Jasmine LeFlore is a Senior Aerospace Engineer, Social Entrepreneur, and Co-founder of Greater Than Tech. Throughout the conversation, Jasmine shares her relentless journey, from defying doubters to channeling her grief into a catalyst for change, all while celebrating the mentors and role models who ignited her trailblazing spirit. This led to her co-founding Greater Than Tech where she is not just breaking barriers; she's building bridges for underrepresented voices in STEM fields. Jasmine and Dr. Sciarretta explore the essential role of hands-on experience and the integration of business skills in nurturing the next generation.
Learn more about Jasmine LeFlore and Greater Than Tech.
Jasmine LeFlore is a Senior Aerospace Engineer, Social Entrepreneur, and Co-founder of Greater Than Tech. Throughout the conversation, Jasmine shares her relentless journey, from defying doubters to channeling her grief into a catalyst for change, all while celebrating the mentors and role models who ignited her trailblazing spirit. This led to her co-founding Greater Than Tech where she is not just breaking barriers; she's building bridges for underrepresented voices in STEM fields. Jasmine and Dr. Sciarretta explore the essential role of hands-on experience and the integration of business skills in nurturing the next generation.
Learn more about Jasmine LeFlore and Greater Than Tech.
Welcome to the superintendent's hangout, where we discuss topics in education, charter schools, life in general, and not necessarily in that order. I'm your host, dr Sharetta. Come on in and hang out. In this episode, I was privileged to sit down for a conversation with Jasmine LaFleur. Jasmine is a senior aerospace engineer, a social entrepreneur and the co-founder of Greater Than Tech. You can find them online at greaterthantechorg. Please consider donating to this amazing nonprofit, either in money or in volunteer time or expertise.
Speaker 1:Jasmine and I covered a wide range of topics, from her youthful wonderings and dreamings about what made airplanes fly to how she navigated the complicated world of admissions counselors and guidance counselors, telling her that she shouldn't go to engineering school, that she should do something else, essentially telling her to settle, and what made her persist and follow her dreams and what brought her to the present moment working in aerospace and then also co-founding Greater Than Tech approximately four years ago. I was very inspired by this conversation. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Welcome, jasmine. Thank you so much for your time this afternoon.
Speaker 2:Thank you, dr Sharetta, happy to be here.
Speaker 1:I was wondering if you could start with. Probably the most important place that we all need to start with when we first meet is your origin story, where you're from and what brings you to the present moment and the work you're doing today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So I am originally from Flint, michigan. I used to live by airport at a young age and I'm from a single parent home. My parents were married for about five years and they divorced when I was nine and I remember being very inquisitive. I was the type of child that was always tinkering with things, building things, taking them apart, doing puzzles with my grandma. They used to call me the puzzle wizard, and my mom was in early childhood education, so anytime I would ask her questions, she would always re-ask it back to me and say I don't know, jasmine, what do you think, things like that? So I found myself pondering a lot of questions and one of the questions I wanted to know was how planes flew. So she just said to me one day, maybe one day you'll have a job where you can answer that question.
Speaker 2:So I always had a lot of interest in math and science, had really great grades in all levels of school. But I remember having a keen interest with math and science to the point where when I was in middle school, I joined the robotics team and just really kept with it and did an engineering camp in high school and there was a college tour I went on that really changed the trajectory of what I learned to be as an engineer. I visited the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, their aerospace department, so that was when everything clicked for me. This was around ninth grade, when I knew, when I learned this is where I has to go to learn how planes fly. So after that I was very high achieving student. I was already high achieving, but now I had a goal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, real focused.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my high school resume was very well rounded national arts society, student council, all the things. And I would say, another driver for me was that my mom struggled with substance abuse and we had a lot of financial woes after her and my dad divorced.
Speaker 2:Our housing and our finances never recovered after that. So I also found myself being able to support myself in some way. I had a job at McDonald's. I would pay for all of my school clothes and you know things for cheerleading things like that. So I not only had that yearning to learn about planes, but I also had the desire to get out of the situation I was in and unfortunately, when I first applied to engineering school, I wasn't admitted. My high school advisor at the time basically laughed at me when he saw my ACT score, my ACT SAT score. That was a big thing when I was graduating, so I had to take the test over and over, but I didn't necessarily get a really great score. I don't know how you feel about standardized tests, but it is the type of thing now.
Speaker 1:Now I know the general thinking on it has evolved a lot since you were in college. You're a lot younger than I am, but you're old enough that you know it shifted.
Speaker 2:I had to exactly Right. So make a long story short and this can really turn into a long story. But I was denied entrance to the engineering college when I applied. But I was accepted into the liberal arts college at University of Michigan and I had to do a bridge program where I had to start a semester earlier than my freshman fall just to catch up, take supplementary classes. And I still had that desire to be engineer. I still wanted to transfer into the engineering college. Then my college advisor told me you barely got in already. You should just take a job at Target, make $40,000 a year and just send your kids to University of Michigan. So she gave me the talk that was more like you should just be happy. You were accepted. And I remember saying to her I'd rather try and fail than to not try at all and that's what really persevered me to get through engineering.
