[Radar Recap] Building Tomorrow's Workforce, Today: Scaling Internal AI Academies

Richie Cotton

Welcome back everyone. This is Richie. We're gonna kick off Fame just a couple of minutes to give plenty of time for people to join us, uh bit of housekeeping before we kick off. So first of all, yes, this session is going to be recorded. Uh, there'll be uh copy making its way to data gap.com resources in the near future and uh, no you don't get a certificate of attendance. If you want to prove that you have been here for some Professor or whoever then please just take a selfie of yourself, uh watching your screen.

00:00:34

Richie Cotton

Um, there is going to be audience Q&A at the end and I'm trying to leave plenty of time, uh for the questions and I would like the questions and bring your sessions have been great. So I want to leave plenty of time for that.

00:00:44

Richie Cotton

Uh, you don't have to wait till the end to ask you questions. I suggest asking them whenever you think of them use the air meet Q&A feature for that.

00:00:52

Richie Cotton

If there's anything else you want to tell us about, uh, please use the chat feature. I'm actually kind of curious to know if anyone is uh learning on data camp or if you're running a training program on uh, with data camp or any other platform. Uh, let me know what sort of training AI for data training or AI training is going on in your organization.

00:01:15

Richie Cotton

Finally if you want to network with other people there is a LinkedIn group, uh, which will be posted in the chat shortly. Uh, so please do uh, make use of that to connect with your fellow attendees. Uh, all right, I will repeat these messages in a few months time and then we shall kick off.

00:01:39

Richie Cotton

All right. So, uh hi again, for those of you who just joined, uh to begin with. Uh, yes, this session is going to be recorded. There will be a copy of this on data cam.com resources in the near future. Uh, no you don't get a certificate of attendance. Please just take a selfie of yourself watching 1 of these sessions.

00:01:59

Richie Cotton

There is going to be audience Q&A as soon as you think of your question. Please do write it in the M Q&A feature and we'll answer them at the end. If there's anything else you want to tell us about. Please let us know in the chat.

00:02:12

Richie Cotton

Great to have uh conversation with like a lot of cool conversations going on here, uh in earlier sessions and if you want to network with other people, please do join the uh data account radar AI Edition LinkedIn group, uh, we've got um more than a thousand people and they're already so uh, yeah plenty of opportunities to connect with other people.

00:02:34

Richie Cotton

All right with that I think uh, let's kick things off. So

00:02:39

Richie Cotton

taking advantage of AI isn't a simple as just buying a new tool.

00:02:45

Richie Cotton

You also need your employees to understand how to use those tools. And also you need to make sure they understand AI itself.

00:02:53

Richie Cotton

Uh, that is it is essential to have some sort of upskilling or re-skilling program just to make sure that everyone is up to date.

00:03:02

Richie Cotton

And saying, oh, wow, we need an AI training program is very easy. The trickier thing to do is actually running such a program and I have to say I have a lot of respect for learning development professionals because getting the right training to the right employees and keeping the Learners engaged while I have their day job competing for their attention. It's really no mean feat.

00:03:24

Richie Cotton

There are many devils in the details and bad training is just a waste of time for everyone involved.

00:03:31

Richie Cotton

So helping steer the path to training success, uh, 3, uh learning development experts. So first of all, we have Mike Baylor. He is the chief digital. Uh, AI officer at Lockheed Martin. Uh, here's Mike. Hello. Uh, so, uh, Mike is responsible for the Innovation and delivery of digital and AI Technologies across the Lockheed Martin Corporation.

00:03:57

Richie Cotton

He's got over 23 years of experience leading data teams, and he's got expertise in digital transformation infrastructure development and execution.

00:04:06

Richie Cotton

Some career highlights include launching a commercial business comprised of machine learning and analytics Technologies for government commercial and international customers pioneering initiatives Innovative systems engineering to integrate the data for data for large complex systems and supporting satellite operations for NASA satellite of definitely very cool. Nice, uh, next up we have Caroline diskin.

00:04:31

Richie Cotton

Uh Caroline is a senior technical program manager at Dropbox where she's spearheads technical learning initiatives for skill development.

00:04:39

Richie Cotton

She's dedicated to cultivating a culture of continuous learning within Dropbox.

00:04:43

Richie Cotton

development team, so hi Caroline

00:04:56

Richie Cotton

And third we have Dr. Gio alter alter Murano Rio who is the chief data scientist and responsible AI official of the US Department of State.

00:05:07

Richie Cotton

Go spare having initiatives in artificial intelligence and data science.

00:05:11

Richie Cotton

Previously, she was a senior mathematical statistician in the Department of Labor where she significantly impacted the field of the chief evaluation of its excuse me. I'm getting horse already. It's not it's not good how we got to do this tomorrow as well. Um, so her work focused on the statistical and Ai and machine learning methodologies, uh, behavioral economics and human centered design go is also a director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nicaragua and academic at Carnegie Mellon University Vanderbilt University and the University of Oxford of Austin Texas. Oh, sorry University of Texas in Austin and is a celebrated Fulbright and National Science Foundation scholar. So we've got 3 expert speakers all from very different organizations. So I'm very excited about how this conversation is going to lie. Uh, so uh brilliant, uh, let's kick things off. Um, so first of all we need some motivation. So can you talk me through? Why did you

00:06:12

Richie Cotton

Decide that your colleagues needed AI training. Uh Gio do you want to go first?

00:06:20

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Happy hello. Hello everyone. Good afternoon and happy can you hear me? Okay.

00:06:27

Richie Cotton

Yep and clear.

00:06:27

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Great.

00:06:29

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

So at the Department of State, uh, we feel and actually we see that the written word is our currency. So this means that we have massive amounts of unstructured data that benefit hugely from AI tools and specifically from generative AI tool and since AI is not going away generative AI is is is here to stay we uh, feel that our Workforce, um needs to be trained and ready to use these tools and discern um be able to understand what what are the promises and also the limitations of uh of these tools, uh, so similar to data I can be very intimidating for some people. So we're trying trying to make sure that training helps both with their understanding of the tools. So the the promises and limitations but also making sure that they build the levels of comfort that are necessary to be able to

00:07:30

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Uh start with let's say a generative AI interface and then move on to more complex, uh text tools.

00:07:35

Richie Cotton

Okay, that's very cool. I like that. You mentioned your structured data because traditionally you think of data as just being like numbers.

00:07:41

Richie Cotton

Actually now it's like any text. You've got that's fair game as uh as data. Um, and I I also like the you mentioned building confidence as well. So you start with the simple stuff and then uh gradually, uh, get more advanced. Um, okay, uh, Caroline. Do you want to talk me through? Um what the motivation was for having AI training at Dropbox?

00:08:00

Carolann Diskin

Sure. Absolutely. Hi guys. Um, so I suppose very similar to go. You know, we recognize that AI is transforming every industry, you know, including our own so to stay competitive and Innovative, you know, it was essential that our Workforce as well developed the strong understanding of AI principles Concepts and applications.

00:08:21

Carolann Diskin

Um, so providing AI training courses, you know that ensures that our team is well equipped to leverage AI Technologies and effectively and safely, um, which ultimately we want to drive better decision making improving, you know, internal processes, um, and then delivering, you know, Superior products and services both internally to our teams and externally to our customers. So really the motivation is, you know behind making sure we're staying, you know up to date with industry Trends and making sure that we're we're really staying competitive and innovative.

00:08:55

Richie Cotton

Okay, let's go. I like the um

00:08:59

Richie Cotton

At the end of the day, it's not just about the technology. It's about making sure that um, it supports the business in some way. So you want to stay competitive. You want to stay in Innovative. You want to help your customers somehow, uh, that's very cool. All right, so moving slightly from uh motivations to goals. Um, were there any um, specific objectives you had in your training programs. Uh, Mike do you want to take this?

00:09:23

Mike Baylor

Can you hear me? Okay.

00:09:26

Mike Baylor

All right. Thanks for that. Hello everyone. Um, yeah the overall goals for our training programs, you know, our main goals were to really Empower, you know, the lock key Martin employees and in every area

00:09:26

Richie Cotton

Absolutely.

00:09:37

Mike Baylor

You know be it Finance or engineering or manufacturing. So we provide you guidance on topics like generative Ai and also third-party AI suppliers as you all know, there's billions of dollars being pumped into artificial intelligence specially generative types of Technologies. There's a lot of salesmanship going on there. So being able to sort through kind of who's who in the zoo. So to speak from a AI suppliers perspective is really important for a large company of over, you know, 100 thousand people, um, overall like tool Suites that we have, um, reusable software packages and you know training courses, especially so all of its designed to teach people what what AI is and also what it isn't and you know how to apply it to the problems that they face.

00:10:23

Richie Cotton

Okay, I think that last point is very important that you need to know what AI isn't because I think with the amount of hype that's been around AI recently is I think oh well, yeah.

00:10:34

Richie Cotton

Jack gbt can do absolutely anything and it it can't and so knowing what's not possible is going to help stop you going down some silly dead ends. Um, all right, so but so, um, I'd love to talk a bit about um, who needs AI training so I know you mentioned a few of the teams, uh, each, uh, in terms of like who gets AI training I want to go into that in a bit more depth. Um, go do you want me to talk through talk me through like who needs AI training

00:11:01

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Yeah, so in a word everyone.

00:11:04

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Uh everyone in the state department needs AI training and let me start with uh, some some stats. So the goal for our office is to make sure that every single person in the state department at all levels gets training and over the past 3 years we have delivered the the Department of State has delivered over 81,000 person hours of training in data and AI.

00:11:32

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

So my office specifically sponsors 6 courses through uh, a training shop for Foreign Service Institute, and we target those courses on people that self-identify. I I as uh consumers and developers of of AI and data, so these people self-select so we're ready to go into the technical Weeds on these these specific courses.

00:11:58

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

But in addition to that we also Incorporated data and training into trade what we call Trade craft courses which are courses that are required. So this is not the cell select per group. This is not the group that self- selects but every single person that's a Foreign Service Officer, uh must be through through the uh, trade craft courses and it was a very big deal for us to include data and AI in these in these courses

00:12:29

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Is and it's important because as they go through these courses, um, you know, they can check a box and say I've taken Ai and data course this goes through towards their promotion file. Um, another thing that we're super excited in is that we also have courses for ambassadors and Deputy Chief of missions. So this is also huge so that understand what tools are out there and how they can leverage them for Mission Credit critical, uh tasks.

00:13:03

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

so

00:13:04

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

In addition to the 3 sort of levels of courses that we have. We're also creating new emerging technology training sessions with senior leaders. We also offer online self-paced training for employees who requested through data Camp. Um, we also have a office hours on a monthly basis on data topics and Ai and we started something that's pretty cool that I really like and it's called the post data program and it's basically a framework to strengthen post-state Andy capacity in our Embassy around around the world.

00:13:42

Richie Cotton

That's pretty amazing. I love like you kind of start with like everyone needs some kind of training but it's different types of training for different people. So if you're a leader you you'd have very different requirements someone with a technical job or maybe um, just someone who is only sort of more casually involved in data and AI that's very very cool stuff. Um, all right, Mike. Do you want to um, talk me through who you think needs AI training?

00:14:02

Mike Baylor

Yeah.

00:14:04

Mike Baylor

Double click on the Geo is saying I think you know I talk about AI especially generative, um that there won't be a corner of the corporation a lockie Martin that won't have ai touch it 1 way or another in the next, you know, 5 ten years. So everyone at the corporation, you know needs to have access to the trainings. Um, you know, some may be more useful to specific groups, you know, same thing we're doing here where we have a generative AI for Business Leaders. So this is designed to you know, specially be useful for for those types. Right but anyone can take the training and we have different training for those who want to develop skills and you know artificial intelligence machine learning and the doers to build and that would be obviously different trainings as well. But um anyone at the corporation that is willing to put time in to do this can do it and we've seen a lot of success, um, you know as as that, so I think that's absolutely key just to make democratize it and make it available to everyone.

00:15:02

Richie Cotton

Okay, that's cool. And again, I like that it goes right up to sort of senior level like all your management needs training on this.

00:15:09

Richie Cotton

Um, all right, uh Caroline, um, can you talk me through? Um who needs AI training Dropbox?

00:15:16

Carolann Diskin

yeah, I mean not to to continue the trend here but to reiterate I guess what Gio and Mike are saying, you know, it does start from the top down really, you know, uh from our senior leadership driving that um, you know empowering the our teams to um, expand our skill sets and our knowledge set within the AI and ml space, you know, whether that's true, um online training or you know, internal boot camps that we've um, created and designed with some of our experts within the uh, machine learning team, you know, these are really Hands-On approaches to um, applying Ai and ml in your daily work, um, which we think is really important as well because although learning certainly, you know, your theoretical online courses are super important applying that knowledge also, um in your work is extremely important as well and really getting used to um working with AI in your day-to-day also makes you feel more empowered and um, just more

00:16:16

Carolann Diskin

more I suppose.

00:16:17

Carolann Diskin

Able to get more proficient and become more of an expert in your role and then you can spread that, you know, you can become that person within your team to empower the rest of your team also and everyone else around you you're not a cross functional basis. So we really encourage everyone from as Mike said from Finance to our our technical Focus as well to really dive in um and start somewhere. You know, it doesn't matter where you start. It's just really starts.

00:16:45

Carolann Diskin

somewhere

00:16:46

Richie Cotton

That's very cool. I like that. We've had 3 votes for absolutely everyone needs some form of AI training so that that's very cool. And also love that you mentioned, um being an empowering experience because you need to understand this and you need to feel confident to be able to make use of these Technologies. Um, all right. So let's go back to the beginning because I think a lot of organizations are just getting started with these training programs. So I'd like to know a bit more about like

00:17:12

Richie Cotton

How these programs were set up so uh to be with like who is responsible for setting up the AI training program. Um, we can go first. Uh, yeah go. Do you want to go first this time?

