Name: Impact Initiative 2023: Technology For Social Good
Uploaded: 2023-09-13
Duration: 14 min 14 s
Description: Tom Davidson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EVERFI from Blackbaud Interviewer: Alan Murray, FORTUNE

Tom Davidson, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, EVERFI from Blackbaud Interviewer: Alan Murray,  FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Technology For Social Good

Conferences

Now it's something of an understatement to say that A I has become a buzzy topic for business leaders. As many of them look to innovate and push boundaries with the goal of achieving new successes. But what about those leaders who also want to use their resources to help solve some of society's most complex issues. How can they leverage technology to help them do this to discuss this? Please welcome to the stage, Tom Davidson, founder and CEO of Ever five from Blackboard and Fortune Ceo Alan Murray. So Tom, we've been talking a lot about diversity here over the last 24 hours. I think you and I are like nail dressing very different. You have hair. Yeah, I mean, they're, they're so we apologize. Well, give us, give us a brief interlude. I want to talk about technology because when we were in this room together a year ago, most of us, I can't speak for you. I know I had never heard the word generative. A I, I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it meant. And when you think now about how it has changed our whole perception of the potential of technology to affect our lives. It's a reminder of just how fast technology is changing. Technology is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. But can you talk a little bit about how you see technology changing the efforts on the issues that we've been talking about for the last 24 hours. So I think uh specific to this group, um like everywhere else, you're going to see such a wide range of applications towards this. So in the areas that we're seeing internally, allowing companies at the highest level to story tell in a way that they never have before. So think about you're a very large corporation, you're operating over multiple continents, you're operating over multiple towns and you know, these are areas now where you need to be a storyteller in Hazard Kentucky, you need to be a storyteller in New York City. What A I and generative A I is can allow you to do is pull that data from hundreds of different touch points, interactions, learning uh situations in schools and communities, everything you're gonna be able to understand and compare company to company town to town, what you're doing in local education, how your team is engaging, number of hours spent everything and tell that story in real time when you're in front of a member of Congress, you regulator. So get a little more specific, tell us how you're incorporating that in your products. So one of the things that we're doing is um we talked a little bit of about this with a number of folks. All of this is living in government relations. It's living in coms, it's living in foundations, it's living over in the Exec suite. And what this is for the first time it's allowing us to do is pull all of that data into one place. Using A I to tell that story to compare state to state town to town division division company to company. And that's going to be something that's going to be live and it's going to happen really fast and that will help, it will help to impact. There's some other areas where you think technology can help advance this. It's really exciting and what companies are doing, for example, in education right now, I mean, you know, the status of K 12 education in this country and the need for corporate engagement in that is like never before the coming out of COVID. You're seeing test test scores declining, lack of counselors, you're seeing teachers burning out, you're seeing students show up in truancy levels at their highest levels in years. And so we really feel like this need for technology to come in and allow teachers and others. The time to get students back on track is like never before. And you're seeing that accelerate at a level that we have not seen in the 16 years that I've been doing this and it's really hitting kids in high poverty areas at a level that, um, that, you know, is, is very different from anyone else right now. And are they able to take advantage of it? I mean, do they, the resources they need the knowledge they need to make the most of it? You know, we're in an endless process of trying to wire schools and get broadband into schools and others. But it's one of the great successes. One of the great bipartisan successes is the wiring of schools and libraries, the provision of computers and allowing kids to get online has been just a fantastic success in the last, you know, 25 30 years. And uh we now allow the highway has been built and we can build things on top of that. I'd love, I know there are a bunch of people in this group who are focused on using technology to address some of the issues we've been talking about. We had a great presentation from, I'd love to hear from for, from uh some others, you know, raise your hand. Uh If you have something to I is Justin in the audience from IBM. Yeah. Can I put you on the spot? Ok. So hi everyone just, you know, Nixon Chief Impact Officer at IBM. Um And you know, we're, we're very focused on how we um provide skills, especially to low skilled individuals, entry level. Um you know, people as well. And one of the things that we did just two years ago in 21 is to make a commitment to skill, 30 million people by 2030. But what we're doing right now around A I and generative A I is how do we make sure we don't have the divide that we had? Especially when like new technologies like the internet, broadband, etcetera affected those underrepresented groups, underrepresented communities. So how do we make sure even something as simple as prompt? Engineering, how do you write the right, you know, create the right prompt. How do you understand how to make decisions around products and solutions? So under stand in ethical A I is important, it's very important to bring awareness to that as well. So very focused on how do we make sure we're bringing those skills to these very specific communities to make sure they're not being left behind? And honestly, this is a business imperative, but it's really about the bottom line as well. We want to make sure people are skilled to work not just for IBM, but for our clients and it's support society at large. So it's a huge effort of ours. Yeah, keep the microphone for a second because I have a question for both of you. I think it's pretty generally agreed among economists that the technology revolution we've seen over the last two decades has exacerbated inequality in advanced societies. You know, it's, it's given more power and more riches to the people who understand how, how to use it and widen the gap. There have been a couple of studies, Eric Brien did one. There have been a couple of others that suggest that this latest wave of generative A I may actually be the opposite. It may empower the the lower, less educated people, more than the most