UPDATED AUDIO In this episode, Sarah and I wax philosophical about how education works (mostly in the United States, but ideas are broadly applicable) and how public schools + college could be improved. Along the way, we talk about how technology creates or eliminates jobs and what kind of market opportunities exist to help people … Continue reading #8: The Future of Education Will Rely on Public and Private Sectors Solutions

Are you a developer, designer, data geek, entrepreneur, or product manager? The federal government needs your help. Apply to join Round 3 of the Presidential Innovation Fellowship, a program that Todd Park, CTO of the United States, calls “a start-up within government without any money but with the President’s backing — and that’s what matters.” … Continue reading #7: What It’s Really Like to Be a Presidential Innovation Fellow

Having served as Presidential Innovation Fellows, we suppose we’re qualified to say something about “doing innovation”. We’ve noticed that some organizations approach this concept as an afterthought – we call this being asked to “sprinkle some innovation” on a project. This typically means being asked to make a product or service that looks different on … Continue reading #5: Sprinkle Some Innovation On It

In this episode we attempt to have an enlightened conversation about race and gender in technology. Why choose to tackle such a controversial topic? Because we believe that making technology more equitable and diverse would accelerate innovation and benefit our entire industry (and all who benefit from our industry). Technology sometimes appears like an field … Continue reading #4: Race and Gender in Technology

As the year winds down, we decided to make episode 3 all about the major tech trends of the year and what matters now. If anything, it’ll be fascinating to look back on this episode next year and see how things have changed. We covered 6 major topics and there’s a lot that we didn’t … Continue reading #3: The Top Tech Trends of 2013

In our second episode, we explore the origins of our respective blogs Ultrasaurus.com (happy 10 year anniversary!) and The Art of Ass-Kicking, how you sometimes gotta just put stuff out there because you don’t know how people will respond, and the idea that if you can’t communicate your smart ideas … well … maybe they aren’t … Continue reading #2: Blogging is a Technical Skill

Welcome to the first episode of the Tectonic podcast! In this episode, we discuss what happened with Smithsonian’s first ever hackathon, explain how API’s work for lay people, and argue over whether Twitter is a cult. Let us know what you think in the comments! – Jason and Sarah Right-click and hit “Save As” Show … Continue reading #1: What Makes for a Good Hackathon?