Inspire AI: Transforming RVA Through Technology and Automation

AI Ready RVA

Our mission is to cultivate AI literacy in the Greater Richmond Region through awareness, community engagement, education, and advocacy. In this podcast, we spotlight companies and individuals in the region who are pioneering the development and use of AI. 

  1. 1H AGO

    Ep 53: The Data Center Capital of the World — At What Cost?

    Send us a text The internet doesn’t live in the sky—it lives in a quiet corner of Northern Virginia, inside miles of windowless buildings that hum day and night. We pull back the curtain on how Loudoun County became the world’s data center capital, tracing the line from AOL’s dial‑up era to the hyperscale cloud and the power-hungry rise of artificial intelligence. What starts as a story about fiber optics becomes a deeper look at money, megawatts, and the communities carrying the weight of our digital lives. We walk through the pivotal moments that shaped the region: early infrastructure that gave Northern Virginia a head start, policy choices that attracted Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, and a cascade of investments that now generate billions in local tax revenue. Along the way, we examine the paradox of scale—campus footprints stretching over two million square feet with surprisingly few permanent jobs—and the growing strain on the grid as utilities forecast a steep climb in electricity demand. You’ll hear why 800‑megawatt proposals are not outliers, how new transmission corridors become flashpoints, and what rising household bills could signal about who ultimately pays for the cloud. Then we turn to the hard questions. Can AI-era data centers meet performance needs without overrunning water resources and climate targets? What happens when outages in a single region ripple across the internet? We explore diversification, grid-resilience strategies, liquid cooling, and smarter siting that aligns compute with clean power. The takeaway isn’t a simple yes or no on growth—it’s a call for rigorous cost-benefit accounting, transparent reporting, and community-centered planning that keeps innovation and sustainability in the same frame. If this conversation sharpens how you think about the cloud, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a quick review telling us what trade-offs you’d accept to keep the world online. Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    9 min

  2. NOV 10

    Ep 52 - From Control to Collaboration: Rewriting Leadership for the Age of AI w/ Dr. John Dentico

    Send us a text What if the habits that built last century’s companies are the very things holding yours back today? Dr. John Dentico joins us to challenge the factory-floor model of leadership and swap control for something bolder: a system built on doubt, collaboration, and meaning. We dig into why AI doesn’t just speed things up—it exposes brittle hierarchies and demands a new operating system where influence is shared, trust is the fuel, and execution is tied to clear strategy. John breaks down his Throttle Up Leadership Operating System into four practical pillars—mission, strategy, planning, execution—and shows how to compress a page-long mission into a sentence that actually guides decisions. We explore strategic thinking versus strategic planning, and how asking sharper questions prevents the “noise before defeat” that comes from chasing AI tactics without a north star. You’ll hear concrete workflows for augmenting creativity with multiple AI models, editing for voice, and being transparent about when generative tools are in the mix. We also talk about avatars, authenticity, and why people still want to connect with a real human even as synthetic media gets better. Looking ahead, John frames a powerful shift: AI will soon be the constant, and humans the differentiating variable. That future favors leaders who scale trust, embed authenticity and empathy as shared values, and create environments where people contribute to real problems. Forget the lone Jedi CEO—think Yoda as teacher and catalyst. If you lead teams, shape culture, or set strategy, this conversation offers a blueprint to build an AI-augmented organization that learns faster, decides smarter, and sustains meaning at speed. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a leader who needs a new playbook, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep raising the bar together. Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    1 hr

  3. NOV 3

    Ep 51 - Listening With Heart: How AI Turns Personal Narratives Into Actionable Insight w/ Andy Sitison

    Send us a text What if your culture metrics could feel as real as a story told around a campfire? We sit down with technologist and humanist Andy Sitison, CTO of Share More Stories, to unpack how long-form narratives—analyzed with AI—can reveal what surveys miss: the emotions, values, and motivations that drive people to show up, speak up, and stay. Andy traces his path from early internet waves to machine learning, then to a sabbatical that reset his compass toward human connection. The result is a platform that treats stories as data and data as a bridge to empathy. We get specific about the middle space between qualitative and quantitative research. Instead of five voices in a focus group or a sea of anonymous clicks, hundreds of stories become analyzable signals—joy, anxiety, altruism, need for structure—scored at scale and mapped for patterns leaders can act on. A standout insight from YMCA work shows altruism positively correlating with achievement, flipping a common corporate assumption and offering a blueprint for hiring, support, and service design. The bigger surprise: sponsors are often moved to tears reading the first story drops, realizing they’re seeing their people clearly for the first time. The conversation also leaps from boardrooms to bays. Andy explains the ghost pots initiative on the Chesapeake—derelict crab traps that kill wildlife and drain watermen’s incomes—and how side-scan and forward-scan sonar can make recovery fast enough to change incentives. It’s a masterclass in aligning tech with trust and local knowledge to create win-wins. Throughout, we return to a core principle: protect human agency as AI scales. Step outside the production engine, ask better questions, and measure what matters to people, not just what’s easy to track. If you’re ready to turn listening into a leadership advantage—and to see how empathy can be operationalized without losing its soul—this conversation is your roadmap. Subscribe, share with a colleague who lives in spreadsheets, and leave a review telling us the one story your organization needs to hear next. Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    40 min

  4. OCT 27

    Ep 50 - The Human Algorithm: Leading with Authenticity in an AI World w/ Judi Fox

    Send us a text What if your loudest growth came from fewer, truer signals? That’s the through-line of our conversation with LinkedIn strategist Judy Fox, who rebuilt after a 2023 house fire and turned AI into a clarity engine rather than a content factory. She shares the first move that changed everything: using AI to write code, scrape 500+ client forms, and triage demand in hours. From there, collaboration unlocked more: co-prompting with Andrea Goulet revealed better questions, faster answers, and a smarter business model anchored in outcome-based offers and measurable milestones. We dig into how to scale trust, not just traffic. Judy walks through her psychology-first playbook — including the IKEA effect — to craft posts that invite audiences to build alongside you, transforming passive viewers into invested participants. She explains how to use AI to analyze patterns across clients, extract common denominators, and repurpose real conversations into high-performing content without drifting into AI slop. The rule: source from actual words and experiences, then let AI polish; never let AI iterate on AI until meaning blurs. Overwhelm is real, and Judy’s counterintuitive solution is constraint. Forced limitations — from crisis to a broken arm — clarified priorities and accelerated systems. You can simulate that: brain-dump a transcript, ask AI for one decisive next step, and time-box experiments. Use AI like a mirror with filters: “Think like a B2B CMO” or “act as a customer researcher,” then reflect your authentic voice back with more precision. We also talk about showing up where machines can’t: monthly in-person events, live streams, and pillar content that proves you’re real in a world of bots and inflated vanity metrics. If you want practical ways to protect your voice, design for outcomes, and build human connection at scale, this conversation delivers. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s tired of AI slop, and leave a review with the one constraint you’ll adopt this week to create clarity. Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    1h 11m

  5. OCT 20

    Ep 49 - Virginia’s Agentic AI Pilot: Clarity, Risks, and the Future of Lawmaking

    Send us a text A state is letting an algorithm read the rulebook—and then asking people to decide what to change. We head to Virginia to unpack the “agentic AI” pilot that scans statutes, regulations, and guidance to flag contradictions, redundancies, and unclear language, promising cleaner code for public life. The vision is compelling: fewer dead ends for citizens and small businesses, faster updates as laws evolve, and a maintainable regulatory corpus that doesn’t require a crisis to fix. We walk through how the tool triages massive text, the kinds of suggestions it can generate, and where human judgment stays firmly in charge. Alongside the upside, we get specific about risk: explainability in a legal domain, bias that could over-target certain protections, and the danger of treating speed as a substitute for process. Accountability is the throughline—who signs off, who audits the outputs, and how courts and legislatures can see a transparent trail from machine suggestion to human decision. Beyond the mechanics, we dig into the politics and the guardrails that make innovation legitimate: public logs, before–after drafts, independent audits, risk tiers for sensitive domains, and rollback plans when changes misfire. We also map the bigger picture: states adopting AI for internal governance, the potential for fragmentation if approaches diverge, and the likely federal response. Most importantly, we share how listeners can engage—request transparency from representatives, show up for comment windows, and support civil society groups that stress-test these systems. If AI is going to touch regulation, it must do so in the open, with people in the loop and trust as the benchmark. Enjoy the conversation, then add your voice. Subscribe, share this with someone who follows civic tech, and leave a review with the one safeguard you think every public-sector AI should have. Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    12 min

  6. OCT 13

    Ep 48 - The Next Vital Sign: Kinis.ai’s Bold Vision for AI-Powered Health w/ Vincent Vu

    Send us a text A simple question changed everything: what if balance were measured like blood pressure? We sit down with founder Vincent Vu—who went from a refugee camp to launching minimalist shoes to building a clinical platform—to unpack how AI and movement data can predict fall risk, empower clinicians, and make prevention practical for everyone. We dig into the origin story: an injury that led to Kennis Barefoot, a science-first approach to foot mechanics, and the customer signals that pointed to balance as the overlooked lever of healthy aging. Vincent explains the pivot to Kennis AI’s movement intelligence stack—BalancePro (computer vision balance assessment on an iPad) and Kennis Step (ankle-worn gait analysis)—and how a hybrid care model bridges clinic and home with actionable scores, exercises, and longitudinal insights. We explore the sobering stats around falls, why detection is too late, and how routine balance screening could shift care upstream and save billions. The conversation stretches beyond the clinic. Vincent shares lessons from pilots in Vietnam and the U.S., the role of mentors and grants in sharpening protocols, and the discipline of letting science lead engineering. Then we widen the lens: lower-body data for sports performance, smart boots and sensor fusion for military readiness, and the promise of a human digital twin that can simulate training, forecast decline, and personalize interventions across years. Through it all runs a simple truth: mobility is the first mile of longevity, and every step is a data point we can learn from. If you care about preventive care, healthy aging, sports performance, or the future of AI in healthcare, this story delivers both heart and hard details. Subscribe, share with a friend who trains or cares for an older adult, and leave a review with your take—should balance be the next vital sign? Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    50 min

  7. OCT 6

    Ep 47 - Quantum’s Edge: What Quantum AI Really Promises

    Send us a text What if intelligence could see every path at once? We dive into the live wire where quantum computing meets AI—mapping the real breakthroughs, the hard limits, and the choices that will define how this technology reshapes science, industry, and daily life. From the rise of deep learning and the GPU-fueled leap in model scale to the weird physics of qubits, superposition, and entanglement, we lay out why this union matters now and what’s still missing before it transforms the mainstream. We unpack quantum advantage in plain terms, separating near-term reality from glossy hype. You’ll hear how hybrid systems already pair quantum processors with supercomputers, where algorithms like QAOA could accelerate optimization, and why training huge models might one day compress from weeks to hours. We explore high-impact domains—drug discovery, materials for clean energy, logistics at global scale, and climate modeling—and explain how quantum-native simulation could unlock patterns that classical machines can’t reach. Along the way, we highlight the surprising feedback loop: AI stabilizes noisy quantum hardware, tunes calibrations in real time, improves error detection, and even helps design smarter quantum algorithms and chips. Momentum is real, but so are the constraints. We get candid about fragile hardware, scalability, and the distance between demos and production. Then we zoom out to the human stakes: privacy, security, and fairness, plus the governance tools needed to keep trust as capabilities grow. The takeaway isn’t blind optimism or skepticism—it’s informed possibility. Two revolutions are learning to dance, and that choreography could set the pace for the next era of discovery. If this frontier fascinates you, follow the show, share this episode with a curious friend, and leave a review with your biggest question about Quantum AI—what should we build, and what should we avoid? Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    13 min

  8. SEP 29

    Ep 46 - Supercomputers: Reshaping Our World One Quadrillion Calculations at a Time

    Send us a text What happens when machines can think at the speed of light? Today we dive into the fascinating world of supercomputers – not just as technological marvels, but as the silent engines driving humanity's greatest breakthroughs. Have you ever checked a weather app that accurately predicted a storm's path? Used an AI tool to write or create art? Benefited from a life-saving medicine developed in record time? Behind these everyday miracles stands the extraordinary power of supercomputing. We explore how these technological titans – capable of performing quadrillions of calculations per second – are reshaping medicine, climate science, national security, and artificial intelligence. From Frontier at Oak Ridge National Lab (the world's first exascale computer) to Japan's Fugaku that modeled COVID-19 transmission, these aren't just bigger, faster laptops. They're national-scale scientific instruments like particle accelerators or space telescopes. The most exciting development? This once-exclusive computing power is being democratized through cloud services, putting unprecedented capabilities in the hands of startups, universities, and even small businesses. While challenges remain – enormous energy requirements, hardware limitations, and the looming question of quantum computing – supercomputers continue pushing the boundaries of what humanity can achieve. Whether you're a student considering career opportunities in computational science, a business leader seeking innovation advantages, or simply someone curious about the technology shaping our future, this episode reveals how supercomputers touch every aspect of modern life. Join me, Jason McGuinthy, as we explore the machines making the impossible possible – and why their impact matters to everyone. Want to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.

    10 min
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Our mission is to cultivate AI literacy in the Greater Richmond Region through awareness, community engagement, education, and advocacy. In this podcast, we spotlight companies and individuals in the region who are pioneering the development and use of AI. 

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