Technology and Education at a Crossroads: Tech Creates Jobs, But Can Education Keep Up? Time to Reform

This is this is straight straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of straight out of Crumpton. I'm Gabby Bar, and I am joined by Mr. Greg Crumpton. Greg, how are you today? Gabby, I am doing great. I have got a I'm I'm looking out in my window and there's like a plethora of activity around the neighborhood, which is not unusual, but this big tree got taken down. I was like, wow. I I really like that tree, but, it's really cool because it's like three feet in diameter. But only about two inches around their outside was alive. The whole inside was rotted. I I don't know how it didn't fall. So I guess we're lucky, but if you hear a two cycle engine running, is the blower or maybe is the stump remover It's another fun morning, but, looking forward to today, the this guest that we have today is a a fellow that I've I've followed for many years. But I haven't been in direct contact with him, but maybe for a year now. So, really gonna be a fun one I think to dive in and and learn something today. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, as Greg said, I am excited to introduce Nabeel Mahmoud. He is the managing director of nomad Futurist. How are you doing today, Navio? Wonderful. And Greg, Gabby, thank you for having me on your platform. Love you to be here? Well, I've I've wanted to do this for a while. And, luckily due to you being busy and us having some some, guest already booked. It took a little bit of time to get here. And then last week, we had to scare, like, I remember like, when Gabby sent a reminder out, you were like, no. Not today. I'm like, no. No. We're good. So glad to glad to get here. As I said, I've I've followed you for a while, you know, through the data center world. And I always wondered, I'm like, who the hell is this guy? I mean, he's everywhere. First of all, he's got a million dollar smile, and he lives in Hawaii I should get to know this guy. So, for a couple of different reasons, but why don't you give us a little bit of a background, a little bio, and and how, you know, what you do and how we became to know each other. I keep saying that wrong. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that probably might be your next tag line, like McConaughey. Alright. Alright. Alright. Well, my name is Nabeel Maemuth. I'm current the Managing Director and CEO for Norman Futress, which is a philanthropy, effort in creating, an educational platform, also demystifying technology for the younger generation and people transition. We are planning on launching an online academy, whereby we want education to be accessible and available particularly in the underserved communities globally, as well as work in launching a scholarship program, internship programs and job placements. There's a lot of good stuff going on with that. I've been in the technology sector, and I define what I really do as a data infrastructure versus a data center in particular because I've had opportunity of touching physically every single element of the computing environment. I was not even supposed to be in the data center or the data center infrastructure business at all. Growing up, I was an athlete, was, going to play professional cricket. But fell off the horseplay swallow broke my l one through l three and had a compound fracture my left leg. So I was told that I could never walk again. And, that, resulted in me in deviating from my, my, my original goals that set forth in my life, and, moved to America and ended up, with my extra word personality and up, joining a couple of lads in Berkeley, who were, back then getting involved in security application, in the late nineties when security wasn't anywhere on the forefront. And I got to touch the security piece, the biometrics retina scanning, you know, started getting involved in ERPMRP systems, on the software end. I was a student of mathematics, and, took a c plus plus class early on in my career. And I'll tell you this, three minutes into it. I'm like, this isn't me. Not doing it. Walk away. And guess where we are at twenty five plus years later. So my initial part of my career, I wasn't doing the software business, but my approach or my You know, job really was the vision and the user experience. And that's the time when you look in the late nineties, as as the dot com was booming or actually developing. There was no user interface. It was simple line of code, put the information out there. It works. Very, very engineering centric as it entails to the flows as well. And I took a little bit more for design approach, whereby how to be enhanced at UX, which is a user experience, the customer experience, lived technology and how to be shared, dissipate information. But things, you know, led into other opportunities. So as to learn programming, you know, stack c plus plus, which I absolutely hated a lot. Got involved in program that dot net, ASP, learned HTML as well. And, then, you know, appointed time came in, in the software business that I felt that it was like working in Hollywood. Very, very cutthroat industry back then. And ended up in getting involved in a project in the UK, and designing, the Forest IDF. For this particular project. Again, in the security biometric space, and then found out that the people at the physical layer were really, really cool. It was like a eternity. Right? Everybody knew everybody. They knew the extended families. And, you know, they hung out together, which resulted me into saying, okay. Well, maybe I should, make a transition. And there's a connecting point there as well, and I ended up into the physical layer of the data center. And, been involved in it since. I mean, I've tried to get out of it a couple of times, not that because of the people, but you know, got into discrete manufacturing for a bit as well, designed their, manufacturing plants, the entire information technology, platform, moved into cloud services. As a matter of fact, built a railroad, I've done quite a lot of interesting things, and I keep coming back to the physical layer. I mean, the people in this phase are so genuine. And just wonderful to be around. Well, I I got stuck in that. I mean, I I've been in the HVAC side of infrastructure forty years. And it's crazy how many people you you still know you know, that you did this crazy job with back in nineteen ninety one. And, you know, you see them once or twice a year, and yet you pick back up just like you've been best buds every day. It's it's the weirdest. It it is a, a sorority fraternity, almost a a bloodline for lack of a butter word. You just have this this this connection with folks. And it's probably from having to put your ass on the line at weird times together, which kinda binds you, and binds you together. So Well, I I was if I had a little bit of Italian, me, I would have been, like, the godfather, love familiar, you know. I hear you. That's what keeps the world going around, man. Yep. Well, you you, you told about falling off the horse playing polo, and and that created a diversion to your cricket career. Neither one of those two things, I I was exposed to growing up in South Georgia. So, that's always fun to hear about different experiences. You know, we mentioned earlier, before we hit record, I think I I asked where you were today, and you're in Hawaii. I love the story of how you wound up in Hawaii. Can you give us just a a brief little summary of why Hawaii you're you're up, you know, five hours before the rest of the world. Tell tell me a little bit about that story because it is interesting to me the whole resuscitation program and and all of that good stuff. So, I mean, you know, one of the things that I've learned in my life is that life throws curb bulls, and you just gotta figure out how to hit him. About nine years ago, I was a CEO at a company in California, and I ended up with two heart attacks, dead on arrival. I was outperforming this nineteen seconds. And, as I came out of it, I said, okay, I'm done. I'm done living in the corporate pathways. There's so much rush Even though I feel like I'm going home, I'm actually never really home. I mean, I'm physically home between the hours of eight PM at night and five AM in the morning. But I'm not really there. And that was actually really the cause of my health historically deteriorating. And I quit my job and I'd made the decision. As a matter of fact, I told my family that there's a couple of, things, or options that they have. One is we're gonna buy a sailboat a catamaran, a fifty five foot catamaran, and we're gonna sail around the world and just live on the boat and travel and experience the world. Well, that didn't really go well. The second option was, we're good. Sounds good. Yeah. I I I still do romanticize that idea. The second option was, we're gonna get rid of everything, and we're gonna pack our banks and relocate to Hawaii, full time. Now You know, I've been in America for over twenty five years. And, Hawaii is always felt at home. I mean, of course, when I'm in the UK, you know, leaving, leaving the cold, wet, weather, to move to America, where I've actually been chasing sunshine. Hawaii ended up being home. So it we always had some sort of a connection in Hawaii. And the nine years ago, I totally cut off all the strings, packed the bags, no job, nothing. And decided that I'm gonna start again, from ground zero in Hawaii. And that's how I ended up being, the root and things in life actually happen for a reason. I mean, I'm a firm believer that I've planned my life and it's actually never really worked the other way it is. Sometimes you just have to be nimble, whereby, you know, follow the direction that you've been given. I'm not religious. I'm not spiritual per se. But, you know, directions and obstacles coming your way for some reason. And I didn't know at that point time. And, you know, nine years ago when I made the decision, I would say that's the best decision that were made. Because now with the time difference that I've got, I can start early in the day. I can get there early in the evening. And, I'll basically figure out a way to work twenty eight hour days versus a twenty four hour day. And, this gives me the ability basically, you know, be centrally connected to the rest of the world. So, I mean, like, as my day is ending, I'm picking up Asia, as my day is starting, I'm picking up the East Coast to Europe. So, there's a lot of flexibility and advantages that come with it. And and who's to say that you've actually gotta sleep from nine PM till seven AM in the morning or whatever the time might be. Right? So, I mean, these are rules and boundaries that we have set. And as a matter of fact, I've always been an early writer. It's actually, you know, the best time of the day for me. I am fairly talkative because I get drink a couple of cups of coffee and, have a lot of fun with people around the world. Well, I I had to, like the early morning. That's when I'm that's when I'm at my productivity best, either thinking or getting stuff done. I don't I don't know why either, but it's it's pretty cool. But Living in Hawaii, you know, it sounds glamorous to people, you know, just for the sake of being in Hawaii, but it takes dedication because you travel, and you don't just hop over to the island. You know? It's not like flying from Miami to Bemini. You you really have to make a commitment, for your air travel, especially when you go in globally, it it's it's a you know, I applaud your effort for that because, you know, like I said, I know it sounds cool to everybody, but, you know, when you've gotta be in New York and you're in Hawaii, that's not a short little duration flight. So I've logged that. Okay. You and I came together through, the data center world, the infrastructure world, because I would be at a conference. I'd see you And, you know, I I didn't have a reason not to talk to you, but we weren't engaged on any work you know, so I was more listening. And the more I got, to know about what you were doing, the more, I actually became intrigued by your project and a good friend of mine, became a data are are a Ambassador. Yeah. An ambassador. Thank you. Mara. And Mara and I've worked together for a long time. You know, we worked at the same company for a bit, but we've also been industry budge for a long time. So, I told her one day. I said, hey, I really think I wanna talk to Naveel about what you guys are doing because I see, an opportunity from an infrastructure cooling standpoint to to maybe help and and help me, on the educational side. And she said, that is so weird because I just told Nabeel about you the other day. So I don't know. You know, Mars got special power. So I guess we were meant to be connected. But, I'm intrigued and and obviously, part of now, the the, nomad Foundation, the Futures Foundation, Give us from your vision what it is, because I know what it is from my vision, and I know what I read, but you came up with it. You know, you and and Phil. So give give us the the foundational view of what the program's all about. Absolutely. So, you know, there's a lot of people that are trying to do a lot of good things. Unfortunately, that's very siloed. You know, I I look at myself having had the opportunity to move to Hawaii. If it wasn't for the right reasons, I wouldn't be here, even being alive for that matter. So nine years ago when I had my two heart attacks, and and making that transition to Hawaii, a part of this move was to figure out what's my purpose here. What am I supposed to be doing out here? Like everybody else, I mean, chasing money. Right? Oh, yeah. And and moving to America, I had lost my voice. And we'll we can get into that a bit. But the idea that, you know, who I am today is not because of me. It's because of the exposure, the experience, the opportunities of people, that have resulted in me being me, you know, speaks volumes. Now why can't we do it for others? Now if I was born in a poor family in a slum in India somewhere, which, you know, or or in Zanzibar or anywhere third world, then I wouldn't be here today. And there are probably some geniuses out there. That need this explosion, that need this opportunity, but they don't know how to. Or, you know, they're underpinned. So, I went on this personal journey trying to figure out my reasons and, about, gosh, this is gonna be about five years now. Five years ago, Phil and I were actually sitting in Hawaii at, Pacific telecommunication conference. You know, like, Phil, look around, man. I mean, it's it's it's amazing. You know, most of the people over here have got one leg in the grave in my case. I've got both of them in. And most of the people have got one leg in the grave here. Where are all the young folks? Yeah. There's nobody young in here. Then we started looking at some numbers. I mean, forty five percent of the existing workforce in the data infrastructure space has been in it for twenty five years. So what does that mean? Five years from now, there's gonna be retirement party every day. Yep. K. And that's not to account for people that are older that have been in this space for five to ten years. So we've got a significant percentage of our human capital that's aging out. And we are bringing this tribe That's got so much knowledge that we need to start sharing that. And that's how we started the podcast called the Norman Futures podcast about four ago now. So we are actually finishing up a fourth season this year. And, then, going on about two years, I was playing in a tennis tournament with Phil in Monclaire, New Jersey. And at that point in time, our idea was just to demystify technology you know, talk to people at their level, not to go talk about, you know, products and widgets and bits and bytes but to really bring forth the intellect, the personalities, the, the trials and tribulations of successful people in our sector. And get to know them personally. Well, two years ago, I had another heart attack, a cardiac arrest which resulted in due heart attack, which resulted into me walking away with a quadruple bypass and just a full iron man now. And as I got out of it, I Phil was right there. I'm like, Phil, I'm so sick and tired of this. We have to do something. We have become like everybody else, and all what we're doing is talk, talk, and talk. We have to take corrective actions. And Phil I mean, as you know, Phil and his humor is like, so what are we doing now? I'm like, let's let's start a foundation. Let's Take the horse by the reins and be in charge. Alright. What do you got in mind? I'm like, well, let's potentially look at, settlement academy. Let's look at setting up course work. Let's look at setting up scholarship programs. Let's look at creating opportunities for people. Let's figure out how we're gonna address the human capital. And that's how the holding initiative started about a year and a half, two ago. It took the first six months just to form and go through the Bureau see in politics and setting up a five zero one c three. Golly, I mean, it's much easier to start a new business than to start a non profit. Yeah. And then you know, this year, as you know, Greg, we've been working fairly hard, in setting up, committees, in setting up and engaging ambassadors like yourself and bringing the the talent on board and being a little bit more structured. Our vision is quite simple. It's to, you know, do it for the right reasons. Not doing for publicity. It's not self promotion from the bill, Phil, Greg, or anybody else. If your heart's in the right place, I believe that we will do the right things, and You know, at the end of the day, the way I look at it is. I mean, I'm aging out. I mean, I've got both my legs in the grave. I'm in my final inning. This is it. So go out and go out with style and hopefully create some sort of a legacy. You know, I've got two little kids fourteen and sixteen, and, you know, they they inspire me every single day. I learned from them. You know, how do they learn? How do they retain information? How do they go out and experience the world? How do they react to situations? And, you know, those are kinda some of the driving forces and factors behind how we're setting up this academy. And the cool thing is, what's really inspiring every day is the fact that with help of the advisory board with the help of the ambassadors, the advocates that it's taken the shape of its own. You know, it's a growing living organism now, and I'm I'm very comfortable in saying that we're actually heading in the right direction. I mean, you know, of course, I wanted to get it done yesterday. But there's probably every CEO wants to do that. Get it done yesterday. But I've gotta be a realist. We're gonna do it right, and we're gonna do it right the first time. So we're taking our time, ensuring that we've right governance, the right creative, the right content, the right people, and the right culture in place. Well, I was gonna ask you, and and, you know, I think all of us, as ambassadors, we see it from our our own vision, you know, How the and I was gonna ask you, do you see it taking shape? Do you see it coming together? Because, like, this Friday, I've got a meeting you know, I'm on the, on the educational portion. And we've got our next call on Friday And so we do our hour and we all come together and we work hard and we go toward a goal. But that's a piece of the pie. We don't get to see the whole pie. From your vision, you know, like, you're in it daily, you know, so I was curious if you saw it taking shape and it sure sounds like you do, which is super encouraging because, you know, everybody's volunteering. You know, they've all got their day job and, you know, they're they're doing their part to get back. So I'm so I'm so glad to hear that you feel like it is becoming successful or more successful? Yeah. I mean, you know, as a CEO or, a managing director of the organization, and, ideally, I would like I said, I would wanna get it done yesterday. But this is a philanthropic effort, and everyone's got a day job, and I'm very mindful with that. Now, once we get to a point in time, where we've got enough support and sponsorship that we can go say, okay, we're gonna hire about three or four people. And that's all their core job, then they can start bringing everybody in. I mean, everybody's been traveling. You know, things have started to open up a bit. You've got businesses to run. You've got engagements. Time limitations. So, it does take time. I mean, I at the end of the day, as long as we stay positive and we move a step forward every day, that's all it matters. Eventually, I I believe eventually we have started to get more sponsorships and, you know, I wanna thank, you know, folks that have actually already you know, made, a contribution to the effort, that, you know, I wanna hire a team of people who who who are, going to help drive this even further and much faster pace. So I wanna start rolling. I mean, we have pushed the ball off the hill. It's moving. Now it's just a matter of, you know, building up on that momentum. And, the more human capital we can start putting in, the more programs that we've got in place the posture it's gonna go. And it's gonna start taking shape. Well, I it's super exciting to see. And and because it's important is not just something that, you know, should be done. I mean, this is something that that really has to be done. Nabil. Because as you said, you're at a at a, industry function. And, you know, you got a bunch of, older dudes there. And, you know, I look around and and I see, you know, half the crowd with my haircut. I know we got a problem. And, It's it's almost the same for my HVAC world, and that's why I work so hard in that world. Because we have, you know, we're we're retiring five and we're bringing in two. And and that's not a sustainable model. So how do we transfer that knowledge, that tribal knowledge that took forty years for me to get I can help somebody accelerate their learning so quickly through mentorship, through study, just through interaction, you know. It doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be so damn structured that you need a legal document it just takes a commitment of one or or or, you know, two people for for a mentoring relationship, but it it takes so little effort to go to a technical school and talk to a class one night a a semester. I mean, And the same with the foundation, we're just trying to create awareness. Just just prick the interest of What what's out there? What what can I do other than traditional four year school yada yada yada yada? There's so much in it. There's there's the networking piece. There's security. There's infrastructure. There's the software world. I mean, And that's never going to back up. You know, we've crossed the point where we're never gonna have less technology. Just look at what's happened in the last eighteen months with AI. That's all the hell you can see, read or hear about right now, is AI. And that's such a little bitty piece of the whole digital infrastructure world because ninety eight percent of the stuff that we know is still gonna run-in a traditional data center. It doesn't need that kind of super duper compute kinda super duper power consumption or cooling. So it's cool that we're getting, I think, that that the industry is getting a lot of publicity right now. Really, I love that piece of it. But, you know, if you look at a traditional colo that was built fifteen years ago, it's always gonna be full because there's going to be a need for that equipment. So it's it's like a a career path that's never going to end until you get ready for it to end. I, I was talking to my nephew in law this weekend. He's thirty three He's in the HVAC building automation side of the business, and we were talking about the the skills gap, the lack of people. He struggles finding people because he needs two or three, you know, juniors to be bringing along with him. And, I said, well, you know, what's your take on it? And he said, it's good for people like me, but it's bad for everybody else. Because he said my age, guys, we'll be able to write our check for the end of time because This this kid can do mechanical work, and he can do building integration and automation. So he's got the full ticket at thirty three. So he's got a whole career. And the more people that we can show that opportunity, you know, the better. So That was a long winded way of saying, cool. I'm glad that we're doing what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah, to to just go out to that point, I think you know, people have not been able to, clear, clearly illustrate the, the the growth of this market. Just to give give you an idea, when I started my career in the late 90s in this space. I mean, if you got a one and a half two x, exit multiplier, that was a big deal. Like, wow. That's, that's great. You have done well. K. Yep. And some most the reasons, acquisitions, around us. I mean, we're looking at thirty three, thirty four x multipliers. Wow. This is totally mind boggling. If you look at the market, compounded with growth rate, we are actually in the high twenties. I mean, almost reaching thirty x growth year over year. No artificial intelligence is actually a big thing. You know, from the perspective that, it's I I call it I mean, that's another subject we can get into, but, I called the autonomous lifestyle. So your refrigerator connected. Your microwave connected. Your dishwasher connected. Right? I mean, we're living this, and and your vehicle connected. You're a watch connected. I mean, everything, you're living around data. That's it over fingertips. I mean, I don't even carry a credit card anymore. If I go to a store to buy something, just use my Apple Pay, using my watch. Right? So what does that really mean? That this is just the beginning of time. How much data are we going to have integrated in our lives on a day to day basis? I mean, going on the days of handwriting and snail mailing your letter. I mean, people don't even actually use emails. I think emails within the next three to five years are going to be gone. You're gonna have more collaboration platforms, like Microsoft Teams, and Slack and others that are gonna start taking over how we communicate on a go forward basis. So there's a significant cultural change coming along and artificial intelligence. So the autonomous lifestyle is actually going to be embedded deeply into our roots now. Yeah. Like, I mean, you look at kids these days, they're born with a bloody iPad. Right. So it's going to be embedded in our daily lifestyle. And what does that mean is that we're going to have more and more and more opportunities. One of the things that our industry actually needs to focus on is the fact that we are creating more opportunities than diminishing markets around us. So, you know, like agriculture, for instance, you know, there's no reason to go out and pick strawberries and fields. I mean, you've got machine pickers, robotics. Right? So what do you need? You need programmers. You need manufacturing abilities. You need people to manage and control those environments. You know, drones flying over, you know, doing weather research, looking at, you know, temperatures, looking at the quality of the product, taking pictures, right, and so forth, more data. You've increased your productivity, productivity. You've actually increased the quality of the product as well. So there's a lot of good things that are happening that are actually really creating a lot of jobs And one of the focuses for the foundation is to bring people that are currently in transition as industries around us to shrink into our space. So we can learn from them. What is it that you look at when you're in the field? Hey, I am in the data infrastructure business. I've got no idea what a strawberry should look I don't know what the color, the dimension, the width, the height, the amount that it needs to the the time amount that it needs to take to grow, to be the perfect strawberry, the flavor so and so forth. But somebody that's done it for fifteen, twenty, thirty years, they know exactly by looking at it, if it's good to eat or not. Right? So can we build that into AI? Can we build that into the data capture and algorithms? That help us increase productivity and also the quality of the product. So those are creating opportunities for those people that will probably never explore this, and or personally speaking, they are just afraid of touching a laptop or a computer for that matter. Absolutely. I'm I am right now working with a good friend of mine to build a training unit for liquid cooled servers because our technicians are scared to touch anything that has the word computer associated with it. So, you know, I and I just literally ten minutes ago or when that before we started emailing looking for some donations to where I could build these assemblies that that are real, you know, of six u chassis, in Rack CDU with a liquid cooled to a a two u server, rack where I can show people it's just freaking parts just like we've always worked on. It just happens to be billed in the vertical environment. So we've gotta break that stigma from from my side, and I think we can do that with with the same philosophy in the bill that people that have been in that environment aren't scared of it. They just don't know how to share that knowledge. Maybe this is one way of doing that. So super exciting because if you think about it, you know, there's kinda two schools on AI. People who are scared of it, it's gonna take over the world, and we're gonna World War three and a half and all of a all of a sudden. Or, I think more reasonably minded people think, no, this is a good thing. Yes. We have to make sure that that There's some safeguards in place just like we do with everything else. You know, we don't give a nuclear button to just anybody. You know, you have to be mind about who has access to what technology, but to your point, agriculture and how we grow food for our nation There's no reason why we can't make it better, why we can't make it more wholesome without putting more and more chemical and fertilizer and antibiotic and all that crap on it because we're smarter. We're smarter than that. And through indoor growth facilities, whether it be cannabis or groceries, regular groceries, we're getting there. You know, and group technology, that's how we're gonna get there. So I'm I'm I mean, I'm fifty nine years old talking about two You're a young man. You talked about two feet in the grave. I haven't had a heart attack yet, so you got me by three. But, I'm excited by what's going on with technology. You know, I want to get Gabby's generation excited by it and and making sure that they see, all the different opportunities because it so freaking wide. You know? I mean, I I've talked to people about air conditioning. And under the HVAC umbrella, you've got your house, you've got a subway sandwich shop, and you've got the Pentagon, and you've got a Microsoft data center. And that's all HVAC related. So you just decide which vertical you want and go because there's so much to it. Just like there is in the full digital, footprint, whatever you want to learn about, there's an opportunity. So I'm excited about being able to help create and share the awareness of what's out there. Absolutely. I would like to just add one thing on artificial intelligence. That's okay. So for starters, my approach to it is that there's nothing artificial about intelligence. Intelligence can never be artificial. So my definition of AI is actionable intelligence whereby its data that we are capturing and we are running algorithms to give us direction and of potential ideas as to how to process that data and or make corrective decisions. Based on it. Pre defined. Now AI is going to get smarter Yep. Along the way. Right? Given There's they're they're they're I mean, that's that's, a fair statement. The issue that we've got, and one of the reasons that the core principles of starting the NOMET features Academy is that. The challenge we've got on a go forward basis is that AI is not just getting smarter. Human intelligence is getting dumber. So we need to educate people to make sure that they're smart enough to make the right decisions, and that only comes with knowledge. That is probably worth the whole podcast right there. Nabil. I think we could just mic drop right now and walk away. Because if you think about what you just you basically said we can't let the machines outsmart the human race because we have to be, in a teaching role, not in a full time learning role. Well said that that's so true. So true. Gabby, I'm interested in your take on, because you're you're such a young lady. I love to get your perspective as you know. What what does your take when you think about digital infrastructure, you think about how our faces are showing up on a computer screen, we got one guy's three thousand miles apart. You and I are, you know, seven fifty or a thousand miles apart. But, yeah, in real time, we're all talking. Do you ever think about how that happens or is a a natural assumption that you just feel like it's going to be there when you click connect and open the room. How do you take that and how do you, or or do you know anything about how your peers think about that. Yeah. That's I feel like that's kind of a hard question. I think To your point, sometimes, yes, I will think about it. Sometimes I'll have these moments, especially with you know, just, especially ads, how they kind of pick up on what you're messaging about or what you're googling, and they cater that to you where I'll be talking about something earlier in that day. And the next thing I know I've got an ad for it on my phone by that afternoon, but I've never mentioned it before. So, though, I will say like there's moments like that for sure where I will I will really think about it. And it it is really amazing. I think, to you know, you're in Nabeel's point earlier. There is a lot of, I think, fear that comes with it. Maybe not so much in my generation, but even so in my generation, I have a lot of friends who are, you know, they grew up around the same time as me or maybe, like, they're a couple years older than me. And there is like a little bit of hesitation when it comes to technology just because it is growing so much when it comes to capabilities, and there's a little bit of fear behind that. There's a little bit of fear with, you know, all of your own personal data just kind of being out there. And there's definitely, you know, obviously, there's IT security and a bunch of measures that are definitely in place to to protect yourself and then all those around you and things like that. But I definitely think there's There's a little bit of like hesitation. I know, as far as AI's concerned, like there's a little bit of of hesitation as far as oh, like, are we gonna be kinda doing anything ourselves at that point? Like, is this technology just gonna be doing it all for us then? Like, what is what is our role? How are we gonna learn? I know I also have a lot of friends who are, you know, in the education setting. And for them, it's like, oh, well, like, are, you know, are my students going to be just using AI to complete homeworks and things like that, are they ever actually gonna learn the material? Or for my friends who are still in college, they're using AI to help them complete their coursework and stuff like that. So it's like what kind of, you know, boundaries need to be in place as far as technology moving forward, but also obviously let it grow because it is such an amazing thing that we have the capability of, you know, creating. I mean, the idea that Years and years and years ago, it was like the Egyptians's hand building these huge pyramids and now it's like we have this we have so much technology that allows us to, you know, three d print some random item or some model by just you know, inputting some code and creating a design for it, whereas that would have, you know, never been possible even thirty years ago. So I think there's a part of me that thinks about it in the sense of, like, it's really, really cool knowing. I mean, just how far we've come in my life alone. IPhones were not a thing. When I was little, they weren't really a thing until I hit probably middle school, I think. But maybe not even middle school. I think I didn't get one until I was in high school. So it was That's enough of that crap. I'm sorry. But, just like just looking at that that general technology and seeing how much it's grown and how fast it's grown. Is a really incredible thing. And I think there's there's a very large piece of it that in my mind, I feel is incredibly important that we continue to expand and continue to grow in those areas because I think, you know, if you if you dream it at this point, it it really can become true because there's there's been a lot of dreamers out there who have done really amazing things by just kind of having an idea. And so I think, you know, where technology has come has really driven that point home. So I think that's amazing. But I also think, there's a level of it too that I'm like, well, you know, like, There's a level of caution that needs to be executed when it comes to that stuff because, you know, we wanna make sure that we are still learning and that kids in school aren't, you know, cheating on all of their tests and never actually absorbing the material and things like that. Well, well, the the deal, how do you how do you, what what Gabby just said on the fear factor and the lack of ability to test. I I think we're gonna have to go back to a lot of oral in terrigation testing to see if people actually retain it versus given homework testing or whatever because, you know, there's nothing like me having a list of questions in my mind, and I'm pulling you now Gabby in real time where you don't have, you know, the ability to go cheat, so to speak. But, once you get out of school, it's not cheating. It's just living, which is the other phenomenon, but Nabil, how do you how would how do you, like, feedback to what what Gabby said on that fear factor? What how does that strike you? With her generation? I mean, it's it's totally legit. That's the reason we're we're actually trying to educate the sector and demystify it, for everybody. Right? So it concerns a totally legit. I think, one of the biggest challenges that we have socially speaking is, particularly in in a country like America is the fact that we have not had education reform since the second industrial revolution. Things have changed dramatically. How people learn and retain information, And and the fact that we actually set this culture up that you've gotta have a bachelor's degree or a master's degree or a PSTN that that's what makes you smart. That's total rubbish. I mean, I actually did them. I, I, I was a maths major. And after I got done with school with a bachelor's degree, I'm like, well, let's do the math. How much money am I gonna spend? How much time am I gonna go to college to recoup that money to be net positive. Okay? And what am I really learning? I mean, what's my maths degree for? Right? Not that I'm against the educational sector, but the fact is that we need to change it. And what is that change? I don't know yet. I think you know, people need to tell us what the change needs to be. I mean, do you need to sit in forty five minutes to an hour long, you know, lecture session whereby you're not engaged or a ten minute session that you have that access engagement interaction with the teacher results into you retaining at least eighty percent of the information that's been shared to you. Right? Now my kids You know, I set up a a school for my kids, when they were very, very little. I didn't want to send them to the American school system, very disappointed, personally speaking. And, we set up a school for them. And, you know, we call it homeschool. We were looked at, like, oh, weird people, blah, blah, blah, Well, my kids go to travel the world, experience the world. My son speaks Japanese, both my son and daughter, they're learning Spanish now. And they have found their own passion through those explosion experiences. You know, my my my son one one semester. All all of what he wanna do was maths. Right? My daughter wanted to do biology. Okay? And nothing else. So there's no reason to force them into something that they're not interested in that part time in their lives. So, the education system at the core needs to change. Unfortunately, the educators in the business are making money not educating. Right? Absolutely. If you look at how the school systems really work, is the fact is, like, what is your average GPA? What's the attendance rate and a few other multipliers that help them get the money from the the local state or the federal government? Well, those metrics need to change. Now going back to where the challenges are, and and and It's okay. I mean, you know, people are actually, running AI to do their homework. Well, how is that different from them going to a library? Yeah. It's not that information is in the book somewhere. What we have done is made that information accessible at your fingertips much faster. Then you're going and sitting and, you know, rushing through pages, to now it's accessible available. There is a secret behind that as well that you've got to ask the right question, the right sequence. Right? So that's that's learning. It's just simple basic rules of evolution on fortunately. I mean, you know, I, as as much as I enjoy riding horses and being on a buggy, seriously speaking, I wouldn't wanna do that. To to travel, or I wouldn't be, on, on a boat from Hawaii to the mainland. It's much easy to get on a plane and take a five hour flight and get into the mainland. We have to evolve, and we have to be willing to look at all the the good that's it's bringing forth as well. Yep. Anything we do in our lives got good bad and ugly. Right? It's our it's our choice. So I'm a big advocate looking at the positive side, the glass is half full, and we can only make it better. And, the only way we can make better and fight all the evil that there is is by education, explore, exposure, and experiences, and getting the right people in the right place. You know, what we need to do actually as a matter of fact is folks the fact that we need to actually lobby for education. We need to lobby for it to be streamlined available to everybody. Right? And especially in underserved communities. And that fixes a lot of the problems. I mean, if you study history, the challenge hasn't been people, The challenge has been that we have, you know, underpinned communities, tribes, countries, and people. And not given them tools, resources, and education. That's why we've got all these global issues. Because they listen to their local pundit and they just buy in. Yep. They need to have the desire, the willingness, to be open minded and learn. And that hopefully solves a lot of these challenges. Well said, I would just the only thing I would add to that is choice, and the only way to get choice is by Freedom. So, I'm I'm fully supported that. So well, Nabeel, I don't know how in the world we would top that summary you just gave us because it really does come down to humankind acting and reacting in the right ways and pushing the the positive it's it's just the right thing to do. I mean, I've never seen a bunch of negative people get anything accomplished itself more negativity. So I think the more that we could bring daylight to dark issues, whether that's in foreign countries, whether that's in our own neighborhoods, all the better. And and I think in digital, you know, being a digital nomad is a great way to do that, and being a nomad futurist because even, you know, that's our calling. Get out. Share the word. So I wanna say thank you for putting that program, into action. And, thank you for letting me be a part of it. I really do enjoy it. And I wanna see it do well. Oh, thank you for your support, Greg. Appreciate it. Well, gabby, I don't think that we can, go into the next six hours of conversation that I would like to have with Nabil, so we'll have to have him back on five more times. But, what what, insightful outlook he has for me, I've gained so much from just learning, his vision. And, I I've tend to agree with with most of it. You know, it's like, awareness in in daylight really solves a lot of problems. So good stuff. But, alright. Well, I know that we all have busy days ahead, and we've got and Bill's got another call. He's gonna get on his third of the morning and it's early for him. So, really do appreciate you taking time with us today to talk about this good stuff, look forward to continuing to share the message. And, we'll follow along what is the best way for people to follow you and learn more about what Naville is into every day? It's fairly simple. I use LinkedIn and Twitter quite a bit personally, and my handles on the deal of my mood. That's my full name all spelled out. But really do follow nomad futurist in all the social platforms. It's, at nomad futurist. Yeah. And, I mean, feel free to reach out, connect, and ask questions, or, you know, share your ideas and opinions. Awesome. Alright, miss Barr. Why don't you put a bow on this thing and we will get, get moving forward? Sounds good. Well, Nabeel, thank you so much for coming and joining us today and talking with us I feel like I've certainly learned a lot from everything that you had to say and, you know, your take on where we will be in the future and everything like that, which is super exciting to hear about from your perspective as someone who works with the data. So, thank you again for hopping on. It's been an absolute pleasure. And then as for everyone else, thank you again for listening to another episode of straight out of Crumpton. For more episodes like this, don't forget to subscribe through Apple or Spotify podcasts, and please check out greg crumpton dot com for all of your Greg crumpton content.