Chris Colley: 0:13

Welcome everyone. Here we are in another episode of Shift ED Podcast coming to you. I'm Out of Laval reaching down south into the great city of Montreal to bring in CEO of Digital Moment, Indra Kubicek, who is Digital Moment national charity. And Indra's been the CEO there for quite some time. And we're going to kind of dive in all about coding for our kids. We're going to, I'll tell you a little bit, well, Indra Indra will tell you Indra will tell you a little bit about the services that they offer and the amazing programs that they offer at Digital Moment. And we're obviously going to talk a lot about AI in this as well as we go through. Indra, thanks so much for taking some time to join this podcast.

Indra Kubicek: 1:03

Awesome. Thank you for having me. Really excited to be here. Yeah, I can share a little bit about Digital Moments. So we're a nationwide digital literacy charity, bilingual, focused on ensuring that every young Canadian has equal access and opportunity to important digital skills. We have reached over 900,000 young people and trained over 32,000 educators. We work both in the school system, which is a large part of our services, is really supporting educators. Without educators having the confidence, the tools, and the capabilities to really be working day in and day out with their students. We're not going to create the sustainable change we need. So we work within the school systems, but we also work in informal other learning environments where young people love to play and learn and thrive. And so from libraries to community centers, we work through volunteers. We have a large-scale volunteer network of volunteers that are teaching coding clubs with younger kids. We are the Canadian partner to the Raspberry Pi Foundation for that code club initiative. And our more recent addition to our services is a teen program called a Social Innovation Lab. So we are working with teens in a and more of a deep dive accelerator type environment program where they learn about entrepreneurship, social impact, and how to actually build and create technology that hopefully serves our communities, our wider cities, our country, and people that we care about. So we're trying to make them really think about why they would want to build technology and what they want to put in the world. And so yeah, very excited to be here and have a chat about, yeah, as you said, the the hot topic of the moment. AI.

Chris Colley: 2:52

Totally. And maybe before we hop into that, I like I always love kind of a backstory a little bit of how you came to where you are now here today. And I mean, we know technology accelerates everything, it seems. I mean, even with AI, they're saying the turnover now is about seven months, six months. Like it's it's so fast. We are not fast, you know, humans grow slowly, you know, we develop over time, and so some of those moments brought you to digital moment that you could share with us.

Indra Kubicek: 3:26

Yeah, so how did I end up here? Because I am definitely not the digital computer science software engineer background at all. So I actually, by accident, as many people might say, fell into entrepreneurship in my early 30s by deciding I wanted to build a solution to a problem I saw in the world, which is usually how entrepreneurs get started. So my career is totally different. I am a chartered accountant. I went to business school, I moved from Vancouver to London, UK, not London, Ontario, for the Canadians, and worked in the finance world and was quite disillusioned with climbing the corporate ladder and all of that. And so I, on a whim, quit my job. I have volunteered in some education organizations in Africa and was really looking at more grassroots social change movements, did a public policy master's, and then decided to build something completely different, which was a marketplace for healthy yoga holidays. So I'm passionate about yoga. I trained as a yoga teacher. This was in 2012. And if you wanted to actually build a website of a marketplace at that time, you actually needed to know how to program and code. So there were no off-the-shelf wicks, all of this kind of new technology that exists. You really need to know what you were doing, or you needed to have someone who did. So off I went on this journey in my early 30s and very quickly felt completely out of water, realized here I am with all my whatever degrees, education, multinational, international career, and I can't build this thing I want to build, and I don't feel confident at all to really do this. And how is this the case? And why didn't I learn this at school? And even more so, looking at the education system, realizing, gosh, like it still hasn't changed 15 years later, and here we are. And this is now almost essential building block literacy for any business, regardless of what you're doing. And so I found some young women in London at the time who had just started an organization called Code Club, which was the volunteer coding clubs, joined them, and they were scaling like crazy. It was, it was pretty new, amazing mission. Joined them and then helped bring us into the fold of merging with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, met Kids Cogenasse that was here in Canada as part of building an international network, and eventually came back here to Montreal. So there's a little long story to get there, but it was really fascinating.

Chris Colley: 5:52

Like I love it too. Yeah, totally. Well, you know, I think it's a great example, too. That I mean, all the education in the world, and I'm not bashing education, I think that it's important, but oftentimes education overlooks that skill development, right? And kind of like when you are faced, I would need a website, I don't know how to do that, you know, and it it requires a skill base kind of to you know, even just find somebody, you know, or like who do I know? How how could I collaborate? Well, how can I, you know, like critical, you know, all the stuff that comes in that we so desperately need our kids to uh embody as they head out into this craziness. I guess what is what are the skills that that digital moment focuses on that you guys feel that are uh that are non-negotiable almost, that kids need these certain skills once uh they get into that marketplace. I mean, maybe kind of reflecting a little bit about on your own drought uh journey, it it it sounds like uh you found a place where you want to help students gain those skills that maybe weren't available to you at at a time in your in your career.

Indra Kubicek: 7:07

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, there are obviously hard skills that we talk about and kind of the technical side of it, but it's really much broader than that. And when we're talking about digital literacy today, I think it's a lot of these more intangible things. So when I think about even before what skills, it's sort of like what do we want people to feel? And we want people to feel empowered. We want people to feel empowered, to be able to build, to be able to create, to be able to challenge, to be able to feel that they're quote unquote in the driver's seat of their life. And now our lives are so integral and intertwined in that technology from the way we work, live, and play. And now I would say with AI, it's everywhere, it's everywhere all at once. And how are we making sure that people do feel empowered and not afraid and don't feel the things that I felt, which was, you know, vulnerable? Like you said, you had to find someone who could do this. If you don't really know the mechanics of it, how can you evaluate who's building for you? How can you feel that, you know, you're not helpless in all of this? So we focus a lot on building sort of durable skills, I guess we would call them, that are quite important around persistence. So one of the things that we look at when we evaluate is the willingness to persist. So, how can we help build confidence in young people so that they're willing to continue? Because you're going to fail over and over and over again. And at least in very structured education environments, and certainly in the setting I came from, where you know you're a chartered accountant, shouldn't get it wrong, numbers are a certain way, like you're not supposed to make errors over and over again. But every entrepreneur will tell you they just fail forward and fail forward and fail forward, and you're constantly trying to figure out how to pivot and change. And and that takes immense amounts of confidence. And so we're trying to build up that, particularly for marginalized, underrepresented groups, for young women and girls who don't see someone like themselves, who don't have networks and people who can who come from those backgrounds? How do we kind of build those skills? Critical thinking is at the core. I think everyone's talking about this risk of losing our critical thinking skills as we start to depend more on answers from AI systems. So, how are young people actually critically thinking about the information they're reading, they're receiving? Why are they being shown certain things? Are they controlling their environment or is that in control of them? Resilience, adaptability. We all know, as you said, quite honestly, I don't think many people can predict where this is all going to end up at this point. We just know we're on this jet. And like you said at the beginning, there's no other option. It's not gonna stop, it's not gonna disappear. We can't just, you know, say, wait for us to catch up. It is, it's it's moving on its own and it's it's an organic entity now. And so how do we really prepare people for that uncertainty and and still keep a level of optimism and fun and play and make them and make them want to see the opportunities that we hope this this major transformation will enable.

Chris Colley: 10:11

Absolutely, absolutely. And I was talking with educators and uh, you know, some thought leaders as well about like where do we start this process, you know, from a school, you know, an in-class school, you know, foundation. Like and it's funny that they're always this idea that we're that we're not thinking, you know, like like if we introduce AI, thinking stops, you know, and we just the machine will tell me what to do, right? And I kind of question that a little bit that if you're using AI, like I have to think when I use it, right? Because your prompts and what you want at the end, you gotta know, right? It's not like I can just say, okay, write me an essay about Macbeth. Go ahead, I need 500 words. I mean, it will do that, but that's not really the orientation, I don't think. And that critical thinking has to be embedded within AI to get what you want in the end, or it's just you know, somebody else's stuff. What do you can you maybe drill down a little bit more on critical thinking? Because I know that that is probably one of the key, and critical thinking also embeds a whole bunch of other skills within it. Can you kind of talk to us a little bit about that?

Indra Kubicek: 11:32

Yeah, and I think I know, and you know, I know for the education systems, and I don't have to be the teacher in the classroom, and I really empathize with you know where they are and and what they're facing, and and not even with AI, I mean, starting with a smartphone, you know, a student can challenge you and Google something and all of this very easily. And so I think the role that educators play is shifting and changing, whether that's a teacher in a classroom or an educator in a different kind of environment and moving toward facilitating and mentoring. And so when it comes to critical thinking, exactly what you're saying, and this is where if we just kind of say to young people, don't use Chat GPT, don't cheat, we don't want to talk about it. All we want to do is find every way to say we're gonna verify that you didn't cheat on your homework, we're really um avoiding something that we can't, you know, we can't avoid it. We're trying to avoid something that is real and we're actually not preparing people. So if we're not educating people about that world and the the risks of not critically thinking about what's being shared back in those tools, we're not actually doing them any service. They're going to be going out past, you know, high school, even never mind secondary or post-secondary, they're gonna be going out into the world and they're gonna be going into jobs where they're gonna be asked to be using these tools. They're gonna be asked how they would use these tools, how would they evaluate them, how they would determine if they're gonna trust them or not. And they're gonna need to optimize them and be efficient with them. So if we're not trialing that out at a younger age, we're not doing our job. And so, coming to your point, those of us who are very old now probably remember going and writing essays by getting books out of the library and actually forming our thoughts while we were reading all of these books and having to write an essay feels like very ancient times now. But one of the things I say that, you know, we while you're doing that, while you're going through what felt like very mundane at times, you're actually forming your thoughts, right? You're you're you're actually thinking through what you feel about a book, whether you agree or disagree with that author, and now you've gone and read another source and heard another side of the story, perhaps, and you're weighing out all those options and you're looking at who the credibility of these people, and you're actually forming where you sit. And I think the worry for me is that if we're not having young people maybe look at what comes out of the system, compare it to verifiable information. And I have sat with educators in a conference in UNESCO where one of the assignments was read the book and yeah, write, ask Shape Chat BT ChatGPT to tell you the answer. And we want you to compare the difference. And I think there are smart and unique ways that you can get them to use the tools to be able to do that. And then to your point, I don't think any of us can say we aren't using these tools to start brainstorming about something. It's about prompting, it's about verifying the information, it's about getting better at your questions. And this is a skill and a muscle that will develop. And so I think we should really encourage young people to go and look at a subject they know really well. Lots of kids play sports, you know, go and and start asking Chat GPT to tell you about something you know really well. And through that experience, you're gonna start to see the holes and the gaps and realize that this isn't just, you know, to be taken at face value because sometimes the way, you know, the system responds very confidently. I think that usually you hear an answer that cannot have too much substance, but man, does it sound like it really knows what it's talking about? And so young people will start to see that for themselves as they have access to try and learn and discuss and you know, in their classroom in these environments with you know, teachers who who are trying to support them.

Chris Colley: 15:16

Yeah, totally. I heard this really cool stat too from ChatGPT put out their report recently, and they said that close to 75% now of searches are for non-work-related searches, right? So it's not really about using it as a academic crutcher. It's starting to shift dramatically towards non-work-related searches, which I found pretty fascinating that we're we're harping on this idea that it's a cheat machine, but it's you know, it's not being used that way, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

Indra Kubicek: 15:53

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I I I don't doubt that stat. I mean, what I have at least heard in being over 40, I've heard that, you know, us over 40 are using it more like Google for information to kind of synthesize and summarize. And younger people, and I do think we need to think about this, and this is why we can't just be assuming it's a chat, it's a cheating tool. That's not what it's for. They're using it to have conversations, to do things with their personal life, they're doing it in all sorts of ways. That is a society, you know, the this it's like we're all on the bus and we're flying down and down the road, and young people are on it with us. And I think opposed as opposed to like previous, you know, when you compare it to other industrial revolutions or big technological advances, even young people weren't necessarily in the mix so closely as they are right now. And so I think that's where we actually should be putting our attention and actually having conversations at the kitchen table with our kids to learn more about what they're doing with these tools and what they're relying on it for and how they're using them, because it is, I think, much more outside of kind of a work type goal than people realize. And there's positives and consequences to that as well.

Chris Colley: 17:10

Totally. How do we how do we get home in school at the table listening to those conversations? Because I mean, right now here in Quebec, we're kind of keeping AI away, you know, directly from kids in classrooms, you know, age restrictions, privacy, like all of those issues that are there. How how do how do we start having those conversations with kids from the home perspective and from the school perspective and start listening to what what their ideas are about?

Indra Kubicek: 17:50

Yeah, I think so this is this is exactly what we're trying to do. I mean, as an organization, we are really trying to support the school system so they're willing and open to have those conversations. And yes, you know, there's a risk of not just bringing anything into the classroom and there's privacy and kind of, you know, all the ethical concerns, but at the same time, you can be having conversations and discussions about technology without even touching technology as a starting point. And parents are also feeling overwhelmed in all of this. And so, how do we start to create maybe more inclusive environments where those kind of conversations and discussions can happen and we can actually hear directly from young people what they think? And, you know, we're quite used to systems being kind of taking the creative side out of us, you know, as you go through school and you're told to stay in the box and like no focus on this and don't go outside of the rules and all of this, and actually over time, all of our creative and innovative ideas are kind of pushed aside because we're supposed to just do what we're told to do, whether that's at work or at school to some extent. So I always like to think like of young people as actually they are entrepreneurs and innovators by nature, and we're kind of pushing them into a box as they get older. And so, through at least, for example, our social innovation lab program, we want it to feel as not like school as possible. So we want them to feel like they can build the tool they want to build. We're there to mentor them and sort of share with them how they could integrate technology into the problem they're trying to solve, but center it around something that they care about and give them the autonomy to say, like, this is where we want to focus and listen to what they think as well. And I think there's so many creative ways that the school systems, the government could come in and support that infrastructure to be able to have parents also be involved in that process. So we're also talking about that, well, that right now, about, you know, a family guide or some sort of thing to just start conversations going. For example, for us, you know, one of the big things is, you know, polarization that's being created through social media, something we all really now are much more aware of. We're all living in these bubbles and these echo chambers, and we don't get to ever meet people on the other side or the other viewpoint, and you dehumanize them. And so, how do we easily create ways to have those conversations? And you don't even need to be bringing a tool into the room. Everybody knows what what that they can imagine what that scenario is like and have an honest conversation about it.

Chris Colley: 20:32

Absolutely. I totally am with you too on on that social media part. I I s sometimes just feel we kind of miss the boat on that, and we're seeing the repercussions now on the you know, and the kids that sit in front of us in in class that they they're more anxious, they're more, you know, just feeling the weight of the world. And I'm not saying that the world doesn't have a lot of weight to it right now, it does, but we kind of miss that boat on social media and the power that it was gonna have on these on our our youngest learners, and we're kind of seeing that repercussion, and I'm just hoping that we don't make that same mistake again with AI, because like you said, it's another tipping point, right? I mean, social media was a tipping point for our youth, and now we have another tipping point really close together. And are we having those conversations? And I know that you're very uh involved with those conversations that are happening at many different levels, but what where are we at here in Quebec with those conversations about you know ethical use, letting kids explore AI, but with you know, a little bit of safeguard around it so that that we're not doing what we did last time where we were just like giving them you know a car and said, go ahead, drive. No, you don't need a seatbelt, just go ahead, drive. Like, are we thinking about how we're gonna kind of make sure that we put those safeguards in place to protect our future generations?

Indra Kubicek: 22:04

Yeah, I mean, I think the analogy and the comparison is completely on point. And this is you know what is on all of our minds who are talking to different levels of government institutions and sort of public civil society around what not to do this time. And and I think in in our learnings of you know, social media and and I think and the real mistake was calling a smartphone a phone because it's not a phone, it's a complete access to anything on the web, the dark web, you name it, whatever apps, you know. And I don't really truly think anyone had any idea what they were, you know, what they were introducing young people to. So I I feel for people who had kids during that period of time, and absolutely for young people who who grew up with, you know, and are now very deeply ingrained in these kind of social media systems. And as you said, the repercussions and outcomes of that. So if there's not a better moment to be very hyper-aware that we cannot let that happen again, it is now. And so what we're talking about, you know, with different levels of government, and obviously we're national and in Canada, it's a complex environment. So when I was in the UK in 2012, the national education ministry of education introduced computer science from K to 12 across the country. And at least from a policy perspective, they could do that overnight for the every child in the country. And here we're, you know, we're we're trying to get to a place, and for us right now, we're really pushing for a national AI framework agenda that every province would sign up to say, look, it shouldn't matter. And as a parent and a citizen of Canada, it shouldn't matter if I'm in rural Quebec, downtown Vancouver, Prince Edward Island, or Edmonton. Like we should assume that all of our children are getting the same access to opportunity and being safely protected in the same way because it's not different from reading and writing. And now obviously those kind of skills have been around a long time. So they're already being taught across the country at the same level. And so this is where it all lies in this divide of what's going to happen. And you can imagine what's going to happen. Private schools are going to get it, companies are going to go in, and private schools are going to pay, and schools on the public system are going to be strained and suffer unless government steps in. And so it's really up to government, in my opinion, and not to even want or leave it up to the market. This is not a, you know, this is a this is a public, in my right, human rights issue, to be honest, that every young person needs to have the same opportunity here and the same education to protect themselves and their families need to know this. The government needs to step up and to really fund what it's going to take to give our educators time off and support to go to PD trainings like we provide. And right now we have a federal grant from the Ministry of Innovation through a program called CANCODE that I know you're quite familiar with. But even with those programs, we need partnership and collaboration with the ministries of education in every province and territory to want to say, let's do this together. I think it's far too much to ask teachers to kind of keep up on their own. Even for us who are running these organizations, we can barely, you know, it takes a lot. And we collaborate with all of our other Cancone partners and many of us across the country and internationally to bring together ideas and thoughts and content and and all of that. So, you know, I think it's it is it is government's job to do something. Today is the last day of a public call from the Ministry, Solomon's office of Minister of AI, asking the public about what should be done. So I think efforts are being made, but it's up to all of us who can talk, speak on behalf of citizens to not take our foot off the gas on pressuring them to own this.

