Ep. 31: Ari Lightman of Carnegie Mellon University

Transcription:

Hey everybody, this is Jonathan Kersting, with the Pittsburgh Technology Council hanging out with Comcast to tell our 50 Summer Stories of Pittsburgh Technology. And we're talking to somebody who I would say is a true tech pioneer in Pittsburgh, Ari Lightman, from Carnegie Mellon University, Professor of digital media and marketing and has what I'm calling the absolute best zoom background of anyone that I've ever interviewed during this pandemic. 

So I'm really excited to talk to you today because you run this really cool programs are around around capstone projects at Carnegie Mellon University. They're just absolutely crucial. I love it. When universities and private industry come together to solve tough problems and get students engaged and show them what it's like working in the real world for lack of a better term. We want to make sure these projects continue, no matter what's going on in the outside world. We're going to talk a little bit about that today. And anything else you want to talk about. We want to do a little nerd out on previous Pittsburgh tech history we could do that.

Let's just start with with with your tech shots, man, you got some great experience. You've worked with so many cool tech companies in Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon. Give us a little bit about your background and what art is all about.

Oh, boy.

Way, way back What now? So I came to Pittsburgh from Toronto to do my Master's in engineering. Came back to my MBA. My wife and I both worked in technology. When I left, top, I went to business school, I was really interested in startups. I did one in San Francisco. So I joined a company called co manage here. Great companies like us find out a forest system sort of but was started by two tech visionaries and grayling, David Nelson. It's just great to work there. So I was there for a while. I was with a early stage route level management company in Philadelphia for a while was that innovation works for him. That was great, because I got to look at cool stuff. Well, you know, I got to look at the future of robotics, the future of sensing the future social networking, those sorts of things. And I eventually just joined one of the companies that I sort of led investment in, which was red zone, right? So I was there for a while and worked on sales from a robotics perspective, which was just great pipeline of sales for very novel innovative robotic systems in the utility space. Then do some management consulting. And now I'm a professor at CMU.

And he's, like almost 10 years now too, which is pretty cool. I think I found your thing, right?

I mean, I it's weird how we kind of follow our parents, whether we like it or not my dad is he was a professor, laser optics physicist, and now kind of have this rememory of him always bringing back grad students. Right. Okay. Cool things that allowed that. I guess you can play with it.

And, yeah, so now I'm gonna do what my dad did, which so I'm a professor at Carnegie Mellon, which is great people there are absolutely phenomenal. It's wonderful being bombarded with new ideas and new technologies, and it's sort of an entrepreneurial kind of environment. You want to create a new program.

Do it works. Let's see. That's why I say CMU is such a jewel. For our region. I honestly say Without Carnegie Mellon and like pick up other universities, Pittsburgh would not be where it is today. And I'm glad it attracted people like you here to Pittsburgh to do all the crazy cool things you've done. I'd like you're kind of like the Johnny Cash of tech. You've been everywhere, man.

And I think that's so cool.

All black, I think we got to start doing that. Now I'm going to sound cool. That is a cool color.

The Johnny Cash man, it's simple as that. And I love is you've taken all these experiences and you're bringing that to Carnegie Mellon. And you're able to then now take this in and connect industry and students and research and all this cool stuff that's going on to the capstone programs, right.

One of the things it's kind of interesting, so after a while, you kind of kind of figure out what you're good at. Okay.

It's been told me told me many times that are you know, a lot of folks and you connect a lot of folks right. A lot of folks excited By technology, which is something I've been doing for my entire life, okay, um, so I did that in terms of bringing companies to Carnegie Mellon with a class that I created called measuring social, which is an experiential learning environment. Similar to our capstone environment. I bring in up to 14 companies a year, and just throw them in front of students to say, Okay, these guys have an issue around unstructured data. They're wanting you to help them associated with assessing them just go. And by being at Carnegie Mellon, by leveraging my network, I've we've gotten a chance to work with Netflix, HBO, Warner Brothers, Mercedes, Ford, you name it, Microsoft, Cisco on Google a few times, YouTube, all these cool companies, which is great for students, not just as a resume builder, but the larger the company, the more well known, the bigger the issues that they have, right? I think there's a while there's big, there's big issues. One of the biggest issues is, what do we do with all this unstructured data that we have? We're collecting all the social data. What do we do with it? Do we use it as a predictor associated with pain? How do we engage those sorts of things? So it's a fun class. It's hard to teach, but it's a weird experience. But since the students that like it they really love you say they go headfirst in that mad becomes something like a wormhole where you're like, get taken away.

I had students working with Kate Spade last semester, they did a fantastic job. I had students working with any entertainment looking at scripted content, Cisco, Microsoft mondelez, we're working for Camelot to understand so the electrified vehicle market.

Wow. I mean, that's so can we just the range of projects that you work on is just amazing. It just goes to show you how, what the skills that happened in a company To get mounted to the students there, it just cuts across every industry because they all need to have these really tough problems solved. And it takes sharp minds. It went to explore and seek these out. I think it's so cool. And so tell us tell us about this this Capstone program and how it works. I think this is just such a cool thing.

Yeah, so, Capstone. The idea behind the projects are every student who comes to and this is a Heinz college, there's concerns in other colleges as well, right. But specifically with a ninth college information systems and public policy, all students are required to a capstone project. Okay. So, you know, we work with a variety of different folks, the usual suspects, you know, PwC, and the large banks, those sorts of thing, a variety of other folks to source projects for the students to work on. And it's part and parcel of what I see going on across higher education. That you know, we we We spent a lot of time You and I were talking about our history, you know, growing up when we were when we were going to university, there was a lot of role based education, where you have somebody who's a worldwide expert on something, telling you sharing you, with you a variety of stuff that they know of, and having you process that information, and then showing you that there's some assurances of learning, they've learned it.

We think this is correct. If you believe us, you can now have this knowledge.

Exactly. And then, you know, it's such a stressful situation is almost like a boiler room environment. By the time they leave campus, you know, 12 hours later, they've forgotten everything. Exactly. The collapse, right? There's simulated learning where we do simulations, right, we might do case studies, or we might do actually online simulations. Those are things but I love the idea of experiential learning. Because that is really where The rubber hits the road associated. Exactly, exactly. You got to deal with ambiguity. You got to deal with Project Management, you got to deal with relationship development, you got to deal with task delegation task management. It goes on it is a real world environment in a sort of university educational setting.

Right. Okay. Yeah, no, that's why I think it's so cool cuz it brings you brings the students rights where the action is none of this. Like, this is what it will be like when you're working on a project against things like no, you're here right now. They need to get a deadline for tomorrow. Get on it.

Here's a perfect, perfect case. Now we're working with one of the world's largest banks who mutational management scoring mechanism when a bunch of class action lawsuits are being filed. Okay, propriety you could see trust go up.

Real Time. Exactly. just fascinating. We're working with one of the largest entertainment companies in the world when the entire team got laid off. So the team doesn't have a sponsor, they have no connection, you know, but you got to keep going, you know, you have to finish up, and you have to develop a valuable and project product for your client. So anything and everything can happen. We all we often talk about this in marketing, and we can talk a lot about programs, products, services, in theory and concept. But once they go out into the wild, people use them for a variety of different mechanisms that you didn't pick up before. Right? So this is really where the deployment part of research, development and deployment comes in. You're helping companies actually think about what it looks like to deploy these things, and what to get ready for. So I think, you know, with experience or Learning with our capstone projects. It's a fantastic learning experience, not just for the students, but also for the companies that come in and sponsor these projects.

Glad you brought that up. I was gonna ask you about that because it's really like, like, it becomes this two way street, where it's like they're gonna get they're gonna get as much out of it as the student does.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, you're getting, you know, thousands of hours of time spent and some really smart analytical time and engineering time spent on some of these issues that they have, whether it's operational issues, or strategic issues, or just something in terms of tactics that they need to launch.

And the folks that understand that and help the students out. They get their perspective, right. So you get a unfettered, fresh set of eyes looking at this problem statement, which made up might have never gotten before so students actually become almost experts. This specific issue this specific space, this specific, you know, recommendation. And that's, that's great and and I just listened to a capstone presentation, it was fantastic in terms of the amount of analysis and data that they did to really help this company out.

You guys start raising your rates then.

I mean, so here's the thing with my class, which is measuring social.

I, you know, I worked with administration to say, Listen, I don't want any barrier associated with companies coming to me associated with this project. So I've kept it free. It's an educational endeavor. I read. With our capstones, we asked for a $10,000 up to $10,000 charitable donation, right, that's base. They don't have to do it, but we asked them you know, You have seen value associated with this, you know, would help out tremendously. And a lot, I would say a good portion of companies feel happy.

I would say they're stroking that check at the end of the day being like, this is pretty cool. This is money well spent being able to buy 150,000 of a bunch of smart phones. For 10 grand. I've seen how long do these projects last words in a full semester? Is it for a full year two semesters? How's that work?

Yeah, so runs a full semester. Um, and we do them in the spring and we do them in the fall, okay. We source about 25 to 30 projects, both in the spring and in the fall, okay. And you get a team of three or four very talented students working with you, as well as somebody who's sort of a dedicated advisors, a faculty member, okay with a college or organizational knowledge associated with the client. And then, you know, it's just a wonderful experience going back and forth. For the students, some some folks actually use it as a proving ground.

Right? Ah, well, you, you've done phenomenal work for us, you understand our industry, you understand our issues, you need a job.

You're graduating in the spring.

How about coming working for us?

That makes total sense. It's one of those ways where they can test each other out as well. You get students to know that I love this, I want to I want to do more. And so that way, it allows that kind of like, like, get to know each other type of a scenario. And it creates, it creates an opportunity then to keep some of this talent here in Pittsburgh bar, you just need to show them that there's great opportunities here, and vested interest in making sure that our region grows. And it continues to sort of keep some of the tech talent that we're incubating at Carnegie Mellon. I'd love to see my students walking around, you know, Shady Side.

Exactly.

And you know, it's great cost, quality of life here. Great cost of living associated with it. So, yeah, I would like to see more engagement between Pittsburgh based firms. Okay. And some of the educational and student based talent that we have.

We got to build that up more because because there's so many opportunities in Pittsburgh problems that need to be solved that companies of all sizes are working on, I think I bet you from startup to, you know, a fortune 500 company that's in Pittsburgh, like, here's an opportunity to get in front of the smartest people to solve some really specific crazy problems. And like, make that happen. Is there still time for people to apply? For Capstone?

Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. So, you know, we're giving ourselves a little more leeway because of the pandemic and COVID in order to bring in some really Interesting Capstone is for the students to work on in the fall. Mm hmm. Once again, we're looking for that 25 to 30 number. Okay, um, but, you know, we'd love to reach out to Pittsburgh based companies. I mean, there there are, there are some that we've worked with and we continue to work with you, but there's a variety of others that we can engage with, and work with them some of these capstones, I think they'll find it a phenomenal mechanism to utilize some talent out in Carnegie Mellon. How would you not do this? I see as a company out there. And yeah, every company I know, the blog that in the tech industry here in Pittsburgh is a play in the world. They're all looking for talent because they have so much work they got to get done. Here's an opportunity to get to a big chunk of work done in a specialized area and and do it, you know, well, so I think we know there's always issues associated with confidentiality. With data exchange, ability, those sorts of things and, you know, just want to say that some of your members were willing to work with you on.

Okay. I like that. Yes, that you say that you're flexible, you can kind of talk it through and figure out the best way to make this project work. Right?

Absolutely. It's part and parcel. Some folks are just worried about working with an educational institution, especially in educational institution that might have a lot of international students. Okay. But we've solved a lot of those issues. Okay. A lot of those issues.

So now, we got to clear the air on this little bit. That's not be something that keeps you with working with with one of the world's top universities, for crying out loud, like they understand they have ways to make sure things are going to be cool things are going to be safe and secure.

Yeah. So I mean, we'd love to replicate some of the stuff that we've done with you know, in the past with myelin and being why Mellon ups See, of course, replicates out across the Pittsburgh region. Yeah.

If you could describe like an ideal project? Or is it even possible because they're all so different? I don't know.

We've done so many cool projects, Jonathan. So I'll give you an idea of a project that I feel very close to. And I think we're just just cool. Um, so you know, we've had this relationship with the Pittsburgh International Airport for half a dozen years. Yeah. are a great partner. We did a project last year on looking at the the queuing time for the security line, right? And how can we change things around by understanding data, understanding, queueing theory, understanding arrival time, wait time, service time, those sorts of things. And it's so cool seeing this, the students go down to the airport. Just do field experiments. Right.

Wow. Are you serious? Okay. Cool.

People analyze data, understand the process, understand the operation, and then report back in terms of a data model, how things can change how they could optimize how things can become more efficient. Right? How can they focus on customer service and efficiency within the airport as well?

Very cool. I've received it that's why I'm like I'm just excited for you guys. I'm going to we're going to spread this out so hopefully some companies will see this and they're gonna reach out to you and be like, yeah, I've got a project and let's figure out how we can make this thing work because I like the fact that this is not cookie cutter This is all custom into the idea is that any fears just talk it through. Zoom in with our I'd say have a cup of coffee, but we really still can't do that yet. Unfortunately. But enjoy Ari's nice background here.

Exactly.

You can just fly that thing right over wherever he wants to get on target.

Anything else that people should know about this when we wind this thing up? I think this is such a cool opportunity. And I think he's one thing that makes Pittsburgh just so awesome.

No, I mean, I I would just encourage folks to reach out even if you don't want to take advantage of the capstone projects, you might have other ideas associated with connections with Carnegie Mellon. And, you know, this is what we want to do. We want to create more of an inclusive environment around the Pittsburgh and the Southwest pa region when it comes to new tech, innovation, privacy, security, you name it.

Awesome stuff, man. So cool. I'm so glad we got to catch up a little bit. We'll just save Part Two for our deep dive nerd out of Pittsburgh tech circa 2001. I think we both have some pretty funny stories to tell. And I'm gonna say you are the Johnny Cash of Pittsburgh tech dude, suppose that you've been everywhere.

I can't thank Comcast enough for allowing us to tell these 50 summer stories or important stories you're not just hearing anywhere you can tell the stories would not know about the talk. Are you are the best.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai