Embedded - 308: More Energy

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

Jacob Martinez (@jacobotech) spoke with Elecia about DigitalNEST (@DigiNEST), a non-profit devoted to giving high school and college age students access to technology, job training, and career development. DigialNEST is based in the agricultural communities of Salinas and Watsonville, CA. Students who work through the course tracks at DigitalNEST can be invited to join the BizzNEST consulting group. The conference we spoke of was NEST Flight (nestflight.org), held in September in Watsonville. DigitalNEST is a non-profit and is accepting individual and corporate donations: digitalnest.org/donate/.

Welcome to Embedded. I am Alicia White. I'm on my own today, but my guest is Jacob Martinez, and we're going to talk about young adults and technology. Thank you for being with me. Yeah, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Could you tell us about yourself? Santa Cruz region because I went to UC Santa Cruz and have decided to plant my roots in

Watsonville, to be specific, and raise my family. And I've been now in Watsonville longer than anywhere in my life. And we're going to talk about the company you are CEO and founder of. Correct. Digital Nest. Could you give us a brief overview of what that is? Yeah, so Digital Nest is really, it's a few things. It's a space, an innovative, creative space where young people ages 14 to 24 can show up Monday through Friday and get access

to a safe, creative, exciting environment and get access to technology. So get laptops and get on our internet and just use the internet and use tools that they normally wouldn't be able to afford. But then we layer on training and education to get them prepared for jobs, and in particular local jobs because there's a lot of big companies in our region and we want to get those companies to hire locally and hire our young people. jobs, and in particular, local jobs, because there's a lot of big companies in our region, and we want to get those companies to hire locally and hire our young people. And then secondarily, Silicon Valley. Can we get our young people hired in Silicon Valley and tap into that wealth that's just about an hour north of here?

So we're a workforce development center. Our first one's in Watsonville. And then in 2017, we expanded to Salinas. Okay. Now, usually we do this thing called lightning round where we ask you short work, this whole we versus us. I'm so used to having Christopher with me, but, uh, where I ask you short questions and I, I want short answers. And if I'm behaving myself, I won't ask how and why. Okay. Okay, so you're ready? Yes. And when someone finds out what you do, what question do they first ask you?

What is it? Digital nest. Is it a tech center? Is it a computer lab? Is it a youth center? And I always got to explain it's a workforce development center. Which Sesame Street character best represents you? Oh, wow.

We didn't say these questions would be easy. I would say Cookie Monster. And I have a big sweet tooth. And so my staff always gets me chocolate and sweets to make sure I'm happy. Hacking, making, tinkering, engineering, or programming? Tinkering. Do you have a preferred way to learn new technical or difficult-to-learn things? For example, reading videos, trying it out without reading the docs.

I'm a hands-on person. You know, I've always just kind of jumped into it and start tinkering and seeing how I could figure things out. Last one. Do you have a tip everyone should know? A tip? Take the long way home. And I say that because sometimes you're stressful, you've been at work all day, you've been stressed and you go home and you have all the challenges

at our home and all the energy that, especially if you're a parent, that comes your way because they want attention. So it's nice to take the long way home sometime and just enjoy being by yourself. Cool. So back to Digital Nest. Workforce Development Center. Where did that phrase come from? It's a pretty common phrase in the industry. There's a lot of workforce development centers.

People think like Goodwill is a workforce development center. The people that they employ are people that are training, that need skills. So we're a workforce development center, but really focused on the technology and high-paying career track jobs. And you do this in Watsonville, which is known to be a farming community primarily. But you said that there are local jobs available. There are. What kind of things are there? It is predominantly a farm worker community.

It's 70% Latino, a lot of farm workering. But there's some major corporate headquarters, some big national corporations. Driscoll's, the largest berry company in the world, is based out of Watsonville. You have Martinalli's, the cider company. You have West Marine, which is like boating. It's kind of like the REI for boating, but the corporate headquarters is of Watsonville. You have Martin Alley's, the cider company. You have West Marine, which is like boating. It's kind of like the REI for boating, but the corporate headquarters is in Watsonville. There's Granite Construction, Orion Telescopes.

So there's all these big companies that are in Watsonville, but they're just not hiring our local young people into other jobs. Why not? I don't know. You know, it's funny because I, when I launched this thing and I started talking to people from those companies and they would say,

Oh, you know, we, we, we recruit from Cal Poly or UC Davis. This is mostly the ag, the agriculture industry. They recruit from those different universities.

And so what, you know, why don't you hire locally? And they're like, Oh, the skills that we're looking for, you know, the youth don't have. So we recruit from universities and we bring people in. And so what, you know, why don't you hire locally? And they're like, oh, the skills that we're looking for, you know, the youth don't have. So we recruit from universities and we bring people in. And so I'm not sure. I think one of the things

that we've been really successful about with is showing these companies that talent that exists, right, in their own community. And what kind of talent are we talking about? I mean, I'm an engineer. I think about programming. I think about hardware, sometimes about manufacturing. But those are hard for a high school student to get. Yeah, yeah. What kind of skills? Yeah, so we work with high school to 24-year-olds.

So we actually do have a lot of college students that are in community college or at the local universities. Or even we have a lot that are graduates and coming back to Watsonville and looking for opportunities. So in terms of the talent, there's a wide variety of skills. And when we talk to employers, it's funny because they often say, you know, the technology skills. And when we talk to employers, it's funny because they often say, the technology skills, technology is always going to be changing and we know we're always going to be training our workforce. So that's not necessarily what they're looking for. They're looking for young people who understand how to work together and understand how to work as a team, know how to manage themselves and the projects and task manage and delegate and speak up in meetings and walk around with confidence and you know and so that's a lot of what we do at the nest is

everything we do teach your coding your java web design we teach videography teach a lot of the technical things but embedded in everything are all these what people usually call soft skills we call them essential skills and these are the things we embed in everything we teach so that when you hire a digital nest youth, yeah, they're coming with some technical skills, but really you're getting somebody who really understands how to work in an environment and be productive and contribute. And these are all skills that are not being taught in schools.

Yeah, I went to your digital flight conference and was a mentor for a lunch. And it seemed like the people I spoke to, the youth, the kids, the travelers, that's what you called them. They were from Cal State, Monterey Bay. Yeah. And there were others that were in college already, which I didn't quite understand digital since I thought it was all high school. How do you end up going beyond what they're getting in college?

And how do you keep them engaged? Because I remember college as not being that easy. Right. Right. Right. So, you know, we work with a lot of universities and the youth that go to the schools. And, you know, they're going to class every day. They're sitting there and listening to the lectures and getting the knowledge and the skills. But what we're finding is that they're coming out of college and not having the social capital or the network. And a perfect example of this is I had a young woman who graduated from the University of Oklahoma,

moved back to Watsonville, and she was working at the local yogurt spot. And then she came into Digital Nest because somebody told her about us. And I was like, hey, what are you doing? What type of jobs do you have? She's like, oh, I work at this yogurt place. But she's got a degree in graphic design. And I said, why aren't you working in the industry? She's like, well, I don't know anybody. She's a child of farm workers.

She goes off to college. Kids are told, do well in school so you can go to college. Do well in college so you can get a job. But what you're finding is that kids coming out of college and they can't find a job because they don't have the social capital or the social network to help land a job. So that's what we see a lot of college students coming to the digital nest for,

is that connection to professionals like yourself. Because a lot of our youth, our children are farm workers or children of people working labor jobs and they don't have that network to help their children get a job. At this mentoring lunch I was at, one of the travelers at my table was very well connected in Silicon Valley. His mom was a director of HR at Facebook, and he had uncles at Apple.

And I was like, you are not the target audience here. But the other student really didn't know a lot of people. And it was interesting how that decreases your opportunities just by knowing what's out there and what's possible and who to ask. Yeah, just your confidence. I mean, that's the biggest thing. But yeah, so with the digital nest we the only thing that we look at is age so as long as you're between the age of 14 and 24 then you come into the nest we don't look at demographics we don't look at income we don't look at anything because i was actually trained as a biologist i did my undergrad in biology and uh i don't remember you can't i can't tell you how the makeup of a cell anymore i just completely forgot it's been so long but the one thing i remember is my ecology course

and the professor talking about strong ecosystems are the ones that have the most biodiversity right and that for me is always like stuck in that's the one thing i remember from college it's always stuck with me and so when i launched the digital nest and we started thinking about like what type of students do we want? Who's this going to be accessible to? We said, oh, we're going to look at the age. Because we really believe that you get this kid, like, you get these two kids like you just mentioned.

You have one kid that has really connected and has all these connections and confidence. You have this other kid who doesn't, but has other strengths and skills. Bringing those two people together, you could create some amazing things. Exactly. I felt like for this mentoring lunch, I was of less use to them than they were to each other, which was fine. Great. Here, talk to each other. That's great. You'll need each other pretty much for the rest of your careers because it's a really small world. That's right. How did you get into this? You didn't go from biology to Digital Nest.

No. So I went to UC Santa Cruz. I got a degree in biology, and I was engaged at the time with my wife now. And we were graduating, and I wasn't bringing in any money. We were about to get married, and she was working at the local newspaper and writing. And so I just started asking around, hey, on campus, anybody looking for – I need a job. I need some part-time work. And there was a diversity program up there trying to get more students of color into sciences.

And they were looking for an admin assistant. And so I applied, and I got the job. And I found myself at the front desk working with a lot of students coming in needing help. And they were maybe the first person in their family to go to college or they were from low-income communities or families or don't know anything about the sciences. So I was helping them get into labs and get into classes and counseling. I was a college counselor, became a college counselor for a lot of these kids. And then I just, I loved it. I loved helping people.

I loved, you know, I was successful in the sciences. I could share my experience and give them tips and introduce them to people. And I fell in love with that work. And so I went from there to working for the MESA program, which was doing outreach in schools in the sciences. And then I got hired by a nonprofit to run a women in technology, a girls in technology program. We called it the Girl Game Company. I was with them for eight years.

And then I had this idea of launching the Digital Nest. So prior to Digital Nest, I have about 11 years of doing work in STEM education. And outreach. And outreach, yeah. And so how much does it cost for the students to join Digital Nest? Absolutely free. Everything we do is free. How is that possible? We have lots of donors, lots of supporters.

When I launched the Digital Nest, from the get get-go even in my first business plan I talked about giving the youth the best let's give them new computers let's give them new furniture let's give them a creative environment let's like these kids if we get what would happen if we gave these tools that gave the kids the best tools possible and What could they create? What could happen? And so we did that from the get-go. And when I launched Digital Nest, I kind of went public to the community and I said, I'm trying to do this thing and here's my values and here's what I want to create and here's how much it's going to cost. I need your help. And the entire community kind of stepped up and gave what they could. But it was the Watsonville community that stepped up up and gave what they could.

But it was the Watsonville community that stepped up, not the Silicon Valley community. Right. I would say it was the Santa Cruz County community, because really most of our supporters came from Santa Cruz. Yeah. They saw the work that we were doing in Watsonville. And we have a lot of support in Watsonville, too. But really, it was the Santa Cruz community that made this possible. But I was surprised how you weren't sponsored by all of the big names.

Because when I go to women in tech conferences, certainly they are spreading plenty of advertising money there. Yeah. But you don't, do you go after that? How do you get money? Yeah, so I do lots of fundraising. So we're about 60% individual donors. So we have individuals that, right now we're running our end of the year campaign.

And so you can find us and you could donate today. We need your help, right? But in terms of Silicon Valley, from the early, when we launched and we started doing the outreach to Silicon Valley, they said we were too far. And they're like, Watsonville? Where's Watsonville? And it's like, if you say Santa Cruz, they're like, oh, yeah, we know Santa Cruz, Monterey.

Yeah, we know Monterey because of the aquarium. But if you say Watsonville, they're like, where's that? And so we weren't even within their bubble of funding opportunities. And even to this day, Google.org just launched this big campaign for they're giving over $2 million to nonprofits, and this is competition, and you have to be in one of the counties in the Bay Area. So that's Santa Clara County, San Benito County, all these counties,

but Santa Cruz County is not included. So we're not eligible, even though every day there's Google buses, but Santa Cruz County is not included. So we're not eligible, even though every day there's Google buses leaving downtown Santa Cruz to go to Google. And so the Silicon Valley bubble really kind of Watsonville's outside their bubble. And so we don't, people think we're flush with cash

from Silicon Valley, and we're not. We're starting to get some funding, but really it's been mostly individuals and foundations. And so you are definitely a nonprofit. Yes. Was there a time when you thought you wanted to do something like this, but make it paid for by students and parents, or was it always supposed to be a nonprofit? Yeah, no. So it was always supposed to be a nonprofit, but our original plan was to charge

students. So we paid to get access to the space. If you were taking classes, you could earn credits to come in for free. But when we launched, we didn't have the infrastructure or the system to track that. So we just let her be in for free. And we just thought, can we continue to get support from individuals? And we do. So we haven't had to go to that cost, the charge people yet. So yeah, it's been free since day one. I know some of our listeners do things not similar in their communities, but sort of. They have hack spaces or give classes, and they do it through a nonprofit.

But it's usually a self-funded nonprofit, where the nonprofit is an aspect of sort of organizing things. Do you have advice for these types of small organizations and how they can go about getting community support? It's a lot of work. It's a lot of hours. A $5 donor is just as important to me as a $100,000 donor. People give what they can. And for some people giving $5, we have a couple of youth that had given us $5 and they were so proud to give us $5. And you knew that was a stretch for them and their families.

So they're just as important to me as a $100,000 donor. So it takes a lot of time to really do the cultivation of these donors and make sure they're still engaged and you're doing a good job communicating with them. So I don't do it alone. I have a great team of people beside me. So in terms of advice, it's like be ready because it's a lot of work. First thing, you should always invest in his programs. And the second thing, you should invest in his development and support to help you raise money, fundraising.

So that's my advice is get people to help you and kind of just get permission from your family to put in the hours because it's a lot of hours. It's hard as an engineer and as most of the people i know are engineers and we tend not to ask for money well do you have any particular advice for finding someone who asks for money well yeah so i've become that i've learned how to ask people for money um but early on i wasn't you know i wasn't comfortable with it. Before Digital Nest, all my work that I was doing for eight years for this other nonprofit was all funded by the National Science Foundation. So I had big half a million to million dollar grants behind me. So I never had to ask anybody for money.

I just never did. And so when I launched this, one of my first people who I met with was Nina Simon. At the time, she was the CEO of the Museum of Art and History, the MA in Santa Cruz. And she's like, hey, have you ever asked anybody for money before? I said, no. And she said, well, why don't you come meet with me and my husband, and you can practice with us? So I went up to her house and we had a beer and I gave my pitch and she told me how it coached me. And ever since then, I've just been pitching and learning and getting better. But yeah, it's hard. It's hard to ask people for

money. But I'm not asking for money for myself. I'm asking money for the youth. And I tell all my program staff, like, my job is to get all the resources that you all need to train the youth. And so when I go into and I approach somebody and ask for money, I really reflect and think about the youth that will be impacted by this. And that makes it okay to ask for money. Yes, asking for other people is so much easier than asking for yourself. Absolutely.

Particularly other people you care so much about. Yeah. And one of the things with giving money, efficacy comes into it. How do you measure if Digital Nest is doing its job? Our best measure is, and our biggest indicator of success, is youth getting jobs. I mean, that's really, that's the end goal for us, is youth getting good paying jobs. And so we track a lot of, we track all of our youth that come through and land jobs. And we do a lot of questions with them around, like, what's the economic impact of you getting this better-paying job? And for the youth that we've done this questioning with,

we've seen an increase of $23,000 a year in their annual income. So prior to Digital NASA, youth coming in, especially the older ones like the college or college graduates, have a job. And when they come out of the NASA, they're earning about $23,000 more. And that's significant, right? Especially in a community like Watsonville, especially in a low-income family. They're almost – $23,000 is actually the year's salary of a farm worker. So they're bringing in – on top of what they're already making, they're bringing in another income of their parents, another whole income.

It's like they married themselves. It's like they married themselves, exactly. And so in terms of breaking the cycle of poverty for families and really shifting a family economically, that's what we're that's that's our goal okay so how do you get them interested in coming to you yeah so we've been pretty fortunate we haven't had to do any real recruitment so we have over 2300 members across both sites and we've only been around for five years well we're celebrating five years this november Congratulations. Next month, yeah. That's awesome. So we've actually haven't had to do much recruiting because the space. So what I did is,

I talked about all the work I did before Digital Nest. For years, I've been taking kids to Google and Facebook and Apple and all these field trips. And the kids are always so excited to be there. And so I said, what if we took those same design principles of like this really innovative, creative space with lights and music and cool furniture and free food and bring that and

apply it to youth technology centers? So that's what the digital nest looks like. You walk into the digital nest and there's music and there's lights and there's cool furniture and there's free food. And every Wednesday, we have a chef there making free meals. And it's just that's exciting place and so in terms of recruiting and getting youth to show up the space kind of does it for us right because kids in like you go to like Watsonville's farm worker community farm worker community who would have thought who would who would ever imagine there's going to be this

innovative tech space right in downtown Watsonville and so youth are just they see it and they get excited they bring their friends it's a safe space you know we Watsonville. And so youth are just, they see it and they get excited. They bring their friends. It's a safe space. You know, we're very inclusive of everybody. So it does the recruiting for us. And how do you overcome the economic disparities in teaching tech? I mean, it's fine to give them access to computers and internet, but then they go home. How do you, how do you make it a lasting effect? Yeah. So we, there's a couple of things. So we, if you're an active member and you're taking our courses,

you can actually check out our technology for up to a week. So, and all of our computers have the Adobe creative suite and you know, there's, you could, we have headsets from Plantronics, and we've got keyboards from Logic. We've got all kinds of gadgets and cameras and all that stuff. So you could check all that stuff out of the library, I mean, out of the Nest. And then the second thing is, right, the Internet access is a challenge, right,

because not everybody can afford it. The school district's pretty strong in that they have, like, around any school, you can kind of tap into the school's network. So youth know that. We have our space open Monday through Friday, so they can always come and use our internet. And then about a year and a half ago, in partnership with Cruise.io in the city, we launched free Wi-Fi in the plaza. So any community member could go into the plaza in Watsonville and get access to the internet, high-speed internet. So we do a lot within the walls of the digital dance, but we also do a lot in the community around

how do we continue to remove more barriers from youth getting access. Here's a sort of question that goes the other way. Why do some people drift away? Who doesn't make it at Digital Nest? We see a few things. We ask students why they don't walk into Digital Nest, and a lot of our youth are intimidated because they see it as a tech center. And a lot of our kids don't have internet at home, don't have a good computer at home, have very low tech skills.

And so they're intimidated. Even people in tech feel intimidated. I mean, everybody feels like they're not good enough. And so I don't belong there until I know how to program or until I already have a computer, all these things. Right. So that's a major barrier, just getting kids to walk into the door. And then in terms of retaining them and keeping them within the nest and involved in our programming, our youth have a lot of challenges.

In the summers, we almost can't have programs because our youth have to work. And so it's amazing just to see how many of our youth leave to go work kind of in the hospitality industry, the tourist industry in Santa Cruz. Or a lot of our youth go work in the fields. And their families kind of depend on their kids for the summer income. And so we lose a lot of kids in the summer. So it's tough. You're working with this kid throughout the year and they're building their skills.

And then their mom or dad's like, hey, we need you to help the family and bring in some money. And so we lose a lot of our kids because of the pressures at home. It's a different world than most tech people think about. We spoke with Loretta Cheeks of Strong Ties not too long ago, and she focuses on outreach in STEM, but on specific events. She has some programs where some young women travel with her,

or she does larger events where she uses hip-hop to describe audio waves, and they build creative things on that. Oh, cool. You have a site, a location that people come to, and these are such different approaches. Yeah. They both have value, but why is the site important to you? Yeah, so before Digital Nest or the other work,

we were doing after-school programming. And so youth outside of our program didn't have a site, didn't have a space to go to, right? And so I was always thinking, like, wow, these kids are brilliant. They want to do more. But the school's closing. I got to go home. The kids got to go home.

So I was always thinking about that. And then the event that really triggered this whole idea was in October 2013, so six years ago, I was walking downtown Watsonville in the farmer's market. And it was a cold evening. It was like 6 or 7 in the evening. So the sun was already going down. And I saw a young woman sitting outside of a building. And being that I was in tech education, I went up to her.

And I was like, hey, what are you? I'm in tech ed. And I'm just curious about what you're doing here. Because I could tell she was cold. She's like, oh, I'm a college student. I'm doing a research paper. I'm like, yeah, but I'm just curious about what you're doing here. Because I could tell she was cold. She's like, oh, I'm a college student. I'm doing a research paper. I'm like, yeah, but what are you doing sitting outside? And she's like, well, I don't have internet at home.

I can't afford to go to Starbucks and use their internet. The library is closed. So I'm sitting here tapping into this building, the Wi-Fi from a building. And I remember going home that night and telling my wife, just completely upset, of like, why am I doing all this work and nothing's changed? It's like, kids still don't have access.

And that was really like, kind of bubbling inside me. And then a week later, I was having lunch with a buddy, or coffee with a buddy of mine, Jeremy Neuner, the founder of NextSpace in Santa Cruz, which is a coworking space. And I said, Jeremy, I was telling him the story about this young woman. And of mine, Jeremy Neuner, the founder of NextSpace in Santa Cruz, which is a co-working space.

And I said, Jeremy, I was telling him the story about this young woman. And I said, Jeremy, wouldn't it be cool if there's a co-working space for youth? And that's how it started. It started like, can I create a NextSpace for youth but make it free? And that was the beginning of the idea of the space, of like, let's just get someplace that if a kid came out of school one day and they still wanted to be engaged and learn, there was a place for them to go. You are located in a set of buildings that also belongs to a community college. Is that, which came first?

We were actually in a smaller location outside of, like on the outskirts of Watsonville, like on the edge of Watsonville. And then when we were looking for a permanent spot, Cabrillo College, the community college, approached us and said, Hey, we have this annex extension campus in downtown Watsonville. We would love to have digital nets on our campus. And so we went out to the campus back in 2016, 15. And that puts you next to the plaza and right downtown. Right in the heart of the community, yeah. With the conference you put on recently, you were in buildings all over the community. The Veterans Center.

I just remember there was a lot of walking. Yeah. Does Watsonville as a whole support you that much? Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of pull in the community now. People see Digital NAS as a place that's training up youth and keeping kids safe and giving them skills that get them to compete for jobs. And then the city's looking at us as a, in order to build any community economically

and attract new businesses, you've got to have a workforce. And so we're actually part of the narrative that the city's using to attract businesses, right, companies and saying, you all want to be a place where there's a strong workforce. Well, Digital Nest is building that workforce. Like you all want to be a place where there's a strong workforce. Well, Digital Nest is building that workforce. You want to be here. So we get a lot of support from the community. We're now one of the biggest employers in downtown Watsonville. And we're a nonprofit. We're bringing a lot of revenue into the community. We're putting it back

into the pockets of kids. And we're building this talent there. So they're spending locally. Hopefully, they're going to get jobs locally, buy homes in their community. This is all an economic development engine that the community really believes in and is supporting. You hire a lot. I mean, you mentioned your development team, and I assume your programming, the people who put together your content get paid, but your students get paid too? We have a program called BizNest, and BizNest is our top level of training. So the youth that go through our programming, they can apply to get into BizNest, and BizNest is our consultancy. So we do work for paid clients. So we do web design, graphic design, and videography. And with some of our clients, we've done some work for American Express. We've done some work

for Facebook. We've done some work for the university, the city of Salinas. So a lot of small nonprofits and businesses. So youth actually come on. They apply. They get into BizNest. We always have around 12 to 15 at any given time. The idea is that they're working with us, get on-the-job work experience. They're building their portfolio, building their network, building their skills. And then those youth are the ones that we place into jobs.

Some of your programming, though. You have classes in acting and podcasting? Yes. Tell me about your podcasting class. Yeah, so we teach audio. We do a lot of film work, and we do a lot of stuff with audio, music recording, podcasting, digital media. Podcasting is the new way people get information and share stories. So we do a lot with that and hopefully leading youth into jobs around audio engineering or starting their own businesses or working for marketing or working for companies around media production.

But these same students probably also take a class or two in programming, game development, or system administration. Yeah, so we have three career pathways. One is web and IT, so it's all the coding, web design, Python, Java, all the CS, computer science stuff. And then the second is digital arts and IT, so it's all the coding, web design, Python, Java, all the CS, computer science stuff. And then the second is digital arts and technology, which is graphic design, videography, and music production. And then the third is what we call people, and that's project management, marketing, and communications. And so the youth choose to go into one of those three pathways, and then they take courses in those pathways.

So the courses are important. But going back to how you started this, do you think it could just be the site? That was the original idea. The original idea was let's open up space, give them tools, and they'll be sitting next to each other. And they'll be like, oh, you're a web designer. Oh, I'm a graphic designer. Let's work together.

But it didn't really work that way. The youth, earlier we talked about just their confidence being low, their technical skills being low. They needed a lot more shepherding, a lot more guidance around it. We have a couple of youth that start businesses together and stuff, but where the youth are starting in terms of their skills, they need a lot of work. They need a lot of coaching.

If you could tell yourself something now that you've learned over the last five years since you started this what do you wish you knew then that you know now wow um i think i wish i would have been uh i've learned how to be really good with money and finances but i always tell people if people tell me that ask me that question like what would you differently if you could? Well, I probably would have majored in business. Like I'm running a business, you know, I'm running a big business. I have lots of employees.

I have to deal with HR stuff. I got to deal with finances. I got to deal with insurance and all these different things, right? Like you think like you're doing a nonprofit and it's different, like you. Like the, you don't need business skills, but it's, I'm running a big business and I have a budget and revenue and expenses and I gotta manage all that. So like I would have wished I would have started a, you know, been a business major. And then I wish I would have had a co-founder, you know I get,

since I'm the founder, I get lots of requests to speak and go to events. Podcast. Podcast, and yeah. And it would be nice to say, all right, now why don't you take these, and I'll split up the work a little bit. But people want to hear from the founder. What do you think it will be like in another five years?

We're working towards that. We are working on opening up more centers in the next cup by 2021. And so this past December, we got accepted into the first venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Him and Robin Richards and Robert Kaplan started a foundation where they take early ventures, social ventures, social nonprofits, and take them to scale. So people have often heard of Kiva as a big one. Landit's a big one in San Francisco County. They do housing for teachers. Vote.org is a bunch of nonprofits. In fact, they get about 800 applicants a year and they accept 15. So in December, we were accepted.

And so we are working with them on figuring out what the scale look like for Digital Nest. And so in five years, we hope to have at least five centers that circle Silicon Valley in communities that are 50 to 100 miles outside of Silicon Valley and starting to put pressure on Silicon Valley to invest regionally and invest in communities that are right outside of their headquarters and start hiring from those

regions. You know, if you hear Silicon Valley say, the pipeline is broken, we need, there's a million, gonna be a million unfilled jobs and we can't find diversity and we don't know where the talent is. We have to look abroad, right? No, I think you have to look outside of your bubble. And I think there's communities all around Silicon Valley

that have brilliant, talented, diverse people that could be employed if you invest in them and are anchored to our community. So they can stay and live in the communities that they were born and raised in. They can afford to live there and buy homes. And we can really make this region thrive by the people who are from this region. That is awesome. And I'm glad you're focusing on this region because it's a region I care about too. But this model seems like it could work in many other places. Yeah.

Are people asking, are people asking you, okay, how do I do this in my community? Yeah. So on Thursday, I was talking to a woman in Dallas, Fort Worth, who's,

I'm kind of advising her a little bit. She wants to do something like this in Dallas. I've been asked to go to Hawaii. I've been asked to go to Iowa. I've been asked to go, Hawaii. I've been asked to go to Iowa. I've been asked to go to Arizona. So I think when I first started this, I said, we want to be in every forgotten community between Los Angeles and San Jose. And that was my vision with SectraVet.

That seemed like a huge vision then. Yeah, yeah. But then the more you think about it, this could be in every forgotten community across this country. There are a lot of communities that don't get the investment, don't get the resources that urban centers do. And there's a lot of young people in those regions, in those communities. And the young people will leave if they don't get a way to stay.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So I think for now we're focusing on the Bay Area and surrounding Silicon Valley, but I think we could surround Los Angeles. I think we could surround Sacramento. I think we could surround Phoenix and Boulder and Dallas and Atlanta.

I think this is a model that could replicate across this country. So when does your book come out? In your copious free time. Yeah, when I retire. But yeah, so we're excited. I think we've seen this model work in Watsonville and Salinas. We're going to expand it a little bit further in the Bay Area and start challenging the Silicon Valley to start hiring.

And I think once we open up more centers, we're going to have real influence on them. I think they're going to be surrounded by digital nests. So they're going to be forced to listen to us. This is a question that is kind of awkward, but I like to ask it. Anybody who is passionate about this as you are, why is diversity important? It goes back to biology. I think it really does.

You hear it in business and people say, yeah, diverse teams are stronger teams and better, more creative. And I think it's true. And if you look at biology, the one thing I remember of biology was, yeah, the stronger ecosystems are the ones with the most biodiversity. And it makes complete sense. The most energy-producing environments are those with you know in the tropics and the jungles you know there's so much diversity there you know and so i think it's a we're biological we're animals you know and i think the same thing works when you're working with people in a team like the more creative people the more different experiences and

different perspectives you bring into one room the more energy and the stronger the product you know and so i think it exists in biology it exists in the corporate room it exists in communities perspectives you bring into one room, the more energy and the stronger the product, you know? And so I think it exists in biology, it exists in the corporate room, it exists in communities, and it's something that makes business sense. Do you have any advice for people wanting to get involved with STEM outreach in their areas? Yeah, there's, I mean, I would say look in communities that often don't get looked at. There's a lot of people who want to start things in Oakland, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Boulder, D.C. Those are urban centers.

And yes, there's needs there, absolutely. But then there's also usually a lot of programs and usually a lot of organizations doing work in those communities. So those communities get saturated a bit. I would encourage people to look in, like I say, those forgotten communities. There's plenty of communities around that don't have the resources, don't have the programs, don't have the energy and the money going into them. And there's some brilliant young people in those communities that just need opportunity and need given a chance. If you were in high school,

which classes at Digital Nest would you take? Wow. If I would probably, I'd probably be into the, I think the podcasting. I actually like talking. I've actually tried a podcast. I had it going for a while. It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work. It's a lot more work than you think. It's just the quality. It's tough. So I think the podcasting. And then I like all the – I actually do like the creative web design, front-end stuff, design, marketing stuff. Given what you said about wishing that you knew more about business when you started, have you considered offering business classes? No, I do a lot of talks but yeah i mean maybe one day yeah i i think it when the day that i retire from the nest i think it'd be cool to work with non-profits and bring innovation to stale stagnant non-profits

because there's a bit there's a lot of non-profits that have been around for 10, 20, 30, 40 plus years doing the exact same thing they've been doing for years. And I don't know, I think one of my skills is being creative and finding innovative things and ways to solve problems that have been around for a while. And so I would love to just consult and work with nonprofits and help them bring in innovation and creativity into the things they've been doing for years. So kind of like businesses, I guess. Well, I do think you have brought some innovation and creativity into STEM outreach, which is sometimes kind of boring. But the way you're doing it really has made a difference to the community and I think will make a difference to the wider community.

Yeah. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to leave us with? Well, we need support. We're a nonprofit and we put a lot of energy and resources into our young people and we need more people to have our backs and help us. And so there's a lot of ways to do that. You can donate and support us and just go to's a lot of ways to do that. There's, you can donate and support us and just go to digitalness.org to find all that. You can show up and like you did and talk to youth

and spend an afternoon with us and just engage with young people and just say, Hey, I'm here. I'm going to, I have some experience I'm willing to share and some things I've learned over the years and might be helpful to you. So we're always looking for mentors. We're looking for companies to open up their doors and allow us to come in and show youth what jobs look like in their industry. Because our youth, for a lot of them, have never been into a corporate office. So we're looking for that. So I think just my final thought is just we need support.

We value all the people who support us. When I launched Digital Nest, I had this vision of creating the best organization for youth, creating the best organization for boards and people to be on the best board, paying the best place to come work. And I wanted to create the best place for people to get engaged with and donate to. I want that experience to be, it's important to us. We understand this is your hard-earned money you've made with all your own hard work. And so I want that experience of giving to the Nest

to be special for donors as well. Our guest has been Jacob Martinez, founder and CEO of Digital Nest. You can find out more on digitalnest.com or of course you can see the show notes. Thank you for being with me. Thank you. Embedded. Steve explained his vision of an after-school program for high school students, introducing them to tech in a way that has no grading, no endpoint, and is based on student pacing. Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. And of course, thank you for, wait a minute, thank you to Christopher for producing, not co-hosting. And thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show at embedded.fm or hit the contact link on Embedded FM. And now a quote to leave you with. This is from Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is not that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old. They grow old because they stop pursuing dreams. advertisements in the show, we did not put them there and do not receive money from them. At this time, our sponsors are Logical Elegance and listeners like you.