Speaker 2:It took me five years to graduate. I had tremendous loss during that time. I lost my mom, my grandmother and my granddad all in one year, my junior year of college. And just thinking about that question how do planes fly? My mom being an educator and being the first one to go away to college I felt like if I was to give up then I would be doing myself a disservice and not really upholding my family legacy. So I eventually graduated. I eventually got a job. Things were great. I feel like I conquered my childhood ambition.
Speaker 2:But when I got into industry I realized that a lot of people didn't look like me. I felt like I was marginalized. At times People wanted to touch my hair and made me feel othered. And one of the things that my manager told me when I was working at this point I'm working, I'm first year into an aerospace career my manager said well, what do you want to do? Do you want to be in technical or do you want to be in management? And that's really a question that all engineers get when they first start.
Speaker 1:And I said sorry to interrupt. Does that that helps determine which path?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly so technical. You could be the person who maybe eventually gets a PhD in one a one specific discipline or just focuses on one specific technology. Management is obviously managing people, and I remember saying to him both. So he said oh, maybe you should get a master's in engineering and an MBA when you become a manager. And I found a dual degree where I could do both and it took me four years to do that.
Speaker 2:So, as I was in my MBA program, I was in a different role, where I was the chief of staff to the VP of engineering, and that role gave me a lot of insight to what is important to executives, what's important to our customers. Just to give you context, the type of customers we had were Airbus and Boeing and Mitsubishi. We are a tier one supplier, collins Aerospace. That's where I currently work and that's where I've been working. One of the things that my VP said to me what helped me get on the entrepreneurial path was that engineers don't understand costs and engineers don't understand business. So me being in my MBA, being a, you know, chief of staff engineer, and seeing the pain points that my VP was experiencing made me realize, hey, why don't we learn about entrepreneurship or business at an earlier age and another aspect of that is I was also a part-time robotics instructor with my co-founder, dr Brittany Wheeler, at Elementary Institute of Science.
Speaker 2:So there's this whole other element to my life where I was helping middle school girls get ready to compete at a robotics competition and I saw that the girls who looked like us weren't really as engaged with the robots as the girls who had parents who knew about STEM and they had a little bit of more knowledge about it in the home and I don't know.
Speaker 2:It just felt like we were preparing them to compete with affluent boys for what you know like. What is this gain in the real world? So we decided to do greater than tech, where we focus on engineering and business or engineering and entrepreneurship, so students could see that real world applicability of engineering. And you know, when I think about my role with my VP, I was thinking about you know why didn't I learn this at an earlier age? And sometimes I would joke and say if I knew about entrepreneurship at an earlier age, like would I have made the next basics? So just changing that dialogue or letting students know that engineering can lead to more than just a corporate job you can actually create and innovate products is really important for me, and that's kind of how I got to founding greater than tech and what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for sharing that inspirational story. I was getting goosebumps over here. I thought you were gonna say your challenges were going through an engineering program and then, when you talked about the personal challenges, to that year. Where does that resilience come from? Cause, the childhood that you described sounds like it was enough to knock most people off track and never get back on track.
Speaker 2:That's a great question, I think, because I had a lot of. I was treated with a lot of like love and patience and always given pods of affirmations when I was a kid, like they caught me puzzle wizard. My family thought I was so smart and so great and they made me feel that way. It was almost as if I had this confidence about myself when I was a kid because of how my family treated me. But then another aspect to that is my grandma. She's from the South. She like moved to Flemishkin from Moscow, tennessee, and her mom passed away when she was eight. So just seeing like all the struggles that my grandma had, I really felt like if my grandma could endure all of that, like what am I complaining about? And I knew anything I did career-wise or just being who I am would make her proud. So I feel like seeing how much my grandma was like the driving force, like nah, I gotta do it for Graham. So that's what also fueled me a lot.
Speaker 1:Did you have any other than your grandma, who obviously had an impact on your life? Did you have any role models? They clearly were not your guidance counselors. We're not the role models. So did you have role models Like could there's someone you could look and go? I don't wanna do that.
Speaker 2:I did I mean. So I remember when I was. I did an engineering camp when I was in the 11th grade and I was curious about aerospace. I ended up snagging a high school internship at a civil engineering firm and that was mainly because I had a. I took a class on engineering graphics so I knew how to do a little bit of like 2D drafting. And I remember being at my internship looking up NASA and like just the NASA administration, and I remember seeing Charles F Bolden, who was the first black administrator of NASA, and I'm like, oh okay, so there's someone like me in a very high position, maybe I could do that. And I would say I looked up to him. I read his old bio, may Jemisin, her as well. So just seeing black figures in high spaces no pun intended was who I would say I looked up to. And then I mean, you said not family members, right?
Speaker 1:No, I mean including.
Speaker 2:I mean I know you mentioned your grandma, but yeah, yeah, I mean, I think I'll say, charles F Bolden and May Jemisin were the two people. I was eyeing a lot and reading up on their vials and just seeing how much they persevered and seeing them as the first.
Speaker 1:So those two, and Flint Michigan probably makes you tough too right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there's so much to be said about Flint. A lot to be said.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go down too much of a rabbit hole, but when? I saw that on your bio, I was like hmm, okay, yeah, yeah. Explains also resilience right Strength.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And even when I think about Flint and home, like the embodiment of what success was was go to college and get a good job. Flint was a blue collar town and my grandfather he was employed at GM, so that was kind of the symbol of you've received, like yeah, you're successful. So me having this curiosity in engineering really wasn't something I could just go to my neighbor and talk to about or go to. You know, I would have to rely on my teachers to kind of give me some guidance. And I do want to shout out one person my physics teacher and chemistry teacher, mr Johns. I remember when I was applying to colleges I had this whole list of, like these different schools and pros and cons and University of Michigan was the dream school and I had this list of all these other colleges for different, various reasons. And he just pointed to University of Michigan and he's like, no, you deserve to be there, you can do this. So he also was a good person. That like influenced me to think of myself in a higher light.
Speaker 1:So shout out to Mr Johns wherever you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I still talk to him to the day too.
Speaker 1:That's great you know I've had other guests on here and we talk about their mentors, right and sometimes they've acknowledged the mentors sometimes on the show and, like you, they're in touch with them and other people never, have reached back out to their mentors and I go, you've got a time sticking no like seriously and I think, especially me having found a nonprofit working with kids.
Speaker 2:I see that full circle moment for myself, because my first college tour was with a nonprofit that I was a part of. It's called the Carrera Program. It was built to pretty much help students at-risk students, like not get pregnant, Like basically from hours of three to six. I think there was a statistic where that's where-.
Speaker 1:That's the pregnancy hour, yeah over the hour.
Speaker 2:So they had us doing different activities after school, going on college tours with one of them. So I got a shout out Ms Michelle, mr Domino, ms Heather, because they were the people that took me on that tour to even get inspired. So I feel like I'm doing the same thing by passing a torch to the kids who are a part of GTT.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about greater than tech. One of the things that drew me to it was the greater part right, so that's more of a. It's the technology, but also the entrepreneurial, the ownership, right. So you're not just raising awareness and skills so that someone can go and be a. Lego piece in a company, but maybe start their own company Exactly yeah, so talk me through the genesis of the nonprofit, because there are a lot of nonprofits out there, right? That espouse to do this or that or the other thing.
Speaker 1:So what makes yours special and how was that genesis?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I really appreciate that question. I spoke a little bit about it. When I think about Dr Wheeler andI being the robotics instructors, we also. Another aspect to that story is that both of us were working on our. So I was in my MBA, dr Wheeler was doing her doctorate and we entered a tech startup competition while we were these part-time robotics instructors and these full-time engineers. So one of her professors said you should enter this competition, it's for extra credit.
Speaker 2:I don't remember why we did it, but we came up with a sensor idea that would help women get away from potential attackers If you're walking at home at night or you're in an unfamiliar place. It was basically a sensor you could put on your book bag or your purse that will let you know, like if someone's behind you. And we had a friend who had sexual harassment. Well, she was harmed, so that was what made us think about it. And when we did the tech startup competition through her school, george Washington University, we made it all the way to the semifinals. And that was another a-ha moment where we're like oh, we can make something. And the judges were like of course, you're engineers, you know how to make things. So that light bulb, switching from I'm an engineer that works at a corporation and I make these things versus oh, I'm an engineer and I have the tools to create something different. So I think that part gets missed a lot. When you go straight into a corporate setting like the innovation, you don't really think of yourself as an innovator, you just think of yourself as an engineer who has a job sometimes. So that was a a-ha moment and when we did our first workshop, we started March 14, 2020.
Speaker 2:So, in business terms, call it the MVP the minimum viable product and we had about seven kids in a one day workshop testing out this curriculum where it's really a subset of the business model canvas and the engineering design process. So we have these middle school girls coming up with this idea using a remote control and how they would actually like enhance the features of a remote. And now I feel like we have that because we have Amazon Alexa and we have Google Home, but at the time that wasn't really in reach. So just seeing how their ideas really flourished and how you can use technology to build upon already technical things was another aha moment, like, hey, we can create more things.
Speaker 2:So I would say, when it comes to the greater than tech part. We're like half business, half engineering. I think a lot of people just see the STEM or see the engineering and are like, okay, of course, but in every program students are always coming up with their own designs, they're always pitching their business solution, and we do that because we really want them to consider being these innovators, being a tech founder, because I personally think it's important for more marginalized people to have ownership of their ideas and the more we can get them thinking about that, the better. We can see more patents, more trademarks, more things in the ethos of black and brown creators.
Speaker 1:So on your website you talk about promise zones.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you tell the listeners what that means, what the promise zones are, and then some more specifics about the work that GTT does?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so promise zones are tagged as areas that need more development, I think financial and economic resources. So that is a term I think created by the city.
Speaker 1:I think so we're in one here.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Or we're on the edge, because I know Barrio Logan is.
Speaker 2:This is technically golden.
Speaker 1:This is actually Grant Hill.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:San Diego's got the community neighborhoods, but Barrio Logan is just down the hill, yeah.
Speaker 2:So these tend to be the areas that have the least resources and the idea is to give them more opportunities so they can make these neighborhoods better, make it more promising, I guess. So we focus on those areas just because we know that there's already this impact that needs to be there. When it comes to the work, we have a lot of different style of programs. We have our one-day workshops, three-day workshops, five-day workshops, but we also have full programs that could be our after-school programs or summer programs, but even those can be chopped into our different pillars. So we have three pillars.
Speaker 2:One of them is community programs. That's open to girls and boys, and that pillar pretty much came about because we were getting requests to do programs for other people and it would be different organizations who had kids, but they didn't necessarily have STEM. So we basically opened our curriculum up to everyone, like, hey, we designed this with middle school girls in mind, but who's to say that a middle school boy, a high school boy, couldn't benefit from this same opportunity? So normally our community programs are reserved for robotics, girls and boys, middle and high school. We have a careers type of program track or program pillar, which is focused on emerging technology, self-industry four-prone technology, drones, additive manufacturing. We're doing cybersecurity. We're gonna be doing some AI as well.
Speaker 1:I was gonna ask you about AI. My daughter says dad, stop asking guests about AI. I'm like, I asked you.
Speaker 2:It's so big, it's everywhere, it's literally like that one right there is like the fifth industrial revolution, yep, so yeah, emerging technology there. And then our last pillar is our alumni club program, which is not necessarily a curriculum program. That's more of the community building aspect of GTT professional networking and tours and getting them more acclimated with different industry leaders. So I would say that's like the informal part of GTT. But every girl who has gone through a graded in tech program is considered an alumni and we see them about once a month and our last outing we went to general atomics for a tour. So that aspect of GTT is more like hey, let's get together and build yourself efficacy, help your networks, make you more interested in STEM, because our programs are curriculum heavy and we don't always get a lot of time to just connect and let students get to know each other.
Speaker 1:So how do you? I could go all different directions from that. How do you so? I'd imagine I don't wanna assume, but I'd imagine you went into industry. You're working in aerospace now and you're probably facing the same experience that you had when you were in engineering school and there weren't a lot of people who looked like you so how do we work on industry to be more open to these ideas? I think you have some industry sponsors for your nonprofit and that's a great thing.
Speaker 2:I like that question too, I mean. So a whole nother element to this is diversity, equity, inclusion, and that is actually the way Dr Willer and I met. So we work at the same company but we were both involved with employee resource groups and that's basically affinity groups that are designated for diverse groups, so the black African-American network group, the VETS, the LGBTQIA women, so all these different affinities have almost like clubs where they do different things. So her and I were both involved with the African-American Forum and at the time we were basically advocating for more diverse people in the workforce and improving their professional development, and sometimes we would go into the community and do some workshops with kids. So seeing how companies are getting more involved with community work is a really good way for them to be helping with that diversity pipeline.
Speaker 2:If you will, our first grant that we ever got with graded in tech was actually through our employer, column Aerospace, and it was a really good fit because they're Aerospace Company. We were doing a program on drones. They already do give out grants to support programs like that, so anytime you can have a win-win that way, I feel like that is a really good fit. But I mean, I feel like companies are receptive and they want more diversity, but they may not know how to make those first initial steps in the community by themselves. It's almost like there needs to be someone who is doing things in the community that is trustworthy in the community that they wanna enter and they have to be their ambassador or liaison.
Speaker 2:So I think Brittany and I were that four columns Aerospace when it came to getting involved with DEI in the field.
Speaker 1:Right, cause it's more than just money right. It's not like oh, here's a grant for X amount and just figure it out. No, it's. If those relationships aren't there, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a really nice story. We did our robotics program in 2022. It was our first community robotics program and we had some students in there who only spoke Spanish. Like I had to leverage some of my coworkers who spoke Spanish, and it was the Hispanic Leadership Forum who helped us get involved with the robotics program and I'm really happy that you know two of the students. They were able to find mentors through that, so I had columns aerospace engineers working with these middle school boys who only spoke Spanish, and it was just amazing to see how, like there was something that they could provide those students that I couldn't, and that was like that culture, honestly. So seeing relationships like that Bud is like a really great thing to see as well, as those are very impactful moments, like you know, being a 12 year old and talking to someone who can understand your language and look like you and be successful.
