Revolutionizing Technology Education for Underrepresented Students

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The speaker discusses how introductory courses in technology education often eliminate underrepresented students due to limited great teachers, causing women, kids of color, and poor kids to be wiped out. However, Michael Elson's approach gives every teacher and student a 'jet pack' by providing access to curriculum and information, creating more opportunities for success. This revolutionizes access to technology education for overlooked kids, leapfrogging them from the back to the front of the line for jobs and addressing a range of societal problems.

What would it look like to build coalitions to disrupt poverty, pollution, and the prison system? This week’s guest received a $100 million grant to do just that. Van Jones is a CNN host, New-York-Times-bestselling author, and the co-founder of multiple social enterprises to address issues of criminal justice, climate change, and social equity. Aria and Reid spoke with Van about what it will take to rethink our social systems and build fair, balanced coalitions for change. How can we disrupt the profit-driven prison system? How can underserved communities better contribute their talent and resources? And how can we change our news, media, and even sci-fi comic books to reflect a better future?

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For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all of the episodes, visit www.possible.fm/podcast.

Topics:

04:35 - Hellos, intros, and Van’s comic book ideas

09:00 - Make Wakanda Real and plans for change

12:12 - How to build a coalition for change

17:15 - How to build trust with vulnerable people

20:31 - Bringing people with power and purpose together

21:15 - Using the Bezos grant to disrupt poverty and the prison industry

27:29 - How organizations like Codepath make change

31:09 - What does addressing climate change look like

37:07 - What is the role of media for change

40:00 - How might AI change media?

42:41 - How to address political division

48:55 - Rapidfire questions

The award-winning Possible podcast is back with a new season that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Most of all, it asks: what if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way? Tune in for grounded and speculative takes on how technology—and, in particular, AI—is inspiring change and transforming the future.

This season, hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger, are speaking with a new set of ambitious builders and deep thinkers about everything from art to geopolitics and from healthcare to education. These conversations also showcase another kind of guest: AI. Whether it's Inflection’s Pi, OpenAI’s ChatGPT or other AI tools, each episode will use AI to enhance and advance our discussion.

Possible is produced by Wonder Media Network and hosted by Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger. Our showrunner is Shaun Young. Possible is produced by Edie Allard, Sara Schleede, and Paloma Moreno Jiménez. Jenny Kaplan is our executive producer and editor. Special thanks to Katie Sanders, Surya Yalamanchili, Saida Sapieva, Ian Alas, Greg Beato, Ben Relles, Rae Steward, Gus Alexander, Andi Lichtenfeld, Belicia Montgomery, Kalia Lydgate, Didier Morais, Chantel Muentes, Felicia Shand, and Little Monster Media Company.