Elevate Springfield

Elevate Springfield featuring Joshua Smith: Elevating Through the Power of Adaptive Education, Passion, and Technology Innovation

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Summary

In this conversation, Josh Smith from the University of Illinois Springfield shares his journey from programming to teaching, discussing the impact of AI on both fields. He emphasizes the importance of adapting education to meet the demands of AI and cybersecurity, while also explaining the basics of cybersecurity for companies. The discussion highlights the evolving role of AI in various industries, particularly in programming and data protection, and the necessity for individuals and organizations to stay informed and proactive in their approach to technology. He emphasizes the importance of just-in-time learning, work-based models, and financial accessibility for students. The discussion also highlights the community's needs, the launch of new engineering programs, and the success stories of UIS alumni. 

Takeaways

  • AI is a powerful tool that can enhance programming but is not a complete solution.
  • Data security is crucial as data becomes the primary currency.
  • Regularly changing passwords is essential for cybersecurity.
  • Longer passwords are more secure than shorter ones.
  • AI is revolutionizing industries like gaming and education.
  • Cybersecurity basics are necessary for all organizations. Password security involves delays to prevent brute force attacks.
  • UIS aims to complement, not compete with, other engineering programs.
  • There is a significant skills gap in the engineering workforce.
  • Just-in-time learning tailors education to immediate industry needs.
  • Work-based learning models provide hands-on experience for students.
  • UIS is focused on making education financially accessible for all students.
  • Community needs assessments guide the development of new programs.
  • The new engineering program at UIS will start in fall 2027.
  • UIS alumni have achieved significant success in major tech companies.
  • The Orion Lab serves as an inclusive space for innovation and learning.

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SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Elevate Springfield, where we will dive into strategies and stories that help you rise to your full potential. Each episode, we'll talk about how you can take intentional steps to elevate your life and your business while making a meaningful impact on those around you. Along the way, we're gonna bring in the change makers from our community that are already elevating. We'll bring the actionable strategies, you bring the discipline and follow through, and together we can elevate Springfield. Alright, let's go, Springfield. Time to 10X your life, your business, all of it. Time to crush those goals, time to get after it. Let's go. You are listening to the Elevate Springfield Podcast. Robert Farrell here, certified 10x coach, speaker, and mentor here to bring you actionable strategies. You bring the discipline and follow through. And together, we're going to Elevate Springfield. We're coming to you again from beautiful downtown Springfield in the Big Dog Construction Studio. Hey, we've got so much going on in Springfield right now. Make sure you are participating. Get out there, network with folks, be a part of the community, support local businesses, support local nonprofits, and let's go, we can all grow together. So, hey, another great episode for you today. We're gonna get right to our guest after the break. Hey, Springfield, when it comes to reliable, high-quality roofing, you don't want to leave things to chance. That's why you should reach out to Acosta Angeli Ruffing, your local roofing expert serving Springfield and surrounding communities, from quick, dependable repairs to full replacement, from residential to commercial. They are your trusted pros. Call them today at 217-993-2748 or visit their website to book your free quote and inspection. Don't wait. A little leak now could lead to major damage later. Trust the local experts, protect your home, and get peace of mind with Acosta Angeli Roofing. All right, and we are back. Joining me in the studio now, Josh Smith from the University of Illinois Springfield. Josh, how are we doing today?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely wonderful.

SPEAKER_02

I'm excited to talk about a new degree pathway you guys have and a little bit of everything that you guys do out there, the Orion Lab and the whole nine. But before we get into all that, let's learn a little bit about you, man. Tell me a little about your background.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I grew up here in Central Illinois, been here my whole life, started out at Riverton High School and ended up going over to Lincoln Land and then to UIS. And that's kind of leading into why I'm doing what I'm doing. So graduated from UIS, really had no idea what I was gonna do with my bachelor's degree, talked with my department head, and he said, Well, if you don't know what you're doing, go on for your master's. So went for my master's and walked across the stage, and that was during the 2008 housing crisis. Yeah. And had no idea what I was gonna do. I had a job offer on the table that got revoked at the start of the year, and uh they put me in a unique position. And my department head was like, we can have you teach part-time until you find a place and started teaching and then immediately found a full-time job as well. So I hopped out in industry and was a programmer for quite a while and was teaching on the side as well, and decided I wanted to teach full-time and didn't want to give up the industry job either. So ended up working two full-time jobs for quite a while.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So you're a programmer around here then? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I worked for Department of Revenue and then Midwest Insurance out on the west side of town. Yeah. A workers' comp company. So did that for a few years and decided that two jobs wasn't the way to go. Working almost a hundred hours a week every week just wasn't it. Right. Um, so I did the old pros and cons list and teaching one out and ended up putting in my letter of resignation at the an industry and have been teaching full-time ever since. Nice. What do you love most about teaching? Seeing the light bulb come on. Yeah. Being able to work with a student and get them to that breaking point where they're really frustrated and then all of a sudden it clicks and they're like, I see it. I I I see what you're talking about. I see the reason for this. And seeing that light bulb come on, I it just never gets old.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Did you think back when you were at Riverton that you'd ever be a teacher? Absolutely not. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely not. Whenever I went to college, you know, I grew up in the era where my parents told me I had to go to college. There was no ex no exception. So went over to Lincoln Land, got my associates in science, just really general. And they asked me what I'm gonna do. I said, I have no clue. They said, Well, then you're gonna keep going to college. So I walked over to UIS, grew up here my whole life, never knew UIS existed, even though I played soccer out at UIS, but didn't know what it was. Right. So walked over and they were like, hey, you have to pick a major. So I went down the list and was like, computer science. I like computers. I'll give that a shot. And that's how it stuck. And then wanted to get out in industry and start making money. And as I was going through my master's degree, I was a graduate assistant. So I was able to spend some time in the classroom and really started to like that. And that's where I had the opportunity to teach as an adjunct and it hooked me. Right.

SPEAKER_02

And you said you're a programmer for a little bit. What does the day-to-day look like for a programmer? People hear that a lot and like, oh, I'm a programmer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02

What does that look like for somebody?

SPEAKER_01

It depends on the level that you're at. If you're you just starting out, it's a lot of just reading code and trying to solve a problem that you have no idea how it's there or why it's there, and you're just trying to piece it together, trying to kind of be like a detective. But then as you get a little bit more experience, you end up shifting more and more time into solving the bigger problems, the more abstract problems. So you end up in a lot more meetings and that stuff I really loved. I I loved being able to look at the big picture and see how things tie together instead of looking at a million lines of code and trying to figure out which one character is out of place. Right. Right. So more of the big picture development type stuff. Yep. But there's there's options for everyone whenever it comes to programming. You can be what we call the code monkey where you're in code 24-7, really dead code all day. And some people love that, but that was just not for me. Has that changed with AI and everything? Yeah. It has. So with AI, they're not solving every problem with AI, but they're they're giving us a really good jump start. Um, the the people that are really advancing when using AI, they're using it as a tool. And it's just a jumping off point. It's a way to get you three steps down the road in a 20-step process. Right. And the more you understand about AI, the more you can have it help you. I like to to remind people, especially our generation, when Google came out, we had this search engine that was an amazing thing, but you didn't know how to use it. And now we have what we call Google Foo, where you go to Google and you're like, I need this very specific thing. And 99% of the time you can phrase your question where you hit that I'm feeling lucky button. Right. Because you know how to use that tool. AI is the same way. If you know how to use that tool, it's going to help you tremendously. If you don't know how to use it, it's going to cause some problems. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02

You mentioned the quote uncode monkey. You talk about does that does AI play a larger role in maybe their role because they can get some of that baseline in before they do the rest of the coding?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And that's one of the reasons for the big pushes with that is because there's so few people that want to just be a code monkey. Sure. And and the reason that AI is being utilized in places is because it's all places no one else wants to do the work. Human work is actually really cheap. AI work is actually really expensive. So it doesn't make sense for businesses to use AI unless they don't have another option. And if people want to do the work, they're going to let you do the work.

SPEAKER_02

Explain why that is, because I think a lot of people, when they just heard what you just said, that AI is expensive and people are cheap, they might have thought it was the opposite.

SPEAKER_01

It's you you really do think it's it's the opposite until you start looking at how much the data centers cost, how much these the servers cost, how much the tokens that you're using in AI cost. Um there was an article that there's a a startup that I was reading about, and they're they're worth about $10 million. They're spending almost a million dollars a month on AI because they don't have their own servers, they don't have their own equipment because it's expensive. Right. And it's it's really simple to hop on your phone and use Chat GPT. Of course, yeah. But you know, that's our version. That's for just individuals. Once you want to scale that up and once we want to add privacy and security, that gets really, really expensive. Sure.

SPEAKER_02

And when you say tokens, for those that might not know what that is, what is where tokens when it comes to AI?

SPEAKER_01

So it's every time you ask a question or you're asking for a response, depending on the depth and accuracy of the response, they charge you tokens. It's basically their their own version of currency. Sure. Uh just to keep track of how much you're utilizing and how much you're costing them.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So that's why when you have Chat GPT, you're clawed or something, you upgrade to a higher package because you're using more tokens. Yes. Correct.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. And and they're wanting the average person to use it so that whenever you go out into industry, you're like, oh, I like using this. My company should pay for it. And then that's where they're making their money is getting the companies on board to say, you know, we're not looking at an individual. We want to have your entire company come on board with 500 people. And then we want to secure it so that no one can see the questions you're asking and the data that you've got. Sure.

SPEAKER_02

Was your master's in computer science of some kind too? Yep. Okay. So when you were going through that, I think a lot of people don't realize like how long AI has been around. Some of the applications that people use now are more recent, but AI in general has been around for much longer. So is that part of your curriculum that you were going through?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I took an introduction to AI class. We we learned how to build AI agents that solve problems. That's essentially all we've been doing with programming for a very long time is mimicking intelligence. And we still don't have a general AI, something that you can just go and it can solve any type of problem like a human can, where you know, a human can walk up and look at a situation and piece together things that have no relevance to the actual problem, but all those things help solve the problem. Right. We don't have an AI that can do that yet. When we get there, that's going to change some things. Sure. But that is the direction that we're heading, and that's like the holy grail is you have this one AI agent that you can talk to about anything and everything, and it's absolutely specialized in all areas.

