entirely different. People say, oh, millennials or Gen Z have very little company affiliation and they associate with Mission and Brand. That is no different than how a 20 something applied themselves in 1980. And so there just is, of course, there are some changes that do persist, but generally, that generational shift is kind of a false narrative. I will violently agree with many things that I said. One is I just love the talent is equally divided, but opportunity is not. And there is a nonprofit in New York called the opportunity network that I had the pleasure of being a founding board member of and we have the same tagline, because it is so incredibly true that talent is very evenly distributed in society, but the opportunities that we give are not evenly distributed. And if we want to make those opportunities evenly distributed, we need flexible models of skill attainment that can work with people's schedules and lives and remove any stigma. And that's why an online program, a VR program where I can do it in my time, the counter to that, by the way, is that the post-secondary for-profit system in this country has had a very poor track record of outcomes, constantly mired and scandal, and they're not as ROI driven as they need to be. You generally have a bunch of people in there that are just getting people to sign up as much as possible, despite the fact they're not going to get the education outcome. So making very, very clear what their ROIs are. So whether it's stigma, whether generational changes of false narrative, flexibility, or an ROI nature that is truly accurate, those are the kinds of things that come to mind for me when talking about how do we address educational and skills attainment generationally. Thank you, Jeff. And as we talk about educational skills attainment generationally, I would love to pivot to that same thing, but look at geography. I know Holly, you spoke a lot about the rural community outside of Detroit. And is there anything that you see in regards to education and attainability for rural communities as opposed to those in Detroit proper, more of an urban setting? Yeah, well, Detroit's a whole new place than it was even five years ago. It's amazing to see how many younger people are moving there. And I don't like to, I guess, delineate between ages and all of that. But it's really interesting because the tech innovation that's going on there and really just the innovation in general, the arts, the culture, kind of the scenes are, it's a lot of fun, you know, and a lot is changing. And there's a lot of excitement no matter where I go down there. But then moving out to the rural community. And actually, I gotta say I'm one of those people that have friends in all places, right? So there'll be a day where I'll be down in the hood hanging out in Detroit with my Detroit friends, to be quite honest with you. And then there's the next day where I'm having a dinner in New York with, you know, my business colleagues. So I kind of play in a lot of different spaces and I have learned so much by doing so. I'm constantly in awe of people. One of the things I've learned, though, and I don't mean this is some prejudice at all, is that there's some communities, whether they be out here where I live in Livingston County, Michigan, where there's so many people that don't think for their selves. They don't know to use their brain. They don't understand process of elimination. They don't have the ability to apply cause and effect, certain things like that. So I personally think that, you know, like, how do you empower somebody to persevere and to know what they need and to even make the step towards rescilling themselves? A lot of it has to do, I think, with our leadership and has to do with the resources and communities. And really a lot of it has to do with so much as news and social medias that they're connecting with. Empower people to think and question if I apply XYZ to this, what are the possible outcomes? And so maybe you could say to somebody, and I'll use an example right now. I like to use personal examples. One of my children, he owns an excavating company. He's doing amazing. He's 23 years old and making over six figures a year very quickly. Because he's replacing a lot of these older people that were running this heavy equipment. Now he's doing it and rocking it. For me, I'm already looking at it and saying, oh my gosh, I'm seeing all over the place, a lot of these machines that you're using are being run by what I would call a joystick, right? You know, like an Atari joystick or whatever. Right. Exactly. So how do you start to prepare yourself? So a cause and effect is, yes, you're doing this and today you're making this money, but it could be really in the next 10 years, you're displaced by technology and these other people that have put time and energy into advancing and learning their craft or their skill or their trade, whatever it might be in how technology applied to it. So I'm trying to summarize here when I say like, how do we get people to think of the future? How do we empower them to understand like, if you do this, you might get this outcome and that might be better for you. Another thing is there's so many people right now that are in, you know, caring for elderly, right? Obviously, we're in this whole, you know, baby boomer age and really a lot of elderly people that are very sick and in need help. I'm dealing with it in my own life. How do you help them to see the future? Like, how do you help them to get some resource in their area so they can rely on somebody to come for two or three hours so they can actually learn the next piece? Maybe they have to be hands on for their skill set. You know, part of it can be done online, but part of it needs to be done there. So how do communities get more resource? And then one other thing I want to talk about is there's a huge gap in verification for employment. So I have watched and actually I just spoke at a national conference that was in Puerto Rico for last mile delivery drivers. You know, there's millions of people that are in the driving industry right now and what I saw is what I heard from the leaders of almost 50 major companies throughout the US is there are people who want to work, but they get shot down and beat down because we don't have enough technology to move in and verify that they are qualified for employment. Some of these companies, these bigger companies, it was taking them almost three to four weeks. They might say, okay, yes, you're hired. You can start this state. One of them jokingly said, and I wish I could say their names, you'll be like, oh my gosh, they jokingly said, yeah, we're the only place where we hire somebody and they never show up the first day. We call them because, you know, this is an instant society too. So how do we help people deal with those kinds of things that technology can fix, but we're not getting granular with our technology down to communities and counties to do background checks. So we're causing this massive amount of people to be frustrated and feel hopeless. Here I am trying to work, but then I can't even get my job for a month, like that just doesn't work. So I'm kind of going all over the place, but I'm touching on a few things, but we have a lot to fix you guys, a lot to fix. And the participants in this team, the finalist team really need to be thinking about these foundational things too, to be future successful companies to create future successful innovative solutions. Yeah, thank you, Holly. And one thing you said earlier that resonated was getting the message to people if they're not open to it. And it's hard because it could be cultural. Yeah. Small, tight-knit communities, but also it takes people power and it takes someone going in and engendering trust with the gatekeepers or the community leaders or the stakeholders, the church, the mayor, the sheriff, because that's who they listen to. And you sometimes have to figure out who the target is and go for the target so that the community can then be opened up to the opportunity. And that, unfortunately, sometimes isn't as rapid as we would like it to be, but sometimes just engendering trust in the community and embedding yourself there and giving before you even get to the point of this opportunity could be a way that you get in, but it's definitely a longer game and a longer play to be able to do that type of one-on-one engagement. Yeah. I mean, how do we fix that? Again, there are some ways that technology can fix that, but we need the right people taking a look at it and assessing and applying a solution to that problem. Definitely. Hey, Jeff, I see you have your hand up. Just so focused on being in school, and I guess I always feel I need to raise my hand. I just want to build on one of the things that Holly had said around background checks, and I'm going to expand it to drug tests as well. Yeah. When we look at the skills gap in the United States today, and we are somewhere between about around four million workers short in the United States from where we were pre-pandemic, they just simply have not come back. And the data would tell us that that gap is driven by two things. One is early retirements, people for either because the stock market was up so much, or because for health reasons with COVID, they just were like, you know what, I'm retired. It's too much of a risk. And that's cost us about 2 million incremental workers that have left the labor force prematurely. Hopefully they'll come back. And the second reason which actually numerically is should I should put number one is immigration. We just have curtailed immigration so much in the United States that we are about 3 million workers short of what we should be because immigrants come into this country are a massive net positive in every single way, shape and form, like every data point and every data, every study will tell us that immigration is a massive net positive for the United States. And so those are big issues. But part of the skills gap is that we have a massive drug test and background check issue. So Holly, to your point around technology, the technology here is really challenging having run this platform work market where we ran tens of thousands of background checks every month. You're just reliant on the state and the state simply haven't automated, they will at time, there are some states where you can do the automated background check like that and get your response. There are other states you have to send a human to the Hall of Records to physically go and look to see if that person has anything on their record. That's kind of problem number one. Problem number two is the background checks that companies run are still too stringent. So somebody had a minor offense three years ago, they can't have a job, like that's just crazy. And the same can be said around drug testing. Somebody, you know, the number one thing that people fail drug tests for marijuana, smoke and weed, like tears at this point. And I sit on the boards of a few public companies and I had to have it out with the CEO because he said, well, I drug test for marijuana and 40% of the people they made job offers to couldn't start because they failed a marijuana test. And he just felt that it was a moral failing on their part. I was like, oh my gosh, like, look, I'm not going to have you removed for this. But if you think I'm going to give you any relief on your bonus payment because they were missing targets because they couldn't hire people because you were putting this in place, you're out of your mind. But there is no difference between someone going home smoking a joint or having a couple glasses of wine. And be that as it may. And both of these things obviously have very big racial and different community impacts that are massively part of an institutional problem we have in this country. And I'm hopeful that technology that changes in laws and changes in processes will help those issues. But these are all kind of self inflicted wounds here, right? We can change our laws, we can change our processes through which we hire, we can change our immigration policies and do a host of things that would be massively beneficial. But, you know, Holly, to your point around common sense legislative