The Inventivity Pod

As a kid and a young man Michael Seres, the founder and CEO of 11 Health, was plagued by Chrons disease and intestinal problems. Eventually, this required him to have an intestinal transplant, just the 11th ever performed in the UK. The surgery left him with a permanent companion, an ostomy bag. Tapping on business skills he developed creating product merchandising for TV shows like The Apprentice and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, he created a better ostomy bag and launched 11 Health.

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Randy Scott: 0:40

For those of you expecting the wisdom of Richard Miles, I apologize, but this is your guest host today, Randy Scott, and I’m here today for Radio Cade, with Michael Seres, the founder and CEO of 11 health and the inventor of the Alfred smart optimi bag. Hi Michael, thanks for joining us today. It’s going to be interesting to chat about this. So as we normally do here, Michael, we’d like to start actually with having you explain and, you know, fairly simple terms, just what the Alfred smart bag is and why it’s important.

Michael Seres: 1:16

Sure. Let me start by explaining a little bit about, an ostomy, typically, an ostomy is where part of your intestine is brought to the outside of your tummy and you have a bag attached to that part of the intestine. And that’s known as an ostomy bag. And most people I guess understand about a colostomy bag, but it’s generally after surgery that would come from either bowel cancer or inflammatory bowel disease and where your bowel either needs to rest or isn’t working. The part of the intestine is brought on the outside and those bags traditionally are collection vessels. They fill up and they leak and spill. And when you’ve had that surgery, part of your nerve endings is cut. And so you don’t actually know when those bags are filling and what’s happening to them. It’s kind of like a diaper as it feels, and you don’t necessarily know when to change it. And so what I did really, after my own experiences as an ostomy patient was to deconstruct an existing bag and rebuild it with a series of senses inside. And those senses are mainly temperature, sensors, and capacity senses that out. You understand when the bags have failed, that the sorts of senses that you would have in a car there , you know, sometimes the cars beep when you get too close to another car or when you’re crossing over a lane. And so I integrated those senses into an optimi bag, and now they will send a signal to my cell phone when my bag is filling. And so it can prevent the leaks and the spills. And what it also enables us to do is send that information to the doctors so that they can help manage mine and other people’s conditions better. As an example, if you have too much output in a day, you are prone to dehydrating and if you have too little out put in a day, it might indicate there’s a blockage or there’s some inflammation in the intestines . So your doctors need to know that data in real time. And currently the existing bags don’t do that.

Randy Scott: 3:24

So you’ve mentioned that you’re an ostomy patient yourself, so I guess you kind of come by this vention honestly, so to speak and you and I have already talked about this a little bit of course, but maybe for our listeners benefit, kind of describe where did you grow up? Cause I tell from your accent that you’re obviously not originally from Southern California, but maybe a little bit about your childhood, but then tell us how you came to become an ostomy patient the first place.

Michael Seres: 3:50

Sure. So as you can tell from my accent, I speak the Queen’s English. I grew up in Northwest London and I’ve been out in Southern California, the last two and a half years, but I’ve got a younger sister, mum and dad, and grew up as a , a massive sports fan, became interested in my late teens in politics and law. But most of my childhood was interrupted with health challenges. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which I’m sure many of the listeners will know is, is an incurable inflammatory bowel disease. And I was diagnosed with that age 12. I had my first surgery at age 14, and then I went on, unfortunately to have 25 further intestinal surgeries, or basically they will continue to resect part of my intestine and my bowl. And then I got to a point during my working life where I had intestinal failure. And basically your intestine is down to less than a hundred centimeters, and you’re really kept alive through intravenous feeding. And that lasted for about 18 months before I became the 11th intestinal transplant patient in the UK, which is why my company is called 11 health. And so,

Randy Scott: 5:02

Well that answers one of my other questions.

Michael Seres: 5:04

Yeah, I would love to tell you it was a really great branding exercise, but it was just from that. So I’ve lived my life connected to medical bags for most of it, which was the inspiration behind the company.

Randy Scott: 5:17

Going on, I guess a little bit about your history before founding 11 health, just to dig in a little bit more there and we’ll come back to the, you offered a bag and all, but it sounds like you were a natural entrepreneur from early on too . I think you started a candy business when you were a youngster, even before all of this other intestinal issues came up. Hopefully not from eating too much candy.

Michael Seres: 5:38

Yeah. I grew up around both grandfathers who were , uh , own their own businesses, one in the clothing industry, one in the o ld b ristles trade. And so I grew up,

Randy Scott: 5:49

Bristles ? Like Brushes?

Michael Seres: 5:51

Yeah. He made the shaving brushes. You put the shaving cream on and the old traditional style. And he was one of the first people to fly out to China, and those days it would be for months on end, then come back. So I grew up around relatively entrepreneurial, I guess, family, as you said, I ran the alternative school candy shop from my locker, which probably upset the teachers, but it did make me some extra pocket money. I did paper rounds . And I’ve been lucky enough and always been intrigued and interested in how business ran prior to 11 health. I then had a career in consumer product licensing and merchandising. So, television programs that , that you probably aware of, like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Apprentice, T.he X-Factor my job was to commercialize those programs off there. So take the intellectual property, take the gaming format . And so one of the first commercial agreements that I signed was the mobile phone or the cell phone game for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which now probably feels very outdated. But at the time was one of the first games on a cell phone that you could play. So I’ve always been in and around b usiness.

Randy Scott: 6:57

So if you’re doing the apprentice, I’m guessing you’re doing Donald Trump action figures before they were cool.

Michael Seres: 7:04

Yes, absolutely. And the book and it was interesting. So in the UK, we had our own Donald Trump figure known as Alan Sugar and exactly the same thing. It’s books, it was figures. It was you name it all, all the merchandise that you’d see in traditional retail outlets . That was our job.

Randy Scott: 7:23

But then you started , uh , like a toy company or something also doing licensing. Is that right?

Michael Seres: 7:30

Yeah, that’s right. So, because I was working in and around building brands, I was lucky enough to cure the rights to various toy brands. People may have heard of Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob the Builder, little kids brands. And so at some point I took the right for myself and built a small toy company, manufacturing those products and then selling them into retail. And in fact, all those learnings have been fantastic instruction manual for , for where I am today. I’ve been lucky to have great mentors and just intrigued about how you build businesses across different countries with different rights.

Randy Scott: 8:08

And so at some point you moved over to the U.S. From the UK?

Michael Seres: 8:13

Yes . So I moved about two and a half years ago to the U.S. Really as, as 11 health was starting to expand. And I was lucky enough to be mentored by someone I’m sure, you know, by Mike M oritz Firms, S equoia Capital, and he and Mike really in a sense gave me two rules. When he first worked with me one, you need to be based in the U.S. If you’re trying to grow your business out here. And secondly, don’t run it like a British company. And so I u pped s ticks and I , at the time I left my family in the UK and I was commuting eight weeks in the U.S. two weeks in the UK, and then finally convinced them to come over just under a year ago. So now we’re all Southern b ased.

Randy Scott: 8:55

I’m not surprised he made the comment about the U.S. In part, because of course the U.S. especially in medical products is always by far the largest market in the world, but this notion of don’t run it like a UK company. Well , what did that mean?

Michael Seres: 9:09

I think to me, the big difference that I noticed here is you put more time in terms of building your technology growing a little bit more aggressively, even in healthcare , it’s slightly more opportunities for younger companies to grow. If you get regulatory approval here, you can really expand a lot quicker in the UK. The traditional model is you invest a little, make a little bit of money, put , perhaps put half in the bank and invest the rest. And it’s a slower churn and a slower build. Whereas there’s more value as well put to growing technology. And I think, I mean, you’re the expert far more than I am because of what you do. But I think if the addressable market is big enough and you’ve got an opportunity, it’s a much quicker pace here. And I think that was at the half of the lesson he was trying to,

Randy Scott: 9:58

That makes sense. Things in the UK are a bit more conservative, maybe old school in terms of how to grow the business, as opposed to the California approach .

Michael Seres: 10:06

I think you’ll braver here about trying new things, about giving an opportunity to younger companies to grow. We’re a little bit more old school. I think that’s a great phrase.

Randy Scott: 10:16

So going back, you had, as you’ve described for issues , medical problems, you’ve got the ostomy bag. And I think I gathered from the research. I did that, one of the things that may be sort of steering you in this direction and got you plugged into the ostomy community, was that you started a transplant blog that took off kind of virally, is that right?

Michael Seres: 10:36

Yes, that’s absolutely right. So an intestinal transplant, as I said, I was number 11 and sadly five of the first 10 had passed away. And actually the unit at Oxford in the UK where I had mine brought their surgeon over from Miami to run the program. And I was his first and everybody inevitably wants to know how you’re doing it . There’s an awful lot of interest and love. And actually I started the blog at the beginning, just so that people didn’t have to call and so my wife didn’t have to repeat the same stories. It was a way of sharing what was going on, but then I actually discovered that my transplant surgeon was reading it and that he was sharing it then with the medical students at the hospital. And it just grew really through luck. And then it became a story of my journey. I was very honest about the ups and downs of the journey, and it connected me with a new community and it really opened my eyes as well to the power of the role that the patient can play. And also how you can connect people on social media. And in a sense, I was late to the social media party, but it really allowed me to connect with people all around the world, which was fantastic.

Randy Scott: 11:47

Yeah I’ve noticed that 11 health habit just innovated with the product, which has clearly unique and serves a specific need, but it looks like you’ve created an entire, almost support structure around these patients that include some social network kind of elements, but also patient coaches. And you’ve got something called club 11 and in some doctor and nurse training and this kind of stuff . So maybe describe the ecosystem that you had to build there. And for that matter, why you felt the need to do that, as opposed to just, Hey, I’ve got a cool product, I’m going to go sell this cool product.

Michael Seres: 12:24

You definitely do a better job of selling less than half than I do. Thank you. But as a 16 year old, I went to see a , uh , leading gastroenterologist in the UK. He was actually the Queen’s physician and he was a quite a scary man. And as a 16 year old, I was a bit all over the place. And when I went to see him on the first day with my parents, he asked my parents to leave the room. And he said to me, here’s the deal, Michael, I will only treat you if you take as much responsibility for your care as I will, we’re going to teach each other and we’re gonna work together on this and transplant surgeon, pretty much repeated the same words all those years later. And so I’ve always grown up believing that as a patient, I have to pay as vital role in my own care as my medical team. And so the reason for sort of sharing that backstory is that when we built 11 Health, I really was plugged in and believed that actually the role of patient to patient can not only improve outcomes, but also can save money for the system, but really improve quality of life mentorship, the education side. And so we built this originally the support network that now really starts a pre-op, when you’re told you’re going to have surgery, we pair you up with an existing ostomy patient who becomes your coach and your mentor. And now with the way health coaching is growing, particularly in the U.S. we put these patients through coaching accreditation and they become your , your mentor and your guide, and they become part of the pre-op and post-op planning on what we’ve been able to see then is we can actually reduce the number of clinical interactions a patient needs to have, because so much of what they go through after surgery is actually nonclinical. It, it’s social, it’s educational, it’s hints and tips. It’s the practical things of how do you get back to a normal life? And I really value that peer to peer side of things. For me, it’s the greatest thing I can do is to support another patient. And this is just an extension of it.

Randy Scott: 14:28

It sounds like you connect with your patient slash customer, future customer or whatever, before they actually have even had their surgeries. So this means, obviously you’re really integrated with the surgeon somehow to them.

Michael Seres: 14:41

You’re absolutely right. And we’ve become part of that pre-op education. So the surgeon and often the nurse will go in and say, this is the surgery your having, this is what it means. And then 11 Health patient coach will be brought in to explain in more practical terms and be there as that support. And I think that builds that relationship right at the start of the journey. And we’ve even seen where patients perhaps have had their bag reversed. So they’re not on it anymore. They continue on with our patient coaches because they become almost a friend and a support system to them. I think that value is going to grow. And I think in a healthcare system, which is moving globally to sort of outcomes based, which is moving the term precision medicine and keeps coming out well, how do you really understand the outcomes unless you include the patient? Cause sometimes the surgical outcomes and the patient outcomes, aren’t always aligned. And so,

Randy Scott: 15:37

Yeah I think frequently they aren’t aligned exactly.

Michael Seres: 15:39

Yeah, And I know for myself that there are times when actually the most important outcome to me is to go to my daughter’s concert and not sit in hospital for three hours connected to an IV drip. And how do you facilitate those in a sensible way? So that’s really important to me, 11 Health, that it’s not just about technology, it’s about the human being as well.

Randy Scott: 16:03

No that’s great. Yeah, one of the other things that I’m curious about is even as a very young company, you’ve been able to surround yourself with a lot of impressive kind of board members and advisors and that kind of stuff. You get several pretty important surgeons. And I noticed even Joe Kiani, who is the CEO of Massimo multi-billion dollar global health care products company, how did you get Joe to agree to be on your board? I suspect there’s thousands of startups that would love to have somebody like him as an advisor and board member probably get plenty of invitations, but something about this one got him to actually sign up, is there a story to that?

