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Technical.ly
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Technical.ly
He watched his tech specialties grow obsolete. But he's still optimistic about the next frontiers.
Jason Michael Perry jokes that he is known as 'the man with three first names.' But that's not why he's so recognizable to Baltimore tech scene players. Perry's upbringing in New Orleans immersed him in the power of language and education. He thought he would be a comic book writer and illustrator, but early exposure to the PC revolution and internet age sparked a passion for technology and learning through doing. His career spanned decades of professional change that saw him repairing hardware, working on a media outlet's web operations, teaching novel technologies to fellow developers and guiding startups to new technical heights. These days, the former chief technology officer of Baltimore digital services tentpole Mindgrub lays his head in the city's Station North neighborhood, where he's building a smart home one automation at a time — and helps others do the same with their businesses. The RealLIST Connector and Engineer's reputation extends beyond the tech industry, too. . He serves as a board member for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO), an advisor to the World Trade Center Institute (where he also moderates panels of experts through its AGILE Innovation series) and an entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Baltimore's Merrick School of Business. The prolific writer behind the ' Thoughts on Tech and Things ' newsletter also recently published a book, 'The AI Evolution,' and started Perry Labs to help people and organizations meaningfully integrate AI. 'I want to build the future, instead of just using the tools.' Perry is not afraid to explore the convergence of humanity with AI. In 2024, Perry collaborated with the BSO on 'AI in A minor,' an experimental performance event on AI-composed music. Like his smart home, this project captured Perry's curiosity and comfort folding together emerging technology with the human experience. In this edition of our How I Got Here series, Perry reflects on witnessing multiple technology revolutions, learning through doing and what it means to be in the earliest stages of AI. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Where are you from? How did you start loving technology? I was born and raised in New Orleans. My mom was a librarian and my dad was an English professor at the University of New Orleans, so storytelling and learning were big parts of my upbringing. I thought I'd be a comic book writer and illustrator — reading and writing were core to me. My dad brought tech home early on when I was a kid. We had a Commodore 64 [8-bit computer], an Atari and, eventually, an IBM computer with Prodigy. We got on America Online and the internet. I felt like I was there, witnessing [the tail-end of the PC revolution]. I also got to see the birth of the internet and mobile technology. Now I see AI as the next big shift. What were your first few jobs? My first job was in high school at the NOLA Center for Science and Math. The computer teacher hired me and some friends to help maintain the lab. He taught us networking certifications like MCSE and A+. From there, I worked retail at CompUSA and became a software technician, fixing laptops and printers. Then I got hired by the Times-Picayune, the New Orleans daily paper, to be their webmaster on for arts and entertainment. I was 18 or 19, and got to learn HTML and Flash on the job. Then I became a webmaster for a life insurance company. A lot of the technology was so new it hadn't made it into classrooms yet. There were no bootcamps or books, and [the company] was too far behind to teach me. So I had to teach myself. After a layoff, I took my severance check and started a web consulting business with a friend. We built e-commerce platforms and CMS platforms from scratch. How did your career advance? How did it take you to Baltimore? Hurricane Katrina destroyed my business in 2005. I evacuated to Birmingham and then DC, where my freelance training work turned into a full-time role. I became the director of training for Fig Leaf Software and spent the next decade flying across the country, learning new software quickly and teaching others. Eventually, I moved to Baltimore to become the chief technology officer at Mindgrub. At first, I lived in Timonium, but wanted to be in the city. Now I live in Station North; I love being near Penn Station and the Charles Theater. What do you do now? Part of leaving Mindgrub was to explore my interests, and embracing my love of emergent technology and helping people. I recently launched my own company, Perry Labs, to help businesses figure out how to actually use AI. I'm looking for ways to embrace my love of helping to build the future, but also do it in a way that brings value to people and organizations. I want to build the future, instead of just using the tools. In five years, I see myself expanding this business and bringing together people with like-minded thoughts and ideas to build something amazing. What do you do outside of work? I've been slowly turning my house into a smart home. I can control the lights, the curtains, the temperature — all from my phone or watch. I have high school kids and one college kid, so life is busy. I took up golf recently, just to get out of the house and move more. I'm also biking a bit. What are your opinions on AI? I'm an AI optimist. I believe there's more potential here than we realize, and I'm happy jumping into the deep end to see what's there. I'm doing the spelunking for others and hoping that I'm bringing back the good stuff. One of the things I love about teaching AI is that I get to hear how others are using it — it blows my mind. At Philly Tech Week last week, a woman told me she saw my talk last year and was inspired to try and use AI. She had been struggling with an undiagnosed medical issue, so she began putting everything into ChatGPT — the medicine she was using, her symptoms, meeting summaries — and started asking questions. It transformed her conversations with doctors. I understand the fear around AI, but what excites me is the possibility of things like this. There are so many ways it will change and help solve problems. What AI advice do you have for small business owners? First, try it. Seriously. 'We focus so much on AI replacing humans, but not as much on how it can augment us.' Second, I think there's a reframing of what the value proposition is. We focus so much on AI replacing humans, but not as much on how it can augment us. People say, 'I wish I had time to do X, but I'm spending all my time doing Y.' Now we have a technology that can do Y for you all the time. So what if you could focus your time on X? There have been thousands of examples of fear with new technologies, like when restaurants were afraid that in-home refrigerators would mean that everyone would cook at home and restaurants would no longer exist. It's a hard shift for some people. The technology spaces where I worked for 10 years are now entirely obsolete. That's three to four different technologies I spent years honing my craft in that no longer exist. That experience as a technologist, knowing that I'm going to have to continually recreate myself, makes it a little bit easier to understand this AI moment.
Technical.ly
27-03-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
This founder used agricultural experience from his native country to innovate in the US
This is How I Got Here, a series where we chart the career journeys of technologists. Want to tell your story? Get in touch. Many companies are started because founders recognize a need and want to create change. Tom Zhang, CEO of robotics startup Daxo Industries, recognized early in his career that he wanted to do work that mattered and that a startup would allow him the opportunity. Zhang grew up in rural China and had an interest in building from an early age. He moved to Singapore for high school, where he joined the robotics team and got his first taste of engineering, which brought him to the US in 2014 to study mechanical engineering and computer science at Cornell University. During his time in college, Zhang, 30, also found unique ways to explore his interest in robotics. Zhang took a gap year his junior year of college and did three internships at iRobot, Uber and Rapyuta Robotics. Through those experiences, he learned that he wanted to pursue a career that had purpose and that he could have ownership of, he said. The epiphany brought him to Philadelphia, where he still lives today. He pursued a Ph.D. program in computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, specifically studying machine learning for robotics, publishing papers about the topic. However, he still didn't see the full picture of the impact of his work, so he decided to build a startup. After doing extensive market research, Zhang landed on agtech and launched the robotics startup Daxo Industries. The two-year-old company, which landed third on this year's RealLIST Startups list, has now raised $1.35 million dollars, has six employees and customers all over the world. For Zhang, though, it's all about the impact. In this edition of How I Got Here series, Zhang discusses his experience as an immigrant entrepreneur and why he sees it as the best way to make a difference in his chosen industry. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. What is your approach to entrepreneurship? I have been constantly thinking about who is most suited to be an entrepreneur, I think there are only two types of people. The first is, you are born an entrepreneur. Maybe your family are all entrepreneurs, and you grew up just listening to them, learning how to build a company. You are naturally just in a position to build something. The other type is when you have no choice. You can't find a job, there is no place to go. You have to build a company. I'm not the first type. My parents are not entrepreneurs. So the way I've been doing this is I just gave myself no other options. I applied to nothing. I'm not going anywhere, so I try to force myself into the corner and adopt the mentality of you either build this or you're stuck. That's the only way to squeeze the last bit out of myself to make something impactful. What kind of impact are you hoping to have with Daxo Industries? The problem that we're trying to solve is the labor shortage and quality issues of apples in the industry, and more broadly in the specialty crop or the tree fruit industry, but our initial focus is on apples. Specifically, what we're trying to solve is called the stem clipping problem. If you don't cut the stem off, the apples are going to puncture each other when they're being transferred or dumped. If they cut the stem off, it slows their picking process down by 30% to 40%. We came up with the concept of a hands-free stem clipper. Instead of holding a small scissor in your hand, you mount this on the apple picking bag and you can pick with both hands free. When you pick, all you have to do is to press the apple onto our device, and the stem will be clipped. The vision of the company is just one line: we want to make labor a choice. There are people who want to do the work. We don't want to take their jobs away, but if people don't want to work on this, they should have the option. How has being an immigrant impacted your journey as a founder? Obviously, there's a lot of red tape. There is an initial fear of, is this land even accepting of immigrant entrepreneurs? But then looking at a lot of companies, I realized their founders are also from all over the world. There are a lot more positives than negatives. It's a self selective process, so the fact that we came from all over the world to this country, that means there's a certain aspect, maybe courage or just tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, in us. When we're building a startup, nothing is certain, everything is ambiguous. You have to make decisions when information is very little. Moving here was the same experience. It really lends to our ability to do something approximately right. When I talk to my customers, or when I was trying to find my business partner, when I share my experience of the fruit industry in China, they get super excited. That has helped me to build great customer relations. What advice do you have for fellow immigrant founders? My biggest advice is to seek help. Before you build any company, you really have no idea how. For example, when we got the venture capital deal, I didn't understand the terms. Should I take the money, or should I not? I called 10 people, a VC, friends, entrepreneurs, CEOs of public companies, my mentors from Penn, and asked, 'what is your perspective on this?' I'm listening to their perspectives so I can better synthesize my own solution. That helped me make my decision and I learned along the process. If you don't seek help, you can't learn throughout the process. Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Technical.ly
20-02-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Here's what a recent Drexel grad wants you to know about hiring international students
Finding a job post-grad is stressful for many people, but it's even harder for international students with a tight visa timeline. Maria Romero is currently in the thick of it after finishing her degree in December. Romero has an F-1 visa, which allows international students to study in the United States, in her case moving to Philly from Mexico to pursue an MBA at Drexel University studying marketing analytics. This visa allows her to work as soon as she graduates, but she only has 90 days to find a job related to her field of study. After completing her undergraduate degree at a university in Mexico, Romero pursued finance and worked at a bank for a year, before moving to corporate finance. After five years in that role, Romero decided that something needed to change. Her role didn't have any opportunities for growth and she had a strained relationship with her boss. So, Romero applied for a master's program, determined to find a field and a role that she was passionate about. She had a great experience at Drexel, specifically finding community among the other international students, she said. Now, she's trying to get back into the workforce and it's been more challenging than expected, she said. Romero has been searching for a job for over two months and struggling to find anything. If she doesn't find a job, preferably in marketing, by March, she has to leave the US. In this edition of How I Got Here series, Romero discusses what it's like looking for a job as an international student and what she wishes employers knew about hiring immigrant employees. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. What has your experience been like looking for a role as an F-1 visa holder? 'People are scared of what it means to hire an immigrant.' Maria Romero, Drexel graduate It's been very challenging. I'm not even getting interviews. I don't know what else I could be doing. I don't know if it's my resume that has experiences back home, the climate that we're living in, the perception of immigrants. I know that adds an extra layer, but I just didn't think it was going to be this challenging. People are scared of what it means to hire an immigrant. They're like, 'Is the government going to shine a spotlight on me because I'm hiring immigrants?' There's a lot of misinformation out there about the immigrant workforce. What are you looking for in your next role? I haven't had the best experiences throughout my career, so I just want a job that excites me. I know a job is a job, and it gets tedious sometimes and no one wants to do it some days, and there are good days and there are bad days. But I just want a job that I actually like, I actually like my boss and I think that the company that I work for is actually doing something good. That's what I really want. What should employers know about hiring immigrant employees? They should know that the legal immigrant experience is just like hiring an American. We have social security numbers. We have authorization to work. It really is the same in terms of paperwork. People should know that we want it a little bit more than the rest of the people because we've sacrificed so much. International employees are only going to enrich your team because they're going to bring a whole new perspective. We are going to work harder. We're going to give it a lot more, because, again, we sacrificed a lot, and we are gonna make it work. What are the rules around your visa? As soon as you graduate, you are allowed to work, but post-graduation, you only have 90 days to find a job. If you don't find a job in those 90 days, then you have to leave. If I find a job before the deadline, then I can stay in the US working for that employer or any other employer for up to three years. A lot can happen in those three years, right? International employees are only going to enrich your team because they're going to bring a whole new perspective. Maria Romero, Drexel graduate You can be an excellent employee, outperform everyone else but to convince your employer to then sponsor your work visa is a completely different conversation. That's the visa that everyone's afraid of, the word 'sponsorship.' They think that they're going to be responsible for you, for everything that you do. That's not the reality of things. That's three years in the future. We don't know where we're going to be. I don't know if I'm going to be working for you. It's just getting that first step. What misconceptions do you want to clear up about international students? The international community is very big at Drexel. Two-thirds of every class that I was in, was international students. So it was awesome to have people going through the same thing and being able to share that with others, and I know they're also struggling to find a job. Almost all of them already had careers in their home countries, so the frustration is very similar. I know a few are going back home. They're already making that decision. You also have to consider that there are people from all over the world, but there are also people who come from countries that they really don't want to go back to because of the political environment. You have to think their families are there, their friends, their lives are there, and they choose to sacrifice everything to try to have a better life. That's one of the biggest things people forget very easily, it's not that I woke up on a Monday and said, 'oh, I'm gonna move to the States.' What advice would you give someone who is thinking of moving here to pursue a graduate program? I would totally say, do it. I would say, prepare yourself, because it's going to be 10 times harder than you think. Always keep in mind the reason why you're doing it because you're going to forget it every day. You have to remember why you're doing it and be patient. Whatever happens, it's what was meant to happen. If I have to go back, then I'll go back, I'll try again. Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