reform, there's just no capability to get these things done in our current political environment, unfortunately. But I'm hopeful. Always hopeful. Same here. Stay hopeful. Monica, if I may, that's another great, you know, big problem is, you know, there's, you know, I'll give an example. I made a bunch of political movement that was positive and nothing to do with what party you were on under the old administration and the new. They shut everything down that we had worked on. And I get it. But the two people, both sides of the party are just wanting to protect people of accord. And that's on the independent workforce space. But Jeff, you bring up a good point is, how do we change and affect policy to maybe standardize credentialing, right? Because these 50 major, well, there's almost 50 major companies I'm talking about placing last mile delivery drivers all the way down to food delivery to auto parts to groceries on and on, you know, on and on all the different types is every company has a different standard and a different thing that they're looking for. And some of them that get extremely granular. And that's an unfortunately, it's really affecting those rural communities too. Because I can tell you, I need food delivery out here. I would love to have the brake fluid I need for one of my vehicles right now. I'm afraid to drive it until I get it in there delivered to me. But I can find that here. If I live in the city, I could. So, you know, there's just a lot of things we need to fix and the policy is not catching up either. So I don't want to get off, you know, track too much. But, you know, that's a part but the reality is the foundational issues with some of our policy is what is actually negatively affecting our workforce. They don't feel like they're ever going to get ahead anyways. So, thank you for that. I know we're getting close to the end about 15 minutes left. And I have two questions left. We had a really great question in the chat and I want to put that to you guys. It says, with the great resignation, what jobs are people really looking for? So we're saying, people aren't going back to work. Well, what jobs would they go back to workforce or any trends or any information that you see that lets us know what are people leaning towards when it's time to reenter into the workforce? I'll happily go first. Oh, sorry, Lassie, are you wanting to? I was just going to say software development, but I'm, you know, I'm like a hammer with a nail. But Bureau of Labor Statistics has software development, data engineering growing at a rate of 22%. And all other industries combined are growing at a rate of 4%. So I would say software engineering, data engineering, we have some gaps, some racial gaps there, underrepresented minorities in technology and women that we need to bridge the gap there. It was a white boys club, you know, tech software development was really created along those lines. And so getting people to look at it differently, raising our girls differently to realize that this is a career and a profession for you, getting people in communities that might not have had as much access to technology to understand that you can get from, you know, just being a user of this tech to being a creator. That's really intriguing and also thinking about biases that are being embedded in the coding and why we need to get more diverse people involved in that industry. But technology, software development, any of the languages, I think most of those are growing. I agree with you actually. I would also say that I don't know that it's actually, I can speak to the type of work that people are after. I can speak more to the lifestyle of the work that they're after. So everything I focused on this last seven years primarily has been about the independent workforce. So people that kind of directing guide their own future. And the things that they're looking for is constantly coming back to the reality of they want quality of life and quality of life looks different for different people. They want to work when they want how they want and where they want. And it might look different today, or it might look different next month for that same exact person based on what's going on in their life. So working with specifically CED and the conference board, the leadership there of some 400 of the major companies in the US are really looking at things like how do we obviously utilize technology to empower these people, but how do we keep working on flexible work style, flexible work at ours and those kinds of things. How do we manage their production, their output, things like that. So it's not really maybe occupation for me. It's how do we tap into what it is they want? Maybe they want to take a month off. Can we just let them do that? You know, and that's necessary. You know, how many people like the gal that was saying that she has a neuro diverse children, I think she said, two of them, if I remember. Yeah. So how does she maybe take off a moment to go deal with X, Y or Z that's in her life with with her family. There needs to be that ability. We need to care about people and we need to look at what in the heck is it that these people need to be successful and emotionally, mentally, stable and happy. And it changes. I have a little ad here, but it won't stop me from talking. I think you've heard, you know, the two most powerful trends from a employment evolutionary standpoint. One is hard tech. I mean, hard tech is far and away the largest growing skills category. I mean, it's just not even remotely close. And second is the movement towards independent work and all the work that Holly and her teams are doing it at I worker are just absolutely vital as we continue to evolve the labor force. The only thing I can really add besides bolstering these two brilliant people's points is we need to look at data because the great resignation is again, somewhat of a misnomer. So we traditionally have, you know, over about 40 to 42 million people a year quit. That is what we would have expected in 2020. But in 2020 because of COVID, many people didn't quit. We had 6 million fewer quits in 2021 as we started to come out of COVID and then Omicron and whatever, we had ketchup quits, we had 48 million quits. So we caught up the 6 million quits that we missed in 2020. So if the quits stay elevated at the over 4 million quits per month, then I would say we have a great resignation and we should talk about structural changes that are happening in the labor force. But the early indications from January's data, we don't have February's data yet, is that quits are starting to return to normal pastings. And so I think the great resignation is much ado about, I wouldn't say nothing, but it's just it's not a structural change in the labor force yet. We may again view it that way in another couple quarters of data. Thank you. Thank you. And as you're talking about data, Jeff, I have another question. Talk about data collection all the time. And we're always people like people should, you know, collect data, the team should, the company should. But what data should be collected beyond routine demographic information? Is there some effect of data collection methods that you know of that can really be leveraged in the area of ed tech and as it pertains to our teams and their learning management systems? Look, I am a very data driven person and my entire study on labor is, is, you know, what can the data and the data trends tell us? And so this is an area we especially begin to education and you talk about GDPR and PPI personal identifiable information and the general data protection rights that came out of the European Union and it's not been copied in California and most American companies follow. I don't even know how that stuff applies to education and I imagine it is much more stringent about what happens in the education system because when you look at education in the United States and healthcare, these are the two industries that I think are the most troubled in the various industries in the U.S. economic landscape and it's be, I would argue that the reason for that there's certainly a correlation. I would argue there's a causality is because they're the most highly regulated industries and those regulations incredibly well intentioned but very difficult to adjust regulation to fix the modern context in a real time because legislation moves at a glacial pace whereas the economic progress and innovation and all the needs move at a much, much, much faster pace. So I don't know and I'm sure my two co-panelists will have much better answers to this despite the fact that I am a data nerd. Let's see, Lassie, do you have anything? Say nope, Holly? No, actually I don't either. I'm enamored with just statistics every time I hear them. I wish my brain worked like that. Well, we can pivot. I have another question. I know Lassie, you spoke about the success that you have where you have about 80-70% of people who are actually graduating from your program and being placed into actual jobs in software development. So what are some successes or some things you've done to secure corporate or employer partners to hire those students who successfully complete your program? Thanks for the question. It's a fundamental part of our design. I wish I could take full credit for it but it wasn't my idea. It was our founder's idea. So they started from the back forward. So they went to the companies and said, what is it that you need? What skill set is it that you need from the workers? We've got all these jobs open but seriously, what can we teach them and how do we condense that down to a short period of time? So we still have a steering committee comprised of our corporate partner membership. So they're CTOs, Heads of Engineering and so forth that help us. And so as our panelists said earlier, that curriculum is constantly evolving. It is never the same. It is constantly tailored to what the business needs. So we're teaching exactly what is needed for them to be able to hire them. And the second thing is we have a unique financial sustainability model. So we talk about funding and non-profits and how do you make this a revolving door to be able to continue to train more and more people. So when we first started, there were less than a dozen non-profit coding boot camps. There are lots and lots of for-profit coding boot camps but very few non-profit coding boot camps. And so our financial model is that it cost us $15,000 per person to provide this training, transformative, life-changing opportunity. The student pays up to 6,000 upfront for their tuition. We had to raise that from 3,000 to 6,000 during COVID. And then the corporate partner pays the remaining balance of that tuition. So up to $9,000 per person when they hire them. So that financial model is really what makes us unique and special. And it provides, it lets the student have or learner have some skin in the game. And it provides that support on the back end where the employer has skin in the game. So they're constantly feeding into it. And we do that because we're providing a needed service. It cost about $15,000 to go to the street and recruit people to hire recruiter, look for the right people who have the right skill set, onboard them, maybe they'll show up, maybe they'll take another offer. So we're really, it's a cost-saving benefit for them. We're providing a really needed beneficial service. They know the quality of what they're getting. They continue to hire them 500 later. Those people are now in managerial positions. They know the quality of our program. We're creating a really big network. So to that point about how do we instill this idea of learning as a constant is we're creating a sea change in this region where it's a tech world we want Delaware to be on the map as the leading state for technology talent. That's why employers are choosing where they're going. It's no longer what are the rebates that the state is going to give us. It's what kind of talent do you have? How quickly can you reskill the existing workforce to do what I need them to do? So we're really just an instrument for that. It's the model. It's not even the what. Today at software development and data engineering, but it's really just a model that could be replicated anywhere of find what the employer needs, work with them to design a curriculum that can be taught and is condensed a period of time, get them to pay for them on the back end, and people will go where the jobs are. So all you need is a good newspaper article that says XYZ company is hiring. If you have the skill set, here's the program that provides the training. What we have today, and I'm sorry, I get on my soapbox about it, is we have training that's not linked to employment. Yeah, that's one of the odd things about this prize is trying to make sure that the trainings lead to employment and teams are seeking employer partners in the target cities. They're targeting for round three to make sure that when people successfully complete training, that there is an employer who's willing to hire them, pay them a living wage, and it's really important that the training actually pertains to the actual job. You don't get trained to be a neurosurgeon, but you're going to have a job as a landscaper. Disconnect definitely is there sometimes. Don't land a job using the skills that you acquired at our school. You don't owe the remaining balance for tuition. That's it. So we have skin in the game in it as well. And when people hear that, they go, oh, you must really be confident in what you're going to do for me. First, if ADP is not a corporate partner of yours, I will take it as an action item to introduce you to the team at ADP, and they will become a corporate partner because I love, love, love what you guys are doing. But I wanted to ask Lassie a question because this is, again, outside my area of expertise. Is there an issue with the students coming up with that initial payment? And if so, do you guys look at different, different startups that will fund that with a stream of the student's income once they get a job? So there's no direct loan. There's a, I figure what they're calling is ISRs. You'll be hearing a lot about income share agreements in the future. They were touted as something that was really great for the student, but we found that they're really not that advantageous that they basically sort of indentured our students to give a portion of their payment and it didn't work for us. That's not really what we were about. We do provide stipends and scholarships for anyone who is below the poverty line. And that changes 200 or 300% of the poverty line. And we're so proud and grateful to the state of Delaware. We just received a grant for four and a half dollars over the next three years that makes attending zip code absolutely free for any low and middle income person who's a resident. So yeah, it's, it's a game changer here. It's just awesome. So move to Delaware. Come to zip code for free. Thank you, Lassie. Thank you. And Holly. So I work with what I call aggregators. So a company that utilizes or deploys large amounts of independent workers. They are not their employees. These companies too need reskilling and freshly skilled or upskilled workers. And unfortunately, that company can't help to pay for the reskilling of that worker because it's not going to be their employee and that violates DUO rules and rights. So that's another problem that we need to address is education is expensive no matter how it comes. And there's 55 million people out there in some fashion. Maybe it's just their five hour a week gig that may be able to bill more, charge more, make more. If they had more education and how do we get to the root of helping those people too when they're not attached to that employer as a W2 employee. So another big challenge I think we've got to fix. Thank you. Thank you. And we have come to about the end. So I have one question for each of you. If you can give me a word that reflects how you plan to revolutionize the future of work, what would that one word be? Let's see. Holly first. One word. Portability. That would be my favorite word. Okay, thank you. Jeff. What was that again? Flexibility. Got it. We got the ability. So what was yours again, Holly? Portability. Portability. Flexibility. Ability. And how about accessibility? All right. All the abilities. Thank you. Thank you. We've come to the end of the round table. I'd like to thank Jeff, Holly, and Lassie so much for your time today. We appreciate the candid, often funny, but yet real conversations we've had. And I'm thankful for the value you've brought to the table. I hope the teams and those who are on really enjoyed this conversation. I know I did. Thank you for the opportunity to moderate. And just be here in the mix. You always learn stuff. And I'm over here taking notes. I'm like, what did Jeff say? That figure, you know, his mind's like numbers, numbers, numbers. And I'm like, people, people, words. So thank you guys so much for being here today. We really appreciate it. And to all of you, thank you. Thank you, Niche. Thank you, Varun. Thank you, David and Elizabeth, who are in the background, who are behind the curtain, making everything work for the Zoom. Thank you to Dr. Goldin and Bream on my operations team. We cannot have made this happen without you. And we're very, very excited that today is the start. And we continue this team summit tomorrow. So join us tomorrow at 9 a.m. Pacific 12 noon for day two. This is four fingers, two of our final summit via the same webinar link you have today. We are so excited because tomorrow, our five finalist teams will be talking to you. They'll all have time on the stage. You'll hear more from them, where they're from, their solutions, their present, their future, and how you can tap into it and be a part of the great work they're doing in the competition outside of it to revolutionize the future of work and get people into well-paying living wage jobs so that they can really change the trajectory of their lives and the lives of their family that comes after them. Of course, we'll have an amazing keynote from Dr. Peter Blair. And you'll get a chance to network virtually in the Wonder Platform. So those details are forthcoming and you already have them in your box. And with that, we bid you guys adieu. Stay safe and we'll see you all tomorrow.