educated people. I wonder if either of you have any evidence of that being the case. So we we don't have evidence yet of that. But I know that I've seen examples of language, right? Language barriers and how A I can help people who may not be fluent in a certain language and that helps them, right? It empowers them, it helps them in their, their job as well. Um I think also like we talked about lower skilled individuals who need to understand how to create the right prompts. How does that help them in their current job? So it's really around how do we make sure that they understand how to be successful in the position that they have today? Because if you're not up skilled, re skilled and it includes a gene A I component, you, you may be at risk, right? I think there was a recent study that 40% of executives um said that, you know, there will be, I think 40% of jobs will need some sort of A I skilling over the next three years. So this is not like 10 years of this is over the next three years. So I think it's, it's really urgent that we bring those skills. Yeah. And I, I, by the way, I love the quote. I don't know who first said it. So I don't know who to credit it to, to say you don't have to worry about being replaced by A I, you have to worry about being replaced by somebody who understands how to use A I Yeah. Well, and also this is the thing about A I right now and any resource like this for teachers or kids thinking specifically about kids in schools, it's taken us on the positive side. This thing is going to leash a tremendous amount of energy and excitement and optimism in classrooms and skills, skill betting on the downside of this. You always have to come back to the fact that I would say it's taken us 400 years to so perfectly disadvantage kids in high poverty areas in this country. And it's devastating when you see the effects of that compounding effect of 400 years. I love your comment because this can't be one more area where at some point this computing power, at some point, the energy that it takes to drive, this is going to have a cost and what you learn as a, you know, as a former state legislator, you sit in these arcane conversations around school funding formulas and the way they work. What you realize is that's also a multi 100 year process of fully disadvantaging kids in high poverty areas. And so what I say it in this room is this group of people in this room. We have a unique responsibility to actually step into the gap of financing these types of things. Because if you're waiting for uh uh the Clarksdale school district in Mississippi or larger schools across the country to step in and finance these things for kids. You will wind up in the same place that you've wound up for multiple hundreds of years in this country with the haves and the have nots and the kids who had it four years before everyone else. And when that happens, you see this with reading and everything else, you can never catch up. This is the sales pitch part of your presentation, but that's ok. It's not a sales pitch for me. Yeah, but that's ok because you, you're helping uh these companies, there are lots of options by the way that are, you know, not just us and others who are trying to do this work in schools, but it is a round game. Make the case why this group, uh the the case, it's a version of what Justin was saying, why this group needs to get involved in this issue in the education issue. It's, it's very simple. Uh This is the biggest whiplash business of all time. Um You have governors and others and state superintendents, you know, the average life of a superintendent in the United States about two years. Um Governors will last four years, eight years. If they're lucky, it takes a long time for policy to get embedded in the work. And what happens is schools say, oh, great. We have a, you know, financial education program or mental health program. It's been funded by the state, the district others and in a year it's gone. And so the whiplash and the, and what teachers do is they say, I just, I don't know if I want to do this because I just don't know if it's gonna be here next month or next year or in the next bi annual budget cycle. So what I think about corporations, this is always strange to say, but in many ways, you are the thing that teachers and schools can count on the most, you're the most dependable source of revenue over multiple years that can help and they can actually look and see. And it's one of the few areas where you can look and see and guide and judge that as whether it's working or not and do comparative analytics school to school all funded by the corporate sector. And I say that is a good bleeding heart, you know, liberal Democrat is a big teacher union guy. So I, I believe that in my bones and, and I, and I believe IBM has done that, but who else is Caroline Golan in the room? Uh uh No who, who else wants to talk about uh exam show in the room? Yes. Can I put you on the spot? I love, I love putting people on the spot. Well, um I can give you examples that are a little bit different from immediate impact to education in um in, in the United States. I think technology plays a huge role in democratizing access, creating connections in a way that truly transforms lives and societies. And I'll give you the example of a platform that we call U which is uh from generation, unlimited UNICEF public private partnership forum that we do in India. And the goal is to transform the lives of hundreds of millions of people with the recognition that transformation is not un dimensional. It's not about giving digital skills or access to computers or uh mental health support. It is all of them and it's more, it's about social, you know, um support to them. It's about creating sponsorships, mentorships. So the platform is entirely enabled by technology and increasingly A I to make it more effective, more accessible, more leverage and it brings, brings together many public uh private sector players, many some of them are in the room today here, uh nonprofits, educational institutions, all of these to create a seamless access from education, skill development all the way to employability and support beyond that entirely enabled by technology, the technology because if the technology didn't exist, everybody is doing their bit and intervention here, an intervention there, but it's not transformative, so many great examples, you know, from biodiversity to creating more access and so on. Big believer. Um That's the example I would like to share you, you're an optimist. I absolutely am a believer. Uh anybody else have a quick example reaction to that. Oh I think that there's people should be incredibly optimistic about the tools that are getting put in place. The challenge for it is always a distribution issue of, of, of where it goes, how fast it gets it. That's always that. But it, but, but if you take a look, 10 years out, if we were to have this conversation 10 years from now, will we have seen significant improvements? Oh, I think you will. I, I think you absolutely will. Yeah. Good. Well, thank you. Thank you for your support for the impact initiative. Thank you for being here and uh the rest of you. Right.