Leaving Corporate Tech to Close the AI Access Gap - Adamaka Ajaelo

Adamaka Ajaelo had the kind of corporate career many people work years to build. She worked in people analytics and strategic workforce planning, helping major companies understand future talent needs, workforce shifts, and capability gaps.

But the more she measured the future of work, the more clearly she saw who was being left out of it.

In this episode of Why I Left, Adamaka shares why she stepped away from corporate stability to grow Self-eSTEM, a nonprofit helping youth and young adults, especially girls and women from under-resourced communities, build confidence, coding, leadership, STEM, and AI skills. She talks about the golden handcuffs of corporate tech, the fear of losing proximity to innovation, and the moment she realized she was quantifying inequity without doing enough to close it.

This conversation is for anyone wrestling with a career decision that looks successful on paper but feels misaligned in practice. Adamaka’s story is a grounded reminder that purpose-driven work does not mean abandoning strategy. It means applying your skills to a different metric of success.

Stay connected with Adamaka Ajaelo
Website: https://www.adamakaajaelo.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamakaajaelo/
Self-eSTEM: www.selfestem.org

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Transcript

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Adamaka Ajaelo 0:44

It wasn't a sudden burst of clarity, but it was rather coming to this conclusion of being a mathematician, I sorry, this conclusion of a complex equation. The same system that I was working to optimize, I was inherently reinforcing some of these structural inequalities that I really cared about. One of the things that people misunderstand about leaving the corporate life to pursue that purpose-driven work is that sometimes it's romanticized. They think that it's an impulsive decision or emotionally driven. But for me, and I think for other people, it's more rigorous. I learned that true leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's really about having that conviction to define the right problem and the courage to just start, to begin the work. Yes, you're gonna have fear, but just do it afraid.

Brian Aquart 1:29

Welcome to Why I Left, a podcast exploring life-changing career moves. I'm your host, Brian Aquart. Join me as I chronicle real stories from real people about the bold decisions that transform their careers and lives. Let's dive in. Hello, and thanks for tuning in to this episode of Why I Left. When the tech world talks about innovation, it often forgets who's missing from the table. Today's guest didn't just notice the gap, she built a bridge across it. After a successful run in corporate America, Adamaka Ajaelo made the bold decision to step away from comfort and chase purpose. She founded Self ESTEM, a nonprofit that helps youth and young adults, especially girls and women from under-resourced communities, gain the confidence, skills, and community to thrive in STEM and AI. Adamaka's work reminds us that brilliance is truly everywhere. Opportunity just isn't. So she's changing that. Let's go check out her story. All right, welcome back. So our guest today is Adamaka Ajaelo, the founder and CEO of Self ASTEM, an award-winning nonprofit equipping youth and young adults, especially girls and women from under-resourced communities with confidence, coding, and leadership skills for the AI-powered future. After a successful corporate career, she chose to leave it all behind to tackle one of the most persistent inequities in tech: access and representation. Her work has been featured at Tech Intersections and Bold Journey, and she's helping the next generation not just enter STEM, but own it. So, Adamaka, welcome to Why I Left. How are you doing?

Adamaka Ajaelo 3:16

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Brian Aquart 3:19

Absolutely. Always love to share how I meet people. And so we met in the comments of LinkedIn, right? And so lovely platform. I am not sponsored by them at all, but I get a lot of guests from just engaging with content in the comments. And in this case, one of my good friends, uh Jasmine Darnell, is is under the post that we initially met. So I'm glad we found each other, and I'm glad you're here with us today.

Adamaka Ajaelo 3:44

Yes, thank you for having me. And uh LinkedIn, yep, not sponsored, but it's a great platform, a great connector. Absolutely.

Brian Aquart 3:50

So we'd love to for you to share some background uh to our audience. So you talk about your early experiences shaping your beliefs in access and equity. And so I was curious what first drew you to STEM and what barriers did you face entering that space?

Adamaka Ajaelo 4:07

Yes, I was first drew to STEM um by my father. My father was a chemical engineer by trade, and STEM really provided this platform, um, what I call a catalyst for social and economic uh mobility. My father was born and raised in Nigeria and received a full scholarship to study chemical engineering, UC Berkeley, and he traveled the world working for various oil companies and also became an entrepreneur. But through my childhood and upbringing, I was doing STEM, doing math and physics problems while in elementary school through my father. I said, you know, I did homeschooling before homeschooling was a thing. But what really initially drew me or my draw was applied mathematics. As a mathematician, I found the beauty in the precision and logic of numbers. I always say that math is the universal language of the world, and it's also the universal language of problem solving. So for me, it wasn't just about like the formulas and the calculation, but it was about understanding the underlying structure of the world. I felt like the world could be explained through math. And that really fascinated me and really translated my awareness of how STEM, particularly uh technology, can really cultivate and dictate opportunities. And so my belief in equity really stems from me realizing that access to this universal language is uh gated, or access to STEM pathways are being blocked. It's really meaning that opportunities for entire communities and worlds are being limited. This greatest uh barrier that I felt, I felt like it was an anomaly or outlier, I would say, and kind of experienced this in some of my educational corporate uh spaces. When I was there, I just didn't see many women, especially, I like to say, melon-inrich individuals or people from melon-enriched communities in some of the complex STEM roles that I was pursuing. And so the lack of role models that I had for myself, um and really trying to navigate without a sponsor, often feeling isolated and behind, is really what really pushed me to push for um access in uh uh in STEM.

Brian Aquart 6:02

I love that. And I think a lot of people can relate to that too, especially in this specific field. You know, before founding Self STEM, which by the way, I love the name. When I first saw it, I was like, this is clever, right? So I love the name. Uh but before founding this company, you you spent years in corporate America. What were those early career lessons that still shape how you lead today?

Adamaka Ajaelo 6:24

Yes. My time was spent pioneering people analytics and strategic workforce planning, really providing me what I call this invaluable education in organization dynamics. So the key lessons that I started to learn and understand was learning about this as a system rather than just tackling the work as some simple task. In workforce planning, you're looking into the future, but you're looking years ahead. So you're forecasting what I call capability gaps, not at the individual level, but at the organization level. You're also looking at demographics and workforce shifts as well as the skills gap. So this really future forward or futuristic uh perspective taught me three things. Um, and I like to say this is data is the North Star. So decisions should be really rooted in evidence. So evidence-based decision making, bringing analytic rigor that I've experienced in my uh corporate experience, bringing that into self-esteem, measuring impact and not just our activity. The other part is kind of being able to see around uh the corner. So anticipating the pivot. Just as any company must anticipate market shifts, a leader must also anticipate what I call the social and technology shifts. So my corporate experience was my masterclass in this strategic anticipation. The other part I like to describe it as really thinking about the talent pipeline problem as a design problem. That's where I learned that many corporate structures are often designed to really reinforce what I call this homogeneous thinking. So the similar-to-me effect. So with leading self-esteem, it's really about redesigning the entry point uh into the talent pipeline and ensuring from the beginning that the designing these programs, the designing these spaces are inclusive from the start. Those are sort of the three things that I've learned. But when I think about just technically navigating my career path and just thinking about the audience that may be listening to this, one, if you're in that corporate environment, always negotiate your salary. Whatever number that they throw out, this is one of the things that I learned is always negotiate and start high. The other part of navigating your career path is moving beyond what I call a mentor. You actually need a sponsor. And a sponsor is someone that who can remove roadblocks on your career journey. And I always tell people keep your receipts, document your accomplishment, to make sure you are taking credit for your work and your contributions. And then also always having this uh natural curiosity to be a curious learner. One of my bullet points on my resume that I'd always had is that I had the natural ability to learn and pick up information quickly. People may not think of that as a core skill, but especially with the future work, this is a critical skill that most leaders are looking for in anybody that's joining their team.

Brian Aquart 8:56

Absolutely. And I love that you you mentioned that. A few points there that remind me, I just did like this series of uh having people go through it's like performance review season as we were recording this now, and as I'm thinking about you're talking about the evidence piece, right? My series was actually called Evidence over Ego, right? And so just developing this proof bank and all of that, because a lot of times there are folks who are hesitant to share or even discuss their wins because they feel like it's a bit, you know, egotistical or whatever, but there's a way you can do that. And so I'm glad that you mentioned that because keeping those receipts are are very important. They are. So with this show, you know, obviously we talk about big career decisions, big transitions, hence the the why I left term. And and so you eventually, you know, you did leave. So you had what many call a gr a dream job, right? You had stability, you had status, and you had some some really good success. What was the moment that made you realize you actually needed to leave your job?

Adamaka Ajaelo 9:56

And just full transparency, it wasn't like a sudden burst of like just clarity, but it was rather coming to this conclusion of being a mathematician, I saw this conclusion of a complex equation. My dream job allowed me to predict the future of work for major corporations. And really for me, the turning point was realizing that while I was like an expert at optimizing these companies' internal systems, driving organization stability and success, the same system that I was working to optimize, I was inherently reinforcing some of these structural inequalities that I really cared about. I was actually quantifying these gaps on the digital, the talent and skills gap, but I wasn't doing anything to close it. And so for me, that's what really was my aha moment that I needed to do something and focus on self-esteem full time to close this gap. I knew that there was a high cost of leaving, but that just wasn't my personal calculation. It was more of a civic one. Sort of feeling like this is aligned to my purpose. So as a strategic workforce planner, I knew that our nation economic competitiveness and all as well as our national security was critically dependent on everybody contributing, meaning all communities contributing to the future of work. So leaving was about not just finding my purpose, but it was really strategically answering the call of what I call our most urgent workforce challenge. And that's ensuring that everybody had the power to directly shape the future of work and not be subject to it only. And so that's what really drove me and compelled me to step out and focus on growing and scaling the organization full-time.

Brian Aquart 12:49

What fears or doubts surfaced as you made this pivot? Because starting your own thing, as I've heard, is not the easiest.

Adamaka Ajaelo 12:58

Yeah. So I had this fear of losing my industry expertise. So one of the things when you're in the corporate environment, and in particular what I say Silicon Valley, there's a lot of currency and access to information. You are staying at the cuffs of innovation. You have information at your fingertips. So it was one of the things is access and proximity to that. In addition to, you know, the loss of the security blanket or people refer to the golden handcuffs, as you're working in tech, your compensation is not just your base pay, but you have the opportunity to earn a bonus and also uh get equity into the company. However, what I really started to look at this pivot in thinking about me working in these spaces where I have this complex project plan. I started with just let me define the mission of self-esteem, the pivot target. So self-esteem's vision to really change the face and culture of STEM innovation. Then I started to identify all my skills, the assets and the resources that I have, people and analytics, my strategic lens, my thought leadership. So I started to inventory the skill sets and the assets that I had. And then I started to look at the risk, the cost-benefit analysis. So thinking about, hey, Adamaka, if I don't make the act take this action, what is the ramification? And so I thought about the benefits of the lasting impact. And I really had that as my north star. So for me, the wisdom and the knowledge that I gained from my corporate corporate career told me that I must pivot, that I must continuously learn. And if I'm not doing that, then I'm obsolete. So my biggest doubt was the fear of the unknown, but overcoming it was just being committed to continuously learning how to be a nonprofit leader and just tying back to my skill sets and my assets to bring me along on this journey.

Brian Aquart 14:38

You know, there's a level of intentionality that I just hear throughout that that is just heartwarming to hear because a lot of times we don't give ourselves that time to have those conversations. Well, we may have those conversations, but we never take the time to actually answer them, right? And so kudos to you for actually pausing and and doing that because, like you mentioned, it was something you had to do, right? It just it made sense based on the analysis. So I love that you meant you mentioned that. What's something that people maybe misunderstand about leaving corporate life to pursue purpose-driven work?

Adamaka Ajaelo 15:11

I think one of the things that people misunderstand about leaving the corporate life to pursue that purpose-driven work is that sometimes it's romanticized. They think that it's an impulsive decision or emotionally driven. Like, you know, the decision is the heart over the head move. But I think for me, and I think for other people, it's more rigorous. Like people actually probably sit down and have a strategic process or whether they're using even a simple framework of the pros and cons, but people don't take the decision lightly and they apply some type of rigor through the process. Um, and I had to put it in my perspective that me making this decision wasn't about rejecting success because I had success in my corporate career working for companies like Kaiser Permanente, Cisco, Meta, Workday, Adobe, as well as Visa, but it was redefining the metric for success. So in my corporate life, the metric was optimizing profit and status. In my perfect purpose-driven work, I would say it's about optimizing for significance and systemic or system change. That's where I made that shift to say this is my North Star metric of success, and making that shift and redefining it. I was trying to think and position myself as saying, like, hey, I'm not just leaving people analytics. I'm taking those skill sets and I'm changing the domain in which I'm applying it to. So I think about my strategic workforce planning knowledge, I think about my people analytics background that I've done at one company, planning for the future workforce. And now I'm taking that and saying, hey, I'm planning for the future workforce for an entire community, even for our nation. So leveraging all the stability, expertise, and strategic wisdom that I gain, how can I take that and apply it into the self-esteem organization?

Brian Aquart 16:51

I love that. And the the thought process that you put into these types of decisions, I'm learning more and more about you as we speak. And I'm like, there is a there is a process that you follow and a rubric that you stick to. And I, it's insightful. It is insightful to hear you talk through this. And it's a perfect segue for us to chat a little bit more about self-estem because it's really become a model for empowering youth and young adults in tech and AI. You've talked a little bit about it, but for for those who are learning about it now for the first time, what's what's the why behind this mission?

Adamaka Ajaelo 17:30

The why behind the mission is about opportunity access. Um, when I think about our mission um and fundamentally really thinking about this AI equity in the future of innovation, I consider myself a futurist, someone who is not afraid of the future, not afraid to navigate and embrace the future and ensuring that people are able to go along for the journey as well. I understand that AI is really the definitive language of this century. Oftentimes people think AI and they think about certain uh companies, and if they're focusing more on the generative AI. But I also tell people AI is really also too about automation. So robots are considered a branch of AI. So the AI that we're building today will inherit some of the biases of its creators. So a lot of times people will talk about, let's just say Google Gemini or OpenAI Chat GPT. AI did this, and we're shocked that that AI, you know, decided to make this decision. And for me, it I'm not shocked because I understand the back end engine that it is only really going to make the decisions based off its creators, the programmers, the people who are the machine learning, the data scientists, um, those who are building the um the large language models. So if the teams designing and coding and governing AI are all homogeneous, the technology will simply scale some of the historical patterns and inequities at machine speed, so at rapper speed. So our why is to ensure that you have this diversity of thought. This is if people or company are really saying that they believe in innovation, then that means that you do want this diversity of thought, diversity of experience and this cultural wisdom of all communities. And it's not like something that I like to say like is a it's a nice to have, it's just really something that is imperative for our future. So here at Self ASTEM, we're not just teaching tech users or STEM users, we're really creating builders and people who will guarantee more equitable and more inclusive future for everyone. And I know many people hear that, but I always tie it back to our country. If you think about the future of work, we want to hear the diverse perspectives of all Americans and not a certain group to ensure that we are not just surviving the future of work, we're all thriving in it.

Brian Aquart 19:44

You know, how are you addressing and I love the focus on access, but how are you addressing not just access, but confidence? Because the self in self-STEM. Because as you mentioned, there are a lot of in this space, a lot of homogeneous environments, and you're focusing on individuals who aren't necessarily from those environments, and there can be naturally some tension there, right? And so how are we addressing the confidence piece, that self piece?

Adamaka Ajaelo 20:10

And then, you know, as a fellow mathematician, I'm going to say the statement um the self is a critical variable. It's a critical influence, a critical variable. So access isn't just giving students laptops or a textbook. That's what I call transactional. We're really focusing on the confidence or self-efficacy. And this is not transactional, but this is transformational. When you look at research, um, confidence often outranks role intelligence in determining professional success, particularly in what I call competitive, male-dominated fields. I have this saying, why should Elon Musk be the only person to dream and innovate for the world? And so this is something that we embed in our programming and all of our touch points. And we address this to what I call STEM identity, affirming pedagogy. So we just don't teach coding, but we're showing them mathematicians, myself, engineers and data scientists that look like them. We place them in what I call in spaces where they have more relatable role models who are demystifying success. So our alumni, girls who've gone through our program who are not in college, and some of them are in the workforce, come back and they're facilitators so they can also see. This really fosters what I call this growth mindset because the STEM fields are going to be challenging. They're going to be real-world projects. And then we really show them that failure is really being reframed as an iterative process, that it's sort of this scientific method being applied to life. That uh I always tell people the fastest way that I learned at any company is that I got through and I failed. I remember working at workday and I was building and configuring analytics and dashboards. So we were in an IT analytics team, it was actually called the WoW team, the workday on workday team. And so I'm we're working on workday rising. And someone said, Hey, each year we're doing this is always a painful uh process. I say, Well, what's our desired end state? Okay, I gave myself about three hours to reverse engineer the process to say, hey, if we if success looks like this on day 30, what does day one look like? And so taking my step and taking that process. But did I get it right the first time? No. But I just tried and I continued to learn through the process. So really sharing those type of stories. And so we really thinking about it of really replacing that self-doubt with self-esteem. And so really building that self-confidence and building it from curiosity through mastery.

Brian Aquart 22:30

I really I I like hearing this. And it's it's something that is it's come up in a lot of conversations I've been involved with recently, right? And you you're speaking about this AI equity and this digital divide. And, you know, I was on a call earlier where this this came up, or on a webinar earlier where this came up around how can under-resourced communities shape this next era of technology rather than be shaped by it. And I think that's something that you all are addressing that I'd love to hear your thoughts on.

Adamaka Ajaelo 23:00

This, I like to say we're in the area where the barriers to entry are eroding. Meaning now you have companies, and the companies that I'm working for, they're even more concerned about, you know, companies. If you and I decided to start a company and we want to leverage this technology, we're now in threat because now we have access to information in periods, time frames in which all that information was either locked down or you had to pay a high price, meaning those select few that can afford the access to either build their own apps or to even have access to the information and technology to uh generate these ideas. So now this is the era that we are in. So it's critically important that we move from passive consumers to active producers. And this really hinges on literacy, specifically on the AI and digital literacy. So, like during this era, I think we need like two core themes. So, literacy at the foundational level. People need to understand how AI works. They need to understand what it is and how data can be a bias to it. And I really call this democratized. The knowledge of AI. And I think that that's just at the foundational level. Because people, I know I have many people, and no matter what their age group, they always say, I'm hearing about AI, I'm hearing about AI, but what does that really mean? And so I really think that that's what we need to do is really break it down at a foundational level. How does AI work? What does this all mean? And then I think about the cultural intelligence in the design process. So we need to insert, even if we think about how AI is going to shape the future work. AI is a very powerful tool. There are pros and cons, but when we think about the public benefit and we think about the good, how AI can be used for good, we need to have these different groups having a seat at the design table and at the ideation table. To give you an example, if AI is being used to develop something for public services. So thinking about, let's just say something around public services around water quality, how can we actually get all the different voices in the communities that are being impacted from the negative side of the quality to really sit at the table to say, hey, if I had this opportunity to use AI, here's a potential solution. Here's what I would do. Now, right now, we're still having what I call the select fuse or those at the top making those decisions. But this is something that's really critical in important that at the early stage that we need all voices and all communities at the table during the design process.

Brian Aquart 25:21

What lessons have you learned about scaling a nonprofit sustainably while staying true to its values?

Adamaka Ajaelo 25:28

This is, I can I can do a whole podcast on this topic alone about scaling a nonprofit. And I like to think about it on two parts. One, I see scaling as a continuous optimization problem. The core lessons is that values are not soft. They are the hardest form of an organization infrastructure. Like these are the core, your core values. I'm in self-esteem, we have our core core values, and we're always keeping that aligned. But for our organization to scale sustainably, and what I've learned is thinking about our curriculum. So codifying our curriculum and our pedagogy, thinking about our core values of equity, curiosity, mastery, and belonging, embedding them as a horizontal in every single lesson plan. Ensure that we, as we grow and expand to new markets, these core transformational experiences remain intact. So that if, hey, we aren't open up a new site, that we're replicating and scaling that same learning experience. The other thing that I learned with nonprofits is strategic resource allocation. Nonprofits are continuously asked to do more with less. So using some of these financial models, mirroring some of my strategic workforce planning background. So not thinking about money as just spending, but how can you use that as an investment in capabilities? How do we measure the long-term uh, what I call it, social return on our impact? So really thinking about allocation of resources and doing it in a manner where it's not just spending money, but it is a strategic investment in the capabilities of your organization. The other part is prioritizing people. Without my team, yes, I am the leader, I am the founder of the organization, but it's really critical for us to actually find mission-aligned educators and facilitators. We heavily rely on our team as well as our innovators, which is part of our youth innovators and then our alumni, empowering them to become leaders and ambassadors of our mission. That's one of the hard lessons that I learned in the sense that when I think about prioritizing people, it's not necessarily saying that everyone that you select will be a fit, but really prioritizing the people from a cultural lens, making sure that you have the right people who are mission aligned. And as a nonprofit, you also have people who are money aligned, who understand about the strategic allocations, who understand of how to tie it back to the mission. One of the things that we're also doing is implementing AI, specifically generative AI and AI agent chatbots into our work to optimize our workload and productivity. So as a nonprofit landscape continues to change and we have to do more with less, we're also leveraging the technology that we're teaching our innovators inside our own organization to ensure that we're driving uh sustainability for years to come.

Brian Aquart 28:06

And how how do you balance this urgency of social impact work with your own personal well-being and sustainability? Because I I imagine, and and I love the mission, but the human side of me always has to make sure I'm looking out for the founders too, right? Like, so how are you balancing all of this? Or maybe balance is the right one, maybe integrating this to make sure that you're taking care of yourself too. Yes.

Adamaka Ajaelo 28:30

And full stop, I have not been the best at this. I have not been the best at it working my corporate career and some of that has spilled over into the nonprofit. So I was running the nonprofit organization while working full-time in tech at some of the fastest growing companies and some of the most high impact strategic roles within the company because I tell people moving and managing human capital is a company's largest PL. So this is the largest expense that a company has is the human capital, and it's critically dependent, and the business success is critically dependent on it because people do the work. And so for me, I like to describe it as a roller coaster with up and up, ups and downs, but being a continuous learner, I'm always getting better at that. So I think of well-being and not as a luxury, luxury, but something that is really necessary, especially trying to run the organization to be scalable and sustainable. I've had burnout before. This is something that I'm really working on to say, hey, before I hit this wall, what are the signals? When do I know when my engine light or my battery is saying that it's a low energy? So really focusing on those early uh signals. One of the things that I've been better at is some of my non-negotiable uh boundaries. And this really ties to the people on my team. When I think about growing and scaling, and I think about my team, I'm really ensuring that our team is really set up for success, but also making sure that I'm there's a non-negotiable around individuals being aligned to supporting our innovators. So that's that mission aligned and money aligned. And so those are some of the things that I'm doing, and I'm making sure that I'm modeling that behavior. As a leader, if you're not open to feedback, then I think that the organization is at risk of perishing. So one of the terms that we say is feedback is a gift. And this is what I pulled over from my uh time in working in corporate tech. And so I really encourage our team to really also give feedback, not only to myself as a leader, but to each other with that North Star of we want to be mission aligned and money aligned in ensuring that we are helping our participants in our program. I love that.

Brian Aquart 30:32

You know, would love to ask you about some lessons learned now. When you think about all of these moves, what personal strengths or mindsets helped you navigate uncertainty during your transition?

Adamaka Ajaelo 30:45

I I really what really helped me was my deep appreciation for mathematics, um, really providing me that vital mindset. I have accepted that success in driving forward is an iterative process. And I always tell people, just like in math, you have these complex problems and you're solving it, not in one shoot, but really breaking it down into manageable steps. I kind of think about this in project management, they use this term, the work breakdown structure. So, yes, we have this big goal, but how do we break it down? How do we break it down into small and manageable steps? And that's something that has really helped me through uh navigate this. I don't try to solve the entire future of my career in just one day. Um, I focus on those calculated steps and really understanding that uncertainty is really sometimes just a lack of data, lack of information. But you have to move forward and then you generate new data and new information. And then maybe you have to go back and adjust your hypotheses. If I think about these large tech companies, even when they're launching an app, they use the agile method. So they continuously iterate and enhance the development and the new products and features. Not on day one, everything is built, but throughout the process in the in the life cycle of the app or whatever product that they're launching. So I've allowed myself to view setback is not as failure, but really just a way to capture new information for the next iteration.

Brian Aquart 32:07

I like that. And it's like those learnings, right? It's like you've left something that was secure, obviously, but you left it to build something significant. And I love hearing that. And again, your process, like I'm listening to you, and it's like, boom, you got the steps down. Now, but now I would love for you to share some advice with our listeners. You know, people who listen to this show are in a variety of stages in their careers and lives. And so for professionals who may feel stuck in a role that might be misaligned with them, but they fear actually losing that stability of theirs, what's your advice for taking that first step?

Adamaka Ajaelo 32:47

For me, I learned that true leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's really about having that com that conviction to define the right problem and the courage to just start, to begin the work. I have what I call, and I think I posted about this on LinkedIn today, what I call my courage chats. So this is me talking to myself, I'm gonna be honest. Um, and I have these courage chats with myself, and and I tell everyone this phrase, do it afraid. Like, yes, you're gonna have fear, but just do it afraid. In my corporate life, leadership often meant optimization, like again, defining parameters, defining the landscape. But something significant like this requires what I call that uh visionary courage, the willingness to step outside and to establish your own parameters and redefine what success looks like for not only for yourself, but it may be for an entirely new system. And so when I am thinking about this, I just really would just encourage people to really think about it as like, yes, I have this fear. Yes, I may not know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna do it anyway because that new information will come. Um I didn't go to school to learn how to start a nonprofit, but for my nonprofit organization, I bought a book and I did the whole incorporation process myself. Did I miss some key filings? Yes. But if I was afraid and I and I and I leaned into that fear, self-esteem wouldn't exist. And so I was afraid, but I did it anyway. And that's what I really want to encourage people to do. Sometimes I have to make it very extreme and say, hey, Adamaka, you're doing this and you have the privilege. There's no one, and I say this to myself, lining up to shoot you. The worst that can happen is someone saying no. The worst that can happen is maybe you have to file additional form. Or maybe you wanted to launch in quarter one and you're gonna have to launch in quarter two, or maybe you have to launch next year. But step forward and just do it afraid. But that's what I really tell myself, and I have those courage chats where I'm talking to myself.

Brian Aquart 34:44

I I like that a lot. You know, I had a guest, I think it was season two, I believe, one or two. She did something similar, right? And but she and she recorded them, and it was like she would send, send them to herself. So she was like, let's just say, well, obviously we're you know, we're recording this in December now, but at the beginning of the year, she's like, oh, by the end of the year, I want to have done this. And so she'd record it and then like schedule, send it to herself in like Q4. Like, are you there yet? Right. And it's like that kick in the pants. So I love, I love that you, that you have these, these courage chats with yourself. Looking forward, what what's next for you and self-esteem, especially in the age of AI and emerging tech education?

Adamaka Ajaelo 35:25

Over 92% of the roles in the future of work will have some type of requirement for digital literacy. So the mandate has never been clear for self-esteem in our organization. We're really focusing on scaling our wisdom and the reach of self-esteem and really closing the digital AI literacy gap on a national scale. We are moving from beyond the introduction of just coding and focusing intensely on digital literacy and online safety because we're seeing more threats online, thinking about AI from an ethical and responsible lens, talking about some of the key skills around prompt engineering and entrepreneurship. But we're really focusing on building the core skills needed for the future of work, and that will define the next decade and beyond of unemployment. We are thinking about how do we embed in our curriculum ethical frameworks and then ensuring that all communities know how to build technology, but they also know how to govern it wisely. So, one of our bold ambitions, or I like to say big Harry Audacious goals, is really powered by what we call the self-estem Future Work Fund. And this fund is what we call an investment vehicle for systemic change. It's really focusing on investing the costs of rigorous curriculum development to keep up with the rapid pace and advancement of the AI evolution and other emerging technology. And this will allow us to launch new chapters and new sites. We're targeting up to three new regions over the next uh three years. And so, what we are really encouraging for listeners or people who come across our page and who really believe in equity and really believe in the future, just really encouraging people to really support us to visit our website at www.sufestem.org and learn more about our future work fund and how we are focusing on closing the digital and AI literacy gap, not only for girls and women, but for all communities.

Brian Aquart 37:14

Now I would love to flip the mic and ask you, you know, what's one question that you have for me that I can hopefully answer?

Adamaka Ajaelo 37:21

So, Brian, the question that I have for you, and this is tying into this whole talk of AI. If you could automate one task using AI, what would it be?

Brian Aquart 37:32

One task. Okay. Perfect world. I'd love to be able to automate. So after, let's say after we record this, I'd love to be able to automate with like one click of the button all the edits, all the intros, my pieces, the the transitions between the front and the back, all that in one fell swoop, right? Just one click of the button and I'm able to do everything and I have a ready-to-go episode. That that's one. Can I get can I give you another one just in case? Yes. All right. The other one I would be, I would say too, is, and you got you got me thinking about this based on your your last comment, is I'd also love it if I could, and maybe there's something I can create now, but I need to dig into it. But I'd love it if I was able to create either some type of agent that could find the grants that are applicable to me and what I do to help support and fund the show, right? Like find, apply, based on what I what I tell it. Because I think there's opportunity to help, you know, obviously, as I'm looking to scale the show and grow the show, just not enough hands, right? So so that that's what I would if well, if AI could do one, two things, I would, I would have it do those two things.

Adamaka Ajaelo 38:39

So thank you for sharing. Um definitely we'll have to follow up um with you off offline because I think on the the editing, the video, I think there is there's some platforms out there. There's still some manual in this, but it you can give it some of the key prompts of like removing the ums or removing the silence, some of the key things in the editing process, and it will help help you do that. The other part on the grant, with this one, we actually are working on, and we have one built internally for us as a nonprofit, but is a custom um agent on the generative side that actually helps us with the grant writing process. So definitely we should connect offline on that one.

Brian Aquart 39:17

Definitely. Oh, absolutely. We definitely could talk about that one. And what I love about we're we're recording on Riverside, they do have something now called Co-Creator where you can like prompt it. But you know, you still have to like do some things. And you know, if I'm the question, I'm like, hey, if it's an easy thing, one button, boom, everything I need, right? So but uh yeah, let's definitely connect on on that. And I appreciate you you sharing that because you know there's some you don't know what you don't know. And uh there's a lot of information out there, to be honest. Sometimes I have an overload, but I always love to learn new things. So uh Domek, I just want to thank you for joining the show today. It was a pleasure hearing your story, hearing how you go and think about problem solving, not only for yourself personally, but for your organization and the movements in which you sponsor. I think it's it was truthfully a masterclass in in hearing your thought process in these things. Jasmine told me you were brilliant, and uh I, you know, she has lived up to every every bit of of those words. So I just appreciate getting to to know you today. Would love for us to to stay connected and would also like for you to share where our listeners can find you and support your work as well as the work of self-estem.

Adamaka Ajaelo 40:26

Thank you, Brian, for having me here on the show. It was just a great, like I said, natural flow, natural conversation. The the questions were extremely intentional. And for the listeners to learn more about self-estem, they can visit our website at www.selfestem.org. And that is S-E-L-F-E-S-T-E-M.org to learn more about our organization and how they can connect and support our initiatives.

Brian Aquart 40:56

Thank you for that info. And look, that'll do it for today's episode. Again, I want to thank my guest at Adamaka Ajaelo for joining me today. I hope you all learned something. I know I sure did. Uh I will have all of her information in our show notes. Hope you all have a great week and we'll definitely see you next time. Adamaka, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to Why I Left. Join us next time for more inspiring stories about growth, resilience, and transformation. Visit us online at www.whyileft.co. That's whyileft.co.