B (2:16)

It sounds like a little dog. Should we tease him? It sounds like a little dog. Is it a little dog, Pedro, do you know?

C (2:22)

I think it's a little one. Yeah, I think it's a little one.

B (2:25)

I think it sounds like. Sounds like a little yappy dog. Is a little yappy dog. It is.

A (2:30)

It is a toy poodle. So it's like a toy.

B (2:32)

A toy poodle? Yeah, I was gonna say I have one of those, too, so. Yeah. All right, let's start over. That's no big deal. Okay. Antonio, Pedro, welcome to the show.

A (2:44)

Hey, darl. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

B (2:48)

Hey, this is take two, and we're going to tease Antonio a little bit about his little yappy dog. But we'll do that later. But today we're going to talk about AI and education. I'm really excited about this subject. It'll be a lot of fun. But before we kick in to what you guys have done in Miami Dade, now, let's talk about.

B (3:09)

You guys. And everyone knows that listens to my show. I only have superheroes on the show. And every superhero has a background story. So, Antonio, let's start with you. What's your background story?

A (3:20)

Well, my background is a passionate person coming from Cuba, just passionate about technology. And I discover later on that being an immigrant, you know, having a passion for technology, and then combining that with education, that was a really good mix to create opportunities. So that opportunity, that experience on technology, when you bring through education and create pathways to prosperity by just preparing people with the right skills, that's really super powerful to create new job opportunities, new pathways to prosperity at large. So my background is really as a technologist that landed in education and is now creating pathways for many people in the nation.

B (4:07)

I think. I think that's awesome, Antonio. Helping others, right? I mean, that's. That's what education's really about. All right, Pedro, what about you? What's your. Your superhero background story?

C (4:19)

So, Darwin, believe it or not, maybe this is a Batman and Robin type of show because I. I shared many of the things that Antonio shared with you. So again, I came from Cuba as well as Antonio. I did my bachelor's in Cuba in it. I'm a technologist as well. And I came to look for a better life for me and my family and landed some way somehow after many.

C (4:46)

Side jobs, I landed at Miami Dade doing it. I did it for a number of years, and then I transitioned to the academic side of the. The institution in when I was leading one of the departments in one of the campuses. But then having done it, background, always innovation and always being on the forefront of supporting others. And throughout the help that I was providing people, I noticed that there are many ways to connect with different organizations and different companies around Miami and around the world to support those that wanted to do, to empower our community and to support those that want to move up in their careers creating those connections. So now, similar to Antonio's is the work that we do. Our superpower is empower people to achieve what they want to do through the connections that we are doing, creating day in and day out and for people like yourself and people that we know in. In our operations. That's what we do. We connect the dots and we make sure that everyone that wants to get an education of quality and wants to get into a position in where they can support their families, that they can achieve that.

B (6:07)

I really love your guys passion towards this, empowering the community.

B (6:13)

You've seen a lot change. It's been.

B (6:17)

It'S the three year anniversary next week of Chad GBT, November 30, 2022. A day of, a day of profoundness, right? We'll look back 10 years and go, do you remember November 30, 2022? And people go, yeah, yeah. That was the launch of AI. That was the birth of AI. We know because we've been in AI longer than that. It's been around for a lot longer than that. But that completely changed everything. How has that changed education? We'll start with Pedro. How, how do you feel that that generative AI has really changed education? Have you seen a huge uptick in people interested or, or using it? Or is there still a lot of fear around that?

C (7:04)

No, we, we, we have, we have seen all of what you just mentioned, Darren. So we have seen many people that especially professional that they see this trend common and they jump into that boat right away. So I'm not going to give you a little bit of background of what we did when we first opened the degrees at Miami, dating AI and applied AI. We. I remember being in a room, Antonio and I, we weren't getting the room ready for the first open house and we were expecting 30 people and suddenly 120 people showed up to that session.

B (7:37)

Now when was this? How long ago was this?

C (7:40)

That was June 2023.

A (7:43)

Oh wow.

C (7:44)

That was June 2023. And then we have created and opened the doors for many to be able to embrace the use of AI and to explore AI and really a really affordable price. Many of the things that we do uncovered by some of the connections and tuitions and grants that we receive and we have seen those that have the field, but we have enabled the mechanism for them to access the content, for them to access the platforms, to learn about AI. And when it comes to education, it has changed the way that we see the pedagogy, the way that we teach, the way that the students interact with the faculty and in the pre recorded conversation with you, you yourself, you are attracting those type of things. So in our cases we are, we've seen the transformation, but most importantly we are contributing to our transformation. Providing resources to the faculty, to the staff, to the people that have wanted to do it because we want to empower them to being able to make that implementation a successful one.

B (9:00)

Foreign.

B (9:07)

That June thing kickoff started.

B (9:12)

What were most of the people there to learn? Was it to learn what is AI, how to use it or how to create AI, because to me those are two kind of different aspects that I'm seeing in education. What would you say was most people's desire? Why, why do, why do you have 130 people? That's a big showing.

A (9:35)

So I will say that Even beyond the three year anniversary of ChatGPT coming to the public, it goes back to our approach to AI education. Before that, like as you said, AI has been there for, for a while, for many years, but from an education perspective it was only at the university level, you know, graduate level, PhD, master's degree, you know, and a research perspective more than anything. And we have, we at Miami College, we're working already on since 2020, 2021, we were thinking about, you know.

A (10:11)

How can we teach AI in a different way that you didn't need to have all these prerequisites as advanced, you know, statistics or, or linear algebra or even calculus 3 to start getting into AI? How can we do it in a way that is accessible to everyone? How can we create a program that is thinking about the applications of AI and about upskilling and reskilling people instead of saying you need to go for a PhD in AI to really be able to work on AI? So what happened is we went to industry, we went to experts, many of them from intel, we had a couple of them from, you know, from the education side at intel, but also from the implementation of AI and, and we got feedback like when you are hiring for AI positions that you're not looking for AI engineer, you're looking for skills, particular skills, like what do you need? And we got the knowledge, skills and abilities required to really be able to work in AI and, and we created a unique degree that didn't exist in the nation at that time. So basically when ChatGPT happened, going back to the story of three years ago, we already had a degree that was in the state of Florida under approval. And when the state saw what's happening, they approved our program. And suddenly.

A (11:30)

The moment that people didn't use ChatGPT on the first day necessarily, they started learning about it in December, January and there you go. Same month that we announced, the state of Florida approved the first associate and bachelor's degree as an undergraduate level degree at Miami Dade College. And it's an applied AI degree. And guess what? You don't need prerequisites to come. Anyone can come and learn about AI and sport building. So we launched the right program at the right time and I promise that we were not in contact with ChatGPT on the, on the launch. But that goes back to your question when, when you ask about why people came when we were doing this and why they show by hundreds. Because we created the right program at the right time without knowing that this was happening necessarily as generative AI or LLMs or the application. We were thinking only on upskilling people at scale, creating pathway into the future where the future. We saw the applications of AI and we happened to create the program without necessarily understanding the future of ChatGPT. We just had the right program at the right time. And those hundred people that came in June to learn about what we were doing, that's Nothing. We had 750 people going through the program on its first year. Like you never see a brand new program with 750 people. The second year of US offering these courses and programs, we doubled the number to 1500. We are in the third year now as a full academic year and just in this fall semester, we already have 1400 people. So that means that we're going to double again by the end of this academic year. And, and it's because, going back to your question is everyone now is desperate, not only the high school student that is going to go to college and they're going to get a degree. Everyone working professionals, business owners, doesn't matter your industry, your profession, you, you know that you have to learn AI. It's not that you're going to lose your job to AI. You're going to lose your job to someone that knows AI. That's.

B (13:30)

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with you there. So I, my, my biggest question I have for both of you is what stocks should I pick? Because you guys predicted the future really well. So this was, this is really awesome. But on a more serious note, you guys found an interesting niche which was how do I leverage AI to get my work done instead of how do I create AI, which. That's very complex math. We, we know that. Right. That's very complex stuff, but that doesn't do anyone any good. So I really love what you guys came up with. Something practical that I can use. Now my next big question is. I know the answer, I think, right? What type of students do you have in this program? Are these people that want to go into the IT world or is it across the board? And where are you seeing unusual uses of AI in from some of your.

C (14:38)

So Darren, to, to your question, you know already the answer. So out of those 2, 500 students that we have had for the last two years, the average age 38 years old, which is non seeing 38, 38, which is not typical for us. When, when you see an institution like us, we, we have, when we have 125,000 students and our median age is maybe 21 is between 18 and 23. And then you have a new degree. When you. When we did the demographics is 38. But more importantly the first year and the second year when we did the demographics, 50% female. Which is not. Yeah, which is something to, to point that out because it's not typical in tech. And we are seeing now we are seeing that people from all over the place is coming. Different industries, different organizations, different backgrounds, different mindsets. They know that they should get into this train and that's just on the academic side. On the credit side, we are also delivering and conducting workshops, community events in one by numbers easily we can reach more than 10,000 every year in our community beyond the academic degrees that we offer. So we have created AI centers at Miami Dade College in where those spaces have become. Became the hub for AI in our communities in Miami. And that's a way that we see right now a transformation and we see the application because those students, because of their experiences then creating applications as they go. I just had a conversation today with one student, Antonio. Another student is actually a person that works for the college in media, Alfonso. He took one of our classes and he created today he showed me guys an application that he created using AI. Then he takes a picture of us and he creates a video doing what you want that person to do based on a picture in less than one minute. That's awesome. And that person took a class and he, Fonso maybe is older than 50 years old. He took one class with us and he's doing something that is so amazing that I saw him as a save that application because I want to show Antonio that application. Amazing, amazing, amazing. And that's one example of many.

B (17:06)

So this goes to people taking your classes then are using this in their day to day work, it sounds like.

C (17:13)

Right?

B (17:13)

Because Mo, I mean average age of 38, these people already have jobs, right? They haven't quit. More than likely they haven't quit their jobs to. To go to be a student full time. Right. Because they have families they gotta support and things like that. Are you seeing a certain industry that is taking advantages more than others? That one's to you, Antonio. What do you. Have you seen anything like that in your demographics?

A (17:38)

So going back to your original question, this is not perceived as a computer science degree or even as a Tech degree. This is an everyone's degree. This is across the board. For as pero said, the average age is about 38 years old. Majority of the participants, when you divide by brackets, the largest percentage is about 41 years old. They are more than 30%. So and combined is two out of three is beyond is above 26 years old. So this tells you that this program is really meeting the needs of working professionals coming back to learn not from one single industry. This is from every single industry. This is from healthcare to real estate, hospitality, finance. Like every student comes from a different background. And actually the magic of this that we didn't predict and this one we didn't know that this will happen is like when you have like minded people that are older, that they have working experience and they have a life of experiences with them and they start connecting with each other on a project that they realize with one class I can create that app. And when we all work together, suddenly hey, we have a startup here. So the level of entrepreneurship that is coming out of the program is incredible because they realize how much they can create with AI and they, they are, they feel like I already have a background, I don't need to go back to my industry. I can come up to something completely new. So again, serving all industries but also creating a brand new type of entrepreneurship market in Miami that we're very excited about.

B (19:14)

It sounds like there's so much energy built up around this. Where do you guys see yourselves going? Where are you guys four years from now?

B (19:25)

Where do you guys see this going four years from now? This whole concept that you guys have built and delivered. I mean it's a four year degree or it's a two year certification. Tell me a little bit more about the program itself, Antonio.

C (19:41)

Because by the way, Antonio, I jumped into the boat the moment that the program was launching. Essentially it was the day that we did the open house. I almost got on board that day. But the one creating that it was Antonio with his team before. So I let Antonio to take this question.

A (20:01)

Well, this is what we call a full stackable credential. And this is why it is so useful for everyone and not just a typical college a student. We have certificates that are three to six courses and you can come in, come out at any point. You don't have many, you know, anyone that is working, you might not be looking for a degree. You're, you might be just looking for the skills that you can apply those skills. You don't care if it's a two year, four year Program, you just care like, how can I come in, get skills and go back to apply those skills? So we, that's why we have the stackable credential portion of ucam.

B (20:35)

Love that idea.

A (20:37)

But then you have a two year program as an associate degree. That's typically what community colleges offer. And then we have the two plus two, which is after the associate you continue into a four year degree. But that's really more into either the students that are looking for a degree. Great. My degree is in applied AI and for those that come to take a couple of courses, what we have seen is that they like learning about AI and they continue. I want to do machine learning, I want to do computer vision and then NLP and applications. And suddenly it's like, hey, can I continue into the bachelor? Not because of the degree, but because of the skill skills that they learn on every single course.

B (21:13)

I love how you emphasize the skills because to me, when I teach, I teach master's level courses at Vanderbilt University and I'm shocked at how few AI skills my students actually have. I would think that they would have a lot more AI skills than they do. And so I double down on the skills that I'm trying to teach them. Not just computer science, because I teach computer science. So not just computer science, but actual AI skills, which are a very different skill BA skill base than just straight up computer science or any other technical degree. It requires critical thinking, it requires the ability to articulate clearly what you want to have happen. So there's, there's a lot of really interesting skills built in there. So I love the approach that you guys have taken with the stacked credentials. I think that's incredible because if people are there because they want to learn something, they're going to learn it from your program instead of just checkbox, you know, a checkbox degree, isn't that what they're called? Right on a checkbox? And hey, I got enough credits, they gave me a degree.

B (22:38)

So tell me, tell me a little bit more about your plans then for the future. Let's, let's go back to that future theme. Where do you guys see what you're doing expanding? And do you see any, any potential threats from other universities picking this up?

A (22:57)

So I will say the opposite. It's not a threat. It's like we're encouraging other universities, in this case, as a community college, we are encouraging and we're helping other community colleges to do what we have done because we believe that the future is about people that know AI. We believe that there is A disruption. And we cannot predict the future definitely on what's going to happen with AI, but we know that it's disrupting everything from entry level jobs to brand new jobs. And the only way to be eligible for those jobs is if you know, it doesn't matter your age. What matters is that you know AI, or at least you mentioned this before, not necessarily an AI engineer to build the model because there is only a few frontier, you know, companies that are doing that in AI is more about how can you, how can you learn about applying AI into whatever you're going to be doing. And not from an AI literacy perspective because that's only a foundation and every single person needs to have AI literacy at this point is more about AI fluency. And that's where we see that community colleges are well positioned to help communities at large. This is not about the 1% that can afford paying for a graduate level degree or getting a loan to make this happen. This is about the other 99% that needs to maintain a job and to maintain their family. So we are encouraging community colleges to follow this route because it's working in Miami and is working on a few colleges already. And that's how we're leveraging the National Applied AI Consortium, an initiative that we created to help community college learn about AI, apply AI, get their faculty trained, receive mentorship, get resources from companies like intel, and then you are set to deliver your own AI program.

B (24:40)

I love how you're reaching out to the other community colleges because you're changing fundamentally now. Because I work at, I work at a four year college, they're actually very scared of what you guys are doing, I'll just be brutally honest with you. Because they don't know how they can adjust to this threat of AI. And you guys are making it easy to use and creating whole new industries in communities that normally the universities have been kind of the forefront of and the keepers of knowledge. Right? I mean these big universities, they thrive in entrepreneurship and things like that. But what we're seeing is extremely disruptive what you guys have done. And I love this National Applied AI Consortium concept because you're taking what you guys have done and spreading it across the nation. So this is, this is incredible stuff you guys are doing. I, I tip my hat to you. I think it's awesome.

A (25:43)

Thank you. But, but let me tell you that this is not possible without partners. Because we're not claiming that we are the experts on AI or applied AI. What we are doing is partnering with the companies like intel that really Made it easy for us to go to follow this pathway. And that's where I feel like community colleges are well connected from an industry and workforce perspective. That is not about the degrees, about skills as we were discussing before. So the moment that we had this three, four years ago, we have this moment of connection with industry experts. Give us the knowledge, skills and abilities, we can transform that into learning outcomes. But then when you go and teach, you have to teach that content as a faculty and you know, as a faculty, like the syllabus, like, how can I teach this? And this is brand new and there are no books to teach this content. You know who was there for us? Intel's AI for Workforce program developed by the digital readiness team at Intel. And it was created specifically as this is a curriculum for anyone that wants to teach, especially in higher education, that wants to teach AI. So at a point that we were like, really like trying to find out how can we find books about these internal books, how can we teach this, how can we create the curriculum? Inco was there to say not only that these are courses developed for AI in very different areas and disciplines or applications of AI, but they created modules that you can take it as a whole, you can take it as individual modules. The labs, everything was built already. What we had to do was just to personalize that to our environment and to make it meaningful. Great. They solved the problem that we had. So for us, that's extremely important. That doesn't matter what happens. For years from now in terms of the evolution of AI, we're not going to be claiming like, yes, we were the first one doing it. In fact, we're going to continue updating because we're working with the right partners that are going to help us stay up to speed on what are the skills and abilities and what is the content, the resources and training that our faculty need. And this is going to continue evolving based on those relationships like the one that we have with Intel.

B (27:52)

Well, thanks for the pitch for intel because I know angel very well actually. He's been on the show twice and great, great story. Especially someone that's actually used all that curriculum that they developed. And you're finding jump started your whole AI career stuff. That's awesome.

B (28:17)

Foreign.

B (28:23)

Let's talk about hardware. I mean, because a lot of people are like, well, how can I teach AI without buying a lot of, you know, really expensive hardware? Because if you look at Nvidia, I mean, my goodness, Nvidia is a 5 trillion dollar company. It must be expensive to set up an AI lab. And how did you guys overcome that? I'll throw that one to Pedro a little bit is how did you, how did you overcome that cost of setting up an AI lab? Because do you need a big AI lab to do, to do this kind of work that is in the curriculum? That's a big question. I guess so.

C (29:01)

The most important part here is partnership and collaboration. The same thing that intel features to us with the curriculum. We were able to receive funds from local organizations in Miami that they also invested in the college to make sure that our community go involve. And we received from different founders the support to open the labs. And we do have some labs with powerful computers for the students to create their own LLMs, to create the local transformations and to work with those software that are really needed for them to start exploring and create applications. And then also partnering with companies that are supporting us in the cloud. And we use many of the things in the cloud, services in the cloud for the students and the faculty to start showcasing what are those applications and how they can benefit the most using the services that we know that sometimes we as a community college we don't have access to because our budget is limited. And nowadays with the situation that we are seeing in different areas, different in the states and we are in a state funded institution, we have to be conscious and we have to make sure that the money that we spend are what spent. So we do have some powerful computers in our AI labs, but also we use a collaboration and funding from, as I said, from different companies that provided us gratefully enough to cloud services that the students can access those platforms to play around and to create AI motors and to use LLMs. And so. So what?

B (30:37)

Not that. That's awesome. So the, the barrier, the, the big barriers that most people think are there are completely manageable, it sounds like, right? Antonio?

A (30:48)

Yeah, you. The. This cannot become the barrier. Like you need to buy from Nvidia to have a super cluster of computers to teach AI. No, if you have, if you're a university with a research project that is, you know, that requires a lot of compute power, then yes, that's a different story. But yeah, yeah, there are some of those. Right, Correct. But applied AI, the programs that we have, you don't need that. Like we created these AI centers with specific computing power because we recognize that, you know, many students that we serve in our community, they don't even have a computer at home. So they need a space. When they learn about AI, they can also work and create solutions. But the computing power per se in Terms of.

A (31:29)

Servers and all these like localized like. No, that's not needed at all. As Pedro said, it's all cloud based and there are many free resources out there that from an application perspective and from a teaching environment, you can leverage those to, to help the students learn the basic skills. It will be great to have these supercomputing.

B (31:49)

Well, of course everyone wants.

A (31:50)

Yeah, but it's not required. It cannot be a barrier to launch the program. And really it's not needed in more advanced courses. Yes, you, at some point you will need it. But there are many resources available from NSF or from, you know, universities that are well funded and they share the access to the tools. So there are solutions that especially for community colleges. No, you don't need to have that super computing power.

B (32:16)

All right guys, this has been incredible. I, and you know, I, I want to say para Bains, but that's Portuguese. I know you guys know that I want to say congratulations, right for, for doing this. This is awesome. You're helping your community. And it sounds like not just Miami Dade, you guys are helping the nation and probably moving beyond the nation to the world. So way to go guys. I mean this I pretty incredible stuff that you guys have done. If people want to find out more, how do they find out more about what you've done? If someone from a community college is listening, they go, I want to do the same in my community college. How do they get started? Where do they go?

A (33:00)

Definitely from institutions that want to do like to follow this pathway like Miami Dade College.

C (33:07)

AI.

A (33:07)

That's a simple two phrases that you can just add in any, I would say AI tool today and give you the answer to find the resources that we have available online to see the center that what we have created, but especially for resources and support. That's why I encourage everyone to go through the National Applied AI Consortium and in that website we have everything available for free for community colleges and universities at large and resources, training sessions and events in person or online. So a lot of opportunities there. Now for anyone else that really want to learn about AI, this is not only about degrees, this is not only about getting, this is about getting skills. And that's something that we're leveraging at scale through AI clinics that we're doing for anyone that wants to come on Saturdays to learn about AI from Solary Tool know healthcare professionals, doesn't matter. We have many opportunities available online, in person and we're trying to serve as many people as possible.

B (34:13)

Well again, way to go guys. This is, this is really awesome. Thanks for coming on the show. I really appreciate your time.

C (34:19)

Thank you Darren.

B (34:21)

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