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1 episodes · 19 quoted claims
TechPoint is a nonprofit whose mission is to drive Indiana's digital economy through talent, innovation and community.
“TechPoint is a nonprofit, and our mission at TechPoint is to drive Indiana's digital economy through talent, innovation and community.”
Chelsea Linder was previously a partner at Generator, a startup accelerator and venture capital firm that invested across the country.
“So I was a partner at Generator, which is a startup accelerator and VC firm where, um, we invested across the country.”
TechPoint applied to the Growth Accelerator Fund competition, a federal program hosted by the SBA, to assess AI education needs in Indiana.
“we had the opportunity through a federal program called the Growth Accelerator Fund competition that's hosted by the SBA to apply.”
The AI Innovation Network launched in January and had 399 members at the time of recording.
“So it's been going on for almost a year. We launched it in January. Congratulations. Yeah, Thank you, yeah. And we have, as of today, 399 members of the AI Innovation Network.”
The AI Innovation Network was modeled on TechPoint's Indiana Founders Network, which Chelsea Linder launched a year earlier.
“the Indiana Founders Network, which is a network that I launched the year prior to this one.”
Linder says Indiana has the most universities per capita of any state except possibly Massachusetts.
“Indiana has, like, the most universities per capita, um, I think, except for Massachusetts.”
A presenter from Baker Hill spoke to the AI Innovation Network about how the company encouraged AI adoption across its team.
“Recently, we had a fantastic PRE presenter from Baker Hill come in to talk about how they encouraged adoption across their team.”
Linder says Eli Lilly was recently named the number one most AI-ready company in the world.
“Eli Lilly, which was recently named the number one most AI ready company in the world.”
TechPoint's report found job postings for generative AI engineers were up seven times year over year.
“job postings for generative AI engineers are up by seven times, uh, year over year.”
TechPoint's talent pillar historically focused on Indiana's brain drain, retaining and recruiting tech workers after graduation.
“the talent pillar has historically been about solving the brain drain problem we had in Indiana, helping retain and recruit workforce, especially tech workforce.”
Indiana employers told TechPoint that aligning the workforce with new in-demand skills is their number one talent problem.
“aligning the workforce with these new in demand skills is their number one talent problem right now.”
TechPoint's report recommends integrating AI into workforce training, aligning it by industry, and expanding adoption past early-adopter sectors with cross-sector knowledge sharing.
“We need to focus on integrating AI into the workforce training programs, so including higher ed as well as within an organization upskilling.”
Linder cited the CEO of Atlassian saying everyone must adopt AI as a reason companies require AI skills.
“It's hard to ignore when you hear somebody like the CEO of Atlassian being like, everyone has to do this, right?”
Linder described an organization that laid off all its junior developers and had mid-level developers use AI instead, who later asked to rehire juniors.
“I spoke with an organization who had laid off all of their junior devs and they had their mid levels working with AI to do the work that the juniors were doing.”
The business AI-adoption data in the report comes from a US Census Bureau survey conducted every two weeks.
“So that data is from the US. Census Bureau, and it's a survey, it's the BTOF survey”
The Census survey asks two questions: whether businesses use AI to build their product, and whether they use AI to do business internally.
“are you using AI to build your product at your ORG organization? and then the 2nd one is, are you using AI to do business within your organization?”
Linder cited recent MIT data stating that a large share of AI projects or pilots fail.
“the data recently, yesterday or a couple days ago, coming out of MIT, talking about how 99 of AI projects fail or pilots fail.”
Linder said a daycare teacher used generative AI to write daily updates about her daughter without the administrator's knowledge.
“one of my daycare teachers started using Gen AI to write her daily status updates about my daughter at daycare.”
Linder said debate over data centers in Indiana is pushing researchers to make them more efficient and sustainable.
“especially right now in Indiana, the conversation around data centers, I think, is driving a lot of forced innovation.”