Alec Ross: Middle School Teacher Turned Global Innovator

Good Life Project

Jonathan Fields / Acast

Education, How To, Self-improvement, Business, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2016

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Alec Ross is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and the author of The New York Times bestseller The Industries of the Future.

He recently served for four years as Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Prior to his service in government, Alec was a social entrepreneur and served as convener from technology, media & telecommunications policy on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

Much of his interest in tapping technology and innovation to make a better world comes from his career as a sixth-grade teacher through Teach for America in inner-city Baltimore, during one of the most challenging times in the city's history, and also his upbringing in a small mining-turned-chemical town where opportunity was not always easily found.

In his book, The Industries of the Future, he explores what he believes will be the major growth industries and also career opportunities for the next few decades, while also shining the light on some of the most fascinating innovations of our time and offers a lens into where they're headed (and why we might want to get on board).

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

How growing up in a coal-turned-chemical town profoundly shaped his lens of work and life.
His path from inner city teacher to the founder of an NGO to the tech and media policy director for the Obama campaign to working in the State Department under Hilary Clinton.
Why he fears 'the gray twilight'.
How he hacked solutions to foreign policy problems.
How he got abuelas in Mexico to take down cartel leadership through texting.
Why his name was a banned search term in China for 2 years.
Why he believes that the next trillion dollar industry will be created from genetic code and personalized medicine.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today's episode is brought to you by Camp GLP.
0:07.8	It's an amazing opportunity to come hang out with me with our awesome Good Life Project
0:13.4	team, a line up of inspiring teachers from art to life to work and a community of almost
0:19.8	impossibly friendly grown-up campers from literally all over the world as we take over a beautiful
0:26.6	summer camp for three and a half days of workshops and activities that fill your noggin with
0:32.7	ideas and strategies for life and create the type of friendships and stories you thought
0:38.0	you pretty much left behind decades ago.
0:41.1	It's all happening at the end of August just about 90 minutes from New York City and
0:45.7	more than half the spots are already gone.
0:48.1	So be sure to grab your spot quickly because our $200 early bird discount ends on April
0:54.8	30th 2016.
0:56.8	You can learn more at GoodLifeProject.com slash camp or just go ahead and click the link
1:03.2	in the show notes on to our show.
1:09.4	I've come to the very very strong conviction that the kids that I grew up with in West Virginia
1:14.7	and the young people who I taught middle school for years in West Baltimore are made of the
1:20.1	same stuff as the folks who I sat across the table from in the White House situation room
1:25.6	and the same people who top of the business world who I work with now, I really do think
1:31.2	they're made of the same stuff.
1:32.8	Talent is universally distributed, opportunity is not.
1:40.3	Imagine going from being a middle school teacher in Baltimore in one of the most troubling
1:44.4	times in the city's history to working side by side with then secretary of state Hillary
1:49.6	Clinton on global innovation projects that end up taking you around the world to try
	...

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