I am very grateful to have attended the 25th annual NCW Tech Alliance Annual Innovators Awards. NCW Tech Alliance is a testament to the power of collective impact in the entrepreneurial space. I was there to celebrate a WVC student, Monica Oropeza Rojas, whose work studying drip irrigation and X-disease in cherry orchards is impacting the industry. Monica’s family (her father attended with her) have been stalwarts in a world class agricultural region impacted by climate change, economic headwinds to exports, and challenges to land use as data centers locate for the favorable energy and economic space created by our regions hydroelectric and emerging hydrogen fusion energy infrastructure.
I am so very proud every time one of our graduates demonstrates their resilience and passion for improving the lives of our communities. I was struck that two of Monica’s faculty, Jeff Bullock and Francisco Sarmiento-Torres, attended and celebrated Monica’s accomplishments too. She spoke to their impact on her career choices and determination: a key moment that I am sure neither will forget.
Celebrations of human ingenuity are always humbling and encouraging. I find great meaning in the work of supporting emerging scholars and entrepreneurs at events like the Innovators Awards.
Today, the subtext of any technology event is the incursion of artificial intelligence into all aspects of our lives. AI is answering our questions by default quite often, and is now in use, often by explicit expectation, in workplaces ranging from healthcare and technology, finance and banking, sales and marketing, education and even government. This is all taking place even as we aren’t so sure that our own use is so positive to us as individuals or organizations. Gallup’s tracking of our use and our perspectives shows a growing use of AI, coupled with persistent concerns.
Organizations like Jobs for the Future are actively promoting frameworks, competencies, and knowledge production in the AI space that are “human centered” even as growing numbers of the workforce fear “machine displacement.” The future of work hangs in the balance, and where are we?
These questions are vexxing, which is why I found a brief introduction by Dr. Daksha Ranade, Seattle Children’s AVP of Research Informatics to be the real show stealer of the Innovators Awards. Dr. Ranade was giving a brief introduction when she shared, without mentioning AI directly, that the future needs to be built on “curiosity, capability, and conscience.” Her remarks were salient and clear, and provided a recipe for humanity in an AI future.
We need not fear AI and we should not ignore it. Our questions, our interest, our practice – in which our training of AI also trains ourselves and grows our capacity to use AI ourselves – and our conscience create conditions in which we benefit, we shape, and we learn. Our conscience – our values, knowledge of right and wrong, application towards the betterment of our workplaces and communities, and check on misuse or misappropriation – creates an underpinning in which innovation as humans can continue to flourish.
Curiosity, capability, and conscience…and gratitude when truly brilliant people cut through the myriad of noise to land on a simple recipe we can all remember and use. So what are you waiting on, get cooking!
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