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In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, I'm joined by Brittany Greer, the executive director of Rosie Riveters, a nonprofit that is working to close the gender gap in the STEM workforce.







There are an estimated 2.8 million unfilled STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) jobs in this country. Meanwhile, women make up just 28% of the STEM workforce. Since 2016, Brittany Greer has been working to change that.







The nonprofit she founded aims to inspire girls aged 8 to 14 from diverse backgrounds to explore careers in the field through hands-on learning kits.







"It's all of the materials needed to complete the project operationally. We do everything from explore hydraulics – making a hydraulic desk lamp where the arm goes up and down – to exploring the science of sound. To build a harmonica, we have popsicle sticks and rubber bands and straws and if you put those together in the right way, you can make a harmonica that vibrates and make sounds," explains Greer.







She says that part of the lesson of each Rosie Riveters learning kit is to understand how that science project connects to a career in STEM. For example, the connection between the science of sound to a career in the audio-visual industry.







She adds, "The whole goal of our programs is not only excitement and awareness of the opportunities that are available in STEM, that's one part of it. The real core of what we do is providing girls in our programs with an opportunity for productive struggle, a space to get things wrong before they get them rights."







As a result, the young girls not only build critical thinking and problem-solving skills, they build their confidence. "It's watching a kid go from, 'I can't,' to, 'Look what I did.' Because once you get through the struggle and you have completed the task and you did something that you didn't think was possible or you didn't think was fair, there is a radiance that comes off of a participant after that moment and they're excited to show you and talk about it," explains Greer.







Greer believes that building those skills and building confidence is what drives more young girls to consider STEM as a career.







"If you can invest in them early, they will know that they can come and find you at the end. You're going to have a far greater participation rate of of people who have not gone to participate in your space before because you're welcoming them and you're inviting them, and you're showing them the opportunities that are available to them.







"I think the more that we can do that, the more that we can open up opportunities that haven't previously been available to a lot of the population," Greer adds.







Listen to the podcast here, or wherever you get your podcasts, to learn more about how Rosie Riveters gets the kits into the hands of the girls they are hoping to inspire.







You can also find it on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.















Episode 326: Brittany Greer, executive director and founder, Rosie RivetersHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode hereWork in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, I'm joined by Sarah Keh, the vice president of corporate social responsibility at Prudential Financial to discuss the company's $180 million committment to helping opportunity youth find a pathway to good jobs and wealth building. Keh sat down with me to discuss the philanthropy in June at the Aspen Ideas Festival.







Opportunity youth are young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who currently are not in formal education or training and are unemployed. There are almost 6 million people who fall into that designation, a number that has grown since the COVID pandemic.







Even before the pandemic, in 2019, Prudential decided to invest $180 million by 2025 in programs that will help young people across the globe gain the right skills to compete for and succeed in quality jobs. 







"The reason why they have come into the situation that there are in...is not because they don't have the will or the desire. It's oftentimes they are born into a situation that doesn't provide them the access to the opportunities that you and I may have had in our upbringing," says Keh.







She says the Prudential believes it is important to look at opportunity youth for their potential and act on it. "We're really focused on this population because we believe these are our future leaders of nonprofits, of businesses, of government, and they just need access to the right resources and tools to provide them the good skill."







Keh says the company has already achieved in five years what it had set out to achieve in six – the $180 million in nonprofit programs that are providing that training and opportunity.







"We've invested in over 20 different organizations globally that have impacted hundreds and thousands of young people. We know even just last year through our impact data that over 500,000 opportunity youth were connected to training opportunities and employment opportunities."







Here is the U.S., those workforce development programs include Year Up, YouthBuild, and Per Scholas.







Keh and I go into details on how these programs are helping and how the can help young people build wealth. We also discuss Prudential's work of a local level in Newark, New Jersey, the headquarters of the company which turns 150 years old next year.







You can listen to the podcast here, or wherever you get your podcasts.







You can also find it on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.







This podcast was recorded at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute.















Episode 325: Sarah Keh, VP Corporate Social Responsibility, Prudential FinancialHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode hereWork in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

In this episode of the Work in Progress podcast, I am joined by Vilas Dhar, president, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and a global expert on AI, equity, and how artificial intelligence is shaping our society. We sat down at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June to discuss whether AI is having a positive or negative impact on the workforce.







Vilas Dhar calls the release of ChatGPT an important social moment, not a technological one.







"AI didn't start in November of 2022. Researchers, scholars, people like me, have been building AI products for decades," says Dhar.







"AI moved out of the background, out of the shadows, and became something that every person on the planet could touch, feel, interact with, see how it might influence their lives. And because of that, we entered into this new phase of a discussion that moved from 'What does the technology do?' to 'What do humans have to do to be ready for the technology? and "What kind of society do we want to build and how will AI help us get there?"







He emphasizes the need for a diverse range of stakeholders, including technologists, policymakers, civil society, communities, employers, and workers, to be involved in shaping the future of AI and how any changes it brings are equitable ones.







Dhar challenges the notion that AI will necessarily lead to job displacement, highlighting the potential for AI to enhance human capabilities and create new opportunities by automating mundane or dangerous tasks, freeing up time for creativity and innovation, and improving health care and community services.







He calls for a shift in the narrative around AI from fear and risk to one of public investment and public ownership.







"It's a moment in time where we can actually use it to force a bigger conversation about equality and equity, about how we distribute economic benefits, about the fact that if we think somebody is going to be displaced, what's the responsibility of the person who displaced them?







"Note that I didn't say the machine that displaced them, but the person who made a choice to bring in a machine that displaced that worker. How do we think about creating a new social compact so that every person feels dignified and participatory in the decisions we're making about our AI future? If we were to start having those conversations, I'd be so hopeful about our future," he adds.







Dhar has a lot more to say about why we need to change our thinking around artificial intelligence and how it can be a benefit to workers. You can listen in our conversation here, or get it wherever you get your podcasts.







You can also find it on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.







This podcast was recorded at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute.















Episode 324: Vilas Dhar, president, Patrick J. McGovern FoundationHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode hereWork in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

In this episode of Work in Progress, I am joined by Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland. We sat down together at the Aspen Ideas Festival last week to talk about what his administration is doing to create economic mobility and opportunity for all its citizens.







When it comes to putting people to work in Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore says he embraces the ethos he first learned when he joined the U.S. Army as a teenager: Leave No One Behind.







"It's a great lens on how we should view our work. It's not just because it's important psychologically, it's important for mission accomplishment. It's a core criteria for mission accomplishment," he tells me in the interview.







Moore says that "A growing economy is a participatory one. A stagnant and stalled economy is one where you have a huge swath of society that is not participating. Forget a moral sense, it doesn't make economic sense for us to do that.







"If you continue to have areas and communities where you essentially have these deserts of economic activity, that's not benefiting anybody. It's not benefiting that local jurisdiction. It is not benefiting the state that local jurisdiction exists in."







In our conversation around employment and jobs, Gov. Moore and I discuss the ways Maryland is building workforce development partnerships with nonprofits and employers to ensure that everyone in the state has a chance for economic mobility. He shares how the money from the bipartisan federal infrastructure bill is already creating thousands of jobs in Maryland alone, including good-paying union jobs in construction.







Gov. Moore also addresses the economic reason he pardoned 175,000 people with misdemeanor cannabis convictions.







And he tells me about the state's first-in-the nation public service year program for high school graduates that is designed to put teens and young adults on a pathway to a good-paying career. "Our high school graduates now have a chance to have a year of service to the State of Maryland. They can work in the environment. They can work in education. They can serve veterans. They can serve returning citizens. It's completely their choice.







"But it's a year to have a paid opportunity making $15 and getting a $6,000 stipend at the end of it and to be able to go out and define that thing that makes your heartbeat a little bit faster and go after it.







"We did it because we believe in experiential learning. We did it because we believe in paid financial cushions. We did it because we believe in this time of political divisiveness and vitriol that service will save us.







"But also this has become a remarkable workforce development tool, where some of the first people that signed up have actually been the private sector who said, 'We'll take three of them.' When you think about that, the ability to democratize these opportunities by making sure that they are paid opportunities, really is crucial for any type of thing we're trying to get done," adds Gov. Moore.







You can learn more about the work being done in Maryland to create and fill jobs in the podcast. Listen here, or get it wherever you get your podcasts.







You can also find it on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.







This podcast was recorded at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute.















Episode 323: Gov. Wes Moore, MarylandHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode hereWork in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

In this episode of Work in Progress, I am joined by John Mitchell, president & CEO, IPC International to discuss the increased demand for workers in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and how the group is developing the workforce of the present and the future.







Semiconductors are the backbone of the digital economy, powering our cars, planes, medical tech, cybersecurity, our dishwashers and TVs, and they are at the heart of AI. Nearly everything we touch needs a chip, and commercial construction is surging in the U.S., driven in part by federal government investments designed to bring more chip manufacturing to the country.







We've asked this question many times – and have heard the same answer – do we have enough workers in the wings ready to fill the tens of thousands of jobs that are expected as a result of this boom in manufacturing construction? The answer is "not yet."







When we think of semiconductions, we simply think of the processor in our computer, says Mitchell. But, he explains, that small chip couldn't exist without the electronics manufacturers that IPC represents.







"Let's use the analogy of a car. It's the engine of your car. And it's a fairly complex thing just like an engine is.







"There are companies like Intel and TSMC and Samsung that really design and create the silicon. But the silicon, as itself, is not really good for much. But you add all the connections and 'wheels and doors' and electronics that tie through all of the systems. And when you put all of that together, then you end up with a 'car.'







"So, we cover from the semiconductors to the assemblers, people that design the products, the board manufacturers, materials, and equipment manufacturers that help make all of that possible."







That's a lot of moving parts and a lot of potential workers.







"I've sat in a couple of workforce meetings on the CHIPS Act, and in the White House, and it seems to be about 50-50 technicians versus engineers that'll be directly working in the industry," Mitchell tells me.







He says that while the engineers and researchers are highly-degreed roles, you don't need a degree for many of the technician roles and IPC can help you get the skills in electronics that you need to work in the chip industry.







"IPC has credential programs where you can literally get a certification or a credential and develop those skills very quickly in a matter of hours. And you could be starting helping out in an electronics factory and then you continue to add from there. They are stackable credentials and there's pathways.







"As of last November, we're the first federally-recognized electronics apprenticeship programs. We originally had two that were approved in November, and since then we've added another one. We expect to continue to add as time goes forward," says Mitchell.







Want to know more about these workforce development training programs? Check out the podcast. You can listen here, or get it wherever you get your podcasts.







You can also find it on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.























Episode 322: John Mitchell, president & CEO, IPC InternationalHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode hereWork in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

In this episode of Work in Progress, I'm joined by writer-producer Ron Friedman and David Gittins, executive director of Age Inclusion in Media, to talk about the way the media portrays older adults and how these stereotypes can have a profound impact on workers and job seekers in the real world.







I'm going to start out by saying, you can read about this conversation, but I believe you need to hear it or watch it for yourself to really capture what it means to be portrayed as "out of your prime" just because of your age.







At 91, Ron is a great example of someone whose creative mind and spirit are just as sharp as they were when he started writing more than 60 years ago.







The name Ron Friedman may not be familiar to you, but there is no doubt you've heard of some of the television shows that he's written for in his career – All in the Family, Get Smart, The Odd Couple, Happy Days, and Starsky and Hutch to name a few.







In all, Ron has written more than 700 episodes of television and is well-known among action hero fans for creating the animated series G.I. Joe and developing Transformers for American TV. Along with his good friend Stan Lee, the pair created The Marvel Action Hour.







"I still get residuals. I still get fan mail. Somebody wrote to tell me that they loved my Odd Couple. I wrote that in the 70s, but they're still playing it. I must have known something valuable to contribute what I contributed to give something that life expectancy," Ron says.







Yet, despite all the early success, as he got older, he found that he was getting hired for fewer and fewer writing jobs. He says it come down to ageism, and, unfortunately, it is something most older adults face today when they are looking for work, whether it is in entertainment or another industry.







"Not only is it acceptable, but of all the protected classes – where you have to be on guard not to use the offensive terms or reproduce the memes that offensive – ageism is still not even considered," says Ron.







Ron, David, and I sit on the board of Age Inclusion in Media, a nonprofit campaign to change the way older adults are portrayed in film, TV, and advertising.







"It's still a very stereotypical way, and that's down to the fact that we don't have proper representation behind the screen. We don't have proper representation in the writer's room," David argues. "When we don't have older writers writing for older characters, we get stereotypical portrayals of what an older character is, which means we get tropes, we get cranky old characters, we get forgetful old characters, and we get sidekicks as opposed to central characters in their own lives."







David says that this lack of representation, and the stereotypes it creates, has an impact on every older adult.







"From what we show on screen teaches us how to believe and that then teaches us how to act. So, if we see older characters being portrayed as passive morons who are just leaching on society, then we start to treat older people like that in their life, which then circles back in and saying, we're not going to hire an older person because we know they're idiots. We know they're useless because we've seen not on TV and we believe it."







Ron says we've got to stop telling the "same old story." Older adults, like all of us, come in many different shapes and sizes - one stereotype doesn't fit al. Society needs to embrace that age is jus one part of who we are. We are an amalgamation of our life experiences - what we have learned at school, in our jobs, and just living our lives.







Like everyone, it is very personal. He believes that despite already being "two and a half times older than T...