Chris Colley: 26:03

Absolutely. I'm I'm on that, I'm in that car with you, Indra. I mean, I think that if there isn't some kind of framework that covers all of and and Canada's a weird place, right, where we've allocated provincial education, they control education provincially, but we're all in the same boat here, as you said, you know, or so it has to be some kind of framework where we all agree with. And I was at a conference yesterday and we were talking about that exact thing that we're all kind of doing our own thing instead of looking globally at it. Kids are kids, students are students, schools are schools. I mean, this is a a universal, as you said, you know, thing that's there. And if we don't address it that way, I think that it's going to be this patchwork again, which never tends to work very well.

Indra Kubicek: 26:52

Yeah, and at the day, at the end of the day, you know, we're all humans who care about the young people in our lives and our communities and our country. So we all want what's best for them. So I think that's actually coming together and saying, as you said, like there are ways to do this where we're not all in silos out there creating our own and recreating. And, you know, there's also I think about efficiency and so and use of funds and all of this as well. And so, you know, let's let's put our brains together across the country and people who are in the decision-making seats say, Yes, I want to meet all of us and say, here is a starting point. You know, it's it's just we have to start somewhere, and we don't have time on our side to, you know, as you said, education moves very slowly. Human beings are, and I don't think, as you mentioned rightly at the beginning, I think we're meant to move this fast, but you know, we have to do something to not let it overtake us. And so I think education needs to get a bit uncomfortable in saying we're gonna do things differently than we have in the past.

Chris Colley: 27:56

Totally. I love that. Well, this has been fascinating. I think that the thoughtfulness of your ideas and how you present them is something that we need to start talking about. I know it's uncomfortable, but I think right now is a time for disruption in a way, because we see we don't really know, but we see what the history has taught us, and that we're kind of heading in that same direction again. And it's it's a bit nerve-wracking. And I think you're right, a slow change just won't do it. And for change to happen, you have to be disruptive. I mean, it has to be, you gotta kind of break it all down and rebuild a little bit. I mean, I think that's kind of where we're at right now.

Indra Kubicek: 28:43

I yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think I think just because of sort of, you know, when people think about tech and big tech and and some of the failures we feel maybe that have happened, and the word disruption is now, you know, oh no, we know we don't that sounds like really negative per se, but it doesn't have to be. And so when we look at the Coke Club model that started in the UK, and I will speak to that beautiful story and and the women who are behind it, the founder of Coke Club, you know, they saw a problem. They said, We we are young tech professionals, we have people who have these skills, they're not being taught in schools. We're gonna create an easy way to match schools and volunteers, and we're just gonna send people into those schools and they're just gonna start teaching it for free. It was all around scratch, first coming out of MIT. And that's when the movement really began, you know, about 10, 15 years, 15 years ago, I guess now, almost. And that was disruptive, right? That was not a thing that existed. And it was social innovation and social disruption for the positive. So I think we do need to think about what are the things we can do to just disrupt how things have been done, but for good. And I think that's what's that's what we're teaching young people when we take them into our labs. We're like, you know, this problem's existed for 50 years, food insecurity, whatever it is they care about. Clearly, the things we've been Doing aren't getting aren't meeting the mark. We're not solving it with the same sort of ideas. So they're beautiful young people who can think outside the box and can, if you give them a chance, they're going to come up with wild and crazy ideas. And usually wild and crazy ideas lead to disruptive change that can be positive. So I think that's really important.

Chris Colley: 30:19

I love that. We're going to leave it there. I want to thank you. Man, so much to think about. So many more conversations to be had. I really hope that we can hop on here again one time and continue this conversation. Because I think if we're not talking about it, you know, and the conversations are needing to be had. And I hope the listeners out there can appreciate some of what we're talking about. And we're not thinking about kids, we're thinking about their future and empowering them for the future. And I think that digital moment is a big key to helping here in Quebec and across Canada. So Indra, thanks so much for your your your beautiful insights. I think that they were so well explained and illustrated. I really appreciate you joining me today.

Indra Kubicek: 31:12

Thank you so much and happy to come again and hopefully we'll have made good progress by then.

Chris Colley: 31:17

We got a date.

Indra Kubicek: 31:20

Thank you.