Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Good planets. A hot zone. Tropic climbs, thriving, season blowing some breathing trees. Strong sunshine, good planets are hard to find.
Speaker 0 00:00:34 Good planet.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 Hello, case squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability now, a biweekly case, good radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipitz. We hear a lot these days about innovation and entrepreneurship and their role in the digital economy. It all sounds good, but what does it really mean? And why do I n e matter? My guest today is not a Milovich, a multi-disciplinarian educator, entrepreneur and Artivist who teaches a wide variety of subjects from entrepreneurship, digital storytelling, and the ethics of emerging technologies. She works with students of all ages, from 11 year olds to college MBA and graduate students. Nada is program manager of uc, Santa Cruz's, center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development, and is developer of an instructor in ucs, c's Crown College Innovation and Entrepreneurship courses, along with Crown Provost, Mannel Camps and others. She's also a fellow K squid programmer. Nada. Milkovich. Welcome to sustainability. Now.
Speaker 3 00:01:47 Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure, Ronnie, to talk with you. I've always been a great fan of yours,
Speaker 2 00:01:54 <laugh>. Well, we've known each other for a while. Um,
Speaker 3 00:01:57 Well, it's the sustainability that yeah, you have been working, um, both in the school, at the university, as well as in our community. And I wanna thank you for that.
Speaker 2 00:02:09 Okay. Well, you're welcome. Why don't we begin with some definitions. Um, what is innovation and why does it matter?
Speaker 3 00:02:18 So I also like to start with definitions as, um, an instructor. I think that being able to understand each other and how we define words, and so I'm, I'm glad you asked me that question. Innovation is basically anything new. It can be a new idea. It could be a new feature to a product that's already out there. It could be a new art piece. Innovation means basically, uh, creating something new, something different.
Speaker 2 00:02:51 But, um, does that mean that, you know, I mean, some innovations produce negative outcomes, right? I mean,
Speaker 3 00:02:58 Well, yeah. We're not putting a value on it. Um, okay. Innovation just simply means something new. Of course, when we start talking about moral frameworks and then putting our innovations through some testing, um, yes, you're right. Some innovations should not be made. Um, Frankenstein being the epic, uh, example of, of, you know, and which we actually teach in Crown College in our core, we have our incoming freshman read Frankenstein, because Crown is the science and technology and ethics. That's our theme, is the ethics of technology. And we attract many of the students that are planning to be scientists and engineers, they come to Crown College. And so we want them to, um, speak with each other. And that's why we have core, and the reason we give them, um, we assign Frankenstein is because of that very simple idea that just because you can make something doesn't mean you should.
Speaker 2 00:04:11 Well, I've just read a book called Frank Stein. I can't remember the name of the author, but it's a sort of a riff on, on Mary Shelley's writing the book, and then a contemporary version of the same thing. Um, and the other thing I was thinking about is, is all of his uproar over artificial intelligence, you know, uh, threatening extinction. And I keep thinking biological intelligence hasn't done that well either, <laugh>. Um, but, but why, why does innovation matter,
Speaker 3 00:04:42 Uh, innovation at, depending on how you wanna slice it from an, uh, or lens, let's say, what lens do you wanna use from an economic point of view? Uh, innovation, uh, drives economic growth. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, innovation can also improve quality of life, uh, uh, improve the living standards. Um, it can solve, um, wicked problems, societal challenges. Um, it enables individuals and organizations to adapt and compete and thrive in what we know is a rapidly changing world in many different ways. Uh, again, depending on what lens you're talking about, whether we're talking about the environment, whether we're talking about technology, um, and the threat of artificial intelligence, um, you know, it's, it's technology I think has actually helped speed up, um, all kinds of things in the world. Um, because we have, uh, instant messaging and we have, um, the entire library of the world at our fingertips on the internet. All of these things, I think, um, contribute to this feeling of rapid change.
Speaker 2 00:06:04 Well, you know, I'm something of a technological Luddite not in the sense of, of wanting to destroy things, but, but in the sense of trying to assess the social impact of new technologies and innovations before actually acting on them, that, of course, does not happen. Although with these artificial intelligence letters, which are surprising, um, that seems to be a, a desire. I mean, I think about nuclear weapons and the same kinds of letters that were written back in the fifties, well, in the forties and the fifties about that particular innovation. Well, we have a broad id, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 3 00:06:46 Well, we talk quite a bit about, um, the, the creation of the nuclear bomb and the use of it also, um, in adjacent to Frankenstein, because that's another product, right. That we could say, um, that was made and shouldn't have been made and has a lot of ethical implications around it. Um, when they made it, they weren't even certain. There, there was a possibility that they were gonna destroy the world, and they did it anyways,
Speaker 2 00:07:18 And there was a possibility it wouldn't work, right. I mean, right, right. So, well, we have a broad idea of what entrepreneur means, but over the past couple of decades, it's acquired a particular meaning in the context of Silicon Valley. So maybe you could, you know, explain that to us as well.
Speaker 3 00:07:36 Well, I, I also would like to start with the definition of entrepreneur, um, just for our audience, so that we're all kind of on the same page of what I mean by it. Uh, it is a French word, and it brings two words together, entre entrepreneur, which means with and to, um, to bring together. So we have this between bringing together. And so I think of the entrepreneur as somebody that brings, um, an idea together with resources. Now, naturally, there's a lot of risk involved, um, when you're doing that, uh, which we'll talk about, I'm sure. But that, to me is the most basic definition of what an entrepreneur does. They bring together the resources to create something innovative. And so entrepreneurism, um, is, is something that I, I have to couch and give context to when I speak to my colleagues such as yourself, because, um, there has been a neoliberal definition that's been attached to it.
Speaker 3 00:08:43 And I don't bring that neoliberalism to how I discuss the word entrepreneur. My parents immigrated from the former Yugoslavia, a socialist, communist country where they were entrepreneurs. So I believe that entrepreneurs are everywhere. They're, they're in every political system. Um, they're people that bring things together. They're also people that look out at the world and see a problem and figure out the solution, and who would best be served by that solution. And so, uh, I like to start about my entrepreneurship beginnings. Were, as a baby, when my father got a load of a bunch of eggs and was able to rent an huge incubator and started a chick production company, and, um, hatched these eggs. I think he had 180,000 eggs. And my mom, um, would take the hatched eggs and sell them at the farmer's markets that were all over, uh, Belgrade, uh, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:09:57 And the outlying villages of Belgrade. And that was how they were able to make enough money to be able to come to America. My dad had a full-time job, but the, the, um, amount of income that people were getting at that time was to, you know, barely cover their needs. They had two small children. Um, and so they were able to have a very high quality of life. Um, but there was no savings involved. There was no way they, they were gonna be able to make enough money to actually buy four plane tickets from Belgrade to, to Chicago. And so I'm here because my parents were, and continued to be entrepreneurs when they came into this country. Um, so it's also going back to the definition of entrepreneur. Um, it is somebody who sees a problem and figures out a solution for that problem.
Speaker 2 00:10:53 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well, you know, what's associated with, with innovation and entrepreneurship often is the term disruption. And, um, I, I wonder if you could say something about that, because that seems, I mean, in the sort of, you know, general understanding, or at least you know, people who claim that their entrepreneurs often talk about the necessity of disruption. Um, so what do they mean by that?
Speaker 3 00:11:21 So we could take a step back for a second. Um, I saw a talk by Steve Blank, who is a Stanford professor who helped develop the lean startup method, which is what I teach most of my classes. He's also a neighbor. He lives in Pescadero, and he gave a talk to, uh, our cruise hacks. So that's, uh, an event that we have every January for years we've been doing it, and students get together and for the whole weekend, they, um, work on a, on an idea and, and build something. It's a, it's a maker, it's paradise. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so, uh, Steve was the, the key keynote speaker for that. And he argued that to be an entrepreneur, you have to be an artist, because you have to be able to see something that no one else sees. And you need to be able to come up with a solution that no one else, you know, comes up with because they don't even see the problem.
Speaker 3 00:12:26 And one of the biggest kind of examples of that would be Steve Jobs creating the smartphone, or the better Smartphone. There were smartphones before the ipo, iPad, or iPhone, but, um, you know, they weren't as smart as the iPhone. And it, his big problem was a real estate, and the real estate was in his pocket. And he is like, I've got all these things that I want to keep with me. I wanna have a camera, I wanna have a telephone. I wanna have an ability to text people. I wanna have a video camera. Uh, I wanna have a modem so I can get online. And all of that is taking up, you know, real estate in my pockets. Why can't I just have one product that has all of those features involved with it? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and you could say that the iPhone was a disruptor, and that we're still actually, I think having the outcome of that massive disruption where all of us can have, you know, access to the internet and see and learn and, and find anything we want, really, as far as information.
Speaker 3 00:13:41 And so, disruption for entrepreneurs is kind of the holy grail. Like, if you can come up with an innovation and idea that will somehow in, uh, disrupt an entire platform, an entire industry, an entire sector, then, uh, the VCs, the venture capitalists will, um, write those checks to you and, um, get that disruption made. Now, what are the ethics around the disruption? Again, that's a neutral term in itself, but how it's used is a whole nother question. For instance, Uber. Uber is a disruptor. What do they disrupt? They disrupted the entire taxi cab industry. How did they do it? Well, some might argue in a very, um, unethical manner by going in and being very cheap, uh, at the beginning, getting that market, taking it away from the taxis, um, who have to hire charge higher, because there's all these costs involved with driving a taxi insurance and having your, uh, certification to be able to drive. And, uh, um, they were able to do it at a much lower price. Um, I believe they started in India, and, um, once they had the market cornered, once they had disrupted the taxi industry, then they were able to shoot up their costs, because at first they were actually losing money. But then once they had cornered the market and they had a monopoly, they were able to charge as much as they want. So, disrupt.
Speaker 2 00:15:24 Go on, go on.
Speaker 3 00:15:26 Well, it's, it, it, again, it's that, that idea, that disruption itself is a neutral term. How, how the disruption is actually implemented, um, and, uh, at what effect, and if we start thinking systems thinking like ecosystem, what is the entire ecosystem that you're disrupting? Um, it may be that you shouldn't be disrupting it. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:15:51 Okay. Well, one of the things that you just mentioned was that, you know, Uber managed to corner the market and become a monopoly, or at least a, uh, sharing the monopoly with a few other companies. Right. Um, and we've been taught, of course, that monopolies are a bad thing, right? That what monopolies do is once they, they control a market, is they can jack up prices because you have no alternative. Um, so that's how, how do you counter something like that? I mean, um, does the government step in and break up Uber?
Speaker 3 00:16:28 Well, the, the, there is regulations that we have to, we have to think about, um, you know, there may be another innovation that will disrupt Uber and Lyft and these other ones. Maybe there'll be an innovation where somebody comes up with a, uh, system or a platform that allows anybody to be an Uber-like driver. Um, we have had regulations to try to reign in, uh, the monopoly aspects of Uber and Lyft. Um, and I don't, I'm not sure if some of them worked very well, actually. Um, one of them was to have to treat your, uh, drivers as if they were workers. Um, and, uh, you know, I I, I don't wanna speak to it too much because I am, you know, I just, I just know Uber from what I'm, I haven't studied Uber, but I don't, I, I think our main way that we can do it as laypeople is to demand that there be, um, regulations and that it has to come from the government.
Speaker 3 00:17:38 I also think that there are, uh, innovations that will continue to disrupt that specific sector. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I had a, um, I had one of my students who was in Crown Core, who, um, was very upset when we discussed how, uh, Google, um, and Facebook, uh, sell our data that we're basically, we're the product we're being sold to the advertisers. Right. And that was very upsetting to them. And so, um, one of the, well, we'll, we're gonna talk about what I do at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial, right? We'll, we'll, and one of the things that we just had was a competition. And the student, um, presented and was actually one of the runner-ups. They, they did get to win, uh, some cash. Um, and the whole idea was creating a system where you can continue to keep your data, your pictures, uh, your, um, whatever you happen to be creating, um, private and not have to use, um, these platforms that as soon as you put those things up on that platform, you are no longer the owner of that thing.
Speaker 3 00:18:56 So let's say you take a picture and you put it up in Facebook, Facebook now owns that picture. Um, and, and so I think that continuously being innovative and seeing, you know, we had this disruption with Google. We had these search engine, um, algorithms that were able to help us search faster on the internet, um, that system than realized that the way they were gonna be making money is through selling, advertising, selling, uh, the, the data of their users to advertisers so that they can slice and dice and figure out their exact market and be able to do tests on those markets. And, you know, all those things that you do as an entrepreneur. And now, you know, the, we're seeing the results of that, and people are like, no, that's wrong. Um, if I make something, it should be my intellectual property. And so how do I get around using these big, big platforms to keep control of my ip?
Speaker 2 00:20:00 And in this case, you're divi defining an electoral property as what we in our everyday life do. Right. Mostly on these platforms. I mean, the, the thing is that, that, um, you know, if you take those away, it will become impossible to do those kinds of things, and therefore the intellectual property will not be produced. I mean, that's, there's, there's that, that contradiction, right? And of course, if somebody is worried about their photographs being stolen, they can always use a camera, right? An old, an old style camera, right? I mean, you know, that would be, that would be seen as an innovation, I suppose, right? That Well,
Speaker 3 00:20:43 The, the thing is, Ronnie, we're in a digital world.
Speaker 2 00:20:47 I, I'm not arguing with this. I am just, you know, thinking about the contradictions.
Speaker 3 00:20:53 Yes, we can go analog and, and there is, you know, people are keeping that alive. You probably saw the whole trend with vinyl. People are going back to app, you know, to get records. They, they don't wanna have to, well have digital music they want.
Speaker 2 00:21:07 That's the commodification of nostalgia, isn't it? Okay. I mean, um,
Speaker 3 00:21:12 Is it, or is it the people that have very sensitive ears and want to hear the music in an analog form?
Speaker 2 00:21:22 Yeah, I know, I know those kinds of arguments are made, right? That the fidelity of, of reproduction of sound, and sure, there are gonna be some people who do that, but, but, you know, it's also faddish. But, but again, we don't have to go there. Right? So, I mean, it's sort of an innovation on an old, uh, an old product, an old technology. Okay. And, um, uh, they're all kinds of contradictions. I mean, I saw you did an interview in one of your classes with Donna Haraway, uh, right. And I mean, Donna Haraway has been writing about these kinds of, of social contradictions for decades. And I'm sure she brought those up in the, in the class. Um, but mostly we don't see them. Right. Unless someone draws our attention to them. But, you know, we could, we could do, I mean, that's a whole, a whole class, a whole book, a whole lifetime, you know, talking about those kinds of things. Um, I saw that you've been involved in several startups, and I was wondering if you could tell us about your experience in, you know, launching, I guess, being entrepreneurial and launching an innovative startup. Um, I saw that two of them succeeded and two of them did not. So I'd like to hear about both successes and failures.
Speaker 3 00:22:41 Sure. Um, so I started, um, my first startup in 2009. It was 2008, 2009. It was right after I, well, just to give a little background to myself, I was a construction manager for 20 years, and made, made some good money, did some good work. I ended up working, um, getting specialized in the train sector, uh, building, uh, stations for the Bay Area Rapid Transit and the Valley Transit Authority. Hmm. And I think I, I ended up making 12 or 13 stations, um, in total. And so I got to the point where in my construction career, I felt like if I wasn't doing something that was benefiting the world, I wasn't gonna do it. And when I mean the world, I mean, Gaia and nature. And so, um, I had to, um, that's how I ended up in, in trains. And so in 2007, I, um, applied and got into the, uh, masters in Fine Arts program at U C S C in digital arts and new media. I was, uh, um, repressed artist, <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:23:57 An an early adopter too, as I recall, right?
Speaker 3 00:24:00 Yes. Yes. And, and God incredible, an incredible training. Both, um, was able, able to gather skills, um, in the digital realm, and also theoretical ideas. And that was when I met, um, Donna Haraway. And of course, um, the Cyborg Manifesto being one of the biggest, uh, writings of, of the 20th century, late 20th century, that was really used in media theory. Um, and, and, you know, thinking about this, this whole new world, and, and for our audience that doesn't know about the Cyborg Manifesto, it was written out of the idea that we, uh, it came out of the space program of the fifties and the race to the, to the moon between the U S A and, and, um, U S S R. And the idea that we were sending creatures into environments that are not livable. We, we weren't made to, our bodies weren't made to, to be in space.
Speaker 3 00:25:14 Um, they, our bodies were made for a specific range of temperature and a specific, um, you know, percentage of oxygen and a certain amount of water mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And those are the, the, you know, the, the ingredients that we need for life mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so we started sending, you know, at first we started sending mice up into space, and then of course, dogs and monkeys. And we made sure that we had figured it out so that when we sent a human, hopefully they wouldn't die. And these, these creatures were, um, you know, having to be put into these environments that mimic earth so that they could survive. Right. And so, um, they would put little tiny, um, dialysis, uh, you know, for kidney function on these little mice and put them, encapsulate them in, in little, you know, uh, the air, you know, for the oxygen.
Speaker 3 00:26:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all of these things. Um, and so it was from this kind of extending the physical body into a space or into a, an environment that is not, um, livable mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that is the cyborg. The cyborg is an addition to our bodies that allows us to, um, function in inhospitable environments. And so the, the idea, um, you know, can be extrapolated to where, you know, you could say that my glasses are, uh, being, you know, is a, a is a cyborg, like a appendix that I've added to myself or mm-hmm. <affirmative> north, um, or, you know, what people are doing now where, um, they're innovating and, and using their bodies as the tools or the, the medium with which they're innovating. I'm thinking of an artist that, um, is colorblind and created a digital feeler like, uh, tool that they, um, had embedded, and that is, um, you know, attached to their, uh, brain so that they can actually see colors.
Speaker 3 00:27:35 Oh, oh, wow. Um, and, um, you know, arguing that, um, this new technology that they've developed for themselves can actually not only be a disruptor, but also, uh, per perhaps save, uh, energy and help us with our, um, you know, I don't know if it's a fight or what we're trying to do with dealing with climate change, because we will need lights. We would have the ability to see in the dark. And so all of the energy that it takes to, to light up the world for us after the sun goes down, would, would not be needed. And argues that it's these technological innovations that can also be used, used in our fight against global warming and, and climate change, and, you know, um, saving energy being more sustainable.
Speaker 2 00:28:31 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> well, in, in that case, of course, there's a, a significant behavioral element involved. And again, that's another rabbit trail that we could go down, but probably we shouldn't. Um, I did read recently that, that Elon Musk is a, is asking the f d a for permission to do brain implants, and I'm assuming the brain implants are essentially smartphones. Right. It's, um, sort of full spectrum kind of stuff. I mean, I wrote a, a piece about that 10 years ago. Um, but, you know, nevermind. So anyway, so, so we're talking about your,
Speaker 3 00:29:09 We're calling 'em brains on a Chip, so it's basically a, a, a tiny chip that has all of these different functionalities. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, you know, um, I'm not sure exactly what Elon is developing, but I know that I've had students also talk about developing these kinds of, um, solutions for people that have, uh, problems where maybe their, yeah. Yeah. Their brain doesn't work with their, their gut and their gut, you know, isn't functioning well. And so this, this, uh, brain on a chip would actually be able to communicate with the brain in a way that is d broken somehow. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the physical body. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 2 00:29:52 We were talking about your startups, you know, and we got sort of distracted, so let's get back to that. Okay. You were,
Speaker 3 00:29:59 So I made the, I made the vow to myself that once I got my degree at U C S E, that I would no longer, longer do the construction world. It wasn't feeding my heart, wasn't feeding my soul. I wanted to do something that I felt was bettering the world. And so, um, we started a media company and we had, uh, um, one group of people, and I learned a lot about, uh, how to start a company. I was very blessed to have started it at NextSpace, which in 2008 was one of the first co-working spaces I had ever heard of in the world, probably mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, that was started with, uh, Jeremy Noyer and, um, our former, uh, super, uh, um,
Speaker 2 00:30:54 Yeah, I remember. I, I can't remember his name either, but, yeah. Yeah. He, but I remembered X Space, Ryan. Ryan Coody.
Speaker 3 00:31:01 Ryan Coody. Yeah. And, um, they, they, along with some other partners, started this, uh, co-working space, and they really attracted the entrepreneurs. They, um, had, uh, this co-working space where you rented a room, um, it was a subscription type, um, revenue. And then you had, uh, the cooler and the printer and the refrigerator and all of these different amenities that are really helpful for people, like a beautiful conference room, um, that you could bring your clients to and not have to, you know, rent a, uh, an entire space with the conference room. You could see how that would save, save costs for, uh, a startup, an entrepreneur. And part of what they did was also they would have these brown bag, um, startup, uh, nuts and bolts of starting your own business. And they would have all different kinds of themes from how you use these different tools to validate your business idea to how do you do c accounting, how do you, uh, stay up with the regulations that, um, the federal or the state government have for, uh, startups, or how do you, uh, I remember one that was really interesting was what's the psychology of getting your customer to pay you, um, as a, as a freelancer?
Speaker 3 00:32:38 Uh, so we had all of these really great education, educational events, and these lunch, these luncheons, and, and we really formed a strong community that I still feel very, uh, bonded to mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, and, and so we, we started maybe a little too big with the first company. There was, um, four co-founders, um, that, uh, had not been vetted maybe by each other as much as we have. I always, always tell my students, when you're writing a partnership agreement, make sure you have an exit strategy so that when you don't love each other anymore, because at the first you're, you're in love. You're like, oh, we're together. We're making this beautiful thing. And then something happens life, and then you not so happy with each other. And that's when you're trying to come up with, well, how do we break up? Right. So you always wanna make sure that, that, um, exit strategy is, is in your contract and is agreed upon from the very beginning.
Speaker 3 00:33:42 Hmm. Cause you wanna be able to cover yourself when maybe people aren't in love with each other anymore. Um, it is the biggest risk for an entrepreneur is to partner with somebody else. Um, and then we tried the, the, the remaining tried to continue working on that, and I ended up realizing that I really needed to go out on my own. And, um, and I started my company called Artist on Art, which has, uh, basically media making content, making, uh, education, um, and, uh, uh, helping people, uh, create what they needed with their, with using digital tools. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I just, um, am putting that, uh, business aside. Um, because I've been really, um, focusing on my second startup, which began in, uh, the beginning of Covid. My co-founder, uh, Toby Corey and I, uh, started this program where we connect college students who have digital skills because they are born into the digital world and are, you know, know very well how to use the tools.
Speaker 3 00:35:04 And we connect them with business owners, uh, startup entrepreneurs who are perhaps a little older, or perhaps they don't have the bandwidth to create that online presence that is really fundamental to any business today. Um, we in Santa Cruz, uh, we're a tourist town. We get usually three to 4 million tourists a year. Many of our businesses in downtown Santa Cruz were simple brick and mortar businesses. Tourists would just walk in off the street and, you know, buy that candy or buy that the hat or whatever. Um, and so those businesses thrived for, for decades. But when we had the Global pandemic and we had these social distancing practices to help curb the death rate and, and, and try to help people be safe, many of our businesses in downtown Santa Cruz had no digital presence. They had no website. They had no Facebook or, or whatever social media, um, social media profiles, so that when social, when social distancing practices were put into place, their revenue streams came down to nothing.
Speaker 3 00:36:40 They were completely constructed. Constricted. Yeah. And so, Toby connected the dots. He knows that there's students that have these incredible skills. He knows that there are these clients, uh, potential clients. There's a market, um, that was gonna be needed very quickly. And so he called me and said, because I was already teaching at, uh, U C S E in entrepreneurship, he said, Hey, I've got this idea. I reached out to the best students that I had had for the previous two quarters, invited them to come and create this class with me. We co-created, there was 10 students and myself, and we cre co-created the Get virtual platform. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we, um, had, our first client was the Pacific Trading Company. Uh, they didn't have a website, uh, when Covid started. And what was interesting about the Pacific Trading Company is that they have no interest in having an e-commerce website, because naturally people would immediately think, oh, you'll just put up all your products on the internet and sell it that way.
Speaker 3 00:37:50 That that's not how the Pacific, that's not the ethos of, of the Pacific Trading Company. They are a personal shopping business. They have, um, the merchandise, uh, curated for their market, for their customers. Uh, I am a huge lover of the Pacific Trading Company. They have been gathering, uh, who are my favorite designers and will call me, uh, when my designers is on sale, <laugh>, and to come down and, you know, and that they have my size. So they know what size, they know what colors I like. They know, they know, they know what I like to, to dress in. And so what had us do was create, um, the website, and the website would have a calendar, and you could sign up for a virtual personal shopping experience. So you would sign up at, at one o'clock, uh, they would take their smartphone and either Zoom or FaceTime or whatever, you know, video conferencing they used in real time.
Speaker 3 00:38:58 And they would run around the store and they'd say, how's this? How's this? This is in your size. This will go well with this. They would do their personal shopping. The person would pay for it over the, uh, phone and drive up to the curb and get their, get their products. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the students are trained on understanding their business, that they're working with their client. For instance, like I said, um, books, the, uh, Pacific Trading Company, uh, they didn't wanna do an e-commerce website. Of course, we have other businesses that wanted to get their, their products into the virtual realm as quickly as mm-hmm. <affirmative> as possible. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they mm-hmm. <affirmative> selling it. Um, and so we, we also build e-commerce websites, of course. Uh, but the students do a, we have a process that was created. The students have an interview, they have a script.
Speaker 3 00:39:51 Um, they talk to the potential customers. They find out what their needs are. Uh, they come back, they ask the, the team, do we have, uh, they figure out what, what the scope of work is, what is it that the, the client needs? They come back, they ask the team, do we have the skills needed to give an outstanding service to this person, to this, um, business? If yes, then, uh, the, the team creates a contract. Um, they propose it, the customer says yes or no, they change it, or they, they sign it. And then the students create whatever is in that scope of work with an associated schedule. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and we've been doing that since, um, March of 2020. Hmm. And we've had, um, nearly 250 businesses that we've built websites for and social media campaigns where we create, uh, social media profiles for the business.
Speaker 3 00:40:56 Um, and we, uh, work, uh, very closely to be able to get them what they, what they need, what will help them grow their business. And I'm happy to say we've had many, many, uh, repeat businesses come back and say, okay, we did this. Now I need to do this. Um, and so we're, uh, really excited about that. We've had over 300 students go through our program. We al also created a Coursera course through ucse, so anybody can take the class for free there. The, the big difference is, uh, in our classes, we, um, do outreach. We, we help connect the student teams with a customer or a client. And, and in the Coursera, uh, there is no bench. Sure. It's all, you know, asynchronous Sure. On their own. And so they have to either come up with their own client or, or actually create a website for themselves. So they are, in essence, their client.
Speaker 2 00:42:03 Well, you know, we were gonna talk about the center for, uh, innovation and Entrepreneurial Development where you're program manager. Right. What, what does the Center do and and does it have a relationship with the Crown Program?
Speaker 3 00:42:17 So the, the center, we call it seed, the Center for Innovation Entrepreneurial Development. I'm the project manager for it. I work with Mandel Camps. Mandel is the faculty director for the center. The center began 50 years ago with, uh, umif 50. Rapinder Cap 50. 50. 50. Yeah. It was created in the late seventies, nearly 50 years. Wow. Um, and it was started by Rapinder Kani, who is known as the Godfather, or the grandfather of fiber optic cable. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, he taught at U C S E for 20 years in the physics department. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he really wanted to bring the entrepreneurial spirit, uh, to U C S E. And this center has been doing that. Uh, and there've been many different programmed, um, directors. And we took the center, um, from Sue Carter, who is the provost for Rachel Carson, where you were previously the Provost and Mennel Camps is now also the Provost for Crown College.
Speaker 3 00:43:34 And so the, the Center, um, has had its ups and downs. Um, Sue really brought it to an up. She was able to get a very large fund, uh, from the Nat National Science Foundation Innovation Core. Uh, she was also able to get, um, create partnerships, for instance, with, uh, Blackstone, which is a entrepreneurial, uh, organization, uh, throughout, uh, the United States. And with, uh, these partnerships, she was able to also, um, create some of the things that we still are using today. Uh, some of the events, for instance, she started the Slug Tank, which is a business pitch competition similar to Shark Tank, except we're slug tanks. We're much nicer <laugh> in, uh, in our feedback to our businesses. And so, uh, we, we have these competitions, so we have, um, different programming. Some of it, um, is built upon the foundation that we received from, from working with, uh, with Sue being the director.
Speaker 3 00:44:48 And then we also, um, have added onto it. Um, Manel became the director in, I think it's going on two years now. I think it's July of 2021. And then I became the project manager, uh, recently, although I worked as, I worked in the, in the capacity as interim, um, until I was officially hired this past December of 2020. And what we've done is we're, um, we're really, uh, using, uh, different, uh, programs, um, to help develop, or as we say, foster the entrepreneurial mindset. Um, we have these courses that I started telling you about, get Virtual is a, a CR A course, crown 95. Uh, we've created seven different entrepreneurial classes now. We did them in Crown, because Crown as a college has the liberty to be able to create classes. Um, you know, that yourself from having been the provost at Rachel Carson. And, um, didn't you create the, uh, minor program for sustainability mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:46:12 <affirmative>? Yeah. Uh, through the development of classes, and then having enough classes to be able to have a minor. Um, so students that go to U C S C can get a minor in sustainability through the Rachel Carson College. Uh, and so we're doing, uh, a similar thing in, in, uh, crown College, uh, by creating these different classes and having them, um, have, you know, very strategic, uh, their, uh, general education courses, so that we're offering courses that students need. Um, they need to have a certain number and a certain category of, of general education classes to be able to get their degrees. Right. Right. Um, and so we created these classes that would be open to everybody. Um, any, any discipline, any, any department that they're in. Uh, we take everybody, everyone is welcome. And we also have a new, um, class. Uh, one of the classes has been created for graduate studies.
Speaker 3 00:47:17 So we have graduate studies, um, that had been taking it all along, but now they get actual credits, uh, for taking the, um, one of our first classes called Crown 90, which is a, uh, startup entrepreneur academy. And it's based on Steve Blank's class that is taught at Stanford University, where we talk, um, we, we take the students through the process of the Lean Startup method, which I'll be happy to talk to more about, um, in a little bit. And so now we have, uh, that same class, uh, it's two 90 for, for our graduate studies, because honestly, some of the best ideas are, are being created, uh, in graduate studies, <laugh>. So helping those, those students be able to create business plans around their studies, their work, uh, I think is really, I think, very helpful for them. And so we have classes, and then we have competitions.
Speaker 3 00:48:22 So I mentioned Slug Tank. Uh, we also have, uh, our annual U C S C business pitch Contest. This is our sixth annual that we just had last Thursday. Uh, it was open to the public at the Coconut Grove. It was in, um, in, uh, programming with, uh, the Santa Cruz Works job fair. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the last couple years we've been coupling them together. So we do the competition in earlier in the day. And then in the afternoon, there are, uh, local businesses that come, um, that need to, um, have jobs, uh, positions that they need to be filled. And so, uh, we just had that, um, this past Thursday, we had 21 student teams. These were all undergraduate student teams, uh, come together with all different kinds of products and services. It was a really wonderful event. Uh, we had five fabulous, uh, judges, and we gave away, uh, $50,000 in cash to our, our students. Um, we had one student, um, team win the overall $10,000 prize. And then, um, you know, I think there was actually nine teams that won 11 different prizes.
Speaker 2 00:49:46 Well, not, not a we're we're coming to the end of, uh, of our time together. And, you know, since the, the show is titled Sustainability, now I have to ask you, how does all of this relate what we've been talking about, relate to, you know, sustainability and the environment?
Speaker 3 00:50:03 Well, I, I really believe that the digital realm is a tool for sustainability. Instead of me having to drive my car over to wherever you are for us to have this interview, we can do it through the digital realm. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we're saving, uh, resources by having our discussion this way. And of course, you can think about all the different ways that, um, we use video conferencing in particular for sustainability. I, um, am super proud to have had a class approved that I'll be teaching for the first time this summer in Costa Rica called Eco Entrepreneurship. Hmm. And this class is specifically about building businesses around regeneration of nature. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and how, and one of my biggest beliefs is that we can use the entrepreneurial mindset to solve these wicked problems that we have. And if we can bring an understanding that we can actually work with nature and be able to sustainably extract from nature while also giving back to nature and creating business plans around that type of interchange or exchange, then I think that we, uh, could actually solve many, many problems that we have today and hopefully curb some of the negative effects of global, global, um, climate change.
Speaker 2 00:51:38 Are, are any of your students engaged in trying to start up, you know, sustainable related, uh, businesses?
Speaker 3 00:51:47 Yes. The students? Um, I'm very overt with how I believe the entrepreneurial mindset can help solve these very large problems and those problems being the environment, um, the, the social justice injustices. And so the classes really have that kind of, like, if we're gonna build a business, we can do more than just make a profit. We can actually benefit the planet benefit mm-hmm. <affirmative> people and all the living creatures in the world and make a profit. That's last though.
Speaker 2 00:52:26 Okay. Well, I'm afraid we're out of time. So, so nato, thank you so much for being my guest on sustainability now.
Speaker 3 00:52:33 Oh, Ronnie, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2 00:52:41 If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find them at case squid.org/sustainability now, and Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Pockets among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make Case Squid your community radio station and keep it going. And so until next, every other Sunday, sustainability now
Speaker 1 00:53:18 Andros not through current and thriving seas and winds blowing some breathing trees. Strong home safe sunshine. Good planets are hard to find. Yeah.