SPEAKER_02

There are any uh companies out there that are getting close?

SPEAKER_01

They're they're all trying. Yeah, every one of them is pushing for it because the first one to do it is going to be the one that really breaks through. And like right now, you open up Chat GPT and you say, Oh, I want to generate a picture. Well, you have to go select a drop-down that says, I want to use picture generation because you're using different AI models to do specific things. And if they finally get to one that does everything, they're gonna be ahead of the game.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Do you have a favorite for personal use, whether it's chat GPT, Claude, whatever? Uh I use a little bit of all of them. And I I like to have them compete against each other because they they all use their own reasoning. Everything that we're doing right now is just statistics. And you ask it a question and it's ranking the probability of whether or not you'll like an answer or not, and then it gives you the one that has the highest probability. Basically, our AI right now is a kid, and you're standing there with a lollipop and you ask it a question, it doesn't care if the answer is right. It's trying to give you an answer to get the lollipop.

SPEAKER_02

Gotcha. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And it it doesn't matter if the answer is grounded in reality. And some AIs lean more towards reality, some lean more towards getting that candy. Okay. All right. Do certain ones do better at different tasks?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Whether it's writing or creating the images and all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. There are some that have been specialized in to do very specific things. Department of Defense just had one test out their security systems, and our security systems failed miserably. Oh no. It was it actually gained access to almost every single system that they had it attack. Really? And it was in a very well-regulated test environment. Sure, sure. But it was extremely shocking at how quickly it was able to get away. That's what I was gonna ask. Do you have like a time frame on the I didn't see the uh the details of the article because the article that I read was like a hundred and something pages and I I was skimming. Yeah, because that wouldn't be any good.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, able to break in in about 15 seconds.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and and we've been doing this for quite a while. Right. I think it was 2016 or 2017. I went to a conference in Las Vegas called Black Hat. Uh and then there's also DEF CON. And at DEF CON they had server racks on the stage and had a simulated system, and you had to have your automated system break into their system. And they were doing it in seconds. Wow. And they were finding vulnerabilities that the people that built the the game didn't even know were there. And they were the the teams were actually the the purpose was to break in and then document how you broke in. Well, one of the AIs, they even went further and said, I broke in, I documented how I broke in and I fixed it. Wow. So that no one else can come in behind me. And they were doing this 10 and 12 years ago without a problem.

SPEAKER_02

Uh-huh. Yeah, no, it's it's crazy. Just because it's become more prevalent now and there's these more individual applications that people use, I think they fail to realize how long this stuff has been actually around.

SPEAKER_01

And this has been around since before I was even born. Yeah. That was this was the holy grail when computers were thought of. Right. We we came up with a tearing test a very long time ago to determine if a computer could be detected as a person. And passing the tearing test was one of the first hurdles is can you make a computer talk to me in text? And I can't tell that it was a computer. Right. That was one of the very first litmus tests that we did, and we passed that a very, very long time ago.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So what are some of the applications that maybe larger companies utilize AI for?

SPEAKER_01

Solving the tedious problems, the things that no one wants to do. The the I have to click 27 times to get this process done. Right. And then figuring out how to make that process quicker and better and easier. That's one the where the companies that are really making the money are making those changes. They're not saying I need to solve this problem. It's I need to solve this problem in a better and more efficient way so that even if we do go back to using humans for everything, the process has been streamlined because we now have this AI agent that's looking at everything we're doing and analyzing everything.

SPEAKER_02

A lot of the companies now are using the AI voice agents and everything now, too. They it used to be where you could absolutely tell, but some of them have gotten pretty darn good.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Yes, they have. Absolutely. Because they think they stutter on purpose. Yeah. They're a computer, they don't need to stutter, but people do. We have filler words and they've programmed that in to make it more human. Wow.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

One of the software programs that I use, they are really good with the voice agents, and I'll call it occasionally just because I want to see how good they've gotten. So I'll try to test it and go different routes, and it's it's gotten it every single time. Yeah. Every one of them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they are they are very, very good. And the more you use it, the better they get.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. How far are we out from it just being able to code out anything? And there's really not a whole lot of manual coding anymore. Depending on who you talk to, we're already there. That's what I was gonna add. Feeling like pretty darn close, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. There, there's a couple key industries that drive a lot of what we do when it comes to computer science. Video games is one of them. Video games is a a trillion dollar industry. And I GTA 6 just released, and they're hoping within 24 hours their pre-sales hit a billion dollars. So that it's it's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And a lot of them are using AI for almost everything because it it just speeds the process up. Because in an industry that's moving that quickly and there's so much money, it's not about can you make the best game? It's can you produce something that gets people's attention for long enough for them to buy it and then move on? Right. Because everyone nowadays there we have such an attention issue where we want to jump from one thing to the next that you're not playing video games for hundreds of hours anymore. Right. It's I'm going to buy this thing, I'm going to spend three or four hours, and then I'm going to move on. Right. And there's some games like GTA 6 that people will spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on. And that's where the AI really comes in because they can say, we have someone that's going to be looking at every nook and cranny in this game. We need to make sure it's perfect. Back when I was growing up, they had game testers. They would they would mail you a game and say, test this game, and they would give you a checklist. You would have to like run into corners, like play the game. And you weren't actually there to play the game. You were just taking your character running into walls, making sure that the walls were actually there and making sure that there were solid objects. Right. You didn't go through a go through a wall inadvertently. And we used to have to do that manually because back in the day, they'd burn it on a disc or put it on a cartridge, and there was no updates. There was no fixing something once they found out it was broke. So we had to do it manually. And now there's none of that. Wow. That's pretty cool though. It's revolutionized that industry and filmmaking and everything else is soon to follow.

SPEAKER_02

So you've been at UIS for a while now. How has that changed your computer science curriculum?

SPEAKER_01

We are constantly going through and trying to figure out how we can better serve our students and how we can and better prepare them for the future that's to come. Right. Um one of the hard things about higher education is uh my old boss told me that we can't just have sight, we have to have vision. And sight is seeing what's in front of you, vision is seen what's around the corner. And if all we're doing is dealing with what's right in front of us, we're behind and we're not preparing the students for what's to come. And UIS has been very good about trying to look around the corner and see what's coming and be adaptive. And our computer science program is no exception to that. We've we've made AI courses, we've been in data analytics and big data for a very long time. We're transitioning a lot more into AI and cybersecurity because those are the two biggest things that we have to worry about now, keeping our data safe because data is the number one currency in the world. So you have to have good cybersecurity to keep all of that safe. And then once you have the data, you have to be able to do something with it, and that's where AI comes in.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So what are some basics for folks that might not be tech savvy out there, might not know much about cybersecurity? So you've got AI that can, like you talked a minute ago, crack into anything pretty, pretty darn quick. What are some basics that that companies have to do to make sure all their data is safe?

SPEAKER_01

The number one thing is change passwords. I know people hate it, and because they they ask you for passwords that have capital letters, lowercase letters, maybe a 16-digit password, right? So the the issue that humans have is we are very simple creatures and we don't like long passwords. Well, a long password is actually the best password. Length matters more than anything. Years ago, back when I was a student, we could crack a 14-character password, no matter what characters you used, in under like two hours. And you bump that up from 14 characters to 17, it would take us like two years. Oh wow. Just for three more characters. Just for three more characters, because you have to think every character adds the option of every number, every letter, every special character. Right. That you then have to try. And because when we crack passwords, we brute force. And now with AI, we don't brute force as much because we know that passwords were made by humans and they're not going to have 27 random symbols. They'll have their dog's name or the place they grew up or a favorite word or something like that. Right. So AI starts targeting passwords a lot better. And that's how they're able to get in a lot quicker.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So does it actually go through, hey, this person had an old dog you can't compete.

SPEAKER_01

And so yep. So so there are AI tools that do that. They look you up on social media and and find all the things about you and and try and guess your passwords based on the information you have, then there's other ones that just brute force it. Right. The average person like me and you, most most of these hackers don't care about our information. Right. We're not where the money's at. But if they can get our information that then leverage that into getting into somewhere else, then that can turn into something pretty important for them.

SPEAKER_02

Of course. So when you say brute force and you're talking about all those different characters there, how does it actually work? If say if if that brute force attack, what is actually happening?

SPEAKER_01

So uh if you log into a website and it says, hey, you need a a seven to ten character password, and it needs to include this, this, this, and this. What it's gonna do is you start off and you say, okay, you need seven characters. So I'm gonna start with all A's. And then I'm gonna try six A's and one B, and then five A's, two Bs, four A's, three B's, and cycle through every possible combination. Imagine your garage door code, right? You you walk up to your garage door, you got a pin pad, it's four digits. You can get into that eventually, right? Zero, zero, zero, zero, enter. That didn't work. Add one to it. Try it again. Keep going. Eventually, you're going to get it. That's what brute forcing is trying every possible password until you find the right one.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. And is that just a is that a software program that runs? Yes. For people that are out there that might not know anything about this. That's a software program that runs and it just goes.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And it's trying it thousands, if not millions, of times a second. That's why, like Windows now, if you mistype your password, it hesitates and it waits and waits and waits, and then it tells you incorrect password. It knew immediately. Right. But it's slowing it down so that even if it's being done automatically, there's a delay. Okay. So if someone is going To brute force it, it's going to take them quite a while.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So they are increasing the time four or five fold or whatever it could be just to prevent some of that brute force attack. Okay. I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_01

That's pretty cool. That's why there's that big delay when you mistype your password that you're like, okay, I know I mistyped it. Just let me retype it.

SPEAKER_02

So next time when I'm frustrated that I I know I did that and it's just taking forever. That's why. Yeah. All right. So so I know you guys have a cool new program starting that's aligned to some of this other stuff you're doing, but also adding some other things. The U of I Champaign, of course, is known for a phenomenal engineering program, but you're bringing some of that right here to Springfield, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So we're we're not looking to compete with Champagne. We're looking to complement them. Yeah. So what we did was we looked at our specific region because at the UIS, we're a regional public university and we need to look at the students that we want to serve in the community that we want to serve. And we did some sampling, we talked to some businesses, figured out what problems they were having. And everyone around here can hire professional engineers, people at the top of their game that have gone to Champaign or Chicago or Purdue or Michigan and got their master's degree. They've got their state licensure. They can hire those people. They can also hire the technicians, the people that come out of two-year schools or trade schools. We've got a lot of amazing trade schools and a lot of amazing community colleges that are giving two-year degrees, but then that leaves this pretty large gap right in the middle. And that's what our area is experiencing. Here, there's a lot of companies that are paying for these professional engineers and having them do work that's below their title because they can't get anyone else because of how large that gap is. So we looked, we did a lot of research and analysis and figured out that what we can offer is an engineering technology degree. And this engineering technology degree is getting students into engineering, but without quite as much math. The rigor is still there. It's just the math isn't as formalized. The the approach that we're taking is different than higher education is used to. Higher education, they they use what I call just in case. So if you're going to go into engineering, they say you might need the calc one, calc two, calc three, all of this abstract math. And what we're doing is we're doing what's called just in time. So we talk with the employer and say, hey, if the student's working for you, what math do they need to know? And when are they going to need to know it? So if they're in the field working, we say, okay, you're going to need to understand how this concept works in three months. So we build a curriculum that says in three months, you're going to get to that point. So we're going to teach you the theory. We're going to go through the lab simulations, the well-curated experiments, and then you're going to implement it out in the field. So you're learning it just before you use it instead of learning it and then hoping that you can recall it at some point later. Seven years down the road when you might need to use it or something. And another thing that we're really focusing on is we're using what's called a work-based learning model. So this again flips a little bit of what we do in higher education on its head. And we're learning from those trade schools and community colleges where the students need hands-on work. Right. No one wants to hire someone that in theory knows how to do something but has never actually done it. And that's where higher education, so many people have said, my degree is useless because they learned in theory how something works, but nothing ever in the real world works how it does in theory. That's just life. Yeah. It's the way it is. So our degree, we're looking at being extremely transfer friendly because I told you my experiences going from Lincoln Land over to UIS. My transfer experience was not great. I did not have a bunch of money growing up. My parents were not well off. And I ended up backtracking and had to spend a bunch of extra money because the transfer process wasn't transparent. It wasn't built for a kid like me. Right. And that's one of the huge focuses I'm having is making sure that every student that transfers in has minimal backtracking, if any. We're trying to get it to zero, but sure. Again, that's in theory. Right. So transfers in or a freshman coming into college will accept anyone, even the lifelong career learners. We'll accept them, give them credit for what we possibly can, and then get them moving on. The idea with our degree, though, is you spend the first two years, wherever you're at, doing the general education, getting the foundations, understanding how engineering in general works. And then we put you into a work-based placement. So kind of like the old school apprenticeships where we make sure that you're a well-rounded individual and you can do the basics. And then we put you out in the field and you're learning from someone who does this every single day. You're learning from the professionals, not from someone who can tell you how it works in a textbook. So valuable. So valuable. And then at the end of our degree, you're going to have two years of work experience and a four-year degree. And that two years of work experience is paid for your degree. Come on. So the students in this region, I think, are really going to benefit from the approach that we're taking because we're removing as many of these barriers as possible. Right. Everyone that looks at college, they worry about two things. How long is it going to take me? How much is it going to cost me? And we're reducing the amount of time that it takes you because we're putting you out in the workforce and we're overlapping your experience in the workforce with what you're doing in the classroom. Right. So you're not spending 40 hours at work and then spending 40 hours a week in school. We're overlapping it as much as possible. And then we're also making sure that you get paid for it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

No, I love that. And that's, I mean, that takes away, you know, like you talked a minute ago, at the end, a lot of times people they have the piece of paper, but no experience to back anything up. Yep. With this, they've got both. Absolutely. They've got the degree plus the experience in the field. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And at UIS, you know, we we really focus on our rural community. We have the Prairie Promise to where if you qualify for the map grant, the university will pick up the rest of your dab. So that a lot of the students from this area can actually go to the university for free. That's huge. I'm not sure that a lot of people know about that. No, no, a lot of people do not. And it's really easy. You call our registration office and they'll walk you through the whole process. We have an amazing team there. And their goal is to get you into the university for free. Right. That's what they want because we're still getting paid as a university, so we're not losing money. And it helps our community the most if we can get you in there and have someone else foot the bill.

SPEAKER_02

No doubt about it. No, that is phenomenal. When you were talking about going to companies and kind of gauging that need, doing the needs assessment in the community, what were some of the companies that could potentially benefit from something like this? Where could some of these folks work?

SPEAKER_01

Every single place we've talked to. Good. So obviously we're in Springfield. So every state agency we've talked to, DNR, CMS, IDOT, every every state agency says we need to fill the ranks. We need people. And what they're struggling with is they need people that want to be in or around Springfield. And the communities that we're looking at serving are the place-bound students, the ones that grew up in small town USA that didn't have never thought about leaving and going to a big city, right? The need to stay close to home for a multitude of reasons. And those are the ones that stay here for life. And that's what we need. We need to grow talent here and we need to invest in the people that want to stay here and want to be here. And there's great jobs, there's great opportunities, but there's a disconnect between the potential student and those opportunities. And we're looking at bridging that gap. I love it. But we've talked with almost every engineering firm that is in the phone book and working with consulting firms, everyone, construction companies here in town, we're working with them as well because everyone needs an engineer. It's they may not need it in title, but they need it in practice. They need someone that can solve problems and think critically. And that's what we're really producing.

SPEAKER_02

Well, this is huge for the community. So when does it all kick off?

SPEAKER_01

So we are official now, and we we made it through IBHE, which is one of our big accrediting bodies that make sure that you know we've we're offering a degree that's worthwhile and potentially monetarily viable.

SPEAKER_02

And IBHE, just for folks that don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Illinois Board of Higher Education. And so they approved us actually last week, and our degree is going to start fall of 27. But we are looking at getting students starting now so that we can get some of those introductory courses out of the way so that once we go live, they can roll straight into the program. Phenomenal. That's gonna be great. I I sure hope so. Oh, we've this has been a long time coming. I've got a lot of great support behind me. My dean, Travis Bland, he's absolutely amazing. He's the dean at UIS from over my college, which is the College of Health Science and Technology. And we have really been following his lead on how to transform UIS and what we're known for. Because if you ask people around here, what is UIS known for? Yeah, you might not get much of an answer, really. Sometimes the answer is what's UIS? And that's a problem considering we are the four-year university in Springfield.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's just we're not downtown. Springfield's not a university town. So with us being off campus, it's it's easy for people to overlook us. And we're making sure that that's no longer an option.

SPEAKER_02

Right. So in all your years at UIS, whether it's in computer science or whatever, you've had any big student success stories that have gone on and done big things that you know, built companies, whatever.

SPEAKER_01

So we've got quite a few that have started their own companies. We've had students come through that have paid for their schooling based on what they were doing. We've got a couple that work at like Roblox. We've got some that work at Google, some that work at SpaceX. I had a student last spring that was like, hey, I can't take my midterm because I'm going to be in Houston launching rockets. I was like, yeah, okay. We can work that. We'll work something out. I was like, I'm gonna need like a letter from your boss. Well, I got one. And I was like, yeah, no, absolutely. Go fire that rocket. There you go. You can have an extension on this because he was in the secure room that once they get to site, they can't have outside communication because everything is that secure there. They they have no internet, they have no access to the outside world. And he was one of those people. So cool. We've got people that are high up at Microsoft and Google and Tesla. We've got them all over UIS, even though we are a small campus, we have a huge footprint. Right.

SPEAKER_02

You guys have had a strong computer science program for a while. This engineering is is phenomenal, but the computer science side, you've always been known for your computer science in recent years, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Since about 2010, uh, we were the computer science department has been about 20 to 25 percent of the entire university, which is pretty big. We averaged between nine and twelve hundred students. And there for a while, we got up to like fourteen and fifteen hundred back when immigration laws were a little bit easier and visas were handed out a little more freely. Sure. But we've still got a strong cohort of students and we are consistently the largest department on campus.

SPEAKER_02

No, I always love hearing the stories of what people either from Springfield or are here in Springfield are doing nationwide around the world, and like all those companies that you mentioned at high-level positions in these from people that went to school right here in Springfield or from right here in Springfield is just cool. Absolutely hearing that.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And I love the ones that come back and reinvest, that move their companies back here and have their headquarters here. And people always ask, why Springfield? Why not? Why not? Yeah, why not? It it's a perfect town if you want to have peace and quiet, but still have the opportunities of a big city. We we've got all the hustle and bustle. We're downtown right now. You can hear trucks and cars outside. And it's wonderful if you want it to be. And if you don't like that, don't be downtown. You've got plenty of other options. It's not like a big city where that's all you get is big city. Springfield gives you quite a bit of every option. And it it really is kind of like UIS, where you get out of it what you put into it. Right. If you want something in Springfield, it's here. You just have to look for it, you have to find it, and it'll be exactly what you want it to be.

SPEAKER_02

Love it. So you have a maybe it's a hidden gym. Maybe more people know about it than I think, but you've got a pretty cool lab that you operate that is a blend of, I guess, computer science and some engineering and all the stuff, right? You've got the Orion lab that you run there on campus. Tell us a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So one thing that I did a few years ago was look around campus. I was actually trying to find a 3D printer and talk to some people, and they're like, oh, so-and-so has one, and so does so-and-so. So I started walking around and I ended up finding almost 30 3D printers on campus. Right. But they were all locked in people's offices. And at that time, I was running a robotics lab, and my lab was very exclusive. You had to be a computer science major interested in robotics and be willing to donate 100 hours of your time every spring semester. Sure. So that brought our 5,000 students on campus down to about five that were interested. And when COVID hit, this is when I was looking for 3D printers. I had the opportunity to really reassess what I was doing. And I wanted to take a completely different approach. And instead of making it exclusive, I wanted it to be as inclusive as possible. So a few key things, I wanted everything there to be free. And I wanted to utilize every resource on campus I possibly could. So I started going around and asking people, not can I use your 3D printer? Can I have it? Right. And the people that I couldn't get a hold of, I would take it and leave a note that says, your 3D printer is now in this place. If you need it, let me know. I'll bring it back. No problem. If you just want to use it, come use it and I'll maintain it. I'll make sure that all the software is updated, everything works perfectly. But it's in this lab for everyone to use. I'm guessing nobody said bring my 3D printer back. Not a single person. And it started with the 3D printers. We're up to, I think we're at 19 3D printers now that are housed in the lab. And then we started branching out because I started noticing more and more technology and resources just sitting there going to waste. So we have servers that we let people run AI models on and programs. We have Bitcoin miners that we let students come in and play with. We've got high performance computing. So basically game stations that students can come in and utilize. We've got our robotics. We've got wide format printers that were sitting around campus that people weren't utilizing. Basically, any resource that was on campus that people weren't utilizing. I brought it to my lab and said, it's here and it's free for anyone and everyone. So you don't even have to be a member of the university, just a person. Yeah. Come in and utilize it, and I will never charge you a dime.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I brought a group of younger kids there one time and they had a blast.

SPEAKER_01

It was it was awesome. Yeah. And that's actually what led into engineering. That was the first step for this whole engineering program. As you know, I started at Orion Lab and then I started with Innovate Springfield, our tech X program over at CACC for these juniors and seniors, getting them into engineering.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And what's cool about that, you're talking about the credit, not having to go back. And how much credit are you able to offer those high school students?

SPEAKER_01

So last year we we gave them nine college credits for free. So that's a roughly one full semester. Um we're wanting to bump that up. And we we had to go through proof of concept, everything at the state agency, which UIS is state agency, right? Policies and procedures. Oh, yeah. So we had to to give the proof of concept to make sure that this was something viable. And the university's wholly on board. Our our chancellor is behind me 100%, and so is our provost and my dean. So we're gonna be trying to expand that up to 30 credits for my students that come through through two years. So that's huge. That's 25% of your college, absolutely free and taken care of before you graduate high school. Right. And it that's gonna be massive.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it creates a great pipeline into the into that program.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, and and we're expanding it out to five different technical centers in the area. And then I'm hoping to get to between 20 and 30 within the next year. Oh, heck yeah. We don't want to disrupt what you're doing with community colleges. We don't want to disrupt anything that you're already having place. What we want to do is we want to add to it and let these students know there's opportunities. And that so many times I talk to a high school advisor and I'm like, have you considered sending these kids to CACC or somewhere else? And they say, no, they want to go to college. So we don't want to send them to the technical center. Like you're hurting them.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Because we have opportunities at technical centers. The we have these partnerships where they're actually have a much higher chance of success and a much bigger advantage if you take this path. And that's where we're looking at stepping in is creating pathway coordinators that go out to all of these technical centers in every high school in the region saying, here's a possible pathway that you can utilize, and here's how much it's going to save you in both time and money. It's huge. Massive opportunity. Massive opportunity. And I've been at the top of my little mountain screaming it as loud as possible. And it it hasn't been enough. So we're making it bigger and giving me a megaphone so that we can reach more people.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Hey, I'll go out there with a megaphone with you. Double team there, there we go. Let's do it. Get after it. So those 3D printers that you're talking about, a lot of that is rapid prototyping. So, how is that utilized in industry?

SPEAKER_01

So rapid prototyping is everywhere. That's what AI is in software engineering is let's build this concept. Let's let's work on a proof of concept to make sure that the thing that we're doing is viable. And with rapid prototyping, you can do that in-house now. So if you are a company that's trying to build something, instead of designing it and sending it through the whole process and then sending it off somewhere to get it produced, get your one-off back to go, oh, we need to make this small change. Right. We need to do this. And that's a multi-week, if not month, process. Instead, you design it, you you print it on your printer, you go to lunch and come back, and you you have a product in hand. So then you can make your tweaks and say, in theory, this worked, but in practice, this hole was a sixteenth of an inch off, or it doesn't feel right in your hand. You know, that's a big thing. It's, you know, if you're making something that someone wants to hold or interact with, it needs to feel right. Right. And designing something online, it's really, really hard to find out if it feels right. Right. And if you can print it and you can get it in your hand, you can go, you know, I I really don't like the way that this is contoured. It needs to be contoured slightly differently because the way your hand sits and being able to do that and go through that very quickly. Normally we can get through that type of iteration multiple times in a week, where if you were using the traditional manufacturing process, you're six months out to get through that same process. So we're making it really fast and really cost effective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's so cool. Cause I think a lot of people, when they think 3D printers, they might just, oh, making little trinkets, you know, making the little things.

SPEAKER_01

I make so many of them. Right. But that's what gets you hooked. Yeah. And then you start, you know, people always ask, well, what can you make with it? I'm like, well, what can't I make? If you imagine it and you tell me what you want, we can make it. It may not be the quality that you need for something that's going to have heavy use, but we can do the proof of concept and we can get it really, really close. And then you can go out in industry and go to a manufacturer and say, I need this mass-produced. Right.

SPEAKER_02

Love it. Well, so much cool stuff on the computer science and engineering side. Let's flip over to the personalist side a little bit. Anything you do to elevate your life personally?

SPEAKER_01

All the time. I try. Uh, so I drag race. I do a little bit of the exact opposite of what you would think of a computer scientist, is I I go out and try and go as fast as I can. And with the racing that I do, it's all about consistency. And engineering plays a huge role in that. So it's it's kind of full circle. You just have to search for it. Sure. So with the the drag racing and building race cars and classic cars and golf and video games, I'm kind of all over the place. But everything that I'm doing, I'm trying to make sure that I'm building towards that better future and building towards a future that I want my kids to be proud of and something that's gonna last. And everything that I'm doing is is for that purpose. And that goes all the way back to the engineering program. I want my student, my kids, my my two kids, I want them to go to UIS. And the only way that's gonna happen is if UIS is good enough to stand the test of time. Right. And that's how I tried to look at everything that I'm doing. Is what I'm doing for the greater good of my goals? If it is, let's do it. If not, we need to cut it out. Come on.

SPEAKER_02

Josh Smith spitting some fire here. Let's go. So you said you race, but you also build the cars. Yes. You're part of the build too.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So with drag racing, it's it's insanely expensive. I'm a teacher, so I can't just send my cars off and have them built. Right. So, like, we'll have the chassis built by a professional because that's safety. I don't want to do that myself because they're certified. We've got certified welding instructors, CWIs, that some of them have actually gone through the CACC program. So they build the chassis, and then I take it from there. I wire the car, I assemble the car, I make sure that everything is up to spec, and then we go get it inspected. We build our own motors and we do everything. Yeah. And it's just me and my dad. Love it.

SPEAKER_02

So cool. Well, Josh, so much great stuff today. I like to close with these last couple of things. Let's give the audience a piece of advice. One on the personal side, one on the professional side to help them elevate their life or business.

SPEAKER_01

I'll give you one that'll cover both. Go for it. Stay curious. Question why things work and how they work. Not just go out and use things. Look at things and go, how? Why do we need this? You know, why, why does it take them six months to redo a bridge? Think of the process. And then you'll start to appreciate everything around you. And once you start doing that, you'll look for the things that you're appreciative of. Like, oh, I'm really thankful that the storms that came through, those signs that hang over the overpass didn't blow over. Right. Why didn't they blow over? You know, why didn't we lose all of our stoplights in town, even though they're only mounted on one side and come up and hang over and they bounce like crazy in the air? Why didn't they fall down? What went behind that? Ask those questions and you'll start to appreciate all the things around you instead of just looking for the negatives. Because if you start focusing on the positives, nothing but positive things are going to happen.

SPEAKER_02

Come on. And is there anything we can do community wide to help all of us here elevate Springfield and the surrounding communities?

SPEAKER_01

Be passionate. That's it. Just if if there's something about Springfield that you love or we're talking The community that you're from, be passionate about it. Tell people about it. Love it. And let people know that you love it. Because if they see your passion, passion is like a little fire. It spreads. And it you can be passionate about the most ridiculous thing. Like whenever when I was growing up, we had in Riverton, we had three different parks we could go to. One of them, the grass, was the smoothest and nicest grass. And as a kid, running around barefoot. I was so passionate about that grass. People be like, hey, you want to go to the park? Yeah, but I'm not going to the one by your house. I want to go to the one over here. We're going to the good grass. I'm kicking off my shoes and I'm running barefoot because that's what kids do and it feels better. And I was passionate about that. And finding that and getting that almost childlike giddiness about things makes everything so much better. Like you find a coffee shop that you love here downtown, tell everyone, buy them coffee. Say, I hey, I know it's out of your way, but here's a cup of coffee. I went and got one for you because it's that good. And we do that, and that that will elevate Springfield beyond belief.

SPEAKER_02

There we go. Well, we're passionate about Springfield on this show. So that's what we're going to continue to try to do every single day. Well, Josh, appreciate your spending some time with me. If somebody wants to check out more of what you're doing, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01

Uis.edu. So that's the number one place to start. Our engineering program is all over the front page. If you just google uis.edu and Josh Smith, you'll find me. I'm all over. I've got articles everywhere about everything that I'm doing. My email is J S M I T, the number six, and that's at UIS.edu. So that's the hands down the best way of getting a hold of me. Awesome. Well, thanks again for stopping by today. Not a problem. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02

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SPEAKER_00

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