There is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for professionals seeking emergent telematics-related positions within large enterprises. The next ten to twenty years will be full of near-unlimited growth for professionals who want to do pricing, contracting, IT, and legal work in this space. Professionals that can develop and price these exciting products, service them, and identify risks companies need to cover for both customers and employees will be at the forefront of this new technology. The sky’s the limit, and this road does not end.

Our houses, cars, work, and lives are many times more wired and internet-connected than even a couple of years ago—locks, doorbell cameras, voice-activated assistants, drones, autopilot cars, smart devices; you name it. And as end-users, we are perfectly positioned to appreciate why this data needs to be managed securely. It’s an incredible in-demand skill to understand the technology generating this data, articulate how companies can derive value from it, and create solutions that protect and secure it. So don’t just use these new toys. Help design them!

Every farmer has to think carefully about their margins and improving the quality of their products. And technology has always been a part of the business, of course, but today we see a level of sophistication that eclipses the innovations of yesteryear. And you might be surprised to learn that many farms are still family owned in the US. We spoke at length with Alex Ward, a technologist who represents a seventh-generation farming operation. He explained that while the number of family farms may be dwindling, demands for tech support from chemical, seed, fertilizer, and equipment suppliers are growing and creating new employment opportunities daily.

When we examine our general anxiety about AI, we likely think of robots-gone-rouge, like the Terminator movie series. Today, with ChatGPT producing sentient-like responses, it's raising new concerns that AI is becoming an “unhinged nightmare.” Most people don’t want AI to become more intelligent than us. But it feels like we are approaching a tipping point where technology can become so powerful that it controls us. From a data scientist’s perspective, the key lies in ethics and getting people involved in careers that will help shape this new technology.

Most people associate blockchain with cryptocurrency, and the buzz around distributed ledger technology continues to make news. Presently, Samuel Bankman-Fried of FTX Trading is being prosecuted for allegedly using the tool, or at least exploiting its allure, to defraud investors around the world out of billions of dollars. But fortunately, entrepreneurs and computer scientists like Ashish Gadnis have demonstrated that you can also use blockchain for the common good.

Most people associate blockchain with cryptocurrency, and the buzz around distributed ledger technology continues to make news. Presently, Samuel Bankman-Fried of FTX Trading is being prosecuted for allegedly using the tool, or at least exploiting its allure, to defraud investors around the world out of billions of dollars. But fortunately, entrepreneurs and computer scientists like Ashish Gadnis have demonstrated that you can also use blockchain for the common good.

Ashish was born and raised in a slum in India fifty years ago. And he grew up hating being poor. When he moved to the United States and started building his career and first company, he always asked himself, “If somebody buys this thing, and if it all works out, could I walk away and try to help address the extreme poverty situation in the world?” Well, he did end up selling his service offering and later spent time in the Congo, where he volunteered until some traumatic events and experiences prompted him to reflect even further. And that’s when he decided to start something that would “make a dent in the universe.”

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://rafaelmoscatel.com/blockchain-for-the-common-good/

Explorations of emotional development, self-formation, and coming-of-age are universal and timeless themes in literature. They're central to many outstanding works and can be traced from well before the Greeks and into the modern-day. However, examining personal growth and lived experiences within what was then still a relatively new canvas and genre, the Bildungsroman, provided post-colonial writers with an entirely new palate from which to draw insight and unique opportunities to portray widely different protagonists responding to distinctly modern challenges.

Kipling’s stories, like The Man Who Would Be King, published in 1888, exhibit a masterful use of plot, setting, and imagery by any yardstick. But in addition to the robust mechanics of that particularly odd and adventurous tale, it’s a uniquely post-romantic realist narrative infused with a worldview inspired by his brief flirtation with Freemasonry. Like the craft, The Man Who Would Be King is immersed in symbolism, some of it likely learned as he passed through each degree under the canopy of a Masonic lodge. One critic notes, “It’s a story that examines, with a superbly delicate mixture of comedy and pathos, what empire-building does to the soul, a story that repudiates the harsher aspects of heroic-age law in favor of an infinitely more warm, sympathetic, and transcendent morality.” I agree. Rudyard Kipling may not have been the Shakespeare of his day, despite William James’ infatuation, but he was representative of the period and a compelling storyteller. His contributions to the short story remain noteworthy for future writers and critics.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://rafaelmoscatel.com/brother-joseph-rudyard-kipling/

More than sixty years have passed since Bob Dylan began making his mark on American history, poetics, and culture. His prolific output of eclectic records, books, films, paintings and sculptures has long established him as the most successful polymath around. Yet so much of the inspiration behind Dylan’s poignant contributions remains mysterious due to the artist’s elusive nature. What drives Bob Dylan to compose and orchestrate such a variety of masterpieces decade after decade? How much of the bard’s output is a product of his anxiety and restlessness as an artist, and how much is rooted in his lifelong search for meaning and spiritual fulfillment? What motivates this chameleon, who hasn’t stopped changing his colors since he stepped into the spotlight?

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://rafaelmoscatel.com/bob-dylan-an-evolving-canvas/

Alain Locke (1885-1954), an essayist, professor, and, notably, the first Black Rhodes Scholar, was an only child, born to a postman and a schoolteacher from Philadelphia almost twenty-one years after the American Civil War. His painful struggle with rheumatic fever at an early age saddled him with heart issues, a condition that kept him inside yet allowed him to nurture his love of reading, piano, and violin. Sadly, his father passed away when he was only six years old, forcing his mother to raise him alone. However, he didn’t allow those unfortunate events that shackle him, rather, he became an optimist, striving to advance important causes dear to him.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://rafaelmoscatel.com/remembering-alain-locke-dean-of-the-harlem-renaissance/