Speaker 1:What's been your organization's greatest challenge?
Speaker 2:Ooh, I mean simple funding.
Speaker 1:Funding right. So how are you funded and how can people support you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so funding so far has been primarily through grants and corporate sponsorship. A lot of our grants have been through one-off programs. So, like I mentioned, the Community Robotics program. That program is probably the most well received only because it serves a lot of students at once. We normally are working with 60 kids at one time and we have been able to hire interns. So giving college interns their first technical job experience it's almost like double the impact. So that's primarily how we've been funded through. Like San Diego Foundation, like I mentioned, collins Aerospace have supported us, qualcomm, general Atomics. So those one-off program grants definitely help. But it's been a struggle trying to find that recurring sponsor or donor who's going to be there. You know every step of the way. And I'll even say for our alumni club, since that one isn't really a full-on tech program, that one has been the hardest fund. So we did our first fundraiser last year, tech Over Tapas, specifically to try to raise money for that group Like an evening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it was, like you know, small plates. We had our students pitching. They did a capstone presentation.
Speaker 1:That's cool it was really cool.
Speaker 2:I'll have to invite you to connect.
Speaker 1:I'd love to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So funding has definitely been difficult and Dr Willear and I were still engineers, so being able to balance GTT with work and having a fractional team has been a challenge.
Speaker 1:Is that what you call being understaffed? Yes, we're a fractional team.
Speaker 2:So it's like we're making this great impact, but you know, the wheels turn kind of slow because we're because you have a life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I would say funding and having a small team has been the biggest barriers.
Speaker 1:So people can go to your website. Yes, people can go to techorg.
Speaker 2:Yeporg. There's a banner Since you go to the website that says donate. Or you can go to the website that's a greater techorg slash donate and it'll get you there. We have all the different ways to donate. We have PayPal, we have cash out, we have we don't have been mowed for some reason, but if you just look up greater than tech, you'll find us and there's a way that we could. We would appreciate getting your support, and even outside of money, I mean time as well. We're also looking for tours. If people can have tech that's really cool and hands on and engaging for students, we'd love to go tour your company or your office.
Speaker 1:So when you started, you mentioned that you like you like to tinker.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When you're, when you're a kid, and hence the name. What would be the puzzle?
Speaker 2:Puzzle wizard. Puzzle wizard.
Speaker 1:Puzzle wizard. What do you think schools can do, because I'm always looking to see how we can improve right, Especially when I meet inspirational people like you who who over, have overcome significant barriers and kind of always had this genesis from the time you're a kid, and how that connects all the way through and I think the tinkering is probably significant to your to your life journey. How can schools do a better job of giving the space and the the opportunity for? Kids and especially girls and girls of color, to have those opportunities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that question a lot. I I feel like having more spaces to tinker. I saw this thing on TikTok about like playgrounds, like the, the next generation of playgrounds, cause our kids still going outside and like getting on the slide and stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, I think, well, I don't think they get on swings anymore cause those are probably too much of a liability, right. And the slides, I don't know they, they send them down onto rubber mats. So it's changed a lot right, and lawsuits have done that technology.
Speaker 2:Everyone's got their head down looking at their phones, but something that happened to us. It was we had a news segment with KPBS and we brought some of our old robots. Basically it's like props, but what was happening is that the girls really started working on the robots and fixing them, and it was just something they easily did. So if there's opportunity where there's just a tinker day, like instead of go play on the slides, it's like hey, here's a hunk of hardware to play around, like. I know there's probably some liabilities with that, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:I feel like there's liabilities with everything.
Speaker 2:but, you know, give kids the space to just play with stuff Like they will amaze you on how much they actually know. And I love that coding is becoming more of a requirement in schools now. They pick it up so quickly. And I know that there's a lot of talk with AI and how that impacts school and um, you know, plagiarism. But I feel like schools could just have tinker days, tech days, where tech is just out in the open for kids to explore and play with.
Speaker 1:Are you familiar with the hole in the wall experiment? You just made me think about that. So, there's a. I interviewed him actually on this podcast about six months ago or so.
Speaker 1:Uh he's a retired professor of computer science who was a professor in India, dr Mitra, and when he was, one day he was in in um in his office in New Delhi and he was sitting there and he looked out and his office the way he described that he's in the university, he looks out and there's there's like the slums of of New Delhi next to him and he sees kids running around in the street and he's like, wow, I wonder if we could like figure out some way to see if you know something productive for them to do.
Speaker 1:I'm probably butchering the story, but he basically goes and embeds a computer this is in 1999, I think he embeds a computer with internet access and a mouse in the wall and in the neighborhood and leaves it for a month Like with no instructions, no, nothing.
Speaker 1:And he comes back in a month and the kids are like they're looking at him and he goes can you guys explain what you're doing? They're like, leave us alone. We're doing programming, we just knew we need more RAM. Like they had figured out that, even taught themselves English because these weren't English speaking children. And the point being, he goes on to he won a big, prestigious Ted Ted talk prize based on this. But it's that same principle right. That kids can learn and teach each other Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so teach the adults Right, and so I think we've focused in education so much on meeting state standards and there's importance in academic proficiencies, but the creativity piece. Right For you to wonder what makes an airplane fly. Like really stop and think about what makes an airplane fly. Most people don't understand the aerodynamics of what keeps that thing in the air right.
Speaker 1:They just assume. It's just like they don't think about where eggs come from. They come from the supermarket, and so to be able to keep that level of creativity and exploration and wonder and awe in schools is a real challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that story a lot. So we do program or project-based curriculum. So every time there's a GTT program it's a four person team where one person is the test lead, one person is the business lead, you know, so on and so forth. So I see that happening, where it's like we say, hey, you're the founders, this is your company, what's the product? So I think all anytime you can do team dynamics especially is a really good way for them to even like talk ideas with each other, appreciate everyone's gifts or their talent. Those are, like my most fun. Interdisciplinary learning is what I think should also be implemented at a younger level.
Speaker 1:Have you thought about I'm sure you've thought about it what about partnerships with universities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So we did provide a program to University of San Diego. They have a program in partnership with San Diego Foundation called Biggie Black and Ingenious Initiative, so we were able to come in and do a one week camp. And you know, same model. The thing is our model doesn't change, but the technology can change and I think anytime you can get younger students on a college campus, it also opens their eyes to the possibilities of where they can go. So I would say collegiate partnerships is definitely important. I see USD as one of our partners, but we definitely want to have more and be able to impact even outside of San Diego.
Speaker 1:That's a huge thing, right, if you could go back and talk to your high school guidance counselor and then the University of Michigan counselor, who I'm sure they were nice people. But you already met your goal. You just need to get a liberal arts degree, and there's nothing wrong with liberal arts degree. But what if I didn't want?
Speaker 2:that Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:What if I'm the one who gets the decide, not you?
Speaker 2:And you know, I give those people grace because they only know what they've seen, so I look at it as like they just haven't seen. Someone like me do it before. So it wasn't them really doubting me, it just didn't fit their mental model.
Speaker 1:Well, I had a experience, not at that level of abruptness, but when I first started my teaching credential program. I remember we had to fill out this questionnaire and they asked you what's your end career goal?
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I said I want to be a superintendent. I put, wrote it on the thing and the guy called me into the office and he said I'm looking over your career plans and I think you need to be more realistic. And I said well, you asked me what my goal goals are supposed to be, things that you aim for that's supposed to be like you know a year from now. So he's like well, why don't you say you'll just be the best teacher you could?
Speaker 2:possibly be, and I said that's great.
Speaker 1:You know I want to be the best teacher, but you asked me my long-term goal. So and I think you know he was, he's a. He's a part of the system. He's a. He was just doing what he needed to do, and probably your guidance counselors, they someone had told him a long time ago look, if people come in and they're shooting for the moon, try to bring them back, because it's going to look bad on you if they fail.
Speaker 1:And so it's that balance right Like being realistic if someone has no chance ever of achieving a goal like if you, if I told you I wanted to learn ballet, if you've seen me dance, you'd be like. So there are some limitations, but especially when you're just starting out and you have the passion, you see you go as far as you can go.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm so proud of you. Yeah Well, yeah, it took a long.
Speaker 1:It took a long time, but yeah, it took a long time, so I wanted to ask you let's see, I have a number of different areas that I could go on this when do you think the GTT work will be in 20 years time?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a really good question. Where would the work be, or what?
Speaker 1:would you like it to be what you know? If you could envision that future, what does that look like for you guys?
Speaker 2:Man, 20 years. Okay, so I would love to be just known as the founder, but not, you know, like not embedded. Maybe I'm a board member at that point. But a GTT curriculum is in various schools, including international. There are hundreds of entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds who started tech companies. There are maybe, I'm gonna say, hundreds of GTT chapters and, you know, I don't know if it's still gonna be fractional teams, but maybe they're full teams or small teams. All over the US there's a lab. There's a lab where people can tinker and a lot of the projects that come out of GTT actually become a startup or a product. And, yeah, it's just more of a staple in the home or staple in the school. In terms of interdisciplinary learning, there's an online portion of it as well. There are startups founded through GTT alumni and it's just a ubiquitous. People understand what it is and they're excited to be a part of GTT.
Speaker 1:See, there you have your 20-year strategic plan.
Speaker 2:That's a great question.
Speaker 1:And all those things are entirely possible. So anyone out there and industry partners and people who wanna help make that happen, and you know, I think on some podcast I don't know I can't remember if it was you or your co-founder, so I apologize if it was her, but the comment was made that someone said to you or her wow, you work for a nonprofit. And the answer was no, I found it, I co-founded. It was you, was it you?
Speaker 1:It may have happened to her too, but so because I was looking you guys up on the podcast sphere out there and it was like, yeah, I do work, but actually I work in aerospace and I co-founded that. So do you get that a lot, where people are like how's that nonprofit Do? They treat you well and you're like I'm part of the fractional team.
Speaker 2:Thank you for asking me that, because there are so many conversations I have in moments that may make me shift or realize the impact that we have. 2023 was the first year that Dr Brudy andI were not in the classroom. Like we had interns. We had actual teachers teaching our curriculum to students. So this is the first. 2023 is the first year that I wasn't as hands on with the students. I normally know every single kid by name and parent and everything. So even how those students showed up, we were partnering with Gompers Prep and they surprised me. It was my birthday. My birthday is June 21st. We were doing a robotics program and some of the kids signed the card and they said who's Ms Jasmine? Oh, she's the leader. Oh, she started this. Like they didn't realize that Dr Wheeler and I were the co-founders. They thought we were just like staff members. So what you're reminding me of is that, even to this day, like the impact we have as the founders, the leaders of this organization, versus hey, we work for this organization.
Speaker 2:Cause that's what they think of. You know they're like hold on, are you like? How do you do this? So that shift of identity, of being known as a leader, but also how it impacts the students cause it makes them realize like, oh, if Ms Jasmine can do this I can do it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you do for relaxation? I'm just wondering. I thought I was sitting here going. I need to relax now so she probably doesn't have much downtime.
Speaker 2:Like how do you find?
Speaker 1:your re-energizing power so that you can go back and do this work and your data.
Speaker 2:Yes, I need to be completely unplugged. Don't call me for 24 hours. I need to go to the youth spa get a pedicure, get my hair done, get my nails done, get a facial. Like everything about me when it comes to relaxation is full on like spa and luxury.
Speaker 2:So that's my favorite way to decompress. Outside of that, I mean, I like to do some yoga, some Pilates. I like to eat good food. I love to travel. Travel is probably the most therapeutic. Like to just get away, but when it comes to recharging I'm gonna be at the spa.
Speaker 1:And that's a. The travel piece is a role model thing too for kids, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of students locally who might be able to see the ocean from the hill near the house and have never been.
Speaker 2:You know I was surprised at how many students like we go to different places. We went to Pekko Park for Innovation Day. This organization called Connect. They make the Pekko Park area like all about tech and biotech and science. So we invited some of the GTT alumni to go to Innovation Day with us and they were. A few of them were like oh, we've never been to Pekko Park. So a lot of things happen like that where I think I'm taking them to someplace they've been before, whether it's a college or a Pekko Park, and they're like, wow, we're just happy to be here.
Speaker 1:So I'm like, wow, I think there's a real. I think it's a combination of factors, right, what you were mentioning before, with young people not going outdoors anymore. And then there's some economic realities. There's parents who work all the time, and so the students are necessarily allowed to.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:If you're as old as I am. We hopped on a bike and we just rode away. I'm not sure my parents really knew where we were half the time. That's not a thing anymore. Right, yeah, and so families tend to be. Their radius is really small.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yep, and you'd be surprised how much experience and life they get outside of the home when it comes to programs like this. I feel like my sphere of influence when I was in middle school was the career program that I was a part of, and that's where I met kids from different schools and kids from different cultures. So I mean nonprofit work, working with kids like it's literally life changing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody thinks that it's life changing for the kids and it is, but it's also life changing for the founders?
Speaker 2:Yeah, people who are doing that work.
Speaker 1:You've been very generous with your time and I have just two more questions for you. The first is what does your current self I'm not gonna ask you how old you are, but your current self tell your 12 year old self about the future and what's coming down the road and what decisions to make?
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, okay, 12 year olds, I guess I would be in middle school. I honestly would probably tell myself to not play it small. Like, although I accomplished all my goals, I feel like I hung out with people who they where they wanted to go in life was different than mine, and I found myself almost like trying to help my friends out to get to a similar path as me. So I would probably tell myself it's okay to go this path on your own. When you're in middle school, it's like half of the kids probably come to our programs because their friend said yeah, I like robotics. Okay, well, I'm gonna come with you.
Speaker 2:So the more you can think for yourself and just go try something new, regardless of if your friend likes it or not, is probably one of the best things you can do for yourself. Because I feel like I played it small, trying to fit in with my best friends at the time, and if I just always did everything without oh, it's my best friend, like I remember when I went on did the engineering camp in the 11th grade, my best friend at the time was, like that's so lame, it's summer, we're supposed to hang out. So the more you can just do things for yourself, by yourself and not in fear of what your friends will think of you, the better you'll be long term.
Speaker 1:Well, you certainly didn't play it small for too long in your life right. You've come so far and you said you accomplished all your goals.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you have other goals right, Other than my childhood goals your childhood goals.
Speaker 1:I know you got a lot more because you're just starting this journey, thank you. So my last question and then I'm gonna ask you, but actually, before I get to the last question, is there anything we have not covered today that's bounce around in your head?
Speaker 2:I wanna ask a XU question.
Speaker 1:Okay, ask me questions.
Speaker 2:So, in your opinion, or just what you see at the landscape of education, how important is STEM in the classroom and how important is entrepreneurship in the classroom?
Speaker 1:Well, I think they're both incredibly important. Getting away from the, I think we suffer from an acronym overdose in education and in society. People go, oh, it's STEM. Well, they haven't even really stopped to think about it and a lot of people added an A to STEM and add the arts piece. I think that's also important and really interrelated. But the United States is still from a creativity standpoint. Your iPhone is engineered here, manufactured overseas but engineered here, and we still lead the way in patents, for example, around the world, even though they're countries with populations that are five and six times what we have. So that's still an American thing. But if we're not emphasizing that in school and then also emphasizing the entrepreneurial end to where there's an ownership piece, we risk continuing to disenfranchise communities where people could really be empowered, and so to me, it's vitally important.
Speaker 1:I don't think we do enough in schools. It shouldn't be that just at a school that's a STEM Academy that students are exposed to these concepts or to role models or to opportunities to tinker. It should be everywhere, and it should also be outside of school. Right, it should be in life. You can go to the San Francisco down at the I don't know what's it called the Boardwalk or the right there on the water they have this amazing Museum of hands-on science. You could go in and do all these things, but it's like 30 40 bucks to get in, yeah, and it's not everyone.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna be families. Yeah of the in the promise zones who are going there.
Speaker 2:So why is it that way?
Speaker 1:right like this needs to be something we can do openly, I think. But, yeah, this work is incredibly important. That's why I, that's what caught my attention, yeah, when I, when I read the article, the profile In the newspaper, and wanted to talk to you guys.
Speaker 2:No, I'm really grateful and um, thank you for that answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got any other questions?
Speaker 2:Um well, it might be specific to albert einstein but whatever, whatever. Opportunities the students have when it comes to entrepreneurship in the classroom.
Speaker 1:So I think the opportunities around entrepreneurship are still pretty limited. Yeah, um, the, the, the stem and the tinkering and the makerspace opportunities are more readily available, the entrepreneurship I know, for example, and you know I'm sure there are other examples, but Actually eric cross, whose episode you, you, talked about having listened to a portion of he has Um.
Speaker 1:He teaches seventh grade science and every year they the students. One of their units is they design a new product and then they have to pitch it to the rest of the group and there's a way, I think. One year they did. They had to develop a new type of protein bar to be used in in natural disasters.
Speaker 1:Like to like imagining that yeah, imagining that they had to airlift food aid in somewhere and how you could design the best product cost um protein, uh, content and all these different things, and so there's everything from Designing the product to the marketing end. Um so we do have have some of that we're working on. Our high school will have a community connections Store and thrift shop. Oh, Um so we're, you know, we've kind of getting into that in terms of Teaching students?
Speaker 1:Well, actually we'll have that and we'll also have a culinary Center in our high school and it's not just going to be Teaching culinary skills, just the food prep, and it's soup to nuts it's everything, the planning, um, you know, you have a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 1:We have opportunities. I think we can. We can always do more, and we can do more with bringing in examples yeah to our students so they can see People who've been really successful, like yourself and others, and see themselves reflected in other people's experiences. I think that's one of the things that's lacking just in general in society. Right, if it weren't lacking, you wouldn't need to start a nonprofit.
Speaker 2:That's very true, right yeah?
Speaker 1:You wouldn't need to start that um. So I'm going to give you the opportunity to create a billboard on the side of the five freeway. Imagine you can design your own billboard now. Remember people driving by. Unless it's rush hour, they're going like 70, so they don't have much time to to to stop and read it. What does your billboard say about your beliefs, about your message to the world?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I feel like I could say something very philosophical that isn't really tied to gtt, or I could say something that is tied to gtt um, I'm going to go with the latter, and something that I say is Start with stem soar with business s? O? A r with business um. Stem is a great stepping stone and a foundational disciplines to get to that problem solving and, uh, innovation aspect. But business really can help you, propel um and help others. So I would say, start with stem soar with business um, and then it'll probably be like a QR code or something about graded in tech.
Speaker 1:See, you had to bring in some technology. In case they can't get your home message, they can just scan it on the side of the freeway as they're going by. Thank you so much for joining us, jasmine. I really appreciate it. Again to listeners, greater than techorg, check it out, go on there, donate, consider volunteering, get the word out, because this work is is critical. Our, our young people need examples. They need examples they can relate to Um and so thank you again for all you do, and you're an inspiration.
Speaker 1:This has been an inspirational Conversation for me, so thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the superintendent's hangout. You can follow me on twitter at dvs 1970. Please be sure to share this show with friends and family on social media and in the real world. Thank you to brad baccala for editing and production assistance and to tina roister for scheduling and logistics. Thanks for hanging out and have a great day.