00:17:26

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Yeah, so, um Chief data artificial intelligence officer, Dr. Matthew Ravis. He oversees all data in AI training initiatives So within our shop within our office, uh, the center analytics, we have a dedicated team that focuses exclusively on communication culture and training and we apply about how to enhance this training get training, uh across the department and then the way that we do that is by partnering working together, uh, very closely with the training shop the Foreign Service Institute so that we can harness and leverage, uh, all of the expertise or all of their know-how that that that we can make train intuitive the different levels of Mees and for the right, uh, kind of uh, material that they need to better improve and increase efficiencies. Um, and and

00:18:26

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

their their job

00:18:27

Richie Cotton

Okay, let's go. That's interesting that it came from Mike is he's very soon. He's so sweet. Um, and so it's come from the top down sort of figuring out well because everyone needs to know this it has to come from management and then we'll figure out what is needed for each of the individuals.

00:18:41

Richie Cotton

Departments or teams? All right, um, is it the same thing? Um a Lockheed Martin Mike?

00:18:47

Mike Baylor

Uh, yeah, very similar. So, you know, we want to adopt.

00:18:49

Richie Cotton

and

00:18:50

Richie Cotton

Sorry, by the way, your camera's gone crazy, uh, you might want to

00:18:55

Richie Cotton

Try removing your background, I think or possibly turning it off and on again. Sorry for the technical issue. Uh, let's see if we can get the working. There we go.

00:19:02

Mike Baylor

Sorry about that.

00:19:06

Mike Baylor

Let me try turn it on again.

00:19:09

Mike Baylor

better

00:19:13

Richie Cotton

uh

00:19:14

Richie Cotton

I think you're invisible now, but um go on just to to talk us through it and we'll worry about the camera.

00:19:17

Mike Baylor

all right.

00:19:22

Mike Baylor

Don't worry about that later. Um, so we have the philosophy of you know, build once, you know use many, uh and within Lockheed Martin, we have a centralized, uh, approach where we can build, you know, Common training and you know all the technology to which then we can disperse across the corporation. So we have and within my organization and the cdao we have this locky day Eye Center. We call it the lake we have to have an acronym for for everything. So we call it the lake um, and within that I have a directorate called foundations, um and within that foundational director at it's about providing, you know, foundational AI capabilities to the entire Corporation this includes training, um, so they produce and hosted, you know end user tailor.

00:20:03

Mike Baylor

Training courses, uh, but they've also produced like an AIML fundamentals program that once completed enables employees to transition to a real AI ml machine learning engineer job code, which we've that's also a key thing that we have within the corporation. We have a job code for it and a and a pathway to for growth. Um, and we we find a lot of those uh individuals that are currently employed and working in my organization came from that which is uh, which is fantastic.

00:20:34

Richie Cotton

That's very cool. I love that. It's linked to um actual career structure so you can get a promotion or you can change your role to something that is uh technically focused. If you complete the training that that feels like very good motivation.

00:20:47

Richie Cotton

Um, and I think motivation is always 1 of the tricky things. So I'm wondering, um, how you go about promoting the program internally just to make sure that everyone is aware that training is available. Um, Caroline do you want to take this?

00:20:59

Carolann Diskin

Sure, absolutely. Um, I suppose we look at it in a multifaceted, um way really to promote our our AI learn program internally, um, you know, it includes internal communication. So announcements through companywide emails newsletters slack channels. Um, we also get you know, leadership endorsements is is key here as well, um endorsements and and encouragement from senior leaders who emphasized the importance and benefits of AI training. Um, we have interactive sessions, you know, we we host um, external speakers in you know, thought leaders and AI experts who come in and and talk to us, um about industry Trends and and what's what's really going on in the AI landscape, um, which is really important as well. Um, we also have incentives which is really cool. So, you know offering Awards and recognition for participation and completion of courses, you know, they could be certificates badges swag who doesn't love swag. Um, and of course internal shoutouts,

00:21:58

Carolann Diskin

Um and really just sharing stories, you know, our success stories and and who's really, you know, shouting about um, what they're learning within Dropbox, you know, we love to hear about those kind of stories and promote them. Um, so really, you know giving folks a voice as well, um, whether they're just starting at a foundational level or they're you know AI experts I think it's important to have that range of voice. Um, but yeah, that's how we we try and uh,

00:22:25

Carolann Diskin

Cover all of the promotional area of the training.

00:22:27

Richie Cotton

That's very cool. I have a lot.

00:22:29

Richie Cotton

This feels very easily replicable by most organizations just like sending messages via email or slack or whatever. It's like well, these are standard ways of communicating but then on top of that you've got things like, uh leadership, uh, making commentary and then you've got swag at actually, I'd love to hear more about that. Like what kind of Swag do you give to people for doing training?

00:22:52

Carolann Diskin

Oh, lots of lots of different swag. We have beautiful, uh, notebooks. We have all different types of like beautiful coffee cups all labeled up. So yeah, there's great stuff going on.

00:23:02

Richie Cotton

Okay. Nice. Um, I suppose.

00:23:06

Richie Cotton

Once you've promoted it, so people are aware that the uh training is happening. The next tricky thing is just making sure that people stay engaged in the training is quite often people start and then vote priorities come up and you know, they get distracted and forget that this the training is there. So, um, how do you keep people engaged? Um, do you do you want to talk us through this?

00:23:28

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Yeah, so this is 1 of my favorite things, um inspiring or igniting creativity. Uh, so we do that by making sure that we go beyond the theory, uh, and we actually show them how is done the wild how generative AI is um, uh, actually, uh enhancing, um efficiency. So our AI use cases really go beyond just saying what could really be to showing what has been um, we we we demo things all of the time and currently we are we are process of developing internal chatbot, uh that can safely and securely process, uh Department data and we're in the beta testing phase and we want to make sure that people and uh, the the chatbot demo it, uh have them play with it. Um, so that inspires new ways of thinking or creativity to be about what other use cases could we? Um, uh,

00:24:28

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Envision uh and how can we use this chatbot for another set of things that I haven't thought about or anybody else in the developing team haven't thought about so we're really trying to ignite that creativity Inspire those new, uh AI use cases by showing them what it is that AI could do for them right now.

00:24:48

Richie Cotton

Okay.

00:24:50

Richie Cotton

I love that. Yeah, just being able to see some examples of this is the cool thing you can do is pretty inspiring because sometimes it's quite difficult for people to imagine. Oh, well, is this something that's possible. Um, but when you see it, it's definitely a very motivating. All right, uh, actually this is such an interesting stuff. Uh, Mike. Do you have any more uh opinions on how you keep people engaged?

00:25:13

Mike Baylor

Yeah, I mean it's really about um, you know, focusing on what the you know detail that the learner needs, you know, if they're like an engineer engineer looking to develop AI themselves or you know, the focus on on an algorithm section or AI libraries or MLS pipeline pipelines of what they needs, you know what they need if they're a manager, you know who needs to develop a better intuition of where to invest in AI than we focus on teaching them how to you know, identify opportunities for for AI application, but it's definitely, you know, given the breadth of AI and all the different opportunities you have you have to have really a mixed bag of of approaches to to get to the Learners and make it a value for them.

00:25:52

Richie Cotton

Okay, uh, excellent. So just really making sure that the right people are learning the right things and it's appropriate to whatever their job goals are. All right, um,

00:26:00

Mike Baylor

Yep. Yep.

00:26:02

Richie Cotton

So quite often we find uh, when you've got a training program, some people are kind of okay, they go through the the program and it's fine, but other people get really enthusiastic about it and they start championing this championing this program. So I'd love to know about um, how do you identify these Champions? And how do you make use of them to uh, get other people more enthusiastic? Um,

00:26:26

Richie Cotton

yeah, uh Caroline. Do you want to talk me through like, who are you? Who are you champions of uh learning about AI?

00:26:31

Carolann Diskin

Yeah, um, we have many champions, you know from all across the company, which I think is wonderful. So I suppose um these Champions really we we engage, you know, very deeply with because these are the folks that really will do the promotion for you without any effort really to be honest because they're so passionate and so driven, um about learning and about these new technologies and these new skill sets. So for example, we had, you know, an onboarding session with data camp and we had some um of our data cam Champions come on board who are you know, topping our leaderboard, uh, we uh month after month. So, you know, these guys were able to come on board. Um, and really talk to the audience. Um, who were you know on the fence maybe about taking some courses or weren't really sure how to engage or where to engage where to start even so they provided, you know, the foundational kind of story of how they began, um, you know all about how you can earn your experience points and you know, really, uh talked about the

00:27:32

Carolann Diskin

Variety of content as well. That's out there. Also. We have some really great. Um Ai and ml experts within Dropbox who are just excellent, um teachers, you know, their excellent instructors their excellent mentors, um, and really effortlessly deliver, you know, boot camps, um to such a high standard, you know, we've had serious uh success, um with some of these boot camps that we've delivered internally and and, you know by Word of Mouth then word

00:28:00

Carolann Diskin

Travels people get really interested. We have multiple signups for our next 1 Etc. So Champions are so important. Um, and like I said, they come from all different teams all different organizations within Dropbox. Um, and it's just it's wonderful and we want to empower them, um to keep driving that um, you know learning I suppose passion. Um all across the company

00:28:22

Richie Cotton

That's brilliant. I love it. You've got people who are like maybe a bit technical already or they're good at teaching and they've started mentoring other people within the organization. That's very cool. Uh, it's like building that social aspect.

00:28:30

Carolann Diskin

cool, uh

00:28:35

Richie Cotton

um

00:28:37

Richie Cotton

Go Mike, do you want to talk through have you made the use of Champions at your organization in any way?

00:28:43

Mike Baylor

Yeah, and you know at Lockheed we have you know, uh a lot of Engineers, right? So we're high on like the nerd scale of these types of new technologies. Um, so there's a lot of you know internal advocacy. Uh, we've had you know, our overall AIML Ops capability where we have you know, thousands of uh, individuals using this and you know, we have training boot camps and various kind of virtual conferences to which we can get people exposed to the technology and get them, you know rolled in there, but honestly, you know, it's been a blessing that we haven't had to do a ton of internal promotion. Although we do um, and a lot of it's been through Word of Mouth um, and you know talking about what they have done going back to you know, evangelizing. Well, I did it, you know for this use case and uh, someone else picks up on that. Well, I can use that too or apply it in this way and that sort of thing so there's an organic nature to it that's been you know, we've been very successful with but I think over time, you know, you're going to get past the early adopter.

00:29:42

Mike Baylor

and then what we're focused on now is how to get and the rest of the corporation and others involved that maybe won't be as you know, uh, you know,

00:29:52

Mike Baylor

Excited to get engaged in kind of the AI Revolution that we're all taking part in. Um, so that's that's going to be a key element moving forward.

00:30:00

Richie Cotton

That's very cool. When Word of Mouth actually works. It's like well as a as a manager, you don't have to do things like all the employees or all the people who are taking this training. There's like they're sharing and stuff. They're promoting things, uh, just because they love it and yeah, uh makes makes your life easier. I'm sure um, all right. So, um,

00:30:19

Richie Cotton

I'd love to talk about success stories because I mean this is this is why we're here right is is to have some kind of success with the training program. So I guess um, are there any new projects that you've been able to take on or have you seen some kind of benefit from having AI training?

00:30:34

Richie Cotton

Uh go you've not spoken for a while. It must be your turn.

00:30:37

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Yeah, um, so we have this very cool and I I alluded to in the in just briefly, uh program this code that post data program, which basically we bring data and AI to embassies and posts around the world and that program has been incredibly successful and it actually spearheaded like a grassroot movement with um, 5 initial posts, uh that have launched the program. So, uh, Mexico City's, uh, Jakarta, uh, these were really uh, successful programs that were able to fund problems underground, uh, and find or match those problems to to assist level Solutions and we've seen incredible, um successes. So let me just give you a stats because uh, I'm a nerd self-identifying the on data nerd. So let me give you stuff.

00:31:38

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

That um, so uh, our Embassy in is able to use AI to save 50% of their staff time writing labels, which are like basically field reports. So, um while folks do spend time fact-checking because of course, we all know about the uh limits of generative Ai and the dangers of hallucinations or confabulations. They still still are able to save

00:32:07

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Fifth percent of the time that it significant and that's um based the screen time and more face-to-face time for them.

00:32:15

Richie Cotton

That is so cool because normally when we talk about a big productivity boost, it's like, oh we can do something 10% faster and just being able to cut that time for writing reports in heart. That's a massive win. Like I'm sure nobody like well maybe 1 or 2 people really love writing reports. I can't think there's like many people like really excited about like writing these sort of regular cables just being able to cut down that time to sound very cool. Um, all right. So, um, I'd also like to talk about the impact on people's careers. So Mike before you mentioned how um, this was tied to promotion. So you complete the training and then uh, it's possibility to as a possibility to get into 1 of the um, more technical roles. Um, can you talk me through just how that works?

00:32:59

Mike Baylor

Yeah, absolutely. So um and I love this approach because you know, we lay out, you know, the the various trainings and there's you know different job codes there's and there's you know, obviously data related, you know job codes and Analytics.

00:33:11

Mike Baylor

Artificial intelligence machine learning data engineering. So we have these job codes set up and as you know, the universities are a little bit slow to to to get the curriculum to have these students kind of Pumped out of the University system. Um, but what a great opportunity for our work force to upskill, right? So we have you know, specific training for each 1 of those and you know an individual that you know thinks well, I I've heard about this, you know AI technology I think this is you know, it's a huge future in this and and it's going to help my career. So then they'll gravitate over see wow, there's you know, free training for use all I need to do and it's invest in my time. Right and then they they and it's not easy, right? So you have to learn you have to do a lot of work and put time in it's like taking a college course, but at the end of it they have all these skills and when they approach someone like myself or someone to say I went through this, you know on my own on my own time, you know, as you know having an employee that wants to do the job is half.

00:34:12

Mike Baylor

The battle um, and you know, so they come in that I've invest they've invested their time and effort because you know, it's you're gonna honestly I feel like you get really good engagement and employees, um, as an artifact of that versus, you know, a mandated type style training, uh type of thing. So with that, you know, we love to uh, you know inner source and promote our employees from within into these areas because as we all know when you build any real application, whether it's artificial intelligence or the data or analytics half of its the technology piece the other half is the domain right so you have to understand the domain and they a lot of you know, all our employees typically come with the domain side. So they learn the tech and then they're, you know in a in a great position to be very successful.

