Ep. 33: Rachael Afolabi of Paradigm Global Innovation

Everybody, this is Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh Technology Council, I got the pleasure of hanging out with Comcast to tell 50 of the cool stories happening in Pittsburgh technology ecosystem. And this story today is going to live right up to that. Very excited to talk to Rachael Afolabi from Paradigm Global Innovations. I used to know Rachael back in her days at Carlow. I heard she's doing this I'm like, this is kind of cool. I like when people move around and spin up new ventures. And so Rachael, I'm so excited to talk to you today and catch up because I think what you're working on is pretty exciting stuff. Yep. First off, we jump into it. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, what you do and how you do it. You've got a really cool background. I think our listeners knows a little bit more about you.

Alright, so I am, you know, by trade, I'm an instructional designer, okay. And what that means is, you know, you solve many problems. So as my fellow instructional designers will attest to, but what that also means that it gives you an Exposure to alternative types of education. It gives you two different ways you can design education and multiple, you know, multiple delivery options. So, with that knowledge, I mean, I, I've been doing, I came out of a consultant background. So I was an instructional designer, Training Manager for consulting companies, non stop from healthcare to manufacturing, Telecom. And of course, that led me up to higher education. And, you know, which is where we first met, and then during that period of higher ed, it was a good time for research. It was a good time to see what kinds of opportunities are out there. I was fortunate to be able to do workforce development two years ago, and that exposed me to some of the gaps that are available both in education and region. So um, you know, as a freelancer I always was, you know, I was always a freelancer. In non instructional design projects, technology development, so that gave me an opportunity to, to see other opportunities that were out there. So I got in contact with several of the nonprofits in the Pittsburgh region, and particularly working with great Valley Community Services, they started right off. And they are an entity that does. They do a whole lot of things for, you know, for the community. So they have a food bank, they have health care and all that stuff. But recently, they got a small grant from an organization to develop a tech space. Very cool.

Like hearing that, that's awesome.

Yeah, so they have a tech space and you know, their basement broke and that's the east side of Pittsburgh. And you know, the director called me and she said, you know, we have limited funding, but we want to get out to the students in the Woodland Hills School District. A lot of kids who are in neighborhoods in Pittsburgh that don't have options. Trinity's technology programs so accurate. What can we do creatively with the amount of money we have? So we help you know, I help them think through it. And we were able to set up a small tech space, created some programs around it. We just completed the first program that we ran with them this summer, which and we ran that tweeted in a way where they surveyed small businesses in the region. And then we created a curriculum around this. I'm very cool. And this this came up this summer. You just finished last Friday.

Wow, all during this whole COVID thing. Right.

All virtually I mean, we use nice themes. We use zoom, we use FaceTime and everything.

Anything we could do to get but we trained eight interns in data analytics and design thinking and nice HTML code, and they did so well. And this were students between ninth and 11th That's awesome. You know, I mean, we want to ramp up those kinds of programs. But the director is so great. She's very creative. But one of the things that we did see is that there are some, some programs that may not get the kind of attention that other programs do. Right? There are either limited or lack of funding. So, but we were able to do that, and we hope we can ramp that up another arm of our business that we've been doing so I do research in Europe, although I've been traveling. I've been in the US since cobit. started. Okay, getting back to this fall, but we've been talking in the region about immersive technologies.

Definitely. Absolutely.

I know you've been part of some of those conversations. And one of the things that we heard from a lot of well, from college professors, students, high school principals, people have been talking about how immersive technology will change the landscape of a lot of disciplines. A lot of businesses by One thing that has kind of been lacking in the region is a show Intel. You know, like, I would agree with you exactly. You got to bring this thing on the road show and tell people let people actually see how I'm in debt. Not that there has been a lack of, you know, people showing stuff. It's just, it's, it's one of those things immersive technologies is one of those things where it has to apply to you directly to see how. exactly exactly right I agree.

So what we've decided to do again during this period of COVID is just last week we have we made the decision that because we are starting with a new partnership, we have stood up and use space in victory square in spaces. To be a location where we will open up to the public, you know, of course appointment only because you know, we have to comply with everything. But we're going to be stuck in that spot up with a lot of immersive technology.

Oh, that's exciting. When's this gonna be stocked up and ready to go? I want to pick it up. Wait and check it out on September 9, that soon you don't mess around. When you see something, you jump on it and you're all over them and think about it, I think you and I bumped into each other like three times at different events like two, three years backwards.

It was basically the same conversations about immersive tech, immersive tech will do X, but how and then you go back to your stakeholders, just your admins, your executives, and they, you know, you drum up the excitement, but they just can't see the value of investing.

Exactly, exactly. Well, we're fortunate to be I didn't ask their permission. So I wouldn't mention the company name, but we're working with one of the we're working with an architectural firm here in Pittsburgh, a very visible 360 tour of a space that they hope to acquire shortly. So that should be you know, that It's going to be one of our first prominent projects that will be dependent on the client. They will. I think they will be opening that up to the public in mid September. But we're building that you're putting it together right now as we speak. That's so cool. I just love it man. Like you just you're bringing all the stuff in right to the people.

I think at this point, that's what we need. And think about everything we've seen during COVID. We've seen how people need to understand basically, what their, what their body constitution is, how the disease affects them, right? In a lot of animation, we've seen a lot of immersive ways of understanding how the disease attached to the body and things like that. So, you know, in conjunction with having an immersive space that's together with a multimedia space, we can develop animated, we have a you know, we've hired on brought on a part time graphic designer who's local as well, and she's going to be helping us with some of those graphic design. We're going to be opening up to a lot of internships this fall and have Lesson later. So, you know, it's exciting. We have some cool projects that we're working on, that's also relevant. Because we want to move people away from the thought of, it's just cool. Because parents and teachers and stakeholders, you know, that's what they hear. Because a lot of this presentations you go to we'll talk about the coolness of the technology, you guys show how it actually works, and how it impacts their lives and how they can actually take apart and taking it to the next level. Because it's going to take people like them to do it, and that they can do that, which I think is just so cool. That's more of to get to get everyone fired up about this and get them participating.

Yeah, yeah. So be able to show that this is what I built. This is how it applies to me in healthcare and applies to me in bank and whatever. So we're going to be doing that. Another exciting thing we'll be doing we also just linked up with another organization and we will be implementing the VR eSports team. Also here. Oh, yeah.

Okay, very cool, because that's really taking off these days.

Good lord.

Definitely. And you know, the same in the same vein, even though it's eSports, a lot of people just see it as gaming and nothing else. We'll be looking at it from different points of view, not free. So athletes, content creation and events management, because those are all that comes together to put an Esports tournament together, that's for sure.

Yeah. And we're working with a good organization that is, you know, they work with with upcoming teams worldwide, but mostly in the US, they they're going to be working with us to give, give local participants a more national view of what they will be, you know, very cool. I know way back in the spring, we were talking to Dr. Howard at Robert Morris University, and they were very excited about their Esports teams. They were kicking some butt but it was kind of fun to see everybody getting fired up over, over in other words to you, I thought it was kind of cool. And it goes to show you where things are heading like that's the future. It's gonna be big, it's gonna get really, really big. And that's so cool. You're part of that. So, I mean, it's also good. I'm sorry. It's also good because, um, it's a it's a discipline that's very, it's dominated mostly by males and scares a lot of females to get into that field.

I didn't think about that. Yeah. So how do we how do we get more females interested in this?

So we just, we just need to be more visible about, ya know, exposing people to it and showing them that it's a viable option that it's something that is it truly is that we have some initial interest from people who have recognized that this is something that they can be part of. So yeah, it's pretty exciting.

Very cool. So I know you travel all over the world. You're saying before the COVID thing you know, how long you been in Pittsburgh for and what keeps you here?

Honestly, opportunities and the people I've met here, I've met a lot of people here, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh was not you know, when I first moved to the US A few years ago, I'd never thought that would be, you know, a place that I talked to was like your top destination.

Not initially. So I spend a lot of time in New York, Boston, and then we landed over here. And, you know, so far this has, you know, keep getting drawn back. And I'm also, you know, invested in the area now. So very cool is that I'll be coming back to But yeah, I mean, people there, but there's a lot of business opportunities here, but more in the business technology opportunity. Because, again, trying to find that balance and trying to make sure that it's all equitable. You know, we work with obviously, everybody, but we need to just be aware of the gaps that exist and just put it all about exactly. There's got to be cognizant of it. So we can try to fill those gaps because I'm seeing too many people fall in between them. And that's just not cool. Like, especially when it comes to technology. That's why we're doing this series. We're actually trying to raise money for beyond the laptops, which is an initiative that we helped kind of put together earlier on this year, when we realize that there's All these students in Pittsburgh public schools that didn't have the right technology to learn from home, like its toll Tech Community stepped up and has raised over $400,000. I mean, it's a drop in the bucket, but we're at least trying to create that awareness and try to do the best we can to close those gaps whenever we can.

So I mean, that's, that's part of the issue is that people who want to go into things like immersive technology, animation, content creation, not having that technology, because those technologies are too expensive for an individual to travel. You know, but with partnerships that we've made with technology, vendors and stuff, it makes it more accessible for people to think about just coming into a space building something and going away with it, rather than owning the technology. And then we can keep upgrading that you know, so it's really not realistic for one individual to have all that really awkward Of course, of course.

Yeah. You're just doing so much it blows my mind. I'm so glad we got to catch up on my Like, I feel like I'm not working hard enough when I'm talking to you, Rachel. Without a doubt such cool stuff anything else want to talk about before we kind of wrap this thing up anything new and exciting we're planning for I can't imagine we have other plates spinning right now on the back or about planning on our plates to keep us out of trouble for a while. So I'm really, really so cool.

As a member of the PTC will, you know, we keep want to keep our visible.

Yeah, I want regular updates I want because I know things are gonna be things play change day to day. So I want I want regular updates.

Yeah, for a startup. It's like, you know, you want to keep jumping on the new ideas, but you want to finish I got to finish the original and see right.

Very, very cool all the way around. I'm so glad you're in Pittsburgh doing what you're doing that's making Pittsburgh a better place that you are the best. Thanks for hanging out and giving us a little little Keep in all the great work that you're doing here. You're the best. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. All right. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai