coffee shop now let me tell you that
this Airport coffee shop was packed this
day I mean there was a line around the
corner and everything in concourse C and
I was there to get a coffee and I
looking behind me and I already knew
there was an unspoken social contract
that I better be ready to say my order
because everybody was impatiently
waiting in line so I’m looking at the
menu and I could see it right there it
says a tall white chocolate mocha got
this I’m gonna get a tall white
chocolate mocha I’m good to go
so I’m standing in line I see everything
going on and it’s finally my turn
so the barista is actually the cashier
and she is like yes how can I help you
today and I’m ready because again I
don’t want to fail all these people
behind me in line that have a flight to
catch and are impatiently waiting so I
say in my confident voice as I read the
menu I’m reading it and I say yes I
would like to get a mocha chocolate
white toes I completely flipped around
what I had just said and I felt that
everyone behind me I just failed the
whole entire population of concourse C
people waiting in this coffee shop I
messed up and to make matters worse you
know I’m like feeling all embarrassed
and then I’m looking at the barista and
she’s like I don’t think we saw that
anymore at this store you might want to
order something else I’m like really
like I know that I messed this up and
this is no unfamiliar thing to me
you see reading things backwards and
seeing things backwards has been a
struggle for me since I was a child
because as a child I’ve always suffered
with dyslexic tendencies and I will tell
you that as time has gone on I’ve
improved and it was way worse as a child
as a child let me give you the picture
of Giselle not only was I quite
misbehaved as a child I was misbehaved
as a child because I had difficulty
learning things learning opportunities
to me was something very hard to grasp
and so as a child I would read
completely get things backwards I would
have the most difficult issues with
reading comprehension I would spell my
name backwards with a mixture of numbers
and backwards letters I would go to
school and listen to the teacher and
what they had to say and I swore that I
got it right so then by the time I get
back home I’d sit there try to do my
homework completely confused and just
basically swearing that I was right that
the teacher said what I thought I heard
her say and it was all backwards and it
wasn’t until elementary school in the
process of elementary school that I had
this one teacher who didn’t just write
me off and to give you quite a better
understanding of where I come from yes I
come from immigrant parents they came
from Dominican Republic so in my house
to make matters worse we spoke Spanish
and I was very having a very hard time
because in Spanish we put adjectives
after the nouns so we say things like La
Nina Juanita which is the girl beautiful
right
it’s just messing me up even more and so
there I was as a child and I came from
that background and I was also brought
up in an area where there were housing
projects I was right there with
everybody else as a minority the people
around me their parents sometimes were
in prison they were living off of food
stamps and those children at that time
were not very much interested in
educational pursuits because it just
wasn’t the most important thing on the
docket and so here I am this child who
was a little bit nonverbal seeing things
backwards and I thought it was hilarious
to emulate the likings of Tasmanian
Devil from Looney Tunes right so I
behaved that way that’s the way I wanted
to express myself so here I come me and
all of these children going to a school
that they bust us into out of our
neighborhood into a more affluent
neighborhood where no one looked like us
where their parents were doctors and
lawyers and engineers where they
actually had something called a college
fund which I had no idea what that was
some of them already had scholarships in
elementary school to go to college and
here I was with this group
children being bused into this
neighborhood and we were always late and
we were the group of children who had to
get off of the bus late and we would get
there and everyone already know the
teachers like oh boy here comes this
group here comes these people off this
bus and there I was right with them
seeing things backwards and acting like
the Tasmanian Devil as I thought that
was hilarious and so I could go in line
and I would recite a number that would
allow me to get a free breakfast and I
usually would already have a something
in my stomach because my mom always made
sure that I was well taken care of I
look different from the group of people
I was with I was always very well kept
and all of these great situations were
there for me but things just weren’t
clicking
and they weren’t clicking so much so
that I was recite this number always
without fail incorrectly getting
everything out of order and one teacher
in elementary school saw something
different in me she called my mother and
she had her come in and have a teacher
conference and so that was a changing
point for me because after that
conference this teacher looked past my
disabilities she looked past where I
came from socioeconomically she looked
past my weaknesses and she got down to
my level and she decided that she was
gonna take me under her wing I was
chosen to sit next to her i sat next to
her desk and after she would teach the
whole class and everyone would go
through the lesson she would give me the
opportunity to work and play at my
strengths see my strength was actually
mathematics until this day it really is
and there I was being able to sit next
to her and begin to flourish because I
saw that she was giving me worksheets
and I was surpassing the students in my
class being able to move from concepts
where they were doing mathematics to
higher advanced concepts in mathematics
and I began to realize that I saw things
in patterns I began to see how my brain
was working and she works with me in
this before I knew it by the time I
finished elementary school and was going
to middle school I became a gifted
student and that trajectory of my life
took me into becoming an international
baccalaureate student in high school to
where I graduated and had
enough credits with a 5.8 GPA to be able
to go into college and get an
undergraduate degree in less time so I
went to the University of South Florida
I graduated with a dual bachelor’s
degree and I decided I’m gonna give my
master’s degree so I went on to get my
master’s degree and I graduated with a
4.0 I became someone who wanted to give
other people learning opportunities so I
became a professor myself I started to
help college students in those type of
subjects that nobody really wants to
take the mathematics and economics that
all of these things that some of those
students really just didn’t care for and
I made it fun because I made it being
able to speak their language and get
down to their level not only did I do
that I became a learning strategist to
where it till this day with my own
company I helped people in corporations
to get their training right to come out
of the standardized training and see
what’s not working and start to really
get to people with how do they learn and
how can we best present this material to
our people to get productive results
I’ve also been a consultant for small
businesses in this Tampa area where I’ve
been able to help many organizations
come up with growth strategies
organizations who’ve been in business
for 20 years
and here’s little old me missing things
dyslexic style acting like the Tasmanian
Devil being able to now offer other
people learning opportunities this
desire to help other people was birth
because of the example that I had and
how somebody reached out to me despite
where I was and where I came from and
this has all led me to be able to speak
about using something called adaptive
learning adaptive learning through the
use of technology is to be able to see
where a learner is where are they
already proficient where are they
lacking and how can we adopt the content
or the style and delivery to meet this
person where they are just like I was
met where I was and this has also led me
to start thinking about well what if
everybody doesn’t have a Miss Shepard
who was my elementary school teacher and
reached out to me what if they don’t
have that access can we duplicate or
replicate this type of experience for
everybody because I truly believe that
anyone can learn anything anywhere and I
said well yes it is possible and it’s
possible through the use of
artificial intelligence now when I say
that I know some people might be like
artificial intelligence this is
something that can come and take over
like we hear a lil um musk and we hear
Steven Hawkings and other people making
these safeguards to make sure that one
day robots don’t come and take over the
world and kill us and so that is what’s
happening right now we are seeing many
organizations in the healthcare and
public sector and many other fields
start to use artificial intelligence to
help the processes and meet people and
become successful in whatever process or
product or service that they provide now
I believe that we can use that in the
learning space we can all agree right
that technology and has allowed us to
have so much access to information we
have access to information at our
fingertips or if we want we can vocalize
it ask Siri a question it could be the
most random question she will answer you
and I will say that we can start to use
artificial intelligence in ways beyond
Netflix and curating content to us and
all of this but we can also start using
artificial intelligence to begin to go
from just having information at our
fingertips to be able to have learning
opportunities at our fingertips because
anyone can have information but does it
mean that they’re truly learning and
does it mean that everyone has the
opportunity to learn I believe that they
can I told you I came from a rough
socio-economic background and I’m not
the only one what happened to the other
peers that I went to school with the
rambunctious ones who were being bused
to this other neighborhood I wonder if
they also had the experience that I had
in life or if they were overlooked or
marginalized judged and rejected and
maybe someone didn’t take the time to
reach out to them because we are us and
they are they
I wonder if we were able to take some
type of a device like an Alexa and be
able to put it in the homes and these
housing projects or wherever people are
maybe in a remote village somewhere
across the world and be able to have
this technology adapt to the user in
such a way where it understands things
from a socio-economic level it
understands their psychology it can work
with them it could speak their language
it can help somebody
not even just learn how to read for
example but what if someone in a remote
area where we consider different from us
and practically maybe less educated and
we feel this air of superiority
sometimes when it comes to certain
people what if they had access to Ivy
League education from not even having to
leave their house to go to a university
because technology would enable it and
beyond socio-economic situations what if
somebody with a disability maybe
somebody with autism or somebody who had
any sort of disability that you can
think of especially in the cognitive
level maybe even someone with dyslexic
tendencies was able to we would flip
that that whole panorama and be able to
see people not with limitations or being
so different but technology would be
able in artificial intelligence to meet
this person where they were understand
how they’re seeing things how their
brain works and be able to reach them at
that level not only to reach them but to
lift them up and see them in a
progression like I have in my life and
finally what would happen if we would
integrate this type of mentality and use
artificial intelligence in the workplace
in such a way where it wouldn’t be that
I am so proud of my titles behind my
name and everything that I’ve been able
to accomplish and so I am also in that
sense greater than you and what if we
were able to understand a different
employee wherever they’re coming from
whatever level they are we can say ok
this is what you need to learn you don’t
have to be embarrassed that this is
where you’re lacking that this is where
you’re deficient because it’s ok this
artificial intelligence will not judge
you
it will understand what you need to
learn and so much so what if artificial
intelligence for training purposes
at work in the workplace would
understand what someone needs to learn
before they even knew that they needed
to learn it what if it was able to
predict market trends and innovations
and the digital technologies that people
would be using as the workforce of the
future before they were even a reality
when I talk about artificial
intelligence it’s actually something
that a lot of companies are getting into
now you’re hearing it a lot in the news
you’re hearing it a lot in social media
and the truth is guys we don’t even know
what this is actually gonna look like in
the future we’re kind of testing
something out and we don’t have a full
picture of it but what I can say is to
in order to avoid the fear of it in
order to emulate this process that I’ve
been talking about that actually changed
my life why don’t we have engineers of
these technologies come up with
mathematical equations and algorithms
and being able to wire these
technologies to be people centric we
wouldn’t be afraid of what they could do
if we had the heart the heart infused
inside of these technologies that yes
the learner is important the person is
important meet people where they are it
doesn’t matter about the titles and the
positions or their silks to your
economic background or if somebody even
has a disability everyone should have
the rights and the opportunity to learn
what if we would level out this playing
field of what people are capable of
doing rather than looking at some people
as up here and others down here I
believe it’s completely possible I
believe that as we start moving into
these technological advances that are
already here now we’re going to see
people having better opportunities more
access to learning more access to
creating and contributing no matter
where they came from or no matter who
they are
I like how Ginni Rometty says it she’s
the CEO of IBM and she says how about
instead of looking at artificial
intelligence AI as artificial
intelligence what if we flip that around
and looked at it as intelligence
augmentation to where artificial
intelligence can be your buddy it can
assist you in doing your job better not
replace you but assist you what if it
could assist
you and being able to learn and we’re
not saying that we’re going to eliminate
trainers and teachers and this type of
roles that are so vital and provide
their humanity and that level of passion
to their students and the learners
because then what happened to me that’s
who I am for people right but I am
saying what if we would insert this type
of heart and this passion and this type
of people centric and they are important
then everyone has the opportunity inside
of these technologies and so what I
would tell you today the next time you
hear about artificial intelligence the
next time you hear about these trends
don’t fear it don’t think it’s strange
but remember that I’m saying today that
it can actually be a tool to change
people’s lives a changing tool an agent
to provide people with opportunities
that we would have never even imagined
they had before learning opportunities
that transcend time that they will carry
with them and give to other people
their generations to come after them it
would change economies government
societies countries if everyone had an
equal opportunity and access to learning
opportunities so the next time you hear
about artificial intelligence remember
me and I want you to flip this concept
of artificial intelligence AI to
intelligence augmentation I a so when I
look at it I see AI for AI a and no
that’s not me being dyslexic this time thank you