00:34:59

Richie Cotton

That is a very important point is is um, if you got domain knowledge and then you can use the technology as well. I think that's it's a fairly rare combination and is incredibly powerful. So having that ability to do internal promotions. Um must be uh, yeah a big boost for your organization. All right, um,

00:35:16

Mike Baylor

His first performance we call it unicorns.

00:35:20

Richie Cotton

nice

00:35:20

Richie Cotton

Um, so there's a lot of great audience questions. I've got 1 more question for each of you, which is just what's your final advice for organizations that want to set up an AI training program. Um, yeah, uh Caroline, uh, what's your what's your Golden Nugget of wisdom?

00:35:39

Carolann Diskin

I say go for it.

00:35:41

Carolann Diskin

Um, no, I I really think you know, you'll never look back right AI is going nowhere. Um, it's only going to become more transformative. Um, it's only be going to become more Innovative, uh Innovative. So I really think you know, even if you haven't started yet, there's time, you know, there's just start at the foundational the fundamental side of AI really get your your Workforce your um teams excited about it start doing demos show and tells start bringing in some AI expert experts to chat about the the landscape. Um, yeah, I would really just start at the foundational levels and start building from there. You know, there's it's AI is is just transformative and you know, the potential is is we don't even know what the potential is yet, right. So, um, I think really just getting folks excited. Um and starting from the ground up is is the best thing to do and obviously getting Buy in as well from senior leadership I think is key because we want to drive that. Um,

00:36:41

Carolann Diskin

From the top down, um, which really, you know resonates with your Workforce then if that happens. So yeah, I'm excited for for all of what's going to come uh in the future with AI.

00:36:53

Richie Cotton

Let me just just go for it and stay excited. There's some wonderful. Uh, go there. Uh, all right, uh go, uh, what's your final advice?

00:37:03

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

I have a 3 ingredient recipe, uh, so make it intuitive and accessible. That's ingredient number 1 ingredient number 2. So only self like don't only target self-identified data nerds like myself but uh cast a wide net and make sure that even those people that are non-technical that have to have a little bit of fun.

00:37:24

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

And then that third ingredient is reach the sky. So, uh, you know go for making sure that everyone everyone has a solid foundational understanding of what they it is and what the AI is but also for them to be able to to have that. Um, uh Comfort level that is is going to allow them to incorporate additional knowledge on emerging technology because we're just starting and this is going to get even more exciting and more fun as time progresses. So that's my 3

00:37:60

Richie Cotton

All right, that's making a delicious AI training cake there nice stuff. And I love that. We're back to everyone needs some form of training. Like don't just um, give training to like whoever's whoever's a a self-confessed dating nerd I think was uh your uh your term but yeah, everyone needs some form of training. Um, all right, uh Mike, what's your final advice?

00:38:21

Mike Baylor

Yeah, I'd say um just overall a lot of times, you know training and you know, these big activities gets put on the back burner, but you need to make it a top priority, you know, um, we've seen return on investment, you know by training our Engineers, you know, but also our Business Leaders, uh, you know with the benefits and you know, appropriate applications of of AI, um, you know, I think it can be easy for like us lock key to kind of write off the non-engineer, um types but really that's where a lot of the value is and what I tell people like, you know that are do this for a living. Yeah. We have a lot of really great ideas, but the best ideas are going to come from people like buried within the organization that aren't AI experts that get plugged in that's where the really good ideas are going to come from and we need to have that kind of culture. So

00:39:06

Richie Cotton

Is uh, what should I focus on while giving my team AI training for the first time? Yes. So, um, we've talked about a lot of different ideas for AI training. Um, where should you focus your efforts?

00:39:36

Richie Cotton

Uh who wants to take this?

00:39:41

Richie Cotton

Go you look like you wanted to speak.

00:39:44

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Sure, sure happy to um, so uh, the first thing that that I would focus on is making sure that we have um intuitive pling language. Um,

00:39:55

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Definitions for what data is uh, so text is data numbers are data, uh, everything is data. Um, and then also, um not getting too much in the weeds, but actually showing and telling showing by telling by showing people what um, tools are out there and what are some of the promises and some of the limitations of that so starting with starting small. Um, uh, so AI 101 may be really helpful and I think that you all at data have great great resources, uh to get to get that started.

00:40:28

Richie Cotton

Um, yeah, that's very cool. Um, all right. Uh, so yeah just you've got to figure out what's important in order to uh, work out what you should focus your attention on. Okay, uh, so they've got another question on

00:40:43

Richie Cotton

Uh internal Academy, so I guess this is something uh that a lot of large organizations have you've got some kind of training academy set up. So, um, the question is how can you balance training costs with achieving Roi efficiently, uh for businesses? Yeah. So obviously there's a cost to training but hopefully you're going to get some kind of benefit. Um, do you want to talk me through how you go about um reconciling the 2 like maybe how do you measure the return on investment? And uh,

00:41:13

Richie Cotton

how do you know that? Um, the training program works? Um, Mike do you want to take this you have mentioned in Roi before?

00:41:20

Mike Baylor

Yeah, yeah sure. Um and this this is a good question because they're gonna ask. Well, what's the so what what's the the value that you know for the for the training cost but the way that um, we looked at it was we looked at the corporation as a whole right and it's because a lot of when you start out doing AI a lot of times it's just for the, you know, a IML Engineers the very high, you know, um, you know, high level, uh,

00:41:43

Mike Baylor

AI uh developers, but we look holistically at the corporation and then we show okay out of that. Let's segment out who who needs to get what type of training and upskilling and then per like almost at the individual level what value you're going to get out of that type that Persona or that person. So the way it it was a rant that I ended up building and it showed you know, 80,000 people on 1 side of the ramp and 5,000 on the other the 5,000 are the high-end, you know machine learning Engineers that are going to be developing on capabilities. Yes. We need that we need to promote that we need to do that. But we also need to upskill and basic general, you know Genai or like rag techniques or other things that people can just do and then here's the thing each 1 of those people might not be a huge percentage of value. Um, and on the high end of the ramp with the 80,000 people per person, but in aggregate the value is going to potentially exceed the you know, 2,000 people that are hardcore, um AIML Engineers when you look at the overall holistic value, so

00:42:45

Mike Baylor

You know doing things like that and articulating that is, you know, a story to up the chain to Executives to justify the expense is really important because you can't get there without training.

00:42:53

Richie Cotton

Okay. Yeah, so you're looking at um, what's the different uh amount of value add for different kinds of employees and then you can do some sort of aggregate over like over job roles or over positions or something like that interesting.

00:43:07

Mike Baylor

Yeah, yes. Yes.

00:43:08

Richie Cotton

Okay, cool. Uh, all right. Uh, I think got time for another question. So, uh, next 1 is uh to some extent we were responsible to take advantage of learning resources for upskilling. How can we establish the most important paths to upskill? Yes. There's a lot of different ways of doing AI training. How do you go about finding? What's most appropriate? Um, Caroline do you want to take this?

00:43:30

Carolann Diskin

Sure, you know I I think there's so many different ways to deliver training. I think there's and everybody is different. So learning is subjective to so many different people. Some people are very Hands-On and just want to get straight in there and start applying what they're learning. Some people are more. You know, I I'd like to watch some videos. I'd like to take it in at my own self-paced steady Pace. Um, and then other people, you know are a combination of that. So Blended learning for me I think is is a wonderful way of delivering training. I think you're giving folks the option of you know, which modality they prefer. Um, and I also think, you know, we're not we're being inclusive there. You know, we're we're inviting people in I also think, you know having a mix of internal trainings. So what's your company doing in the AI and ml Space versus, you know, external training like data camp and other learning platforms or talks or webinars Etc, you know, they're all wonderful as well. So having a combination of different modalities, as I said is really I

00:44:30

Carolann Diskin

I think for us it works, you know, I would encourage it because again, I think people have different ways of learning. Um, and you just you want to make sure that people are excited about it as I mentioned before um and meet people where they're at. You know, it doesn't have to be a 5 hour, you know training course, you know, bite-sized chunks bring people in slowly and encourage them to keep learning. That's what I would uh, that's what I would really say just

00:44:58

Carolann Diskin

Um mix it up. Make sure there's a a way for everybody to be included.

00:45:01

Richie Cotton

Absolute a lot that makes sense that you need to know like what stage people are at before they begin learning because there's no point like giving them stuff that's too easy or too hard and then uh figure out, uh, you know, what mode of learning they prefer and how much time do they have lots of things to consider. It's basically know your audience I suppose. All right, uh with that we are at time, uh,

00:45:23

Richie Cotton

So exciting. I wish we could talk for longer. There's so much I exciting stuff we haven't covered. But anyway, that was absolutely brilliant. I really enjoyed that. Uh, so yeah, thank you go. Thank you Caroline. Thank you Mike. Thank you to everyone who asked a question. Um, there is 1 more session today. So, uh, please get to that. Uh, please jump over to the next session, uh starting in 5 minutes. So, uh, thank you once again to

00:45:47

Richie Cotton

All our speakers and uh, yes it will in the next session. Cheers. Bye.

00:45:47

Giorleny Altamirano Rayo

Thank you.

00:45:50

Carolann Diskin

Thank you.