Michael Seres: 16:41

Yeah. So Joe was actually instrumental in me, settling in, in orange County and stuff in California, and had advised me to come over and it was going to be traditionally in Silicon Valley. And I’ve , to be honest with you, I looked at the costs and I’m not an engineer by background. And I didn’t want to just necessarily recruit a group of people who we might be the hottest startup today, but not necessarily tomorrow. So I looked at where a lot of medical device manufacturing was going to be a nut was in orange County. And I wrote to Joe and I guess got lucky. And originally it was about the ecosystem in orange County. Is it a place that you would suggest settling or starting a business in? And he said, yes, that was how I got originally to start. And it was just some advice on the area. And then the relationship grew. And I think what we were trying to do from an engineering perspective peaked his interest, but we built a relationship and in the end he said, look, I’m happy to invest in and come on the board. And he’s been a fantastic mentor. He built his business from nothing to where it is, if we’re anywhere near as successful as Joe’s been , I’ll be over the moon. Yeah . I mean, to be honest with you, I’ve been incredibly lucky. I reached out to you and your team and we’ve connected and we’re on this call is, I don’t know whether it’s a patient trying to build a solution, opens the door. I think sometimes people don’t always ask for help. I’m learning what I’m really good at and what I’m really bad at. And I’m not frightened to ask for the help . Maybe that’s something.

Randy Scott: 18:12

Yeah probably a good piece of advice for other entrepreneurs and inventors and they listen to, don’t be afraid to ask for help. That was in my experience also.

Michael Seres: 18:19

There’s a tendency to think that you built something, it’s yours, you’ve got to know everything. You’ve got to do everything. And for whatever reason, I’ve never approached. What I’m trying to do is that I’m the only one that can do it. It’s how do I surround myself with amazing people to support me? And I’ve been lucky. I’ve learned with Joe, what a s you have with different people i s h e w ants to go straight to the nub of the problem, straight away, answer it and move on. And, u h, when you’ve got 10 minutes of p eople’s precious time trying to use that wisely is k ey.

Randy Scott: 18:49

So jump back for a moment to the Alfred bag. So you’ve got this bag and you described this , having these sensors in it and the sensors I gather tell you at a minimum, the volume of the bag, and it’s communicating that this mobile app on your cell phone, is there other information being gathered as well, or is it really just kind of volume and it’s time to change it ?

Michael Seres: 19:13

One of the main things that we look at is skin temperature change. We have sensors that effectively are picking up around the site of the wound, a temperature change, and that’s a very strong indicator for infection markers. It’s also a strong indicator that your bag is leaking. So there’s a clinical relevance to that and a patient application. And we’ve now started to pick up our first electrolyte markers so we can pick up sodium and pH. And if I had privilege of coming back to talk to you in sort of nine months time, we’ll have integrated some bio sensors. So we can analyze some of the large molecules and pick up inflammatory markers and bacterial issues. That’s sort of the trajectory to turn effectively the bag into a, almost a lab in a bag that we can pick up clinically relevant data and then help treat the patient that way. I’m very wedded to it being relevant data.

Randy Scott: 20:06

Yeah , for sure. Again, it’s I kind of looked through your website and there was a lot of description of this being technology for medical bags, as opposed to just ostomy bags . I’m guessing that means that you’ve got some long-term dreams and visions outside of just the ostomy backspace space and some applications for the technology more broadly.

Michael Seres: 20:26

Absolutely. I mean, we have started the development for urology to look at urine analysis. And so yes, I think the medical bag industry is an old established industry. And I think I view the bag as an opportunity to collect data that that can really make a difference clinically into patient lives. So , so the goal has been to really transform that whole sector. And ironically, we probably started with the hardest bag enough , an ostomy bag is not solid. It’s not stable patients move around the whole time. So actually analyzing data from an ostomy bag is the most challenging, but it stands us in good stead as we move to the next area. And , uh , one day I actually have a vision that we could take the array of sensors that we’ve built and drop them into anybody’s bathroom. And actually if you’ve got inflammatory bowel disease or you’ve got a condition that isn’t connected to a bag that we could pick up clinically relevant information, but I’m giving you my dream.

Randy Scott: 21:22

Smart toilet that we’ve been hearing about for a long time.

Michael Seres: 21:26

Absolutely. And that’s the dream into the future. I’m aware we’ve got a long way to go.

Randy Scott: 21:30

Yeah, of course. Yeah. People will have to decide whether they really want a smart toilet, whether everyone else I kind of like mine being dumb, but I can certainly understand the medical value too.

Michael Seres: 21:38

Yeah , I think you’re right. But for today and tomorrow, it’s definitely about bags.

Randy Scott: 21:42

This has been great talking by the way. And I look forward to obviously continuing to hear about the progress, but we’re just about out of time here. So any words of wisdom that you would give to other entrepreneurs and inventors you talked about, don’t be afraid to ask for stuff that’s actually think is a really great piece of advice, but any other bits of advice you’d like to share?

Michael Seres: 22:03

One thing I’d probably say, and I’ve learned, mainly from mistakes is you have to solve the problem for all the end users. And so whilst I’m very patient focused and everything is about improving patient quality of life, unless we deliver data in a meaningful way to the doctor or we integrate the right way with the system or we bill our services, that makes sense. And we provide economic value to the payers you can’t scale. And so I think one of the big things I would say particularly, I guess in h ealth c are, is u nderstand who the end users are and the solution has to solve problems for all of them.

Randy Scott: 22:40

That’s a good piece of advice. You know, there’s a book out actually in the middle of reading right now, ironically, that is kind of along this line, it’s called The Wide Lens by a guy named Ron Adner and a wide ledge, really just talking about this innovation ecosystem and making sure that it works, whatever your innovation is, works and kind of rewards everyone in the ecosystem as opposed to just the end user . I think that’s kind of what you’re talking about. It seems like you guys done a great job of hinting to that. Where there’s, you know, there’s something to be gained by everyone around while you’re doing.

Michael Seres: 23:13

I think you have to understand everybody’s pain points. Don’t you? I mean, as I said, you’ve got more experience with companies than I have, but I think that you have to solve problems for everybody that’s going to interact with it. Otherwise you just can’t scale. And I think we naively went off after the patient pain point and then realized actually we have to do everything for everyone else as well.

Randy Scott: 23:32

Well, yeah , I think that is increasingly true these days in part, because everyone has a million new innovations or whatever to think about and deal with and react to and so people are too interested in innovation for innovation’s sake. They want innovation. That’s going to somehow make their life easier, even if they’re not the user to your point. So yeah, Michael, appreciate the time here. It’s been great chatting and look forward to staying in touch with you and seeing how 11 Health continues to succeed and thrive.

Michael Seres: 24:06

Randy, it’s been an absolute privilege. Thank you so much for inviting me onto your show.

Outro: 24:12

Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme, Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the cave museum for creativity and invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

With an aging infrastructure, the United States faces more scenarios like Flint, Michigan, where high lead levels became a threat to safety. Safa Amiri, a chemistry professor at the University of Florida, has developed a handheld water-quality sensor that detects contaminants with just a few drops of water. Learning to play the violin as a child, Safa says, helped him learn how to persevere. His model was his father, a successful entrepreneur in Iran.  

With an aging infrastructure, the United States faces more scenarios like Flint, Michigan, where high lead levels became a threat to safety. Safa Amiri, a chemistry professor at the University of Florida, has developed a handheld water-quality sensor that detects contaminants with just a few drops of water. Learning to play the violin as a child, Safa says, helped him learn how to persevere. His model was his father, a successful entrepreneur in Iran.  

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:38

Water is the stuff of life, but unclean water can lead to death. But the good news is that we have ways to determine what water is safe to drink or use on crops and for animals and what water is not. So today on Radio Cade we welcome Safa Amiri, a professor of chemistry at the University of Florida and the inventor of a new water quality sensor. Welcome Safa .

Safa Amiri: 0:59

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Richard Miles: 1:02

So Safa, obviously clean water is a big deal and people have recognized the scientific basis of that conclusion for about 150 years or so. Um, and there are different ways to measure water , water quality. So describe for our listeners before we get into your background, you know, what makes your invention different? Why is it , uh , better, cheaper, faster than other techniques?

Safa Amiri: 1:27

Sure. So the motivation behind this invention was what I was just seeing in real life in Flint, Michigan. I said that 8,000 children who were affected by lead poisoning, that is, that is like heartbreaking. That is , uh , just because you don’t know what you’re drinking and just, you just, just imagine, just keep drinking, tap water. And then after a, while you, it out, all of your children are effected or you can’t even take a shower with that water. And , um , all of these were because people are just don’t know, they just don’t know what, what they’re drinking, what, you know, what is in their water. And , uh, in several scenarios, even like, you know, they are not informed about it and they have also no knowledge about water chemistry. So it’s very heartbreaking that , uh , they don’t have a handy tool to test for it. About 45% of the piping infrastructure in the U.S. still is, you know , very too old. And, you know , um , they all contain lead and that causes a lot of issues. About 18 million people are still being suffered by those pipes that are being utilized for the water transportation under the ground. And they all need to be renovated. And it has been shown that if U.S. wants to fix all of these issues, it’s going to take about two centuries, fix all of those and the cost of $1 trillion dollars. So they are not going to be fixed easily unless there’s a problem. And people do not have a handy tool to do it. So that was the beginning of the alright, so we need to do something about it and let’s fix this issue. So I came up with a sensor, water quality sensor, which is a handheld portable, easy to use sensor like cell phone, imagine, and then you just pour a drop of water and it tells you what is in there and how much of that is in there. And then we also be able to, you know, provide solution to our wider commendation . All right , so you have this, this is the way to fix it. You have are sending in the water, you have lead in the water. This is the good treatment for it. And then we can help them with the design, because that’s what I did for the past six years for my PhD. I did design and building water treatment and design nation systems. So not only we can help them and bring awareness to the communities about what they drink, but also we can help them fix it because most of them, they don’t know. They don’t know what they don’t know basically. So we need, we help them , uh, bring the awareness to the communities. We help them know what is in their water. And the second , second step is to help them fix it with the right treatment because not all of the off the shelf technologies you buy from the store is going to fix that specific element that you have problem with.

Richard Miles: 4:27

The innovation in your product is a fact what that is handheld and that you need just a relatively small amount of water?

Safa Amiri: 4:36

The innovation is that you can do several ions at a time handheld portable in your hand. W e d idn’t k now specific solutions for calibration. So basically whatever technology that was out there, it was not for drinking. It was usually t he f irst swimming pools like testing for chlorine. So you would buy a sensor for chlorine, or you would buy a sensor for w hatever element is out there. And it’s a huge, very expensive, and it cannot detect several elements at a time. What if you have two ions? What if you have different IRS, you have, yo u n e ed, you need, it needs to be co st-effective. It needs to be easy to use. It needs to be, you know, u h , s ustainable. So all of these that we , we bring many things into one sensor. We can also measure pH and electrical conductivity on top of those heavy metals that we have in the wa ter, everything all in one place. So people don’t have to worry about sending their water sample to a laboratory to test, which is very cost ly, co stly, and they have to wait a lot of time, you know, for them to come back to the ess a y. Th is is the results. So it’s very the way that it is right now. It’s very time consuming and very expensive to test your water. And it’s not any, there’s not any, you know, easy to use and han d held tec hnology that people can use.

Richard Miles: 5:54

And is this envision for a consumer, retail use or would there still be like water inspectors that would need to come in and use the device?

Safa Amiri: 6:02

Good question. So there are two routes to go. One is t he, from the business to consumer and one from the business to business, we can go both. We had in terest f rom pe oples a nd consumers or f amilies that need one like the handheld sta ndalone te chnology. But then I went to like Milwaukee two weeks ago for to water coun cil to get a word on b oa rd with sen sor technology. And as part of that, I met one-on-one with several big corporates of, you know, water mete rs, li ke Badger meter, like Veol ia, al l of these big corporations that do water treatment. And they all explicitly said that we, we love these types of technology and we, we would like it to be inli ne so that we can test the wat er at the point of use right before it goes to the houses. So they want ed to install that on t he pip es. So we are now working on having a separate design to go in l in e suc h that utilities not only moni tor the water flow and water pressure, but also they can monitor the water quality at the point of use, because usually the problem that utilities have, they know what they’re releasing into the pipelines, but they don’t know what actually the consumer will get, because the problem is that underground that is where everything will happen. Even in Gainesville, if you just drink a cu p of tap water in here and then, or go, you go to, I don’t know, Alachua test that, or you go the other side of university Avenue all the way to Newberry, you will see that’s goin g to t as te differently. So many of those water will come from the same source, but the issue is unde r the gro u nd. So they cannot call it. Ut ilities, cannot control what actually people would get. So they love to have a tool handy at the point of use to test the water. So, so the answer is yes, both utilities and, uh , wa t er treatment companies would be interested in these for inli ne pur poses and from household per perspective, stan d alo n e so that everybody can test it at home if utilities is not jumping in.

Richard Miles: 8:04

Right. Now Safa you, as you mentioned, you’ve been working , uh, you said seven years on your PhD, right?

Safa Amiri: 8:10

Yes.

Richard Miles: 8:10

So you’ve been involved with water for quite a long time, and I know you’ve had some other breakthroughs, right?So rather , uh, inventions or products. Could you describe a little bit, you know, what else in the, in the water clean water arena that you’ve been working on.

Safa Amiri: 8:24

During the past five years? Um, I started , uh, I got my PhD in New Mexico State University and , um , in 2012, that’s where I, when I moved to the U.S. actually, and then , um, I started working on a real project that people can actually use. I really wanted to do something useful, not just for the sake of wrapping up my PhD. So in 2013, I wrote the proposal to use the agriculture residues and bio waste to , because we have a lot of those in New Mexico and Arizona, a tumbleweed, pecan shells, orchard prunings, RVs waste . We use those to get the energy off of it, to produce , uh, to treat the brackish water, because there’s not much of a precipitation in New Mexico and Arizona. So that way we can treat the brackish water, which is very, quite salty over there. Even like in some cases it has more hard water like calcium sulfate and calcium carbonate that even then even sea water. So it tastes very bad, actually very bad. So that way we can treat those while they’re using the, you know, otherwise wasted source of, you know, fields such as bio waste. So that was the whole , uh, concept of my PhD to treating the brackish water using the biomass energy. So I simulated everything, you know, from scratch all the way to the prototyping. So the project was funded by Bureau of reclamation. And then , uh, so I was privileged to work on something real in my PhD, not just like going all the way to the simulation and say bye, so I did not only simulation, but also design, but also building the actual prototype of the water desalination system called Multiple Epic Distillation. In short , we call it MED. And then so the whole system, I called it Aggie MED. And that’s what I applied for Cade Museum Prize for the last two years. And Aggie MED, A GI stands for a griculture residues and also the mascot of New Mexico State University. And the MED stands for Multiple Effect Distillation. So basically imagine t he portable smallest scale treatment technology that you can put in your backup, u h, u h, back of a b ig pickup truck and just pull it around the wells in a farm, wherever you have w ays, just put it in there and then treat your well water. I did the prototype a fter that and I did customer discovery for that technology. So the whole entrepreneurial experience for me started when I got a funding from National Science Foundation for a program called i Core National i Core. So I got $50,000 just to travel, get o ut o f t he building, talk to people, talk to customers, to see potential customers, to see if there’s any demand for this. So it was actually, it opened my eyes, it opened my eyes to everything to see. Is it useful? Is the thing that I’m working on, is someone going to actually use it? And I’m really grateful for that program. And I did it in 2016 and I was t o entrepreneurial lead a long t he, with my advisor, but my advisor was actually just there as a PI. And I was the lead i n, in, in, in t he, in that scenario, our case, w e know w hat w as s witched. I t’s kind of, so I was the one who was telling her what to do, who to talk to because I was in a position of an e ntrepreneur entrepreneurial lead. I had to manage the team. I had t wo b usiness mentors, so we’re all working on a team. So we had to, I had to manage a very, you know, u h , a n actual scenario where I was going to actually an issue that people we re s truggling with. So I talked to several people from breweries to da ily f armers, to semiconductor manufacturers, to everybody from different segments that even talking to them should be very different than, you know, I learned how to talk to people differently, such that they don’t hang up the phone as s oon I ca lled t hem, because they thought that I’m Salesman.

Richard Miles: 12:14

Right. Oh, that’s always a good metric if people don’t hang up the phone.

Safa Amiri: 12:18

Oh yeah . At the , at the beginning we were supposed to do 15 customer interviews each week, but then at the end and in the week seven, I was the one who told them , please stop . I got to go. They kept talking and talking and talking. So I learned some skills. And that helped me actually learned about customer discovery, learned about before doing anything, talk to people and see if somebody cares and then go back to the lab and do your work.

Richard Miles: 12:43

So that’s interesting. Let’s talk a little bit more about that because inventors and entrepreneurs seem to be cut from a different cloth. You know, they, they, they often have unique experiences or upbringings that sort of lead them in direction of , of doing what you described, sort of wanting, not just to do research for research sake, but to sort of somehow apply it and make it useful. So let’s go back, you know, even before your academic career, you know, tell me what you’re like , uh , as a kid, were you a good student where , you know , did you just , uh, what were you curious in and then maybe a little bit about, you know, some early influences, whether they’re parents or teachers, or, you know , friends, even that kind of shaped for you this worldview of like, I want to do something really useful.

Safa Amiri: 13:25

Well, very good question, because I really think that , uh, having a high IQ is not necessarily going to end up with, you know , uh, being successful entrepreneur, but perseverance does. So , um, I had a perseverance in everything I, I started with, started with my music. So I started playing violin when I was eight. And I continued that continuously all the way to when I was 22, I just took lessons nonstop, nonstop, even like one week was not stopped. I just kept going to the classes. I became quite familiar with all of the, you know.

Richard Miles: 14:01

And that’s not an easy instrument. And I know, cause my son took violin and already by the age of eight, he had surpassed me. I mean, I wasn’t a violin player, but parents were supposed to practice along time and I couldn’t do it. My eight year old was playing much better than I.

Safa Amiri: 14:15

It’s hard because at the beginning, you’re just going to sound awful. You have to just keep practicing, keep practicing past that limit, that it’s going to start sounding good. And so I did like 20 years, I dunno , 15, 20, whatever years of nonstop lessons learned , perseverance is the key to success. And the other hand, my dad was an entrepreneur . Also. He was a serial entrepreneur. He did, he did a lot of inventions will be doubt even protecting it because we didn’t have set things back in Iran. We are from Iran. So we didn’t have the like patent stuff.

Richard Miles: 14:49

So what sort of inventions did your dad do, or businesses ?

Safa Amiri: 14:52

A lot of inventions , all metal works. So either cabinets like very unique cabinets , uh , for kitchens or a filing systems that people would put in, you know , um, all the documents in a filing and also , uh, whatever with metal. So whatever industry he, he entered was with metal stuff. And then he was quite successful and he was always the pioneer in the field. And then somebody, somewhere in Iran, you know, duplicated technology. So he had to change. So he was very good at pivoting changing to different products. All he was always on the top, it was always on the top and he was not even educated. He was just like maybe high school.

Richard Miles: 15:32

Did you help him with any of these inventions? Did he put you to work?

Safa Amiri: 15:36

Well , I was a kid actually, but I was working in manufacturing , in a machining shop that he had, you know, as an intern kind of, learning, you know, a little kid getting my hands dirty a little bit and learning welding stuff and t his stuff like that. But actually I did not actually got, u h, so it was in m y, my brain that, H ey, I r eally l iked this, that he, he has the freedom to, he has his own business. He can go to work whenever. So I was very impressed by, he doesn’t have to go to work like eight to five. He’s very free. He comes home and have lunch and take a nap and then go back to work. I was impressed by that as a kid and I really wanted to be my own boss. And then, u h, so about, I did intern, u h, he actually really wanted me to work in that, u h, machining shop and just continue that, but I ended up going university a nd changing, but by still, I , I have all of those skills and all of things.

Richard Miles: 16:30

So that was before you developed an interest in science, or did you have an interest in science about the same time or?

Safa Amiri: 16:35

No, I was, I just mentioned the chemical engineering in undergraduate and , uh, he was really insisting on me working in the machine shop, continue to just work. And I said , no, I want to go to school. So he said, sure, go to school. So I went to the school and then I really liked it . So I continue . I was not really, I just kept going with chemical engineering. So I started my bachelor’s in , uh , um , Shiraz University in Iran, in chemical engineering. Then I graduated in 2010. Then I in 2010, right after graduation, I traveled to England. I got my master’s in University of Leeds in England. As soon as that ended, I came here to the U.S. did my PhD. So I was just studying nonstop . I did not do any, you know, other, other things rather than music, which was always there just coming out with me until the second year of PhD where the entrepreneurial activity started for me starting with a startup weekend. So startup weekend was the beginning of the journey were , uh, I just participated , uh, as part of my PhD, I just said, let’s go there and just see what happens. Right. And then that was the beginning. I just went there. And the night before just told my wife, what should I propose? Because I should propose idea. And I didn’t want it to propose my PhD dissertation said, I don’t want to put myself in a trouble. Maybe that’s going to cause the issue let’s do something else. So I just thought a little bit about what, what can I propose? And then I just thought that, hey, water desalination is a big industry. And all of the design nation industries, they have a problem with brine concentrate coming off of the plants. So they don’t, they just dump it in the ocean, which kills the Marine life or they just inject it back into the ground, which pollutes and contaminates, the brackish water, which again, they have to design it. So I just thought about how to resolve that issue and just pursue , propose an idea of, to list , to get the brine , take the water out, recovered the water because they just let it evaporate or just dump it. There’s a lot of water in there. So let’s capture the water from it, crystallize it, crystallized the source from it, and then use the source for energy storage. And that salt can be sold to solar power plants for energy storage, or it can be used for any, any storage , even in buildings to keep the house warm during the night. So that idea won among like 40 participants. And so when I got that award, I was so pumped to continue that and I say , wow, this is so interesting. And I just, I should consider that upon my graduation.

Richard Miles: 19:04

And what year was this?

Safa Amiri: 19:05

2016. And then right after that, that was when I applied for National Science Foundation, iCore, I just told my advisor, Hey, let’s do this because I was so pumped to continue the entrepreneurial activity, even though that is not something in academia people would think of because they are not exposed to it.

Richard Miles: 19:29

Let’s , let’s talk about that because it’s , it’s fascinating that, you know, the , the two worlds are really quite different. You know, the world of academia in which you basically, you do research, you publish papers, you go to conferences and then you move on right to the next topic or the next level. And the business world is quite different. You’ve been in both worlds. You know, what, u m, what strengths do you think you bring as an academic to the business world and then vice versa. Having been a little bit in the business world, what do you see differently about the academic world that, y ou k now, you wish that you see maybe as a weakness or something that needs to be improved. T ell u s w hat i t l ooks l ike.

Safa Amiri: 20:04

I think there’s still a gap, a huge gap between academia and industry. And nowadays it’s getting much better. That’s why the , these types of grants like iCore grants has come in. That’s why all of these small business innovation grants like SBIR has coming all of these federal agencies, NSF, DOD, EPA, the OE all of these federal agencies back then, they just would fund a proposal without knowing, okay. Whether or not there’s a demand for it. Nowadays, they have these iCore things or a small business innovation grant . So people apply and do some customer discovery upfront to see if there’s a demand for it. And once they know there’s a demand for it, let’s go back to the office, write a proposal, do your PhD on that topic. So before, or a still, a lot of universities, they do the opposite. They write the proposal, they get the funding, they finish the proposal, finished the project,

Richard Miles: 20:59

Find out nobody wants it.

Safa Amiri: 21:00

Nobody wants it. And it’s just sitting in the lab . Yeah . That’s, that’s, that’s the way it is. Most of the, you know, it was like that until 2012. In 2012, this entrepreneurship and this customer discovery idea came into the labs and PhD students got to know about it. Hey, what is it? What, how does it look like? And then people will start to apply. And then they brought this back to university, talked to other fellow, you know, students say, you know, it’s really , it’s very important that you should, you should know what you’re working on is some of the cures, if, if nobody cares about that, why would you do it? And then, so it was very important for me. And I, I’m glad that they understood that right in the beginning of my PhD before going too long, deeply involved into it. So I could, I could pivot, I could a little bit, you know, change my direction towards where the actual demand is. So yeah, academic environment is good. And it gives you a lot of good background and you know, the resources that you have in academia, but eventually down the road, you need to get out. You need to get out of your comfort zone and talk to people if somebody cares about it. And that’s something that you would not normally do in part of academia’s life. Unless, you know, either somebody motivates you or there is a like, you know, these types of grants or are you are aware of, or I got to know about it through the no university entrepreneurial or business departments . So I encourage students to get involved to outside of their department to see what’s going on, because there is a very important thing that people just, you know, they’re doing their PhD, I dunno , in microbiology. And then he ended up at working in software engineering, totally different, has nothing to do with your PhD, or, you know, what , that , that, that is very annoying to me personally. And I’m very glad that I had a chance to exactly work on what I did for my PhD. And I don’t care if I have to change. I am always open. I’m always open to pivot and to change it to the, what the demand is and what people really wants, because as all of the entreprenuers say, the customer is the King. If they don’t want it, you’re out.

Richard Miles: 23:08

We talked earlier, you said you talked about perseverance and how important that was and what are some of the other qualities that you would, if you were advising sort of a younger version of you, you know, or maybe an undergraduate. And they have also , uh , an idea that, and they may have entrepreneurial leanings, perseverance, as you said, is key. And , uh , again, congratulations for three years in a row, I think you reached the final stage of the Cade Prize. So a big accomplishment, but what are some of the other things that you would perhaps recommend to , uh , you know, to think of a senior, about to graduate with their undergraduate and they think, Oh , what do I do now? I really have all these dreams of a technology or product. Are there certain things that you’d say, well, you definitely need to do this. And on the other hand are the things you say, well, you really shouldn’t do that.

Safa Amiri: 23:58

Well, I think first , uh, well , beside the perseverance, I would say being open to being open and flexible to change, you know, or there should be always a better way. If, if just don’t be, you know, a very cocky about your ideas , say, I have to get this. It should work. No, it may not. Or maybe people just don’t want it don’t want it . Don’t be biased about because usually people, they love their product in academia. They love their PhD dissertation. They love that’s what I did. I loved it. I didn’t want to let go. So it’s, sometimes, you should let go. You should be open and you should talk to people. You should have a lot of mentors. You should be open to talk to people, different people from customers to mentors. I have a lot of business mentors here and there, every everything that I’m going to do, I ask people, is it wise to do it? I’m about to sign this deal. I’m about to talk to this person. What do you think I need to think of upfront? I think it , it helped me because we don’t know many things in business world . I mean , I still count myself as an academician because that’s what I did most of my life. Yes. I have entered into entrepreneurial , uh , entrepreneurship world , like a while ago, but still there is a lot of things. I don’t know, legal stuff, you know, I’m talking to someone I don’t know. Okay, is it, what should I say? What should I not say? Still out of things, marketing, no clue. So I love people. I love people joined my company and now I have two interns. Uh , they’re all passionate that they just came in and just working for me to say, we are passionate about your thing. That’s all we want. I just want passion. So passion is very, very important. I think if you have the passion, that’s what everything’s going to be there afterwards, because money is going to come afterwards. Passion is very, very important. And like, I have two interns now. I’m pretty sure more people are going to join my company based under passion. I did not even say anything or s olicit anything that s ay, Hey, I looking for i nterns, they just came to me during different events, say, Hey, we heard that you have this technology. We a re interested in. Wow. I w ill love to work with you. So they are now working. One of them is now working on a business plan that we’re working on. And then the other one, u h, she’s working on a website, developing the website and also the marketing intern. So basically the things that I’ve no clue on, t hey’re helping me with that. So t eam w ork very important. I’m always opened to be criticized. I really believe that we need to be flexible as an entrepreneur. There are many, many times that we don’t know and know how to proceed. And so we have to stop. We have to ask everybody. So it doesn’t matter. You know, if it’s intern, if it’s your employee, if it’s the mentor, everybody might have idea that might change your r oute. I always listen. Even if you know, sometimes I may not necessarily listen and do that thing, but I always a ll tend to listen. And it has helped me a lot. That’s why I t alk to a lot of people and I love networking. I just love it.

Richard Miles: 26:59

So that’s a great list. Uh , I counter just a few perseverance, passion, openness. You’re asking a lot of questions. And I realized after I asked you the question, I phrased it wrong because you’re already a mentor. You’re already acting in that capacity. As some of the younger entrepreneurs come to you and sort of, they know that you’ve been involved and they’re asking for advice. And one thing you said reminded me of something, my friend and guest host Randy Scott. He said , uh , as he advises companies, he says, one of the first things he teaches in particular, academics, i s he says, you have to fall out of love with your idea. And I think you said almost exactly the same thing, right? You have to look at your own research and a detached objective way and say, is this really any good? Does it work? Do people want it? And if you can’t do that, it’s going to be very, very hard to take it to market.

Safa Amiri: 27:43

It’s tricky, being very confident and be proud of your project. But at the same time being humble enough to ask people a lot of questions to be open, to change. So it’s, there should be balanced between these two. You should not feel like you’re very, you know, you should not underestimate yourself. You should be confident that this is going to work. This is going to work. I’m confident that it’s going to work, just do everything that you can to make it work. But on the other hand, you should be very humble and flexible, r ight? If you go to a customer, whatever he or she says, that is what you need to do.

Richard Miles: 28:18

So, you know , some people have compared it to raising a child, right? You know, you, you, you are your child’s biggest advocate and you’re very proud of your child, but you also have to know like, can my child get into Harvard or not get into Harvard low nowadays of course you can just pay $500,000 and there in right? Um, but , Safa, this has been a great conversation and I really wish you the best of luck you’re already doing quite well. You’re, you’re well known in the community. You’re performing well. Um , you’re getting recognized for those efforts and we look forward to having you to museum , um , helping teach about your technologies, but also the broader subject of what we’ve been talking about. How do you make that leap out of the laboratory into the marketplace? So thank you.

Safa Amiri: 28:55

Thank you for the opportunity. I’m very grateful for Cade Museum and of supporting the, you know, the community. This is my third time in a row and I will, I keep applying, keep applying. I keep participating. I’m just a networking person and I would love to network. And I’m really appreciative of this opportunity you guys provided . Thank you.

Richard Miles: 29:13

Well, thanks very much for coming on and hope to have you back.

Safa Amiri: 29:15

Thank you.

Richard Miles: 29:15

This is Richard Miles

Outro: 29:19

Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville.

Optical filters are made for filtering out parts of the color spectrum that we don’t need, or that are even harmful. Migraines, for instance, are often caused by light from a particular part of the spectrum.  Hooman Banei has invented a way to manufacture high-quality optical filters at scale for a reasonable cost.  As a child growing up in Iran, Hooman worked in his father's concrete manufacturing company, but he wanted to be an astronomer.  “My father and I had a debate about what I should do my life,” and Hooman decided to go into science before returning to manufacturing.   

Optical filters are made for filtering out parts of the color spectrum that we don’t need, or that are even harmful. Migraines, for instance, are often caused by light from a particular part of the spectrum.  Hooman Banei has invented a way to manufacture high-quality optical filters at scale for a reasonable cost.  As a child growing up in Iran, Hooman worked in his father’s concrete manufacturing company, but he wanted to be an astronomer.  “My father and I had a debate about what I should do my life,” and Hooman decided to go into science before returning to manufacturing.   

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:38

Some people have no filters, but our guest today has lots of filters, optical filters. So we’re very pleased to have this morning, the 2015 winner of the Cade Prize, Hooman Banei. Welcome to the show, Hooman.

Hooman Banei: 0:49

Thank you very much Richard.

Richard Miles: 0:50

So ever since winning the Cade Prize in 2015, you’ve been living a life of wealth and fame, right? Paparazzi on your doorstep. I think those are your Bentley out in the parking lot, right?

Hooman Banei: 1:01

Well, you may think so. That’s, that’s one of the myths about entrepreneurship. Well, it takes a couple of decades to get there.

Richard Miles: 1:08

Okay. So 20 years now, it’d be like bill Gates, right? We won’t even be able to get ahold of you . Hooman, let’s start out by explaining for a guest, what exactly your technology is, what you invented, what optical filters are basically for those who don’t know what they are, why they’re necessary and what are some of the applications of optical filters.

Hooman Banei: 1:27

Sure. Yeah. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, we deal with all kinds of filters in our daily lives. You know, anything from coffee filter to water filter, to air filter. So optical filters are also similarly made for filtering out parts of the color spectrum of light that we don’t necessarily need for particular applications. I can give you examples. Let’s say people who suffer from migraine headache about 80% of them are sensitive to light. And it turns out that the sensitivity is only two very, very particular colors of light. So if you can only filter out those two particular colors without touching the rest of the spectrum, you can essentially have say, eyewear, that is almost a hundred percent transparent, but at the same time, it gets rid of the problematic ranges of the spectrum. So these are many, many applications or applications for n ext g eneration smartwatches, where t hey’re trying to bring really high performance and very high end and sensitive diagnostic methods to portable smart watch type of applications to bring some of the currently lab based test platforms into our portable devices. So these are also heavily based on filtering spectral signatures of let’s say a glucose in our blood. There are many other things that they try to detect, and it takes a certain type of optical filter to focus on that a spectral signature.

Richard Miles: 2:53

So let’s go to that example of the migraine. That’s, that’s fascinating by the way. So I imagine your research , your work also depends in on researchers who are studying for people with certain pathologies, like migraines, figuring out things like, okay, they are sensitive to these particular parts of the spectrum, or do you do that research as well?

Hooman Banei: 3:13

Luckily we don’t do that. We’re heavily relying on existing knowledge and multiple fields of science and technology, where is being proven that the ideal solution requires some type of optical filtering. And we just go ahead and use our technology and make the right type of filter for that.

Richard Miles: 3:29

Okay. And so a smartphone is one clear example, right? Let’s say someone is bothered by a certain type of light coming through the smart p hone. Is this something that would be integrated into the glass itself a t the manufacturing process of the smartphone? Or is t his something that goes on later, like an add-on?

Hooman Banei: 3:46

So , uh , for that particular application you’re right. There’s some harmful blue light that comes off of most modern digital screens and that can be filtered out with a highly selective optical filter. So it can be used in multiple ways. It can go directly into the configuration, into the structure of the phone. It can be an after- market screen cover. It can go into eyewear that serves the same purpose, but it’s not on your phone, it’s on your eyes essentially. So you can filter that same lights regardless of where it comes from.

Richard Miles: 4:17

So Hooman, the process that you invented in 2015, if I remember correctly, it’s has certain manufacturing advantages, right? It’s very thin, it’s lightweight and there’s a cost advantage as well. Like all the sort of this sweet spot, because as you said, the concept of filtering optical things has been around. It’s just, how do you actually do that in a given product, right?

Hooman Banei: 4:38

Precisely. Yeah. The concept of thin film , optical filtering, or highly selective optical filtering that has been around for decades and traditional technology for manufacturing. These filters has also been around for about 30, 40 years and has been evolving and improving over time incrementally. And at this point it has hit a plateau in terms of scalability of it at low cost. Uh, when I was looking at the gaps in our optics market, given some experience that I had running vacuum chambers that are typically used for optical filter manufacturing, and also knowing a lot about how optical fibers are made for telecommunication, that was my PhD background. So I saw a connection between the two, one had huge scalability at low costs . I mean, we’re all familiar with what optical fibers have done to global internet network and all high-speed communication. So extremely scalable at low costs . But at the same time, I was familiar with the challenges and features of vacuum coating can the traditional way of making filters. So I just saw a connection. I saw a way that we could perhaps marry these two industries with the hope that the r esults becomes a new industry that brings the same level of performance from traditional filters to the same level of, or at least similar level of scalability at low c osts that optical fibers offer. So that was how the idea was born. And w e’re essentially translating the whole process of making optical fibers from circular geometry to linear geometry. T he, t he core concept is fairly simple. When y ou a re making optical fibers, the thread of glass that guides lights across the oceans, you start with a larger scale material, and then you warm it up and pull it down into a threat. In our case, we start with a m ulti-layer slab and then we pull it down thermally into a m ulti-layer sheet o r a fill.

Richard Miles: 6:27

In the same year that you won the Cade prize. You started a company, right? Everix, how’s that going in ? And tell us a little bit about the experience of your you’re an academic, still work and academic stepping into the business world as an academic.

Hooman Banei: 6:41

I graduated mid 2013 and in my storage shed, I was developing this concept until late 2014, where I was really convinced that the technology is worth turning it into a business. And that was the point where I officially started Everix in January, 2015. And basically you started branding this to the relevant market . So since then the company has gone through a few ups and downs, a couple of small recessions, if you will, but we’ve just soldier through all the difficulties and we’ve made the technology work. And as we speak, the largest distributor of optical components in the word actually has about 40 different part numbers of our products on their catalog. So this is a company that’s almost the Amazon of optical components. So we’re gaining some credibility, some recognition through that and directly selling to some of the largest companies on the face of earth that you can imagine.

Richard Miles: 7:38

That’s very exciting. I imagine this takes a fair amount of time though, right? Because even though you’re not going after the retail market at this point, right? You’re talking to manufacturers too , but still that’s a fair amount of time in terms, I imagine meetings and making presentations and sort of justifying the finances is it a struggle finding the balance between continuing to do research and, or you’re working full-time in the company now?

Hooman Banei: 8:01

Oh, I was never doing both. You know, I finished my PhD, clean -cut then I started a business, no more academic work. So people have different opinions and I respect that. But in my personal opinion, you can’t be good at both, right ? Running your startup alone or running a startup alone takes way more than full-time involvement.

Richard Miles: 8:24

Let’s explore that little bit, because it’s somewhat typical, at least in the , the experience that I’ve seen in an idea starts in a laboratory. It’s an academic idea. It’s done by a researcher and then it becomes commercialized. What have you had to learn, I guess, about the business world entrepreneurial world that you didn’t know as an academic, how are those two worlds different? Because a lot of, as you probably know, from e xperience, a lot of those people don’t make that transition, right? Because they come i n the business side of it with certain assumptions that they’ve learned as an academic, they don’t apply. We’ll give you an example. One of our board members, who’s also been a Cade Prize judge, and he’s now a consultant. He said his first tasks when he deals with academics is teach them to fall out of love with t heir idea and what he meant by that was essentially, if you’re fixated on the idea, it’s harder to see the business applications o r the c osts and the production factors, because the idea is so beautiful, does that resonate with you at all?

Hooman Banei: 9:16

Oh , 100% there actually multiple aspects to this one is that yes. When you’re so focused on the scientific exploration and especially when the incentive in most academic institutions is production of research papers, which I totally respect, you know, that’s , that’s, that’s a great cost to have. Uh , but when that becomes the main incentive, people go out of their ways to produce really good research papers. And well , I’ve gone through that process a few times to get my PhD, right? So I exactly know what you do to make a successful research paper. You may cop a case by bringing the right references to the introduction of your paper, trying to convince the audience that this is a huge problem. And my solution is the unique solution to it. But that’s the case that we, as the researcher make to get the papers published in the real world, things are different people look at their options. People look at the alternatives that they have their real measures of pain points or problems that we’re trying to solve. And there are times that a very cool technologies, it just doesn’t have a problem to solve. You know, it might be a really cool technology, but just doesn’t have a problem solve . Or the problem that we’re imagining is really not as significant, or it has some free or lower cost or easier or faster solutions.

Richard Miles: 10:43

There might be other solutions that aren’t as elegant, but they’re cheaper and easier to get.

Hooman Banei: 10:48

So in my personal journey, the way to get out of that mindset was I would say, multifaceted. One was that I came from an entrepreneurial family. So I was very familiar with ups and downs of entrepreneurship, running a business and what it takes to create real value. And on top of that, while I was doing my PhD, I took most of my elective courses in the business school. And I was spending a decent amount of time with people of the business school and industrial engineering management, trying to equip myself with this entrepreneurial journey. So it’s one thing that you come up with a brilliant idea. And then all of a sudden you decide to turn it into a business. But in my case, I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just didn’t know which idea on, so while I was going through the PhD, I was training myself on the entrepreneurial side while searching for the right idea. My own PhD dissertation is actually a good example where the idea was really amazing in terms of the scientific appeal of it, making solar fabrics, let’s say your entire backpack is generating electricity, but when i t came to the business side of it, I did very in-depth business analysis and business v isibility analysis. And I realized that as much as I love that idea, as, as a technology, it just won’t make a good business. So that’s why I almost didn’t even start turning that into a business. I mean, we had some business competitions, but nothing beyond t hat.

Richard Miles: 12:13

So Hooman, you’re already a little bit unusual in that you had this foresight of a business career or an entrepreneurship career, or even before, or as you were doing the academic side, which it seems like a lot of academics stumble upon an idea and like, Oh my gosh, maybe there’s a business here. And they tried to transition from a very different world. You said your family had a entrepreneurial background. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Were your parents in the business world, or what did they do for a living?

Hooman Banei: 12:38

Sure. Yeah. My father actually started a manufacturing company maybe about 35 years ago, focused on manufacturing equipment for various steps of processing concrete from concrete production to mixing to transportation, pumping, cooling, pressing. So you name it, anything that had to do with concrete. That’s what our family business was doing. And obviously it all started super small. I mean, initially it was a service business and then gradually turned into partnership with other major manufacturers and gradually to the sole manufacturer . So at some point we had 500 manufacturing employees. So I had the luxury of witnessing the scaling of a business too .

Richard Miles: 13:20

So was this when you were a child? I mean, did you see this as a young kid?

Hooman Banei: 13:23

That was a part of my day to day life.

Richard Miles: 13:25

Interesting. Okay. What were you like as a kid or as a student? Did you know then you wanted to do something business related in grade score or were you pulled to science?

Hooman Banei: 13:34

Well, I can tell you that at a point I was so serious about doing professional astronomy. So I touched on many, many different topics, a little at a time trying to explore what really resonates with me. And there was a time that I was actually resisting to be involved in the business. And I was so into the science side of word, but then over time I realized that all right, as much as I really liked science, I don’t think I’m a theoretician. Let’s say I was more interested on the applied side of science. That’s how I got into optics and photonics, because that was one of the emerging and rapidly growing fields of science and engineering and interfacing between multiple disciplines of material science, electrical, optical physics. And once I entered optics, I realized that there is a lot of ways of serving the world and basically improving life quality for people through managing light, one way or another.

Richard Miles: 14:29

Wow, Hooman, you had a really well thought out plan I got to say, I didn’t figure what I want to do in my life until about two years ago. Did your parents, were they encouraging you to go into the family business? Was that sort of their dream for you? Or did they just say you figure it out?

Hooman Banei: 14:40

It certainly was. Yes. There was a point where my father and I actually had a debate around what I should do with my life. And he certainly wanted me to continue the legacy of the family business. But luckily enough, my brother did that and set me free to do what I liked to do.

Richard Miles: 14:55

So younger brother or older brother?

Hooman Banei: 14:57

Younger.

Richard Miles: 14:57

Younger. Okay. Where did you grow up Hooman?

Hooman Banei: 15:00

I grew up in Iran and I came to the U.S. about 11 years ago,

Richard Miles: 15:04

11 years ago. So the family business, was it Iran or was it in the U.S.?

Hooman Banei: 15:07

It was in Iran and we’re serving immediately market sometimes in the European market. So we’re doing business internationally and most of our partners were Europeans.

Richard Miles: 15:17

So your parents were still in Iran or are they in the U.S.?

Hooman Banei: 15:19

My parents are actually U.S. citizens now and they leave right here in Gainesville.

Richard Miles: 15:24

Oh Okay. So do they come directly to Gainesville from Iran or where did they end up?

Hooman Banei: 15:29

They came to Orlando because at the time I was in Orlando, but then my sister started at UF. So that brought them all to Gainesville.

Richard Miles: 15:37

Interesting. Okay. That must have been an interesting transition in its own, right. I mean it’s a huge, obviously cultural difference, but political, economic. I mean the business world is not scary at all then. Right?

Hooman Banei: 15:48

Not at all. I mean, the desire to take risks, I guess, is one of the key things for an entrepreneur to be successful. I mean, I’m not successful by any measures yet. We’re just on track. Maybe, maybe not. W e’ll see what happens in a few years, but I think being capable of taking the largest risks possible, that’s very important. And maybe that’s one of the reasons why people in academia or a little bit hesitant of making that full transition, because being on a stable paycheck is not necessarily a bad thing, but in order to make a good business, I really believe that it ‘s, you need to have at least one full-time employee and that is nobody other than the entrepreneur, the founder of it, and being an immigrant that has been another way for me to build some more thi ck sk in.

Richard Miles: 16:34

I know you’ve taken part in the Cade Prize competition. I imagine you probably taking part in other competitions or so on. What are the best lessons you have learned from other entrepreneurs, either in Florida or elsewhere, if anyone stood out on the business side, giving you mentorship about what to do or what not to do?

Hooman Banei: 16:50

Um , my main mentors have been people that I picked as my business advisors and they were still involved in my business and they’ve been entrepreneurs their entire life. So they were, my role

Richard Miles: 17:01

Is this at University of Central Florida in Orlando?

Hooman Banei: 17:03

Not really, there are coming from our industry. These are purely entrepreneurial, purely industrial already in the industry. So when I reached out to them and I invited them to join Everix, so they already had decades of industry experience.

Richard Miles: 17:18

Hooman, we offer every guests the opportunity to become the wise mentor to others, including some of our listeners who I imagine are looking for advice. Similar situations if you met you 10 years ago, right? What are some of the things that you would say particularly to someone, an academic, not necessarily, but someone in academia who wants to break out, start their own business, what sort of things that you would tell them to consider things to do not to do that sort of thing based on your experience?

Hooman Banei: 17:47

I would say a high level thoughts to share is that once you step outside of your comfort zone, well, the beauties of the word just become apparent to us . So it’s very tempting to stay in the comfort zone. We all go through multiple years of doing research in labs and writing papers and publication and all that. And we get so used to it. It really becomes a little difficult to break away from it. I have full respect for academic research. It’s absolutely necessary for the community, but eventually at some point we need people who can break away from that and take your snapshot of the technology and turn it into business products that can go not only to research publications, but also in the hands of people and improving their lives. So I think for that to happen, we need to be prepared to step out of that comfort zone. And I would say it’s challenging. It’s certainly not an easy thing to do, but it’s so rewarding at the same time. So all we need to do is just soldier through the initial phase. And then you get so used to it. You enjoy that. You never want to leave at them , go back to the comfort zone.

Richard Miles: 18:53

So if a young academic comes and says, should I quit my job? You’ll say, yes, absolutely. Jump!

Hooman Banei: 18:58

I would certainly be cautious about taking that advice. And I would probably look at the individual’s situation. What business idea they have. Does it make sense to break away right away? Or do we need to have a transition period? And if they don’t have any ideas, they just want to be entrepreneurs. Then I have ideas that you don’t necessarily need to do research for a living because that really takes your highest quality time and energy. And by the time you’re done with your day job, you probably don’t have enough energy and time left to do quality work on your dreams. Right ? So I have ideas on how you can make money, easier ways on the side, just to create some revenue stream and then in parallel or focusing on your dream, why that money generator is running in the background. I mean, a lot of scientists don’t like to have an Amazon shop, but I think that’s one way of generating revenue. We just need to think out of the box and consider options, right?

Richard Miles: 19:55

Yeah. I heard somebody once saying, you know, being a risk taker doesn’t mean being suicidal, right? So you’re still taking calculated risks and risks that you think are going to pay off. You’re not simply saying, well, you know, I’m going to jump off this bridge and see what happens. You’re , you’re making educated guests. Uh , it sounds like that’s sort of the, I imagine when you decided to start ever X , you were fairly confident in the, in the technology. At that point, you thought this is probably going to pay off you weren’t just simply walking out the door and like hoping for the best.

Hooman Banei: 20:22

Exactly the decision to start. Every, like you said was , uh , about one and a half years after I started testing the idea and more than testing, the technical idea was actually testing the market. I traveled before 2015, several times to several trade shows to poking to several markets that I was thinking that they would be a candidate markets for this technology, basically, just to see if anybody cares about t his solution, assuming that the technology works and that technical background also helps in that you can have educated guesses and you will probably be right at the end, whether or not the technology works because you’ve had some prior experience of turning ideas from nothing to a working technology. So I had some good guesses whether or not this would be physical technically.

Richard Miles: 21:16

Then again, another way in which you differ from an academic, because usually the instinct from the academic side that I’ve seen that turned into entrepreneurs is their initial instinct. Cause they want to take the technology to the next level, right? And then the market research, they figure will take care of itself, but it sounds like you, instead of doing that said, I need to see, like you said, test the market, see if anyone even cares about the core idea before I go to the next level.

Hooman Banei: 21:38

Exactly. And I think that’s something that the entire , uh , lean startup concept is trying to fix teaching people that well, you know, the idea is just one part out of multiple parts of the value proposition b lock on your business model canvas that has nine segments in it, right? So our idea contributes to a very small portion of the entire business picture and the business w on’t work without all pieces together. So it plays a very central role. The rest of it will fall apart without value proposition, but it’s not the only one.

Richard Miles: 22:17

Hooman, this has been a great discussion and really value the advice that you’ve dispensed. And I’m looking forward to the Radio Cade episode in 2040, whenever Everix is a multi-billion dollar worldwide global concern. And, you know, we’ll get five minutes of your time at that point, but thank you.

Hooman Banei: 22:31

It’s alway’s my pleasure, Cade has been an amazing part of my life and my journey, and he has been so influential. Uh, I’ll be always happy to help the audience.

Richard Miles: 22:40

Thank you very much, Hooman.

Hooman Banei: 22:41

Thank you.

Richard Miles: 22:42

This is Richard Miles

Outro: 22:46

Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating and vendor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song, featuring violinist, Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Where do creative ideas come and how do we capture them? Judah Pollack, author of The Net and the Butterfly, talks frontal lobes, “genius lounges,” and the Rolling Stones. Born and raised in Manhattan, Judah made his way to the West Coast, where he advises organizations like Air BnB, Google, Sonos, and the U.S. Army.  

Without a free market for over almost 60 years, Cubans have been forced to make do without most things. Turns out your average Cuban is pretty ingenious. Randy Batista, Jorge Lavoy, and Gabriela Azcuy, decided to start collecting examples of how Cubans have repurposed almost everything into something. From turning Soviet washing machines into lawnmowers and electric coils into water heaters, the collection highlights how hardship forces creativity. Produced by Rob Rothschild at Heartwood Soundstage in Gainesville, Florida.  

Without a free market for over almost 60 years, Cubans have been forced to make do without most things. Turns out your average Cuban is pretty ingenious. Randy Batista, Jorge Lavoy, and Gabriela Azcuy, decided to start collecting examples of how Cubans have repurposed almost everything into something. From turning Soviet washing machines into lawnmowers and electric coils into water heaters, the collection highlights how hardship forces creativity. Produced by Rob Rothschild at Heartwood Soundstage in Gainesville, Florida.  

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:39

Necessity is the mother of invention. And one of the places in the world that has had to be the most inventive is in Cuba, for about the last 60 years and here as our guest today , uh, where it’s a pleasure to have Randy Batista , uh , long time local. Randy, you’ve done a little bit of everything. So it’s hard to describe. We also have , uh, Gabby Azcuy , who’s the curator of the exhibit , um , that we’re going to be talking about and Jorge Lavoy. Uh, welcome all of you.

Randy Batisa: 1:11

Thank you.

Richard Miles: 1:11

First of all, let’s tell listeners what we’re actually talking about. There is an exhibit called, Cuban Ingenuity, the Artistry of the Everyday Inventor. It is opening soon, or at least a sneak peek on March the ninth, and it’s going to run through the end of the year. And , um , basically I’m going to let Gabby give a very short description , uh, before we talk about it more in detail, what exactly is this , uh, exhibit about and what are people going to see when they walk in the door?

Gabby Azcuy: 1:38

So Cuba Ingenuity is a compilation of videos, objects , and graphics that will be in the West Gallery in the Cade Museum. We will have around 45, 50 objects of different sites, medium, small, and , uh , some , uh, videos that will project the reality in these days in Havana.

Richard Miles: 1:56

So , um , Gabby, just to clarify you and Jorge , um , did you personally select or curate all of these , uh, all the objects in the exhibit?

Jorge Lavoy: 2:04

Yeah, that’s, that’s correct. We , um, we did three trips to Cuba to find and bringing all these objects from there. So was a really hard task for us because we have , uh, as Cubans, we don’t think that , uh, we have like awesome inventions or , uh, um, appealing objects to, you know, to maybe , uh, people from, you know , um , U.S. or countries that have a lot of , uh, progress medicine , you know, big, big countries with , um, you know, a bunch of tools and resources. So as Cuban’s, you have , uh , the idea of , uh, just invent and it’s normal for you. You spend your whole life doing that. So it was really hard to , for , for us finding , uh, the, the good example of ingenuity, because for us, maybe we have our washer machine model converted in a lawnmower, and maybe we think that this is normal people don’t to see these like a cool thing. So for that reason, we have Ann Gilroy , she’s a curator of the Tomo Center and she was all the time, like our U.S. eyes seeing the other part, Oh, there bring that one too, because that that’s going to be cool. That’s going to be, you know, interesting, and that was a whole conflict with curating and finding the right objects.

Richard Miles: 3:44

And I guess for , for our listeners who may be unfamiliar with recent Cuban history, I mean, essentially this has been a condition, as I mentioned, that’s gone back for over 50 years. I mean, in 1959 you had Fidel Castro come to power and kind of the disappearance of a market economy, you went to a socialist command economy. And then over time, Cuba became very dependent on the , the old Soviet Union for all sorts of things, everything from oil to , uh, spare parts and so on. And then the Soviet Union goes away in 1991 and things even get tougher for Cubans because now the main source of a lot of those things go away. And at that point , um, Randy, Cubans had to become really inventive, right? Because essentially , uh, their access to new products was almost non-existent or spare parts extremely limited. So you pretty much had to make, do with what you had. Give us an example of maybe a couple of the objects in the exhibit that demonstrate that inventiveness.

Randy Batisa: 4:49

A real quick example would be a water heater, you know, for heating water in a bucket, they would just get a stick. They would carve out the stick to , and then they would roll up a piece of wire , copper wire. They would put it through the stick and then they would drop that stick with has wired and it just plug it into the wall and then they would just hit the water. I mean, that’s just a very small example.

Richard Miles: 5:12

It doesn’t sound real safe.

Randy Batisa: 5:14

It’s not trust me. And then, you know , just another quick one, it’s like taking a shower, r ight? No hot water. So they had these rigs that y ou’d have a switch on the wall and the shower head was wired to heat the water. And so sometimes as you were taking a shower, you would feel a little tinge of electricity running through your body. That’s just a very small example of what you can really, you know, and it, Richard, I mean, I can’t tell you it’s everything. It’s not just, you know, it’s, it’s everyday life. It’s about pencils. It’s about paper. It’s about using a magazine. The first time I went to Cuba t hat, u h, I was handed a piece of food that has been fried in t he, in the market, i n the street a nd the park and they r ipped a n ice piece of paper off of magazine and then they h anded tme my, my yuca, my fried yuca on a piece of, y ou k now, a magazine page, you know, and i t w as s o, I mean, the interesting thing about Cuba, like t he recycling is just, there’s nothing thrown away. I mean, somebody’s garbage. Someone will pick it up and they’ll do something with it. And it doesn’t matter what it is.

Richard Miles: 6:19

I managed to get a sneak peek at some of the installation this morning. And I saw there that , um, it was explained to me that the, the old Soviet wash machines had these incredibly powerful motors, the rest of the washing machine wasn’t really built that well. Right. So essentially the washing machine itself would fall apart, but , but then Cubans figured out a way to repurpose those powerful motors. And there’s one that looked like it was a lawnmower? I mean, somebody had taken it and t urn i t into a l awn m ower with a machete underneath it.

Gabby Azcuy: 6:48

Yeah. And , uh, the back, the bottom part is , uh , old drawer and some recycled wood. And the wheels are from that toys, baby carriage.

Richard Miles: 7:00

Let, let me ask , um, is it your impression that, that this , uh , situation forced all Cubans to become more inventive? Or did you just have, you know , like the local guy on the block, who’s just really good with his hands and he’s the one that figures this all out, or is this like, everyone’s g ot t o step up?

Gabby Azcuy: 7:17

I think for all of us, it was a journey of this, of this project, because we discovered that since I were born, since we born, we have been around ingenuity and innovation all the time, but we didn’t know. So, we were like two years without to come back Cuba. We came back because of this project. So for us, it was also this idea that every thing, everything in our houses was ingenuity. So maybe I grow with my mom, so maybe my mom wasn’t so much ingenuity, but everything in my house, even the fish tank, where they hid the water heater. Trying to get foreign channels, everything was ingenuity. So I learned stuff that I didn’t know that I was creating innovation and Jorgito was much to me because he grew up in division. They had to make even more inventions.

Jorge Lavoy: 8:07

It’s kind of a mindset. You know, you, you just grow up with that and you , um, you have that in your mind and the way that, you know, your behavior is always with ingenuity, it’s not just about creating a tool or something to, to do whatever is, is , uh, also the way you think, the way you take a boost, the way you , uh, I don’t know, go to school, you are always trying to figure that out. You know, you are, your mind is always, you know, trying to find a solution for something because you always have a problem.

Gabby Azcuy: 8:48

Yeah. We said to that in Spanish and Cuban , we said , uh , invent that, invent that so it’s like a normal thing we said, Oh, you have to invent.

Randy Batisa: 8:56

Well, the things you learned about talking to any Cuban, the first time I went, it was like, as you sat there talking to them, if they heard, if you heard this phrase “no es fácil”, once you heard it, 30 times within a span of three minutes, because it is not easy, you know , and the phrase means it’s not easy. And it’s like, it was, it was just flow out of them as if it was water. I mean, it’s just like Randy, “no es fácil tu sabes” You know, and I think that’s, you know , like Jorgito was saying, you know, the, the interesting thing is that it’s , it is such a part of their life. Uh , the ingenuity at reinventing everything that is to them, it’s like, they were saying, you know, to them, it was like, okay, this is an everyday occurrence. But to us to see these items and the museum, it’s like, holy smokes, these guys have just really gone way either. And for them to try to bring these into these, you know , these inventions over picking them because they were so accustomed to it, this , that this , that that’s nothing. But to us who have not lived with that and see, Oh my God, this is really, really cool. You know? And I think that’s, what’s interesting about this show is that it really depicts the struggle and the ingenuity that these guys have, these individuals have done the community and that’s in the country.

Richard Miles: 10:07

Whose idea was this? How did this come together? Randy, were you the one that sort of woke up one day and said, this would be cool? Or you know? Actually tell me how this came.

Randy Batisa: 10:15

It’s Phoebe’s fault, your wife .

Richard Miles: 10:21

Well that’s the default answer to everything.

Randy Batisa: 10:23

Yes. As you well know, I did your wedding many years, a few years ago. I’m sure it was 10 years ago. Right ?

Richard Miles: 10:29

You still did wedding photography. I’d put a plugin for you, but you don’t do it anymore.

Randy Batisa: 10:32

No, no, no, no, no. Not only that, it was only black and white, which was an extreme case.

Richard Miles: 10:37

I think we were your last wedding . I don’t know what that says about us.

Randy Batisa: 10:40

No, no we were thrilled. We went out on a good note. Um, so anyway, so Phoebe and I kept in contact and she, I, I told her about my travels to Cuba and that I’d been really seeing all these incredible inventions and ingenuity that these people had been done. He said , well, you know, when we build the museum, you know, I’d like if we have an exhibit of the photographs of the exhibit, well, fast forward two years ago, G abby and Jorgito, u m, came to Gainesville to do a 2017, w ill you go on a n event? And they were just fabulous human beings. And so I told t hem a l ittle about t hat. You know, Phoebe has talked to me about doing this event and i t says, and they said, well, why don’t we just bring t he instruments over? I said, dude y ou’re off. And so that thing just kicked off and it has been a journey of just absolute joy. I mean, it’s you just go, Oh my God. You know, to bring these items over here to, you know, it was, has been an unbelievable scene.

Ricard Miles: 11:34

You n otice what he just did? He just blamed this on y ou g uys. Yeah. Anything goes wrong, Jorge and Gabby. I t was totally their idea.

Randy Batisa: 11:41

I w as j ust a , y ou k now, i t’s just the c atalyst i nstrument.

Richard Miles: 11:43

So , so tell me your personal stories. U h Gabby and Jorge I mean, w e’re, u h, both of you were born in Cuba.

Gabby Azcuy: 11:50

Yeah . Havana.

Richard Miles: 11:51

In Havana, and , u m, when did you come to the States?

Gabby Azcuy: 11:53

Uh , we came like three years ago. Exactly. And we born in the special period at that time. So we grew up with all the dissolution of the utopia of the revolution. We grow up with that falling apart. So we are that generation that is completely apathetic . We can send that. So it’s not, we are not like race and that , that political , um, program that they have from the beginning, like my parents. Yeah.

Richard Miles: 12:22

Where your parents are , your parents still in Cuba?

Gabby Azcuy: 12:24

My parents. And Jorgito’s, Dad. His mom was living here.

Richard Miles: 12:29

And how, how, what were the circumstances of your leaving? How did you get permission to leave or?

Gabby Azcuy: 12:34

Yeah , so I think almost the 90% of my, of our generation is outside Cuba, not just in us or on the world, in every place , every place that you can think they are their are Cubans. So I think what’s , um, professional and economic thing was like , uh , in Cuba we work a lot in filming in arts, in galleries, but I think was a top for us. We wanted to do more. And the US was the easiest step because we, before two came here, we were working in US like for two years coming back and forth, working in different. Yeah. So was that th e, the ea siest s tep, I think, was the natural step to continue. We want them to learn English. We wa nt t h em t o learn how, you know, how, how the system works in internet or any, a lot of stuff that we don’t have there. So, u m , b e cause I was working with, u m , i n US f or like two years, I had a cultural visa. So I, at that time was ope n th e , t he law that Obama removed la ter and he r Jorgito had a Spanish passport. So we were able to come here easily without any trouble.

Richard Miles: 13:46

Did, did both of you , um, train as artists, or is that what you studied in school or how did you kind of move into that, that area?

Gabby Azcuy: 13:54

So we have different backgrounds that in some point they are the , they are linked, but I study our history at Havana University. And after that, I aspire , I specialize in contemporary art. So I was working always in galleries and museums.

Jorge Lavoy: 14:10

And on my part , uh, um, first I started , uh , music , uh , for elementary school. And then I went to national school of arts for drama, having , working on TV and films since I, I was , um, eight years old. So it’s like almost 16 or 17 years working on Cuban television and films. Then I started, like, I opened the kind of , uh , uh , producer filming agency. You can say, because you’re not allowed to do that in Cuba. But I mean, so we started working together because I started like , uh, producing , uh, chore films for on , um, just media, you know, photos or whatever, to help other artists and galleries that don’t have maybe their budget or the viability to, to , uh , produce that. So that , that way we started working together. And then we started like , uh , curating things together. Um , for the reason we leave our first show in , uh , Washington DC and the , um , a museum , um, that was like our first, you know , uh, shock we’ve realized that maybe we can do something bigger. Maybe we can figure things. And after we saw all the way, the, the, the world uh, works on, not Cuba is like, you’re isolated. You don’t have credit cards, you don’t have, you know , uh , online , uh , way to get information. We started watching YouTube videos on how to create stuff . And we don’t have that in Cuba . We have to ask to the neighbor, if the 100 currency, I mean, the, the 10, yeah, 110 , uh, you know, the electric .

Richard Miles: 16:02

Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just plug it in. Right. Yeah,

Jorge Lavoy: 16:05

Yeah, exactly. So that was our, you know, we decided, okay, we need to, we need to do something about our cell phone . We need to move forward. Right.

Randy Batisa: 16:14

I mean, I’ll have to tell you guys have done exactly that these guys have been instrumental in just stepping up and creating, you know, exhibitions that are just really fabulous. The first one was at the Thomas Center. And then now this one, which is going to be just, you know, something to be hold, because it’s just so well curated and, you know, so much thought went into it, you know, and it ‘s j ust sort of nothing that when people walk in there, they’ll understand that, you know, there’s a process of really appreciating what the Cuban people have gone through. Right. And these guys have made this possible. And you know, th ey’ve b een here two years and their English is like, unreal.

Richard Miles: 16:49

Tell me this. When you went, u m , wh en you went to Cuba to certain looking for these artifacts, did you already have sort of a list in mind of what you wanted or did you just stumble across things like, Oh my gosh, we got to ha ve that and let’s buy a suitcase and put it in.

Gabby Azcuy: 17:05

Both! I mean , we had a list of, you know , um, things that we thought, but I it’s a whole reality once you get there. And we used, I mean, Gabby was saying that we spent like two years without a comeback. And then we realized once we, Just getting into the airport.

Jorge Lavoy: 17:24

We realized that, Oh, this is engineering too . And that one too. U m, what about that one? I was like, yo u k n ow, a pandora’s box.

Gabby Azcuy: 17:31

The thing is that we wanted to bring up. Does that really mean something for the people to use , to have it? So we, we create a relationship with these people. I was, we’ll learn a lot because sometimes people they’re love objects because sometimes objects, are family have been with them for 34 years. So it’s like giving, give it to you. That object means a lot for them. Yeah . So in many cases they didn’t want money or anything. They just wanted an object.

Jorge Lavoy: 17:55

Or replacement .

Richard Miles: 17:56

I see.

Gabby Azcuy: 17:58

And know that the object will have a nice.

Richard Miles: 18:00

A nice home.

Gabby Azcuy: 18:00

Yes.

Richard Miles: 18:02

Um, Randy, so, you know, I’m just guessing here, but I think you’re maybe of a different generation then Jorge and Gabby. It’s hard to tell, I guess, barely started going out on a limb.

Randy Batisa: 18:14

I had a big birthday last week when I was in Cuba. So yeah.

Richard Miles: 18:18

But as we know, as you know, well, you know, every, every generation of Cuban has a different story, right? So , uh, you know, your , your Cuban background, tell us what your story is or your parents’ story. Um, and, you know, have it give us a nutshell of how did Randy Batista become Randy Batista? How’d you end up in Gainesville and how’d you end up back in Cuba.

Randy Batisa: 18:38

if I gave you all of my real names, when you know exactly my history, but we will go past that . Um, so my situation was that my dad attended University of Florida and he got his master’s degree in soil science here. He was one of four kids that his parents sent h im to Philadelphia to go to high school. Then he ended up getting his m aster’s here, met my mother from, u h, through her brother who was attending university as well i n, and she was in Tampa and six months later, they were married, madly in love. U m, my dad was doing a research work on soil science and Belle Glade, and he was doing it with sugar corporations. And so we would travel, they would travel back and forth. U m, one of the interesting th ings t hat my dad did was that, u m , w hen my mother, I w as conceived in Cuba, but when my dad realized that, you know, it was time to give birth, he shipped my mother both times to the States to make sure that both kids were born American citizens. So we d id that little event , that little event made a major difference.

Richard Miles: 19:30

So at the time, your , uh , just so I’m clear, your dad and , and your parents were living in Cuba, but he had studied in Gainesville or had they already moved to the Cuba? He would, he had studied at University of Florida. Then once he goes master’s degree, you went to Belle, Glade, worked at experiment station, and then he was traveling back and forth to Cuba. All right , we’ll do it.

Randy Batisa: 19:48

But he was, he was born in Cuba. He was Cuban. He was one of 13 kids. Okay. A ll r ight. And so I was a five years old when we moved over there. And, u m, w hen I got there, they c alled me at “El bobo” , which means an idiot because I couldn’t speak Spanish. And then I left in 61, you know, i t’s a Spanish I got here. And of course, I didn’t know any English. So I had to relearn that, you know , in the process. And it was interesting because at that time that I left in 61, so they had just started going from socialism to decide to communism. My dad pulled me out of school because they had started to teach communism. And so they shipped me, they shipped . And basically I was one of the Peter Pan kids, one of the Pedro Ponds . Right. Right. And then I ended up with my grandparents in Tampa, and then I came to the University of F lorida here. And, u m , b ut you know, our generation is a ll a d ifferent ge neration. There was a lot of the pa rent, the kids wh o h a d t he parents who came over the cream of the crop wo uld l eft Cuba, you know, lawyers, doctors back in the late fifties and early sixties, you know, we ‘re o f a different mindset versus what you’ve go t n o w t oday, which is yeah, 60 years later, there’s a whole different dynamic of what they’re really enduring and living through.

Richard Miles: 20:58

where y ou we re a p art of it k ind of a distinguished elite club. The Peter Pan generation actually did pretty well for itself . I mean, in the state department, I knew several ambassadors that were part of that generation Cuban Americans , that same story. It came over, you know, at very young age, without their parents and ended up doing quite well in the US system. Tell us now , uh , this exhibit of the Cade Museum is part of a larger , um, program that , uh, is that you’re doing as well. Are you culpable ?

Randy Batisa: 21:27

Well, I am culpable.

Richard Miles: 21:29

Tell us a little bit more about your crazy idea . All right . Tell us what , what that is, what it means.

Randy Batisa: 21:33

Bulla Cubana , um, came about because when I was traveling to Cuba , um , doing my documentary work for since 96, I noticed that regardless of what people had, one of the things that you noticed i s that art culture was just rampant. I mean, they just live for that. And it’s, so it became like a lollipop to exist. Literally. I mean, they may not have any pencils. They may not have any food there , you know, drinking sugar, water, or frying plantings, but that culture and that art resonated without even blinking. So I decided after coming back and I think in 2016, I asked , uh , uh , ponds over at the conference center about doing an exhibit at their gallery. And he said, yeah , absolutely. So that opened the door to doing an exhibit there of a naive artist. And then when people found out that I was doing this, all of a sudden, all of the institutions ended up joining us . We had Harn Museum, we had Thomas Center, we had the Florida Natural History Museum , uh , Phillips Performing Arts Center. And the interesting thing to me was that for the first time ever this community had embraced an event that they would all collaborate. Cause that had never existed before. And to me, that was a mission that really will, Bulla Cubana was instrumental in doing, and hopefully this will be a stepping stone to really setting a future for, you know , what I hope to become, you know , and the committee does for Gainesville to become an art city for the arts, you know , a destination for the arts. And so that’s what we’re really, that’s our final goal. And so we’re now already going on 2021, we’ve got all five of the major institutions already signed up to travel to Cuba and look for talent. And , um, we’re gonna have an exhibit at the Cade Museum with a very fabulous collector in Tampa who has a beautiful, and the guy who owns the studio say single-dose car that’s right behind you. That tell us a little bit, tell us a little bit about that car because these guys are the ones that have been really.

Richard Miles: 23:23

Just so listeners are aware . We have this really cool car sitting back at the Cade Museum, but there’s something very distinctive about it. I’m going to let Gabby or Jorge tell us about it.

Gabby Azcuy: 23:32

Okay. The car, the name of it’s a sculpture. The title is Hybrid of Chrysler was made in 2016 for the Cuban artist, by the Cuban artists ( inaudible). He has been working with these hybrids for a long time. And this car have been, we can say the flying around the US and Europe was first on the Tampa Museum of Art, then traveled to the banners , PNL then traveled to Washington DC to the Kennedy Center. And now is here at Gainesville in the Cade Museum.

Richard Miles: 24:04

But you have to describe maybe, this is radio, right? Yeah. So you got to describe what does a car look like?

Gabby Azcuy: 24:10

Okay. So it’s a 1953 Chrysler limo with wings. So it’s when you see as a huge sculpture, that seems like it will fly, but really doesn’t.

Jorge Lavoy: 24:23

So you know, that 30 feet wings on top of our Chrysler, 1953, 18 feet wide, right ? No , the wings are 30 feet and sort of like simulated a little jet engines. Two a jet , uh , both sides. And I mean the same, you know, the same color of the car is a kind of blend the whole scene, like real wings coming out of it .

Richard Miles: 24:46

I got to say it looks very realistic. So I’m guessing that how many people ask you if it’s a real flying car?

All: 24:53

Oh yeah. All the time, right ? Yeah.

Gabby Azcuy: 24:56

This car , this is the second car that he did. The first one was submarine. So c an he was moving the submarine into Havana. The police s topped him because, so that was a r aft t o leave the country.

Jorge Lavoy: 25:09

Yeah. That’s on video. Right ?

Richard Miles: 25:12

So elicit planes and submarines come to the Cade.

Jorge Lavoy: 25:17

One of the s cenes, when we s tarted thinking about the, the Cuban Ingenuity exhibition, we, I mean o ur, after we moved to Gainesville, we s tart thinking, w e really s tart thinking about bringing value to Gainesville because we really i t’s the first sign that we feel like home after we moved t o, t o US in general. So we, u h, had like the opportunity of this exhibition to bring that car and just start traveling around Gainesville and b ring all that press that, that always, that car has, you know? U h, so that was like the first idea after we think about the, the exhibition. Okay. Let’s bring the, the hybrid and put it somewhere i n the Cade Museum. So, you know, that way we can make some more noise about Bulla Cubana.

Richard Miles: 26:06

Well, I really got to say, you know, Gainesville is very lucky to have you, Gabby, and Jorge. I’m just a little bit afraid that you’re gonna become too successful on near Gainesville is gonna be too small for you to go for the big city, the big life .

Jorge Lavoy: 26:19

We have been like hearing a lot of histories about people just having success all around US, and then coming back to Gainesville to , you know , uh , being here.

Richard Miles: 26:29

There’s like a 30 year interlude for that.

Randy Batisa: 26:32

We’re going to put the shackles on it .

Richard Miles: 26:34

Very good.

Randy Batisa: 26:34

So real quick, Richard, I have to tell you, we are so proud to really be involved with the Cade Museum. You guys have set a standard for this community that I it’s outstanding. Uh , what you brought to the community to share with us is marvelous. And for us to be a part of this. Yeah . It’s just brilliant. And thank you so much for you guys or what you do with that museum, because it truly is a fine piece of art, and it’s just a wonderful instrument to really talk about inventions and what we can do. So thank you both.

Richard Miles: 27:06

Well Thanks Randy for hearing that. And , uh, and I’ll make that check out to Randy Batista. So , um, but thank you all of you for coming on to Radio Cade, it’s been a great discussion and , and really strongly encourage listeners to come by and take a look again. We have a sneak peak on March 9th and , uh , but we’ll have the exhibit on Cuban Ingenuity through the end of the year. So thanks very much.

All: 27:25

Thank you.

Richard Miles: 27:26

I am Richard Miles.

Outro: 27:30

Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing and production of the podcasts and music theme, Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinist , Jacob Lawson and special, thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.

Where do creative ideas come and how do we capture them? Judah Pollack, author of The Net and the Butterfly, talks frontal lobes, “genius lounges,” and the Rolling Stones. Born and raised in Manhattan, Judah made his way to the West Coast, where he advises organizations like Air BnB, Google, Sonos, and the U.S. Army.  

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade, a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:39

What do Keith Richards, Albert Einstein, and Archimedes all have in common? They all experience creative breakthroughs. The good news is that so can you, I’m your host Richard Miles and we’re pleased to welcome creativity expert and author Judah Pollack, the author of “The Net and the Butterfly” to Radio Cade, welcome Judah.

Judah Pollack: 0:56

Thank you so much for having me.

Richard Miles: 0:57

So Judah, if I got your book correctly, essentially you’re telling me I can become a lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones is that about right?

Judah Pollack: 1:03

No, no, I’m afraid there’s been a great misunderstanding. I think I’m in the wrong podcast. I got to go.

Richard Miles: 1:09

Damn it. Alright . Um, no, but you, you , uh, you use that as one of the great examples of sort of a creative breakthrough. And, and I love the, the sort of the metaphor, the extended metaphor that you use about nets and butterflies and , and in fact your first couple of chapters play out , riff off that metaphor. You talk about four wings, sort of four ways that creative breakthroughs happen. And then, you know, you talk about being on the hunt, how to actually catch and record those ideas and then a lot of the book that follows this sort of real practical advice on how to do both the creative breakthrough part and sort of the , the catching and recording part. So I know I’ve probably done tremendous injustice to your book, but walk us through sort of an, again, starting from the beginning, how, how do you see creative breakthroughs happening through the major categories and then what are we supposed to do about them when we have them, if we have them.

Judah Pollack: 2:02

Our brains have actually evolved a system to have breakthroughs, to see patterns in the noise. And the thing that it’s hard for us to get our heads around is it’s not a focused, rational system. And that’s very difficult for us because we like to be doing something on schedule, have a plan, and it’s important for that. That’s the executive function of your brain, which is literally a network of neurons at the front of your brain. Sort of like above your eyes. If you think of it that way, where you do everything like make a list, make sure to get to the airport on time, get a task done. It’s, you focus, you have discipline. Now this is also the part of your brain that goes quiet when you get drunk. So sometimes you don’t make great decisions, but you might also find yourself up on a table dancing and singing when you might not ordinarily be willing to do that.

Richard Miles: 2:49

This is just friends you’ve seen right Judah?

Judah Pollack: 2:51

I never, never me. So, the amazing thing is that not only does quieting frontal lobe, that executive network give you the ability to get on top of a bar and dance and sing, but it also gives a chance for this other network in your brain to come online. It’s the creative network technically it’s called the default mode network. We like to call it the genius lounge. It’s also a network. It has about 10 different brain regions and they all start talking to each other and get very creative, when you’re not focused on a problem and it’s, it’s utilizing and supporting the dance between these two systems, that leads to great breakthroughs, which is why all throughout history you have stories of somebody working incredibly hard. Like Keith Richards working incredibly hard to create a hit in 1967 on the rolling stones first American tour, but it was only when he fell asleep and then woke up, recorded the opening bars to the song satisfaction and then fell back asleep without even remembering he’d done it. That’s where the breakthrough came from. He woke up the next morning, turned on the recorder. He had about 30 seconds of those fantastic opening bars and then an hour of a tape of him snoring. And he, if he didn’t record it, he wouldn’t have remembered because it came from this more unconscious part of his brain, the more irrational part of his brain. That’s what we have a hard time accessing.

Richard Miles: 4:12

Judah tell me, is this somewhat similar to um, what’s the name of the book? Is it fast, fast thinking, slow thinking? I think Daniel Kahneman with kind of talks about this, these two major functions. One is sort of like heavily engaged and another one that’s more instinct almost. Is that something similar?

Judah Pollack: 4:27

I’m so glad you brought this up because just the other day I was like, we named it the wrong title. And so Daniel Kahneman talks about system one and system two,

Richard Miles: 4:34

Right, okay.

Judah Pollack: 4:35

And one of them is very sort of slow and methodical and one of them is very quick and as you said, instinctual. And so I realized we should have called it system three because this is actually very slow but very intuitive. It’s not rationally thought out. So whereas system one, the slow plotting rational system. Here we have a more slow system that’s very intuitive and instinctual. So it’s a mix of the two. And that is really where we get these sudden ahas. So the famous example would be in the shower and almost everyone has had an experience in the shower when they suddenly realize something, it’s a problem they’ve been having and might be something they’ve been working on. It could be a relationship there in the reason it works is because taking a shower gives your executive function just enough of a goal that it doesn’t have to really focus that hard on, right? We can shower with our eyes closed at this point, we can shower without really thinking about it. So our executive function is like, Oh I have something to do. And it kind of goes off to the side and that leaves space for your genius lounge to start working and start to put together novel concepts and then give you that breakthrough.

Richard Miles: 5:39

And just so we’re clear, you know, if, if take Keith Richards as an example, if he weren’t already a musician, right? And sort of thinking about this all the time, highly unlikely he would have come up with satisfaction, right? So this is a , you know, this preparation or I guess see the genius, you already have to have some geniuses in that lounge, right? And are there have to been , uh, you know, scientists for instance, I mean, if, if you’re not trained in biology, you’re unlikely to invent the next biotech drug, for instance.

Judah Pollack: 6:09

Yes and no.

Richard Miles: 6:10

Yes and no. Okay,

Judah Pollack: 6:10

So here’s , here’s ,

Richard Miles: 6:11

there’s still hope for me!

Judah Pollack: 6:13

There’s still hope for you. You might be Keith Richards and not know it. So we do have to have some sort of skillset , some sort of specialty, something we’re really good at, something that we’ve put our time and attention on and focused on. Then we have to pull back from that to allow this kind of fascinating, irrational, open-ended process to happen to then have the new idea. So stories like this are about like Dmitri Mendeleev who created the periodic table. He’d been working on a chemistry textbook for three years and I’ve been trying to figure out how to lay out the known elements. He fell asleep and in a fever dream, the image of the periodic table came to him. So here’s that combination where he had deep knowledge of the subject but then was able to come and learn something, bring something new. Now at the same time, cross-pollination creates huge breakthroughs as well. So a great example of this is a meteorologist at the turn of the last century who was up in the North pole and the Arctic working on something and he noticed one day how the icebergs floating on the water looked like jigsaw puzzles. Fast forward two years, he’s back in his study in London. He’s looking at a globe and he notices that the continents remind him of those iceberg jigsaw puzzles. So he gets it into his mind that maybe they were once connected like a jigsaw puzzle would be. And he goes, he’s not a geologist, he is a meteorologist. He studies weather , but he gets this idea. He goes and he starts steadying South America and Africa and he starts noticing the rocks. The flora and fauna are very similar. Low and behold, this person invents the concept of continental drift, which completely revolutionizes everything we know about the earth, the crust, geology. But he wasn’t actually a geologist. And in fact, in that situation it helped because he didn’t have the orthodoxy of the dogma to tell him that that was insane.

Richard Miles: 8:00

That reminds me actually of a, of an article in the Wall Street Journal that I read at least 10 years ago or more, and it was sounds like the setup to a joke, but basically it was a geologist sitting next to a political scientist at some dinner and they’re trying to figure out stuff to talk about. So the geologist is talking about his ability to, to , um, predict earthquakes based on a change that happened well in advance of an earthquake, subtle shifts deep below the earth. So the political scientist starts thinking, what, is there a way that you could apply that lesson to political science? And sure enough, he found what he thought was looking at economic data, not one or two years out from presidential election, but 10,15, 20 years out to see if that could accurately, accurately predict trends. And he found what he thought was a very strong correlation point being, you got this from a geologist and earthquakes, right? So nothing to do with political science whatsoever.

Judah Pollack: 8:48

And sometimes I think the phrase they use is edge abundance. Where where two disciplines meet right at that edge, you tend get a flowering of life. So, and nature has it all the time. If you look at deep sea water events where it looks like it’s too hot for anything to live, and then there’s just life blooming everywhere from the energy and the minerals coming out of the vent. So, and if you look at where two ecosystems meet, they can be incredibly rich and alive with life. And so the same thing can happen when you have disciplines meet and so know the famous Bell Labs building that had so many incredible inventions come out of it just as very long hallway and the unwritten rule was don’t close your door so that there could be all this crosspollination . Right? And then there’s a great article about, I think it was building 40 at MIT, which was basically an overflow building. So if they didn’t, they couldn’t figure out where to put you . They didn’t have room, they just shoved you in building 40. So building 40 had people from all different lines of work, all sorts of disciplines, and nobody cared what you did. So if you wanted to knock out the roof and build something above you, if you needed something larger, you could. And this became just an idea factory Bose , the sound system came out of there. Um, all kinds of things came out of there because of this. People just wandering in and be like, what are you working on? And bringing their different points of view.

Richard Miles: 9:59

So this is a perfect segue to want to talk about next . I mean, your book is more than just sort of an interesting observation of the way that the mind works and you know, how to, how to catch those ideas. Um, if you have an you do, right, you have, you have clients , uh , whether they’re companies, I don’t know if they’re schools or other entities that come to you and say they accept the premise of your argument and say, how do we make our employees or how do we make our company more creative? What are some of the sort of practical things or how do you start with a company like that? Do you say, okay, here are the 10 things you need to do or how long does it take to, there must be a period of diagnosis I imagine . Right?

Judah Pollack: 10:37

I wish I could say, here are the 10 things you need to do. Everybody wants that. And the heart, the difficult thing about this work is if you’re doing it honestly, it’s emergent, which is a word that complexity scientists love and everybody else hates. Um, but it really is about what emerges out of the system. And so how do you support the system to let things emerge as opposed to quashing them down? So there is an element of coming in and doing some diagnoses, but the diagnoses tend to be pretty similar, which is people aren’t talking , um , status gets in the way. Um, somebody of higher status is in the room. Other people stay quiet or they have to listen to the higher status person’s idea. Um, people think that that’s not what we’re here to do or it’s not for me to do. They just wait to be told , um, questions aren’t asked. So these are all elements that get in the way of this kind of work being allowed to happen.There’s this wonderful study I just saw. They connected , um, sensors to Wolf packs and track them over the course of a season. Then they plotted the different Wolf packs on a map and they gave each pack of color. And so I think it’s like white, yellow, purple, green, whatever. And the map is amazing because the Wolf packs never cross into one another’s territory. You would think humans had drawn boundaries and that they stayed within those boundaries for that reason, they don’t do it. And so this idea of territorialism of status, it actually stops us from cross pollinating . It stops us from talking to each other. And that is usually one of the biggest issues when it comes to any organization being more innovative.

Richard Miles: 12:13

So you’re not working with just any organizations, you know, you have an impressive client list including Airbnb, Google, Sonos and the U.S. Army. Do they come to you, Jonah when they are in crisis or did they come to you when you know they’re getting ready to launch an initiative? They want to move to the next stage? They want to be prepared or is it a mix of both?

Judah Pollack: 12:34

Um, some people come to me in crisis, but it’s not usually for the innovation work that usually has some, it’s something else is going on and it’s more uh , teamwork, facilitation, leadership stuff. When they come from the innovation, it’s more because they’re looking ahead into the future and they’re sensing that like we’re not really coming up with the new ideas, especially if you work on the West coast where I live a good amount and there’s this huge pressure to innovate all the time, which is a little absurd. But that’s a story for another time because nobody can do it all the time. But they’ll come in and they’ll have the sense of like, especially if they’re growing or if they’re, they’re sort of, they feel older and stagnant and like, what can we do? What can we do to shift this up? And what’s interesting about this work is that very often the, what can we do is not complicated. We, we kinda know the things that help make things more innovative. It’s understanding the nature of the culture you’re walking into in that company and what are the elements of that culture that are stopping you from doing those things? That’s where the rubber meets the road and doing this work.

Richard Miles: 13:38

So, so how does one, get to become a creativity expert. Sounds like a great gig. A lot of fun. I mean, what at what point in your life do you say this is my calling or what?

Judah Pollack: 13:48

I have found that most of the people I talk to in this line of work, not just creativity work, but like the consulting in general. All of us say the same thing and you’re like, I have no idea how I got into this. Yeah . Nobody tells you this is a job. Um, you don’t really know it exists. I really fell into it very randomly. Um, I’ve always been interested in the creative process. Um, what goes on for myself when I’m being creative, what seems to go on for others and some of the myths around creativity. Um, like if you want to be a writer, you need to be an alcoholic or you know, if you want to be an artist, whatever that huge word means to people. Um , you have to be somewhat crazy or selfish or have a temper or narcissistic or if you want to be an innovator, you have to be slightly weird or awkward or adversarial or, so we have all of these myths built up around what it means to be creative in these ways. And I just started getting interested in how is it possible to do it and still be a healthy human being. Is that possible? And then when I stumbled upon some of the brain research, I was like, Oh well, well hang on, we know what the mechanisms are. We can just kind of mirror those so that that’s, it just sort of fell from there.

Richard Miles: 14:56

So what were you like as a kid Judah? I mean, did , were you drawn to a particular subject? Were you good at school? Did your teachers love you? You know , uh , I mean, give us the whole package here.

Judah Pollack: 15:08

I was a weird kid. I’ll be honest with you. My four older brothers , super sociable. My father is always like, you take care of your , your younger brother. So my brother, the super sociable, older brother would have to take me with him and I was just quiet and odd and socially awkward and I like go into the corner and like play with something and just kinda be curious how it worked or what it was doing or, or why things came together the way they did. I studied a lot of stuff. I observed a lot. My teachers liked me, but they didn’t necessarily understand me. Um, so people would very often try and give me direction that I didn’t necessarily ask for. I knew I was kind of lost. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself, but they didn’t bother me. And so I think when I, so I think when I came upon this research that said, like, the way to be innovative is to let yourself be a little bit lost for awhile . I was like, that’s right.

Richard Miles: 15:56

I can do that.

Judah Pollack: 15:57

I love this, this is perfect.

Richard Miles: 15:58

Yeah. Um, so , Judah, I know your , your dad was a defense attorney. What did your mom do? Uh , my mom took care of us in the early years and then she did a lot of volunteer work. She took a whole lot of classes at the new school for social, social research in New York around everything and everything, which is where he grew up in New York, in New York, Manhattan?

Judah Pollack: 16:16

In Manhattan. Okay. And so she would take these classes and then come home and tell us all about this. So it kind of kept it, kept the whole dinner table lively in terms of that. And then she also would volunteer a lot. So working at soup kitchens and teaching , um, Chinese immigrant women how to read and doing all kinds of things like that.

Richard Miles: 16:32

So Judah, let’s come back to your , uh , some of your, your work that you do with clients , um , and without asking you to violate any nondisclosure agreements or, you know, face possible lawsuits right after this podcast, you know, what, what client would you say has experienced the biggest breakthrough on the innovation side? I’m not, not, you know the crisis. And then what is sort of been your most interesting naughtiest client? Interesting. Read, nutty client or story.

Judah Pollack: 17:00

Um , so I’ll start with most interesting. This was a really fascinating thing that happened. I think , um, I think I was about a year and a half ago, so I was working with the army. I was working with a PSI ops group, which is psychological operations. And we were talking about shadow. And shadow is a psychological concept about the part of ourselves that we just don’t notice or pay attention to or think about or see. Um, it’s the part of us that comes out when we get really angry and then like two hours later we’re like, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. That’s the part of you that’s shadow. And I just, it was sort of an offhanded comment about how nations can have a shadow too . And so we got into a very long discussion about what the shadow of Russia and Iran might be. And in order to do that we had to look at first their conscious selves . How do they see themselves? What’s, what’s good? How did , when they, when they feel good about themselves and feel like they’re being misunderstood as nations, what do they look at and talked about, you know, Iran’s ancient history and all their inventiveness and their poetry and their architecture and their sort of passion for luxury and beauty in life. And then we said, okay, so that’s how they see themselves and. Now let’s talk about what’s, what’s the shadow side of that that’s going on right now? What is weld up? And the conversation was just, it was fascinating, but it’s also fascinating watching these PSYOPs soldiers start to really pick up on it and start to realize that if you want to influence another country, you have to actually understand these two sides of the country. And it was very gratifying for me to be like, you know, you need to know this. You’re doing important work. Um, but they were fascinated by it to actually do a sort of a psychological breakdown of an entire country and then how you might communicate to that country based on that. And so when I get to get into, into conversations like that, I find it fascinating and it’s, it’s not doing the actual like innovation work, but it’s using the innovation concepts and putting them into play. Um , and so that, that was, yeah, that was a fascinating experience.

Richard Miles: 19:02

So now that you’ve revealed the secrets of the U.S. army, I think I can hear a black helicopter landing just outside of Heartwood soundstage. So they’ll, I’ll vouch for you Judah .

Judah Pollack: 19:12

They don’t make me sign an NDA. Everyone in Silicon Valley makes you sign an NDA, but the army is like ,

Richard Miles: 19:19

Alright, one final question, Judah , we’ve talked a lot about companies being clients and organizations, but I think everyone would like to know that. I think everyone in theory would like to be more creative and have those creative breakthroughs. I’m sure you get asked this a lot, probably at every cocktail party go to , if somebody wants to have that creative breakthrough, what’s, what’s the advice that you can give them in a couple of minutes?

Judah Pollack: 19:39

Number one, you are creative. No matter what you may have been told, no matter what you may believe, no matter what your experiences may have been, you have the same creative mechanism in your brain as the most creative person you can think of. Everyone is born with it. It’s just a question of building up the muscle. So the second piece is allowing yourself to build up the muscle, which means allowing yourself to be ridiculous sometimes not in public. You don’t have to get drunk and get up on the table and dance, but allow yourself to draw your idea. Most innovators I talked to draw a lot. They don’t draw well. This isn’t stuff they’re showing anybody not going to a gallery or museum, but by drawing, they actually access a different part of their brain and force themselves to imagine what they’re trying to do in a different way. And visual thinking is something that’s common across most creative people and innovators. But let yourself do things like that that might seem silly or it might seem ridiculous. Read about things you would never read about. Watch things you would never watch. Open yourself to information you just don’t know a lot about. Study the history of whatever you’re interested in. Talk to people in adjacent fields. Just let this information come in. Get lots of it because that’s what you’re going to need. These are like the Lego pieces that you’re building up in order to build whatever your new concept is and then stop. Let your mind wander. Go for a bike ride, do yoga, take a walk, watch a movie. Whatever it is that you do, let yourself do that and get into this rhythm of taking in this information. Very consciously writing it down, organizing it, and side note writing is really important using your hands as opposed to typing gets into your brain in a different way. So trying to get used to just taking notes if you can. So take those notes but then have the discipline to back off. Have the discipline to chill out, have the discipline to let your mind wander. That is actually the key component that gets lost in our go, go, go, do, do, do world.

Richard Miles: 21:36

Great advice Judah. And for listeners who are trying to write all that down, you don’t have to because you can buy Judah’s book, “The Net and the Butterfly” available, I’m sure everywhere, right?

Judah Pollack: 21:46

Everywhere.

Richard Miles: 21:46

Everywhere. Amazon, your local bookstore, et cetera, et cetera. Judah , great to have you on the show. Um , good luck with the book and um , hopefully we can have you back one day.

Judah Pollack: 21:55

I would love to you , thank you so much.

Richard Miles: 21:56

I am Richard Miles.

Outro: 22:00

Radio Cade would like to thank the following people for their help and support. Liz Gist of the Cade Museum for coordinating inventor interviews. Bob McPeak of Heartwood Soundstage in downtown Gainesville, Florida for recording, editing, and production of the podcast and music theme. Tracy Collins for the composition and performance of the Radio Cade theme song featuring violinists Jacob Lawson and special thanks to the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida.