MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Join hosts Joseph Itaya and Anika Jackson as they dive into conversations with leaders and changemakers shaping the future of digital media. Each episode explores the frontier of multimedia, artificial intelligence, marketing, branding, and communication, spotlighting how emerging digital trends and technologies are transforming industries across the globe.
MEDIASCAPE is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. This online master’s program is designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
MEDIASCAPE: Insights From Digital Changemakers
Empowering Minds with AI: Insights from Jeremy Gu
What happens when a data scientist with a passion for teaching steps into the world of education technology? Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Jeremy Gu, a dynamic figure whose career spans data science and statistics roles at titans like Uber and AWS, to impactful teaching positions at the University of San Francisco and Stanford. Jeremy's story is a testament to the power of bridging academia and industry, and he shares his insights on how storytelling in data science can demystify complex decisions for non-technical audiences.
As education continues to evolve, AI's role cannot be overlooked. Our discussion with Jeremy ventures into the heart of AI's intersection with learning. We explore the benefits and potential pitfalls of integrating these technologies into the educational landscape. Jeremy advocates for fostering independent thinking, even as AI tools become more accessible, and emphasizes the need for responsible use. He raises important questions about maintaining students' genuine interests beyond AI, ensuring they remain engaged with pursuits like arts and sports, while navigating this digital era.
Switching gears, we dive into the entrepreneurial spirit. Jeremy shares invaluable advice for those looking to transition from corporate roles to starting their own ventures. He highlights the importance of utilizing past connections, embracing learning curves, and building a solid foundation before seeking external investment. His guidance is a beacon for aspiring entrepreneurs ready to take immediate action and refine their product through continuous iterations. We round off the episode by envisioning the future of digital education, urging listeners to become digital changemakers in shaping the minds of tomorrow.
https://www.youngtalent.ai/
This podcast is proudly sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Master of Science in Digital Media Management (MSDMM) program. An online master’s designed to prepare practitioners to understand the evolving media landscape, make data-driven and ethical decisions, and build a more equitable future by leading diverse teams with the technical, artistic, analytical, and production skills needed to create engaging content and technologies for the global marketplace. Learn more or apply today at https://dmm.usc.edu.
Welcome to Mediascape insights from digital changemakers, a speaker series and podcast brought to you by USC Annenberg's Digital Media Management Program. Join us as we unlock the secrets to success in an increasingly digital world.
Speaker 2:Jeremy Gu and I met at the AI4 conference in Las Vegas. He saw that I was in education and asked to meet, and it's been a great story since then. Jeremy, I'm so excited to have you on the show today.
Speaker 3:Thank you, annika. It's an honor for me to be with you and thank you so much for your invitation Of course, let's talk a little bit about your background first.
Speaker 2:You've worked for some large companies Uber, AWS. You've had this intense background in data science. What got you interested in that field and what has your trajectory looked like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do too, so my background is in statistics. Actually, I got my bachelor's and master's University of Minnesota and University of Washington and after that I realized, oh, we have so many big data firms in Seattle, where I was studying at a university, so I learned, like how big data was rising at the time and Amazon was hiring a lot of data scientists and machine learning scientists at the time. So that's how I ended up working in the big data and the machine learning industry and later I realized I'm more an entrepreneur mindset. I want to move to Bay Area. And then I realized Uber at the time was just like an open air today, so attracting a lot of talents from everywhere, and one of my friends referred me to the Uber team and I got hired in Uber. So that's where I started in California. So actually data science and statistics are very relevant. So I believe data science is a broader concept than just statistics. I use my knowledge for A-B tests, marketing analytics, machine learning and predictive models. So that's how I began my career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I really appreciate you mentioning that because we have to. In digital media management, of course, we talk about data combined with the storytelling. You need to have both sides to show, to be able to tell the story but then also to prove it with the data backed up.
Speaker 3:Yes, I 100% agree with you. Data can be interpreted in many ways, especially when we work with stakeholders or leaders. They don't understand the algorithm part, but they want to know what are the insights that can help them making decisions, so storytelling is a key. It's very important for us, like technical people, to convince our stakeholders using data to make decisions.
Speaker 2:You've also been a professor, so what prompted you to get into the teaching profession?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's a very exciting journey for me. I always want to learn how to be a better teacher when I was very young, so, and that opportunity came up when the professor Dan reached out to me from the University of San Francisco. At that time I was working on data pipelines, data engineering topics, and we discussed like oh Jeremy, somebody just left. We need to have a backup adjunct professor role. And I applied. I passed the interview and I'm really excited because that's my first time teaching the graduate course, and also I realized that as a professor or a junk professor in the University of San Francisco, I teach and then I learn more. So the students ask me very challenging questions and I wrote replies like sometimes a couple of pages. I learned a lot during the journey and I wanted to continue teaching and then I started my own teaching firm right now.
Speaker 2:And you've also been involved in teaching at other universities at Stanford Continuing Studies right In San Diego as well, in San Diego not currently In San Diego.
Speaker 3:I'm working on my own startup now, but in Stanford Continuous Studies in the summer I teach mostly on the data leadership, like how to lead data projects, how to lead data teams and how to be a person who doesn't have a background in data science but wanted to lead data projects like marketing analytics, financial projects or, in general, like how to use data to make decisions as a leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that does lead us directly into taking all of your background, your education, the companies that you were at in early stage, the teaching experience you have, into what you do today in edtech.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, I figure. Finally, I found the intersection between data science, ai and teaching, and this is where I figure. I'm very fulfilled right now to achieve my dream as an educator, but also making innovation in the tech industry, especially on the educational sector. I'm very excited.
Speaker 2:Well, tell us a little bit more about the product and what you realized needed to be solved in education.
Speaker 3:Yes. So the number one problem we are trying to solve is the gap between academia and industry. So I realized in the last 10 years, especially as a student, we learned a lot of things, for example, like coding, like algorithms, mathematics. But when I joined Amazon as my first job, I realized a lot of things I learned at school were not relevant to the work I'm doing in Amazon or in other companies. So there is a training in the company, like doing A, B, C, X, Y, Z.
Speaker 3:So I realized you know, as a professor, I want to teach students the skills they will use for their work in the future, to help them landing their first jobs. And after that I realized, not only for new hires, new grads, but also for managers, like data science is a very new profession. They started 10 years ago. So a lot of data leaders, they become senior manager, director or VP. So they all went through this process, like self-study and self-learning, continuing learning. I wanted to put my 10 years experience in data science to help the leaders like how to be a better data science leader. This is on the adult side, and then I look at the curriculum in the children like below 18 years old. I realized AI is growing so fast, Like we need to prepare the children, our next generation, for the future careers. So that's why I started this company. I wanted to help high school and middle schools how to train AI or to help their children understand AI in the future. It's my core products.
Speaker 2:That is such. I was just speaking about the core classes that need to be taught in schools that are not such as really understanding political realm, really understanding finance, really understanding social media and how it works and algorithms and things that are really important. And, of course, ai. By the time our kids I mean I have a daughter who's in high school, by the time she's through university, ai is going to have changed even more and there's going to be. It's highly probable that she wants to go into neuroscience, that she is going to be working in lab along with many AI tools, not learning that right now.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I want to agree with you. I talked to parents, like you and many other parents. The number one question they asked me is, like how to start like AI literacy, how to begin this journey, not to be an AI scientist, but understand what are the tools in AI right now. So I 100% agree with you, like your daughter must be really good at what she's doing and with AI, probably she can even do better in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so AI tools. You know teaching a lot of different things to help them not only with school when they go to university, but also with the future jobs that are out there, and perhaps some of these students won't go to four-year university. But even with the trades there's a lot of AI involved. There's a lot of you know connecting cars to computers to figure out what's due diagnoses. So you really have to be literate in all of these different technologies. Are you seeing that you are? Is this a US program? Is this going to happen here? Is it for overseas? Is it a little bit of both?
Speaker 3:Our ambition is to make this globally available. However, we are a small startup. Right now. I want to start with San Diego, and then maybe California, and then rolling out to all the states and other countries as well. So right now, I'm focused on San Diego school districts.
Speaker 2:Nice. So what is some of the work that you're doing? Are you hearing objections? Is it easy to get pilot programs in the schools?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's not about objections. It's mostly about, like setting up, establishing this first relationship with people. So I would say, like a lot of schools and teachers and their principals are quite interested in AI, like how to incorporate AI into their educational programs. However, I would say, like some of the schools already have their partners, some of the schools they are in the transition already, and, as many other schools, they are observing, like what are the available tools, available resources for them to use, because AI is quite expensive, to be honest, like the tools, the data back, the AI models, but also the cloud infrastructure.
Speaker 3:So we are trying to do like very simple but effective work with students and their teachers. Like, for example, currently we talked to a principal in San Diego. We want to see, like how we can better manage the students' behaviors, like from grade one to grade 12, this entire 12-year journey. Like how do we use data to show the progressive achievements from each of the students? For example, like some students they start first mathematics class they are achieving like a, b or B plus, but over time, they are gradually going to A minus A. So we wanted to see, like what are the factors that drive the students' growth in their academic achievements. So this is one but also like in the same time.
Speaker 3:This is what I see like some entrepreneur mindset happens in high school. They want to start a website just like Facebook in 2000s or Bill Gates in high school. They want to start a website just like Facebook in 2000s or Bill Gates in 1970s. Now they do not need to spend like years to understand the building the website or understand how to do the computer programming, but with AI they're able to build an app quite fast and very quickly. This app could be used by some organizational companies. So I see the entrepreneur trends in the high school as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fascinating. So what you're talking about really? It's about educating the children right and giving them the tools, but also you have another play, as you said. That's with the institutions themselves to be able to better understand, utilize and evaluate the data that they're collecting, that they might not even realize can be really helpful, for how they help shape the programs that they offer, how they communicate and work with the children and with the parents at the same time, parents at the same time.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly so many schools I talk to. They ask me like oh, we have parents, we have children. On the children's side, we trust you to build a curriculum for us, but on the adult side, the demand is equivalently high. So, for example, like they have their parents' survey, like parents talk about their opinions about school, about teaching, like how to manage the survey data, how to manage the parents' relationship with the school, and for every family, they have their own objective, like, for example, like going to be a doctor for their children going to be a doctor. Or they want to spend more efforts on biology or mathematics or programming. So how to better track and build a personalized study plan for each of the students. That also can be implemented with the AI and the data. So there's no very concrete plans for every individual, but I see there is a prioritized list, like project one, project two using AI, and we're talking to schools, like how AI and the cloud services can help them to achieve their goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. I also imagine there is a whole training component for the administration staff to figure out how some of their other workflows whether it's marketing, newsletters, some of the other things that they do day to day but even just having them feel comfortable and confident with AI, because there's so much confusion and clouding, particularly in the consumer side- yes, exactly, I 100% agree with you.
Speaker 3:So the schools wanted to better track, like their campaigns or their digital materials, like newsletter or brochures or flyers. However, there's a lot of regulation. Example like which data we can track and collect, especially related to minors or parents. If we do not collect their agreements, we may have some legal concerns. So this is not only to education sectors, but in general for marketing, like digital marketing. We need to follow certain rules and regulations. This is actually quite much a very fast-evolving domain, like every month we may have an updated law or regulation in California, so automation in other countries as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic To that point. With AI changing so quickly, how do you envision the curriculum being able to keep up with the new regulations, the new tools, the new use cases? There are so many different options for tools. Do you choose the ones that are more well-known to start with, so people can get comfortable with those, because who knows if the niche ones will be around in the next two, three, four years?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my thoughts are like what are the problems we are solving? Though there are so many tools, maybe one tool can do one thing, but other tools can do multiple things. I think right now there are too many choices, right, Too many options to choose from. So I will ask our principals, teachers, parents or children the first question what do you want to solve? What kind of problem you want to solve?
Speaker 3:For example, like right now for me as the entrepreneur, we have so many AI tools. I use GBT, I use Cloud from Anthropic and also I use Copilot when I need to do some coding for my website. That's basically the three tools I'm using. I see there are other tools like how to use AI to create a curriculum, how to use AI to build better documentation, better wiki for the company. I believe they're useful. It's not like, at this stage of my company, I'm not ready to use them yet. So I think, for schools, similar question to them, like if they are ready to use certain tools to solve a problem, go for it. You know, as long as the tools are under good reputation, their founders have the right mission, their company culture looks very positive, I think it's worth a try. I don't think right now, all the companies have already been very ready for a mature company to give a product like Google. It's already like 20 years, right, so we should give AI startup a try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nice. Is there any discomfort or thought that while we teach children how to use these tools, now they're going to use them to write all of their papers, to look up research, to do everything for them and we won't have as much of the original thought? Because I know that's something I look at in the DMM program. I want my students to use AI tools. I actually introduce AI tools in most class sessions, depending on what topic we have that week. But I also can tell if somebody's written something and just put the prompt into chat, GPT or whatever tool they were going to use, or if they have formed an original thought and just have it be finessed by chat GPT.
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually yesterday I went to UCSD the university library I was working and I overheard like some student talking about oh, I'm using GVT to generate certain answers with the right prompt. So I think it's quite common like students using GVT sometimes even more common for students to use than teachers to use. So I think number one is independent thinking. So this is not just after the AI emerged but before AI. I think this is the core of education to teach students think independently, with or without AI. So if they found AI is helpful as assistant, please give credits to AI. Like okay, this certain part of code is from AI, but I gave the prompt to AI. So talk about the contribution from the students and from the AI. And number two, for grading and also for like in general, like anti-cheating, I would say it's really hard to know.
Speaker 3:I talked to professors from different universities back in 2022 and 2023. And the biggest challenge they told me is their exam and homework no longer works because the student can easily access AI and give the answer. So it's been a quite long time and, unfortunately, I think right now there's no good mechanism to prevent students from using AI for their homework or projects. But I agree with you. We should still encourage students to use, but with the right guidance. Like, okay, you can use GBT for your homework but not for your final exam. You can use GBT for certain research, but your original research should be under your own words, right? So this mechanism like using AI as an assistant and how to manage AI, I believe this might take some time for students to realize. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Do you think to your point? You talked about having them be able to think independently and be creative, with or without AI, and that's part of some schools' curriculum, but not every school is thinking about the critical thinking aspect, which is really what we should be pushing everybody for. Do you see, though, with the advent of AI, that it's changing what students are choosing to use for their projects, that they're more leaning towards certain topics or others because they know that they have access to the AI tools?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is a very important question. Before I answer your question, I wanted to share a little bit of background. So many students they want to learn AI, but they also want to learn piano playing, soccer, basketball, right. So there are many things AI can be helpful, but also there are many human things AI cannot do anything. So I want to show this to you is the reason that when I introduced AI to high school or middle school, the teacher told me like OK, certain activities like basketball or music, those students probably do not have interest of learning AI.
Speaker 3:So the students who learn AI usually can be categorized in two parts. One is they wanted to be an AI engineer, ai researcher, or working in academia or working in tech companies or AI-related jobs. This is like maybe 20% of students. The other part of students they are in general. They are curious about AI.
Speaker 3:They see AI just like what we see internet like 20 or 30 years ago. So they want to know what that is like, what it can do, but more in the very general level, very even like introduction level. So in this case I will say like we definitely want to encourage students to learn about AI, but as an educator, we want to be really careful, like we don't want to force them or over-talking about AI, so students lose their true love, true interest, right? So I see like if the student wanted to be an artist, maybe AI can help them creating some ideas. Maybe they want to be a musician, ai can help them write the lyrics or give some interesting thoughts, but essentially they need to practice their own work. Ai is not going to be replacing them in that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I hadn't thought about that perspective. I want to turn the tables a little bit and talk about your experience as an entrepreneur, because you have worked in these different tech companies. You have this background. You've worked at some of the major places that we have technology that are the hubs in the United States. What was it like to then transition into becoming an entrepreneur and starting to launch your own product? First of all, I love it.
Speaker 3:I really enjoy this new journey. It's different than what I did before.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So the biggest challenge I would say, or surprises to me, is I didn't realize there's so many different type of work. I realized when I work in a corporate environment. My coworkers in other departments already help a lot of things, so I can focus on one thing like machine learning or data science. But now I realize, oh, I want to build a curriculum and to learn how to do recording, how to do audio editing, make sure the video and audio they look good. But also I need to refine my language when I do marketing efforts so the customers, potential clients, they understand my business. So legal accounting bookkeeping.
Speaker 2:so many things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so many Are you able to lean on any of the expertise from past co-workers or colleagues? Yeah, so I use a lot of automated tools right now and also I consult my friends like, oh, is this the right thing to do? Is that the right thing to do? So some of my friends they are data scientists or software engineers, but they gave me a lot of advice that I didn't expect them to give. So, yeah, for example, like I set up the LinkedIn sales navigator to reach out to potential customers.
Speaker 3:So I look at, the response rate is quite low. Like I introduced what I'm doing but there's no one responded. And I reached out to my friend who is a software engineer. He told me, like hey, the sales message you wrote is not right. You should first tell them you're passionate about teaching, you are expert in data and AI, and then talk about their service, right? So I thought, oh, yeah, you're right. So my writing is there, but the content was not tailored to the different type of customers. So I took it as advice and my response rate goes really, really high. Like almost like 10 times of the response rate.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that you can make these little tweaks and see complete changes in results. What about funding mechanisms? Were you able to? Are you self-funding If this isn't getting too into you know personal information or have you been looking for VC or other kinds of funding?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I thought about it. Actually, I used to work in Uber Finance. I realized right now it's probably for me to self-fund my company right now because I want to see the first customer next year. So funding is a very important stage, but I'm not ready yet. So I guess once we reach to like 100 customers or 1,000 customers with the positive cash flow, I will start looking for new funds. Right now it's just myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So that's something people need to consider. If they're going to start their own company, maybe don't look for funding right away. Try to use other methods. Have money saved, you know, do a little bit of other work consulting, teaching, whatever it might be while they get to the point where they can show that they've been successful.
Speaker 3:Exactly that's what I'm thinking now like having some consulting work on the side, on the up work, and now focus on my curriculum building and share with different educators.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's one of the hardest parts is creating that curriculum, making sure it's solid. You know that you have things built in so that, as things change, you can add new into. So what is another piece of advice that you would give to somebody who is thinking about creating a startup? Because we do have people going through this program who want to launch their own company or who end up taking an idea and going, oh, I'm going to just launch this company out of my capstone. We have other people who are entrepreneurs and taking ideas back to their organizations. But for the entrepreneur side, what some advice, some other advice that you would give them?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So this is a very important question. So if I can only give one piece of advice, I would recommend them to just start doing so. Start doing right away. So in the entrepreneur journey a lot of things are new, right, or even the first time we become senior. So if we don't do it we do research, we do a lot of things like overthinking we may lose the opportunity, the right momentum. So I would say like, if you build something, making sure it's something you are not proud of, you know that's how MVP or first product looks like, so don't worry about it. But once you have the MVP, the second iteration, the third iteration, will be way better and way faster. So don't worry about it. But once you have the MVP, the second iteration, the third iteration will be way better and way faster. So the first step is quite important. Just start doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. What is the easiest way for people to find you? Do you want them to go to your website? Connect with you on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, either way. So please reach out to me over my email. I will send my email to you, but also feel free to connect me on LinkedIn. I'd be happy to chat over LinkedIn as well. Right, Jeremy? What is one piece of life or professional advice?
Speaker 2:not necessarily about building your own business or career path, but just something that you think is really important for people to take through with them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I. After so many years, I realized every decision or key milestone in my career was based on my true heart. Like I follow my heart. So if you're students or anyone who watches this awesome video and podcast, I recommend, like, if you wanted to do something, you love to do something, just go for it. Make a good planning and reach out to expert who can give you advice, but also be very kind to people around you. Maybe someone just like my previous example, a software engineer can help you with a sales pitch, Maybe a security guide could help you with driving or give you a tour to some places. So you never know who will be helpful to you in the future. So right now, be kind to everyone around you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic. That's one of my mottos as well is be kind to everybody. Be kind whenever possible. It's always possible. Wonderful, well. Thank you so much, jeremy Gu, for being on the show talking to us about how AI can help really shape minds and why it's so important for us to start teaching these tools. Just like when I went to school, we had typewriters and then there were computers, so keeping up with the latest technology is really important for the future workforce.
Speaker 3:Thank you, antje, for inviting me to give a lot of very wonderful questions I never thought about and also it's triggered my creativity as well, so I appreciate this positive energy between us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, likewise, and thank you to everybody who's watching and listening to this episode, joseph Attaya, my co-host, or I, will be back again with another amazing guest to share their insights, their stories and their thoughts about being a digital changemaker.
Speaker 1:And their thoughts about being a digital changemaker. To learn more about the Master of Science in Digital Media Management program, visit us on the web at dmmuscedu.
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