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Technical.ly
10-07-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Creative ‘bliss': How this tech ed director achieves work-life balance
When he was assigned to create a business card for his future self in the 8th grade, Dan Stabb's said 'therapist and comedian.' It turned out to be more true than he'd imagined: The 45-year-old Zip Code Wilmington director of admissions and professional development spends a lot of time counseling adult students to prepare for a new life as a technologist — and when he's not doing that, he's doing improv as director of City Theater Company's Fearless Improv troupe and landing voice acting gigs. 'When I wrote that, I didn't actually think that was going to happen,' Stabb told When it came time for college, Stabb, who grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and attended high school at Archmere Academy, chose neither direction, instead aiming for a career in video production. He realized early on that it wasn't the field for him, and shifted to a journalism major. After graduating from Widener University, he turned a work-study job in its international office into a post-college career in higher education. 'I was 23 years old, working in this position, not having any idea what I was doing,' he said. 'And I thought at the time, 'this is just kind of a placeholder job until I find what I really want to do.'' He would work there for 11 years, plus another four as Harcum College's director at its Center for International Programs, before landing at Zip Code Wilmington in 2018. Today, Stabb helps aspiring technologists achieve their career goals, as Zip Code Wilmington evolves with AI, including a new AI training course for business professionals, while maintaining a creative outlet he first discovered in childhood. In this edition of How I Got Here series, Stabb talks about finding your bliss, and balancing the things you love. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. So you were a theater kid? Totally. I actually did TV commercials when I was a kid. I would travel to Philly every now and then for auditions. Remember Mr. Good Buys? It was a hardware store, and I did a commercial for that when I was 7 or 8. And I did an industrial commercial for Mack Trucks. I was the kid that asked my dad and my grandpa all the questions. I made 600 bucks, which was the most I made in decades of acting. At the time, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, so she was able to take me to auditions. Then she started to work full time, so it was a lot harder. That's when she got me into local theater at the Players Club in Swarthmore. I was hooked. I did theater for about 13 years before eventually doing mostly improv, and then eventually voiceover. How did you wind up with Zip Code Wilmington? Funny story, my now wife and three stepsons were playing chip-and-putt golf somewhere, and she looks over and sees this hoodie. And she goes, 'Zip Code Wilmington, what's that?' And I have no idea, but it kind of sounds cool. About a month later, I go online, and I see this job for admissions manager, and I mention it to my wife. She goes, 'That's the hoodie!' 'You get to be the author of your own story. Nobody else gets to write that story for you.' Dan Stabb, Zip Code Wilmington They were looking for somebody who had higher ed experience, and I was very fortunate that I got the role. And then about two or three months into the job, I realized that [working in admissions], once they became students, I wasn't working with them anymore. I realized how much I missed working with students. The executive director at the time, Melanie Augustine, said, 'Why don't you sit in on our professional development session and maybe help them with their elevator pitches?' I started sitting in and contributing more. And she said, 'You have experience with coaching, why don't you coach some of the students on interviewing?' The first student I coached — and I'm not taking credit for this — was the first one to get a job out of the cohort. I was like, this is really, really cool. Then over time, it just became part of my work. When did you start doing voice acting? 2020. I had done improv for 16 or 17 years. I had been with a group called Better than Bacon for about nine years, until 2017. Then [a couple of years later] I joined Fearless and got like six months of regular performing again. And when COVID happened, my performance outlet was gone, and I was going crazy, because I just need that. Maybe 15 years before, I had done private voiceover coaching with a guy who'd worked for Mel Blanc. But he lived in Northeast Philly, and the haul was just too much for me, so I didn't stick with it very long. So when I was trying to figure out how to perform, voiceover just popped in my brain. I eventually got linked with Rob Holt, a coach out of King of Prussia. He was doing virtual classes when Zoom was just starting to become a thing. I took one class, and I was hooked. I became that student who, when we didn't have class, I was emailing him, and I was trying out different things. I was really enamored with the whole art form of it. We created a booth in my office made of PVC pipe and blankets to isolate the sound. Over time, it became a nice side gig for me. Before COVID, you needed to live near New York or LA. There were some people doing it remotely, but not many. Studios were not really accepting of remote voice actors. COVID definitely shifted that. I have a couple of clients in Europe, and some out in LA. It's sort of an inversion of what we often see, where people pivoted in 2020 because they needed work. Here it was about creativity. I hope everybody finds their bliss. If that's their job, wonderful. I love my job. I also know I love and need this other outlet as well, because it keeps me grounded. I'm a relatively introverted person, but when I'm up there on stage, I just feed off that energy. I've been doing improv now for 21 years, and there is not a single point during that time whenI didn't want to do it. And now I'm putting voiceover in that same yeah category — I hope I do this for the rest of my life. What advice would you give to someone who wants to find their bliss? I think first and foremost, just do it. And when I say do it, I mean, try it, and the first thing might not stick. The second or third thing might not stick. It took a while for me to find my bliss in all of this. Being in a creative field, you deal with rejection a lot. All those rejections have gotten me calloused — not calloused where I'm dismissive of it, but it's like, OK, move on to the next thing. My advice to everybody is take a chance on yourself. I know it sounds a little bit cheesy, but I said no to myself a lot over time, and what I ultimately realized is that I was really the only person in my own way. That ties into Zip Code, because so many of our students are second career students, many of whom always wanted to do tech. I've had so many students saying 'I was told I can't do it.' And as I told many of them: You get to be the author of your own story. Nobody else gets to write that story for you.
Technical.ly
03-07-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
This ecosystem leader wants founders to ‘make time for serendipity'
Entrepreneurship has been at the center of Darius Clair's career, whether by running a business himself or coaching DC-area tech founders. Clair, a Prince George's County, Maryland native who now lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is the first full-time hire at DC Startup and Tech Week as the director of programs and community— which he describes as 'the South by Southwest of the East Coast.' Through his role there, he launched an autonomous tech-focused meetup, accelerator and lab called LaunchT — and started hosting programming for it earlier this summer. 'There is a community here,' Clair told 'There are folks building here. If you look all around us, even across the country, autonomous technology is taking over. How do we support that from the district?' His advice for founders in autonomous tech or otherwise? Be strategic, but authentic. 'Obviously, everyone does have an agenda and something that they want to get done, but figure out how you can give and support and be reciprocal in relationships,' he said. 'That goes a long way.' For the latest installment of How I Got Here, caught up with Clair about LaunchT, his previous roles at major firms like Techstars and WeWork, a passion for venture capital and his love for the DMV. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Where did your career start? In commercial banking, and then in personal finance. At one point in time, while running my personal finance career, I was operating three businesses at the same time. One was an event planning business. I also ran a franchise with two other friends, and then I was running my financial practice. That's where it all started. Nothing was wildly successful, but that was always in the ethos of the work that I did. But at some point, I realized I wasn't necessarily fulfilled in some of the personal finance work that I was doing, and then life started to happen. I've made some transitions, and that led me to start working more with small businesses and figuring out how I could support them. Ultimately, that vein for wanting to support small businesses and support entrepreneurs led me to begin working at WeWork, and that's where I got exposure to the venture capital ecosystem. How I grew up, I didn't have access or awareness of all the different methods of investing, and so I didn't know anything about venture capital. That was where the floodgates started to open up — just being in the atmosphere around more entrepreneurs and startups. How did working at WeWork propel you forward? Even if it doesn't yield you anything in the moment, the seeds that you plant can bear fruit in the future. Darius Clair WeWork is where I started to really hone my community-building skills, supporting the startups and small businesses locally. I was fortunate enough to start supporting them nationally, and then globally, under WeWork's corporate umbrella. That introduced me to the folks at DC Startup and Tech Week. Because of the work that I was doing there, it allowed me to start working on the [conference's] early-stage track. I still had my first business, but because of the exposure with venture capital, I decided to pivot. Deals ultimately became D.E.A.L.S. Venture Group. That's where I wanted to become a venture investor. You also worked at Techstars. What was that experience like? I knew that I needed to be in the atmosphere where I could be more closely aligned with venture capital because of the challenges that I was facing with D.E.A.L.S. Venture Group. To be able to come into Techstars and be a part of a venture capital firm, that was really a strategic opportunity and pivot for me. I was fortunate enough to support over 60 deals into portfolio companies over 18 months while working there. What inspired your new project, LaunchT? LaunchT is an initiative of DC Startup and Tech Week. My transition from Techstars naturally ended up becoming a full circle in joining DC Startup and Tech Week as the director of programs and community. After doing work with them for four years as their early-stage content lead, I was their first full-time hire. The reason they wanted to bring me on is to support DC Startup and Tech Week more broadly. But then also, how do we roll out new opportunities and initiatives to engage the DC Startup and Tech Week community more consistently, year-round? Part of that was LaunchT. What's your day-to-day like? I wear two hats. All things with DC Startup and Tech Week, right now we're ramping up in preparation for the actual week [this fall]. Solidifying venues, confirming the different tracks and the new tracks that we'll unveil this year. It's the 10-year anniversary. We want to go bigger and bolder this year and be more intentional about how we support the region and startups, and really providing the impact that we believe they need. That's one hat, and then the second hat is LaunchT — and building out the infrastructure of that. We started programming. We've created the Autonomous Tech DMV meetup. That'll be a monthly opportunity just to convene folks in the autonomous tech space, to be able to come together, to be able to connect, to be able to share resources, build relationships. We're also doing a virtual series every month. The virtual series is to engage a broader audience across the country to attract more talent to the DMV region. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs? One really good piece of advice that I've gotten and that I've learned over the years is, before you build something, make sure that there's a need for it. Without a doubt, you want to build something that you're passionate about, that you're convicted about, or that you have conviction around. But sometimes that doesn't always line up with what people need. The other thing I would say is: Be willing to build strategic relationships and genuine relationships. Make time for serendipity as you're going out and meeting people. A lot of times, we see founders are always looking for something or asking for something. But figure out how you can also provide value. Figure out how you can align motives and initiatives and value propositions with some of the different stakeholders that you have to engage with in the ecosystem. Even if it doesn't yield you anything in the moment, the seeds that you plant can bear fruit in the future. What's next for you? What are your future goals? Specifically for DC Startup and Tech Week, now that I'm a part of the team full-time, I want to add value. I want to see how we can really supercharge with the work that we've been doing. One thing I've been really passionate about is figuring out how we can build a more cohesive ecosystem in our region. Oftentimes, it does feel siloed and fragmented. Folks that come into this ecosystem don't really know where to go, and they've got to bump around until they meet the right people. There are so many times where we're hosting events, and there're multiple events on the same day. How do we become more efficient with that? Then, becoming more of an investor in startups. My work with District Angels lends to that as well, and supporting them from an investor relations perspective on the volunteer side. [I want to be] leaning into that so that I can continue to build my investor muscle, to start putting money where my mouth is.
Technical.ly
26-06-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
How to find a cofounder — and build a strong partnership — according to people who've done it
Where do you find the perfect cofounder? For HeadStrait Labs' Alyssa Theroux, 23, and Mary Squire, 25, it was across the classroom. The duo met during their first semester in the biomedical engineering program at Carnegie Mellon University and quickly bonded over their shared enthusiasm and active participation in their medical device class. 'Throughout the semester, we started sitting closer and closer together,' Squire told 'and by the final project, we were like, 'Do you want to be partners?'' That partnership paid off. Theroux and Squire won their class's final pitch competition in 2022, and that project became the basis for HeadStrait Labs, their Pittsburgh startup developing a head stabilization device used in emergency response, sports and military settings. 'The current cervical spine and mobilization devices that are used today are really outdated,' Theroux said. 'If you suffer a C-spine fracture or injury, any small movement could affect that significantly, and it can lead to secondary injuries. That really drove our passion for EMS.' Two years later, HeadStrait Labs' neck brace, called the EVAC-1 with SMARTmotion, has earned some serious local recognition. The company has raised $100,000 from the Robotics Factory accelerator program, another $100,000 from the Tartan Entrepreneurs Fund and $25,000 from the Re-Impact Awards. Those wins landed it on 2025 RealLIST Startups earlier this year. The device is already being tested by Oklahoma State University's football program, and HeadStrait is now recruiting participants for an upcoming clinical study with Pittsburgh's largest healthcare provider, UPMC, Theroux said. Theroux and Squire credit their shared work ethic and mutual trust for keeping their partnership strong. 'I know this type of partnership doesn't work for everybody. We've lived together, gone to school together, run a company together — all at the same time,' Squire said. 'So we're very good at making joint decisions. We literally have a legal document that has a tiebreaker if necessary, and in two years, we've never once exercised it.' Still, they face the realities of building a startup as women founders in a male-dominated industry. Sexism persists in the startup world, with female-only founded companies raising just 2% of VC funding last year, according to research from PitchBook. This is dramatically lower than the 20% of VC funding that went to startups cofounded by men and women together. In this edition of How I Got Here series, Theroux and Squire share how they've built a strong cofounder relationship, the lessons they've learned navigating early-stage entrepreneurship and what it takes to break into an unequal field. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. What's the secret to a strong cofounder relationship? Theroux: Communicate, communicate, communicate. And let the other person work to their strengths, so that you don't have to work so hard to overcome your weaknesses. Divide tasks so each person can shine and move the company forward. Squire: We were lucky enough that the environment we were in, studying for a master's in biomedical engineering, you had to be a certain level of interested in this space. So that was an instant filter for us, which was a lot easier than trying to find someone on the street who's aligned with you. Look for someone with the growth mindset. Being aware that that person's willing to grow and adapt in every aspect of life means they're probably going to do a very good job of that in this industry too. What advice would you give other female founders? Theroux: Don't let the statistics get in your head. Shoot for the moon. You'll land somewhere in the stars. No matter what you know, no matter what other people think, you have to believe in yourself and your partnership. You and your cofounder have to move as one unit. And find a good support group. Squire: Share your opinion, especially in a male-dominated industry like engineering or the startup world. Being a young female entrepreneur is a hard position to be in, and I've noticed that the times I have shared an opinion or a perspective, it's unique because no one else in the room is really sharing that one. So even if it's not the most beneficial or the correct answer, it's probably gonna provoke thought amongst everyone else, or at least get people in a mind space they probably weren't already in. What's been the biggest surprise since becoming a startup founder? Squire: We've both been in very competitive environments, from the level of sports we played, to the schools we've gone to, to the degrees we've done, and we've excelled at those things, but there's lots of rejection that comes along the way. Despite that, I don't think I anticipated the level of nos you're gonna get in this process. It makes the yeses very exciting, let me tell you, but the number of nos you get, I think, it's been more than I expected. But, every no is actually more helpful than a yes, because you know what you need to change. If no one ever gives it to you straight, you don't really get to make improvements. What opportunities would you recommend to others? Squire: When you do have the capacity to go to an event where you can learn something, you should go. We do this thing called 'our one positive,' so even if it's the most boring event or we had a bad time, we ask, what was the one thing that we did take away? It's funny, half the time it's the same takeaway for both of us, but that always makes it feel like what we're doing isn't a waste of time. Theroux: Networking is really important, but there's always a balance to it. What's the biggest challenge you've had to overcome so far? Squire: Balancing feedback, deciding when to take it and when not to. We're like a sponge. We like to take it all in, but it gets to the point where feedback is actually contradicting, and if you don't choose one, you're not actually going to make progress. Theroux: You have to filter feedback through your own knowledge and experiences, and then at some point you've got to take the lead and see what happens. We've made a really big effort to take responsibility and ownership of the choices that we make. Jump into it and make sure all parties are aligned before you do it.
Technical.ly
29-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
This founder believes Ukraine is the place to soft-launch a prosthetic knee
/ As the war rages on in Ukraine, a founder from Northern Virginia is raising money to launch her prosthetic knee technology in the country. Sarah Malinowski, 27, is the founder and CEO of Seamless Transition in Rosslyn. She's developing prosthetic knees that resemble the curvature of human ones to mimic natural movement, unlike the standard prosthetic that allows for limited motion and can cause pain. In 2023, Malinowski met with staff at the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, who asked if current wars still cause lower leg amputations. She didn't immediately know the answer, but decided to meet with refugees in Poland to learn more. After an old friend got her across the border to Ukraine, where she spoke with hospitalized warfighters, she quickly learned the necessity of what she was building. 'It was a weird, unfortunate, right time-right place,' Malinowski told 'But if this is a way that we can help them, then I'm all for it.' Although she registered the product in the US with the Food and Drug Administration, Malinowski, who started Seamless Transition in 2022, is planning a soft launch in Ukraine later this year. To make it happen, she's raising $250,000 starting in June. For latest edition of How I Got Here, Malinowski outlined her inspiration for Seamless Transition, reasons for soft-launching in a war-plagued country and advice to fellow founders. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How did your career begin? I have my undergrad in mechanical engineering, and while I was doing that bachelor's in Minnesota, I was working at a prosthetic clinic. That's what inspired me to do this prosthetic: All these people came in and kept telling me all the ways that it didn't work, even though they were wearing the top-line things. As the engineering student, I was like, 'This can be fixed. This is the 21st century.' I worked in industry for about a year, and then I want[ed] to do what I've been so passionate about doing. I started my master's degree at George Washington University in biomedical engineering, and dedicated the thesis to the design of this prosthetic. What was your first job in tech? During my undergrad, I did internships at a foundry in Minnesota, in the small town of Le Sueur, and we did aluminum castings. It was really cool to see the manufacturing side, which definitely helps me now when we're talking about manufacturing this device. I know hands-on what goes into creating these types of products. How did your company start? The inspiration came from when I was an undergrad, meeting these people. I've always maintained that passion. Then, when I came to GW, I was actually doing interviews. I didn't even know that customer discovery [was] a thing you do in business. I just thought, 'Let me interview some veterans.' One of them told me, 'Hey, you should check out the Office of Innovation Entrepreneurship, you should talk to one of the mentors. You should get involved.' I started meeting with Bob Smith, who's now the head of that department, and he helped me all the way through the idea phase. I got about an entire year to get the idea and concept really molded before I jumped in and started doing the design and research on my master's thesis. I went through their pitch competition, their new venture competition, where I won $27,000 — that was a great start. Where are you now with Seamless Transition? We have the initial prototype completed. We have the MVP, which is great. What we're working on doing is a soft launch in Ukraine. We have all of the computer testing data. We are FDA-registered as a Class II device, 510(k)-exempt. It doesn't have any claims on it yet because we haven't done any clinical trials on it. In Ukraine, we're unable to do anything that would be FDA-approved, as far as we wouldn't be able to submit it for approval because it's not in America. But we would like to do small-scope testing in Ukraine [to confirm] all of the numbers that are true on the computer are true in real life, donate those 10 [devices] to those people for their time, and then continue a sale with that hospital that helped us — giving them a discounted price, that kind of thing. The goal would then be to have contract manufacturing in Ukraine. That way, we're not having to pay for the tariffs and the shipping, and keeping it as low-cost as possible for the Ukrainians. Why Ukraine? The initial people that I talked to and met back in my undergrad, when I was first meeting all these amputees, 90% of them were veterans. That really kind of hit a soft spot with me, with both my grandparents serving, a lot of great uncles serving. It hit a soft point where they would come to me and they're crying and saying that they can't go on a walk with their daughters in the woods. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is too much.' [My family's] originally from Poland, so I went to Poland [and] thought I would interview a bunch of the refugees. When I touched the ground there, I was at the airport, and one of my friends calls me and he's like, 'Hey, I was actually in Ukraine for the past six months teaching them medical skills. Why don't I help you? I have a great family. You can see [if] they can help you get into all these hospitals.' The next day, I was on a bus, and I walked across the border into Ukraine. That is where I met the family that has been so nice, and met other people at hospitals. What else does your day-to-day in this job encompass? It's the beginning process of raising money [for this soft launch]. I feel like this is the point of a startup that no one likes to talk about. So it's me, and I have a COO named Ash Asher. We have so many things to do all the time. I am trying to get our slide decks ready for the raise, and want to make sure that we have all of our verbiage correct. I'm just going through all the stacks, making sure it makes sense in English and Ukrainian, making sure that the hospitals understand what we're asking from them and what they're receiving from us — and being very clear on those things. It's a lot of jumping from hat to hat and switching what my role is for the day, but always maintaining connections with people. That's something almost every day — having quick touchpoints with certain people, just making sure they know that I haven't forgotten about them, that it's going to take me a little bit longer than it would if I had a team of 20 people to get this raise started. What advice do you have for fellow founders, specifically in medical technology? Meet people. Meet other people who are in the same space that can either sit with you and cry about the same things, because it's all very hard, or people who might inspire you or give you some contacts. There are hard days and there are really great days. Sometimes it'll be at noon, and you feel like you're on top of the world, and at 5 p.m., an email comes through, and now you're staying up until midnight trying to fix it. So it's a lot of high highs and low lows, but it's all worth it. What else is coming up with Seamless Transition? We've also applied for the SBIR with NIH. With that, our partners, if we get it, would be George Washington University along with the Walter Reed facility. That would be huge for us here in America. We're trying to get to market in Ukraine, but we're trying to solidify all those testing and regulation requirements here in the US through that. Having those partnerships with Walter Reed and GW would be crucial for that.
Technical.ly
24-04-2025
- Technical.ly
Working in libraries gave this leader a roadmap for tackling digital inequity
This is How I Got Here, a series where we chart the career journeys of technologists. Want to tell your story? Get in touch. Tackling digital equity is a daunting task, and Lo Smith isn't shy to acknowledge the severity of the problem. The Better Waverly resident, who leads the Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition (BDEC), argued that while the region has improved digital access, there is still a lot of work to be done. 'Digital equity work is a little bit like working in climate change,' Smith told 'We are sprinting, and unfortunately, the problem is bigger than us.' Their job is a part of that sprint, through which the organization's executive director connects other leaders in digital equity, hosts events to forge partnerships, and helps people design training and apply for grants. For this edition of the How I Got Here series, Smith discussed fighting digital redlining after the pandemic and how their past roles with library systems influenced their work in digital equity, and offered advice for people interested in a similar career path. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. When did you get interested in digital equity? I'm from South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley. Back when I was growing up there, I would not call it an opportunity-rich region. I had a computer because my parents were college professors, and they had the free dial-up internet that college affiliates got. We used computers at school, but they were very classwork-y. None of us could type fast. It was kind of a disaster. If you find out you're weirdly good at something, do that, follow it. Lo Smith From there, I had complicated teenage years. It's really hard when you don't know you're queer and trans, and you're living somewhere between an urban city and a rural setting with strong Appalachian culture. Ended up not doing well in high school. At the very end, I turned it all around, headed off to college and came down to Baltimore. I always wanted to be a teacher. Digital inclusion is the thing that I found because it linked together my desire to be a teacher with my desire to help. When did libraries come into play? I got hired as a part-time librarian at Baltimore County the summer after I graduated — bananas. I helped our branch redesign the way we did [a digital skills training program].[But] the county library was not for me, and I was looking for something new to do. There was a very vague job description [put] up by Enoch Pratt. It said 'technologist.' I sent my resume in, and they emailed me immediately: 'Can you interview tomorrow?' I was in this position to bring digital equity to not just Pratt but the state, to train our staff, to train the city. For the first two years [of the COVID pandemic], I worked six days a week, about 12 hours a day, between the Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition, the Enoch Pratt Free Library and then the needs of other organizations stepping up to work with us, to bring online programming to being able to get people connected to each other. When I train folks in libraries — and even digital navigators, because I've trained close to 1,000 — I always tell them you are going to see people on their worst day. No one comes to the library to ask for help as a first line of defense. They go to their neighbors, their churches. They talk to their friends, their family members. They go to the library when you are the last person they know to ask. They come to you as a digital navigator to do something on the computer when they are overwhelmed, and it has taken such an emotional toll on them that they are willing to ask a stranger for help. Bringing the compassion of libraries, and the understanding of just how hard it is to be a human being these days, to supporting people with technology is so important. What does your BDEC role involve? I joined BDEC, honestly, the worst day to be a transgender person working in equity — the 21st of January, 2025. I am the executive director, but that's also the only role right now. We previously had more staff. What I do is coalition-building and then program support and support for folks who do digital inclusion work. When I was with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, we were providing support and information nationwide. What BDEC basically does is similar, but a lot of what I try to do is bring folks together to talk to each other so they're not all talking to me. A lot of it is me trying to facilitate relationships, matchmaking, but also then offering what I have as expertise. I'm hoping to bring more training to our communities, so that when we're putting together digital inclusion programs, we can train the staff involved. What are your feelings about the state of digital equity in Baltimore? I'm feeling optimistic. But one thing I will always say is that sometimes when we're framing our work, we're saying that we're going to close the digital divide, and I'm trying to eliminate that phrase from my vocabulary. So many people saw the early stages of the COVID pandemic, 2020 to 2022, as the acute moment for digital equity work. They don't see the way that it is a perpetual experience. This is something that I bring up regularly when I talk about digital inclusion and digital equity: If I gave everybody in the city of Baltimore a laptop, does that mean we've done it? No, because half the houses are going to put that laptop on a shelf because they don't have internet, because they don't have the digital skills to use it, because they're not comfortable, because they don't know where to go when they get online. I know that we're chasing down the digital divide, but we're seeing things like AI expanding it. We're seeing that a lot of funds that used to go to equitable internet access are now moving over to things like AI access and AI training. I love that you're offering AI training to community members. However, if they can't use a computer to start with, how do you think they're going to engage with your AI? Unfortunately, I often feel like we're also always in the equity Olympics. It's hard for me sometimes doing this work because as a trans person, I am fighting a completely different fight the second that I log out of executive director mode. What advice do you have for people who want to pursue a career similar to yours? The big thing that I did is, if you find out you're weirdly good at something, do that, follow it. Even if you just did a master's degree in a completely different area, follow the thread of both the thing that you are good at and the thing that you like to do. I do this because I'm good at it. There are a lot of other things that I also love to do. I teach partner acrobatics, I'm a yoga teacher. I play roller derby. I've been a great librarian, I'd like to say. I love vintage fashion. I could run a vintage fashion store. There're so many things that I could do, but I have chosen to do this one because I think I'm good at it, and I think my community likes what I do, and it's just been the ribbon that I chose to follow through everything.
