Notre Dame Leaders, Part 1: Technology for Humanity

Episode Topic: Technology for Humanity

Join YoungND for a compelling episode of Notre Dame Leaders, "Technology for Humanity," featuring two 2025 Domer Dozen Honorees leading change through innovation. Meet Nathaniel Hanson '19, who is developing technologies to significantly improve environmental disaster response and public safety, and April Feng '17 about her work combatting mass incarceration by using technology to connect inmates with vital educational and social resources, ultimately reimagining justice and resilience.

Featured Speakers:

• April Feng '17, Ameelio
• Nathaniel Hanson '19, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/d4cd6a.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Notre Dame Leaders.

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Transcript

Introduction and Welcome

1 0:06

Welcome. Thank you all for joining. We're excited to host Technology for Humanity, another installment of Notre Dame leaders. This conversation will be about reimagining justice and resilience through innovation with Nathaniel Hansen and April Fang. Nathaniel and April were recently announced as two of our 2025 Domer dozen honorees, so we want to congratulate them both and thank them for their time today. Welcome Nathaniel. Nathaniel is a technical staff member at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he develops technologies for disaster response and public safety from search and rescue robots to evacuation planning tools. His work has led to patents, publications, and open source tools, now used by first responders

Speaker 3 0:53

and welcome, April. April is the CEO of Emilio, a tech nonprofit, con connected, incarcerated individuals with the families and communities and internationally recognized leader in civic innovation. April has advised governments in the US and UK and was named Forbes 30 under 30 for social.

1 1:15

Thank you both for joining us. You both have very impressive bios and we're so excited to have you here today. Can you tell us a bit more about the work you do and why you chose your current career path? Maybe we start first with you, Nathaniel. How did you begin working, with disaster relief and what makes you want to continue helping people affected by disasters?

Speaker 4 1:38

Sure. So my path into working with, disaster affected communities actually started in South Bend, at Notre Dame. So when I was a junior in the computer science engineering department, I took a course entitled Software Development for Unmanned Aerial Systems with Professor Jane Wong. Uh, it was all about programming drones. It's kind of a course that's a roboticist dream. and. We had a class project that was a semester long effort. and our, group came up with an idea of how do we use drones to assist in, delivering emergency forms of medicine such as, defibrillators and Narcan to primarily rural communities. so that class project eventually turned into a startup through the not Dame Idea Center. and I was really very impacted with working with first responders who were trying their best to, to serve, to service communities that had wide geographic areas, but just not the right technological resources to be able to, reach them in an efficient time. I was really inspired by the idea with the right development, specifically targeted to the first responder community, we could make this happen. It was within the technological means. It just required technologists and engineers to be able to put the effort towards tailored solutions, to that effort. And so eventually after graduation, that led me to, MIT. I have been for, since 2019, so since graduating. and I've continued to work with a variety of different communities across the United States as they seek to employ technology into their workflows for public safety and environmental resilience.

1 3:26

That's so cool. I feel like we do all these group projects and class projects that, you know, maybe sometimes don't always go somewhere, but it's so cool that that sparked a cool interest. April. Similarly, how did you get interested in helping incarcerated individuals and wanna dedicate your career to that?

Speaker 5 3:43

So my origin story does not start with a a, a class project, uh, but it's, uh, connecting a couple of different dots. So when I first graduated from college, I actually worked at City of South Bend, uh, when people digital still mayor, and we did a lot of projects helping folks who are disadvantaged, uh, helping them to fight housing and food transportation options. I think from that kind of give birth to some of my passion in civic innovation, it's like how can we use technology to ensure that people who are disadvantaged have access to all kinds of resources that you and I have. Then from there I actually went to University of Chicago. I'm an economist by training. Shout out to all my econ professors who didn't kill that passion for me. But essentially, uh, the Economist by training I was in University of Chicago, tried to do quantitative evaluation on social interventions. In particular those who are in criminal justice fields. And so from U Chicago is when the co-founders at that point of Emilio first approached us. And ask my lab at that point to do an impact evaluation on, you know, what they call the theory of changes when people who are incarcerated have access to communication and they can connect with their families and outside resources, it will reenter society better. And that was, at that point, an idea, that I thought, duh. You know, like, that sounds really, that sounds, makes a lot of sense. and then from there I actually started working a little bit with Emilio team. And it was just, you know, this instant click of, it's a apparent solution that doesn't yet scale very well. and then I joined Emilio first as Chief of staff to the CEO and the COO and the CEO To me it was, it, it was an accidental encountering, I would say, to, to the problem. But once you're in it. It's one of those things where once you see, you can't unsee, right? Like you, you know, it's something that requires persistence and effort and so I just keep

1 5:43

at

Speaker 5 5:43

it.

1 5:45

That's awesome. And I think we talk so much at Notre Dame about using business as a force for good, but both of you are really taking that to heart and acting on that day to day. so that's really great.

Speaker 3 5:57

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I guess get a little more into the meat of potatoes. Could, I'd like to hear just from you to start, Nathaniel. can you describe a project, a piece of work, that you found significant in your career, uh, that had an impact on you, and what were some like key takeaways or lessons you've had?

Speaker 4 6:17

Yeah, so in terms of work projects, I've found really fulfilling. When I first came to MIT. We were working very closely with, uh, the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA to rethink how they were applying technology to Joe, sorry, how they were, uh, re-applying technology to the problem of hurricane evacuation and planning. So when a hurricane comes and is going to impact somewhere in the United States. People and emergency managers have to make decisions about who is going to be evacuated and where, when you have to have this huge mass exodus of people from one location to somewhere else, you're asking people to uproot their entire lives. and to move somewhere across the country to be out of harm's way and making those decisions are not, they're not easy decisions, especially when if you're asking people to evacuate. When there's, a risk of, like, there, the storm might not actually hit them. you're taking chances on probability of, how bad is the storm actually going to be? And so we sought to employ methods to have, lots of data presented to these first responder communities so that they could make the most informed decisions that they could about where, where the storm was gonna be the most severe from winds to the, the actual waves that were impacting. Well starting to do things of analyzing traffic flows in and outta the regions to try to estimate what was the toll congestion that you would experience when you're trying to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from an area. but one of the things that we kind of learned through all of this is. There's just so much data that's available for these types of public safety applications. There's information and trying to be able to condense that all into a common operating picture for people to be able to understand it takes a lot of thought and also takes, prioritizing how do we use that information in a way that tells the most convincing story.'cause then when you're making such decisions and trying to plan around. evacuations like this, you have to be able to explain your decisions. Like, why are we making this, why did we decide to do this or not decide to pursue this course of action? So finding ways to be able to not only ingest and try to put all these things in like a common visualization, but then also to be able to explain that out to a wider community is really important in getting people to trust the decisions that are coming down from government and emergency responders.

Speaker 3 9:02

And, uh, I guess, I guess the question is then how did you guys unpack that all and get that out?

Speaker 4 9:11

Yeah, so we, we have, we built this platform that's called ach. So it's the national standard that's used by emergency management communities all across the country to make these decision planning efforts. And that was built upon. many, many people, um, of which I'm just a small part that we're, we interviewed, we worked very closely with the responder communities to understand what would it take for this technology to make a difference in the lives of like your workflow. and how do we make this something that's scalable so institutions can like, leverage it from the smallest like local fire department all the way up to big statewide emergency management agencies.

Speaker 3 9:54

very cool. I guess I will switch that over to you now. April. is there a, and I'll repeat the question for you. Can you describe a project or piece of work that's been particularly significant and something that you've learned lessons from or had good takeaways from in your career so far?

Speaker 5 10:10

Yeah, absolutely. This is not a project, but it's a period of time, so. Right after I worked for a City of South Bend, I went to London and then that's where I got my graduate degree from Len School of Economics. In the same time I was interning in the UK Parliament House of Commons, and that was the year of Brexit in particular. We were basically passing the actual bill related to exiting the European Union. and it was a, wasn't a lifetime experience where you got to witness something so historical and so significant. Up close from, you know, behind the walls of the Palace of Westminster. And it was also a time where you witness, you know, at least I witnessed the Westminster system in full retreat, right? Generally you see how well the system works. But that was one year where I saw how terribly the system worked. Um, and I think that that was a significant experience because again, I was given the opportunity to witnessing, you know, to witness something so. Up close and seeing how decisions are made in those very stressful moment. One particular one that I remembered was actually, it was the first round of voting for the bill on UK exiting the European Union. And I remember, you know, like we, the member of parliament that I, uh, after dinner, some of these votes goes until two in the morning. So after dinner we went back to the chamber and then on the way there, he turned around and asked me should I abstain? That was actually one of those really important moments because the member of Parliament that I work for, he, his constituency or his district actually voted, leave, uh, because he's a labor mp, so according to party line, he should have vote remain. And so it was one of those really important moments in his career thinking very carefully about what, what, you know, what his party requested him versus what his constituency has voted. But in that moment, because we've worked for one year on this already, he actually turned to me and said, you know, should I abstain? What should I do? And I think the moment was significant in my professional career because I think it was one of those times where you realize history is made by. The people who are working in it down to that legislative assistant. You know, I've, I'm not even British, like I've only worked in the Parliament for about one year at that time, however, right? Like what I say will have a diff like, will make a difference in how the vote went. And then for those of you who might have remembered, some of the rounds of that voting were went down to one or two votes of difference. and so. I think going forward, that particular moment had enabled me to always be thoughtful about what I share, how I work, and what I put out to the world. Because every single moment actually matters. Um, you, you never know. And so I think it brought a level of seriousness to how I approach work. And then also brought out honestly, a lot of, um, I. Responsibility, for me as well and thinking, you know, the question of if not me, who at this moment, when somebody is unsure and also that member of Parliament has 49 years of legislative experience and yet it was a moment of uncertainty and um, I should be able to give a thoughtful answer. So that was moment wow.

Navigating Heavy Work in Incarceration

Speaker 3 13:44

Yeah, it's crazy the amount of impact you can have even in those small as a assistant like you said. that's really cool. I guess the first question I wanna ask to you specifically, April, is, um, the work you're doing with incarcerated individuals and the families I can imagine can be very heavy at times. Uh. I'm curious how have you navigate that situation and, uh, those feelings and, if you have any advice for any of the audience members that would find themselves in similar situations?

Speaker 5 14:14

Yeah, it definitely can be heavy at times. Uh, I would say some of the stories that we hear, and actually I just returned from Hawaii of all places. To do a site visit for all the Hawaii prisons. And I was joking about this with someone else that, you know, you would think, oh my God, you spend a week in Hawaii, you must be beach. And like all the fun things poke. But actually the reality is 16 hour days where we just hop from one island to the other, go from airport to prison, prison to airport. And so it definitely has a certain heaviness, you know, associated with it no matter where you are. Even in Hawaii. that being said, I think I always go back to the philosophical, you know, get underpinning of some of the work that we do, that when you feel the heaviness, when you feel the responsibility, oftentimes, at least for me, it comes with a same sense of honor at the same time. where you know, you feel, you feel the weight and that makes you. Honestly, I feel really honored that these people have allowed you, right, like to, to make a difference to their lives. And so for me personally, going to the philosophical underpinning always helped because it, um, it illustrated to me the meaning right of, of my day-to-day work. And interestingly, I've always been one of those people who cannot. Uh, my mom is an academic and I see her day-to-day work, and I actually thought. I wanna, I wanna bring something concrete into this world. I want to make a real, you know, impact. Not to say academic doesn't make an impact, obviously, but for me it's very important to see things growing because of my day-to-day effort. And so I think going back to that, you know, seeking I guess of like meaningfulness was something that I always lean on in, in moments of happiness. And you know, once you get used to it though, there is also. A healthy sense of fun in it, where you think, yeah, every single decision makes a difference, but at the same time, right, like, we're all here doing the work. And it felt quite, you know, you have a sense of camaraderie definitely in working day in, day out on a problem that seems so heavy and so, unsolvable. I think I also lean a lot on my support network. Like my family and then also the, the folks that are on our team that we work together with. So.

Speaker 3 16:44

Awesome.

Speaker 2 16:44

It's

Speaker 5 16:44

a good life.

Speaker 2 16:46

Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:47

Yeah. Very good. Nathaniel, on a different note, you are on the cutting edge of robotics, especially with disaster relief. looking back, are there any choices or work you did that you think led to the position you're in now?

Speaker 4 17:02

Yeah. I think not only just decision, but I think choice in terms of like a general life philosophy in working in robotics is just like not giving up. there's, we joke about in specific in robotics specifically, that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It's the physical, it's the field. It's a physical manifestation of Murphy's Law. When you take both hardware components and software components and try to make them work together, and then you try to make them work in the field in austere conditions, something's going to go wrong, and it's only in sticking with it and continuing to work through those challenges and get a little bit better every time that you're actually able to build something that works. And, and, uh, is, uh, something that people actually want to use. So, so like looking back in terms of what decisions I've made and specifically career, robotics is a pretty wide umbrella. So it encompasses both hardware development, software development, even, especially now with the advancements in AI and machine learning, like a lot of ethical considerations for how we use robotics. What sort of data do we feed into these, um, machines that we're trying to teach to accomplish very complex tasks? So it's a very interdisciplinary subject. so I think one of the things I'm very grateful for nerding for is for making me a truly great interdisciplinary thinker. So encouraging us to not just take those core, those hardcore, math and science classes, which are important to anyone who wants to be. An autonomous systems field, but taking that ethics and that philosophy course, I think having those courses, like at the back of my mind as we're thinking about how we employ technologies, has been really impactful.'cause there, I won't get into them now, but like there have been things that we've said like, no, we're not going to robotics here. Like this isn't the right use, it's this type of technology. And that's directly informed by. Having a broader worldview about what are some of the implications of how do we use this technology. but like, just taking lots of courses, whether it was at Notre Dame, also throughout my grad school and my doctorates, like keeping an open mind, especially, towards technological development is very important. specifically I think there's an undervalued portion. Robotics where we like sometimes we think about it was, it's a very technical field, but it's also a very creative field, like the next big. So the, these big solutions to problems often have really creative origins. So having people who can pull from different disciplines and other, sometimes what seems initially to be like an unrelated field, can be. Really impactful. Like one of the main programs that I lead right now at MIT is, but using robots which are functionally just like giant balloon animals to get into really tight crevices for search and rescue. And that doesn't really happen unless you're able to pull in and like, think about all these things. Like, could I make this a robot? Like how does this, like could this type of technology be useful when. So I think kind of always, not pigeon, not pigeonholing yourself into one specific type of technology or one expected career outcome, but being kind of open to the full scope of, cont of learning and knowledge has, really sets, has set me up for a good career in robotics.

Speaker 3 20:49

Very cool. And I guess when you mentioned that robot you're working on. I'm a mechanical engineer. I loved watching, I was watching all kinds of video of this thing today, so, cool. I guess one question in relation to the question I just asked, how did you specifically find yourself on that project? Is that a, a type of, engineering that, like that specific type of robot that you have worked on before or is that just something that opened the opportunity to.

Speaker 4 21:16

So actually one of the coolest perks about being, having a doctorate and being a principal investigator at MIT is you get to choose the type of research problems you get to work on. And more importantly, you get to choose the type the people that you get to work with. And so there was, there's actually a professor at Notre Dame who works on these types of robots, in the mechanical engineering departments, and. I saw that she had some interest in this technology and in our group at MIT, we had the core expertise and connections to, some of the training facilities that they used to, train both canines and people on how to respond to urban search and rescue incidents. And so there was a great. Melding of the minds. And we came up with this project and we said, we'll take the technology that's been really developed in a kind of a more sterile academic laboratory. But then we're gonna push it out into the field and see all the fun and exciting ways that it breaks. And then we're gonna use that knowledge and work very closely with first responder communities. Let them have hands time to be hands on with the system, and use that to really. And build out, a better system that's something that they'll actually want to use one day. So, yeah, so it's, it's been a really awesome opportunity for this program to be both back at Notre Dame more often. but then also kind of, helping to push this great laboratory technology out. be one step closer to one day, being able to respond to, a real natural disaster. Awesome. Can I ask who that professor is? Uh, professor is Margaret Code in the a ME department?

Envisioning an Ideal Prison System

Speaker 3 22:57

I thought so. I had her my senior year and she was my favorite teacher. I had Notre Dame, she's the best. And her videos of her, she was the original person who introduced me to those robots. So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. but I'll, I'll we'll let you have a rest now, Nathaniel. We'll talk to April again. April has someone with a deep knowledge in the area. The policies, the technology, all of it. How do you envision an ideal prison system and what are some high level steps to take to getting there?

Speaker 5 23:29

I feel like I'm in a fundraising call talking to funders at this point. That's a very big question. okay, so let me, let me simplify it a little bit and kind of boil down to two big categories. One is. What would the government agencies do, right? So like Department of Corrections or county, uh, sheriff's offices that actually run some of the prisons and jails and juvenile detention centers in this country. And then the second category would actually be, you know, what would all of us, right? So people who might not have that experience, might not have, you know, folks that we know currently incarcerated or previously incarcerated. What can we do? So I think from the, the government agency perspective, I think we just gotta stop treating. People who are currently incarcerated as kind of forgotten population, right? Like I, I luckily do not have families or friends incarcerated. I did not grow up with, you know, that particular experience. And I really did not know where prisons and jails are until, you know, I came to Emilio and I remember I, you know, I think like, Nathaniel, I, I live in Boston or Cambridge area. and then I remember. I just had no idea where the Massachusetts Correctional Institute are. As a matter of fact, I actually drive through some of them whenever I go skiing, you know, like in the, in the Northern Massachusetts. But I just never recognize them as like places where thousands of people live every single day. Um, and so I think part of that reason is because we as a society. Think about people who are currently incarcerated as, you know, let's, they made mistakes. Some of them maybe, you know, not a big mistake, but let's say they did wrong and so let's put them there and then we collectively can forget about it. I think that's kind of the, the mentality that I certainly had, before I came to Emilio. And so. Start paying attention to what actually happens inside these facilities. Because if we think about it, right, like a lot of our users, currently, users of familial, we are, you know, we, we see them as, some of them go to the facilities as the first point of entry into the social welfare system. And then some of them, it's really their last resort. They might not have a safe environment in their homes. Especially for the juvenile facilities, kids, some of, sometimes, like they don't have a safe environment at home. They're not really in school that much, and so it's their last resort in some of these correctional facilities. However, once they're there, it's kind of a captive audience. Like there's so many things that we can. Do so many resources that we can provide to that population so that their time serving inside can be meaningful. And so I would say from the government perspective, start treating correctional institutions like community anchor institutions, right? Like libraries and schools. It's just the folks who are inside. If we can provide them with resources, connections to their loved ones and all of that, you know, rehabilitation should really start from day one of entering into the system. So I think that's from the government perspective, from you and me. Right. Actually, one of the huge surprising things I would say since I joined Emilio has been the amount of messages that I got on LinkedIn and my, just my social media network where people that I knew a lot of them from the Notre Dame community messaging me and saying. Hey, actually, you know, when I was in school I had a friend or a family member incarcerated. I just never talked about it. Like who? Who walks around with like a say on your forehead to say, I have friends incarcerated. Right. But we know from statistics one in two Americans have or have had. A loved one or a friend incarcerated, so like 50% or like, that's one in two. And so I think when I dig a little bit deeper into their experience, I hear things like, oh yeah, we just kind of wanna be invisible about it. Like, we don't want to talk about it. So I think the, for us, you know, talk about it, like, talk about that experience when you have to pay so much money to connect with your loved ones. Talk about that experience where you feel you're disconnected with from them when they reenter. I think all of those would kind of put this mass incarceration. From behind the curtain into the public consciousness. And then that's the way that we can actually start addressing and start thinking about what needs to be done in the Carceral system when people are still behind bars. I think there's a lot of solutions and technology being applied to reentry, so when, when people are released, and then also prior to incarceration, right? It's like how can we triage better so people are not incarcerated in the first place? All of those are incredibly valuable efforts. I think the carceral experience has just been neglected for so long, and that fueled a lot of the dynamics that we see in the market, in the industry where private companies essentially price gaging, right? Like all the consumers that they're serving. So pay attention to it is what I'm, it was what I would say for, uh, the general public. Yeah, that's, go ahead. Go ahead Brett.

Speaker 3 28:48

I was gonna say, just reading your story and what you've been working on and seeing. The cost to the families to communicate with the people inside, but also, just the idea of using it as a time where they can, when they come outta prison, that they're assimilated and able to get jobs and able to, just live normal lives. I think that's, uh, I think that's, uh, just something I'd never thought about. So it's, it's really amazing.

1 29:17

It also makes me think that, you know, what are the other challenges that our peers, our coworkers, our, you know, fellow students are grappling with that we don't see, right? It's not, uh, something that I have really thought about until this conversation and it makes me more aware of, you know, what could be going on or with my peers. Um, we have a couple great questions in the chat for you, Nathaniel. So maybe we pivot quickly to those. I think. You know, to, to sum it up, there are a lot of changes in tech, robotics. We're all hearing about ai, et cetera. But what are you most excited about for the future of tech and robotics? How is this changing, like how we interact with robots, how we interact with autonomous vehicles? Autonomous robots, you know, should they be held accountable for their decisions and actions And, and to what degree, and I'm kind of lumping a lot of questions, would love to hear your thoughts too on like how that changes like the human to human worker, employer, you know, environment.

Ethics and Accountability in Robotics

Speaker 4 30:22

Okay. Boy, there's, I'm looking at the chat. There's some great questions in here and there's a couple of great, like PhD thesis, so which we could, we could dive into of answering these questions. I'm gonna put on my ethics hat for just one minute and give my personal philosophy of how, of how we should employ robots. And I think it's really informed by sort of my understanding of Catholic social teaching and like how. Like, what is the nature of work? and I think work, and like I this question about specifically job displacement with AI and robotics. I think the nature of work should be things that elevate human dignity, that it enables human flourishing. Um, it doesn't work to not reduce human beings down to essentially robots. So if, if work is basically using. A human just as a means to crew on a cap or something. I don't think that's the most, you, the, the best use of a human soul and a mind which is creative, which is has an ability to think creatively. And so those are things where I think that robots, like where there is a place for robots, where robots are doing the simple repetitive task time and time again. And that's something that. I think I would say it's the more solved area of where we can use robots and if we can use robots to, in these situations where it's primarily dull work that doesn't support human flourishing, I think that's something that we should, we should do. But at the same time, we kind of talk building off of what April said about not leaving people behind in society. We have to prioritize, from a political and economic development standpoint, we have to, focus on how do we support these communities, which are in transition as we go through an industrial, a new sort of industrial revolution, and we move towards more automation, how are we training people for high tech career fields? So the simple solution isn't that we just. Automate away jobs, and we can reduce costs in factory man and manufacturing, but how do we actually take those, those same workers and how do we retrain them to do ro the program robots to be able to directly work with, those types of technology. and then kind of on the questions, like in speaking of working with technology. I think the thing that I'm most excited about, especially in the past two years, from a robotics standpoint, is just the, the development of what we call large language models. so I think everyone's played around chat, GPT or other types of really advanced, uh, language models, which can answer questions for you. And from a robotic standpoint, that's a really enticing, realm where you can take. Natural human language, and there's an ability to parse it and to turn that into some way that's machine understandable. because previously we, there was sort of a running joke in the robotics community of like all these demos that you would see of robots doing, very cool things in the background. There were, there's always a PhD grad student, like frantically banging away at a keyboard, making the thing work. So there was a little bit of a smoke and mirrors effect with how these systems, um, were operated and what it took to actually make them run. But with large language models, there's specifically a lot of people who are working to make the interfaces for how do you program and operate these high dimensional robotic systems in a way that's very easily understandable that you don't need advanced knowledge of controls and sensor systems. If you're able to interact with them in a very plain, natural language setting, that opens up a lot of possibilities. Not just for like industrial automation, but ultimately, for a lot of assistive technologies where I think there's a, there's definitely a future where there, where we can put more robots in the home to assist, the elderly and folks who just need some like, uh, assistance with basic household chores. there's a really exciting world where. We can have robots to be able to support more independent lives for the people, and be able to perform those same kind of dull routine tasks that just are everyday parts of life. And I think those are places where we should prioritize developing robots. don't know if you want me to answer the question about to what extent should robots be held accountable for those decisions because, oh boy, that's a loaded question. go for it. I, so I, one of the cool things about being at MIT is I'm surrounded by people who are continually smarter than me and have looked into these questions a lot more. So my answer to that question is, go read The New Breed by Kate Darling, which is a really great book about, Agents autonomy and accountability in for decisions. And it basically posits that in the future we should treat robots and autonomous systems essentially like pets, which have some amount of free will and agency, but are ultimately, but there is some responsibility that's born by humans and how they train them. So if a dog goes off and attacks someone, there is a place where there can be legal liability that's placed on a person based off of did they train them and was it known that dog known to be, a bad actor. So really fascinating book. Go read the New Breed. that's my personal philosophy on that question.

1 36:10

Great. Will do. And I think this question that someone also, also put in the chat, how can robots be designed to understand. Respond appropriately to human emotions. I'd like to broaden it and ask both of you the question, right? You're working in a field in fields that are both very influenced by technological advancements, but they are very human in who you're touching and whose lives are being affected. So how do you strike the balance of that, like innovating while you know. Not testing too much on people.

Speaker 5 36:56

Do you want me to go first? I see him seeing,

Speaker 2 37:00

sorry.

Testing Technology Responsibly

Speaker 5 37:02

so I'll quote our engineers. So our engineers always tell me the best scenario that Emilio technology should, could work. Is when the people who are using it don't even realize that they're using Emilio. Like, because we provide the communication technology for, incarcerated individuals to connect with their families and loved ones. Hopefully when they're using the interface, they don't even notice, right? Like they shouldn't, it's like this particular, platform that we're using, I should focus, I should be able to focus on. Conversing with all of you and the audience as opposed to technology in order to, or technical difficulties. And so the way that we think about technology is that it should, to Nathaniel's point, I think, enhance and make available human interactions that otherwise are not available. and so the way that we always think about it is technology as a. Technology as a enabler, right? For human interaction that should take place on those platforms. and when it comes to testing, that's a really, really good question too, because we actually have a user population that is very difficult and one might even say. Unethical to run QA on or test on. And so for us, we generally have very robust QA internally with the team before we deploy. But I would say that when it comes to technology, right, like the standard for QAing is very different from product to product. And for us, I remember the most difficult one was actually the first time when we deployed Emilio technology to a juvenile facility. The kids were actually using Emilio to report what we call pre PREA violation, which is Prison Rape Elimination Act violations. And so before we roll out that particular product, we curate it for a very long time. And I actually personally said we should not roll out the technology until we're a hundred percent sure that it's gonna work. Given Enos an engineer. Our engineers told me nothing works a hundred percent of the time. I understand. For sure. But there is, there is a very high threshold when we think about, you know, kids reporting, sexual misconduct inside. And so I would say be thoughtful and intentional about who are the users and what are the threshold upon which you think is responsible to deploy technology.

1 39:36

That's so interesting.

Speaker 4 39:38

So on that, like, I'm gonna build off the testing question. so it's something we think a lot about just in engineering in general, is how do you test things in a way that are, that build upon your knowledge and your confidence in a system to work under various types of conditions and kind of rule one for working in any type of disaster related field. We live in a world where the number of disasters, specifically we quantify as billion dollar disasters. So by that we mean the amount of like capital that's gonna take to recover a community from a specific, natural disaster or occurrence. Um, even though those are increasing in the world, there is a very fine line as roboticist and technologists that we draw that. Disasters are not the right place to test new technology in a sense. Like they're not experimental playgrounds that when there are people whose lives are on the line and that are expecting technology to work, the last thing that the world needs is people to show up and be like, oh, I've got this experimental thing that might work. Sport might not, and you might end up wasting a bunch of people's time and divert diverting resources from, uh, response efforts that really need just, sometimes it's just a matter of brute forcing your way through some these solutions. So there's a lot of intentionality that goes into, as we build out testing plans, how do we work with communities? How do we work with first responders? Able to test these technologies in a way that's safe and controlled so we can make them better. And when they're ultimately called upon, to respond to disasters, whether it's a software or a hardware system, we have enough confidence from these test feds that they can be rolled out in a way that is safe. So yeah, there's definitely a fine line of just trying to make sure that it's ready, um, and not putting untested systems in the field.

1 41:42

Super, super interesting and timely, I think given all the hubbub obviously about ai, but then ethical topics as well. Right. pivoting slightly, both of you have mentioned how April, you said people reach out to you on LinkedIn and you know, on social media. And Nathaniel, I know mentorship is something that has been really important to you. Talk about, you know, how. How you help others, what drives you to do that and why it's important to you?

Speaker 4 42:15

Yeah, I can, I'll talk a little bit about mentorship. I think in an academic context, it's really important. like I am the product of who I am today because I have had such fantastic mentors, both mentors professionally in my career, more senior grad students than myself. People who put me under their wing and pop me, this is how you approach this problem. This is how you write a paper. This is how you write code. But having people who are looking out for you and helping to build you up, and encouraging you to reach that next level, it's super important and it's one of the most rewarding things I get to do on a day-to-day basis is to work with students that I mentor and supervise to work with junior staff members. Um, as they kind of become, they go through this growth process of they come out of undergrad and they know a lot of things about how technology should work. but then putting them, putting those skills into context and saying, okay, how do we understand what is the, like, what's the problem we're trying to solve? What do we know? What do we not know? And how do we tell a story about that problem and why it matters? And how do we go about developing. A whole cycle to come up with a solution that we can validate and then ultimately refine. It's this whole wonderful cycle that is research and development. and so I find a lot of joy in teaching people how to be researchers. I think one of the things that being in academia will teach you is that a lot of people have very, very good ideas, and especially people that come. After you are even smarter or they have better ideas. And if I can be a small part of helping them to be able to express their ideas, how to be able to implement them in a way that is, logical, that is well understood and can be expressed well to the world so that it ultimately gets out there, then I've done my job. There's a quote I think from a Star Wars movie that we are what they grow beyond. And so if I can help people, to get one step further on the ladder, ahead of us, I think I've done my job as a mentor.

Speaker 5 44:32

That's an amazing response. I don't really know how I can, uh, follow that. I'd probably say the following, so at least when I was in school, and then also immediately after graduating. So I double majored in political science, essentially political philosophy, and then economics, econometrics. So I've always been very concerned with how can I make a difference. The question of like, how can I live a meaningful life? Like what, what should I do career wise or life choices wise that give me meaning? Somehow that question really concerned me. I think looking back, one of the things that. I now have formed, as a principle when it comes to helping others, right? Is stop optimizing, just show up. I think that's one, one thing that has, I, I've come to realize that's a more effective and efficient way actually of seeking meaning than, you know, philosophizing it in, in a way. so I think when it comes to showing up, right, not only in the sense of. How can I advocate for those who don't have people to advocate for them, but also showing up and just solving the problem at hand. I don't know if, if Nathan, you, you identify with this, but I think even as CEO generally on a day-to-day basis, I'm just putting out fires. Like there, there are always something to be solved, right? Like there, there are problems from my team members who can't, you know, literally from, I can't log in to our code base. To our clients saying, Hey, there is a out, you know, like an outage of your system. And then kids can connect with their parents. There are problems everywhere. just showing up and start addressing them is the fastest way to really get to impact and help people. so I would say that that has been my kind of dominating philosophy for a long time. Just, uh, stop optimizing, start doing things. You will feel much more fulfilled instantly, and it will help guide you to ultimately, I think, what you're called to do.'cause, um, I think it's, it's in, you know, solving of problems, especially other people's problems that you get to realize, what the path is.

1 46:51

That's great. that's super powerful and I think I won't do it justice summarizing a lot of what we've heard tonight, but I'm hearing a lot of themes of taking action, using your voice, not kind of succumbing to the hierarchy, right? Like you gave the example April of the legislative assistant, being intentional and taking on this interdisciplinary point of view. Also like thinking about the philosophy without, like you said, over philosophizing the problem and, and just getting started. And then Nathaniel, you talked about like this cycle of learning that can be really powerful and, you know, both learning from people ahead of us and not pulling the ladder up behind us. even helping those behind us, like jump us on the ladder, right. If you think about what advice you have for young alumni, so fresh graduates, young alumni who are, you know, maybe five years, 10 years out in their careers, what would you tell young alumni who aspire to make a difference and have an impact in their fields, and how not only have an impact, but how can you help young alumni prepare themselves to truly be leaders in their fields?

Speaker 5 48:17

I will give a short answer because I think it's very similar to what I just said before, which is really be generous with your time and talent. I think that I kind of shared the similar, in the same, similar, you know, way of thought, the best way to be a leader is to. Essentially apply yourself to problems. And the fastest you, the faster you can get there, the fastest you can improve. And in my professional career, I've, I've come to realize that leaders are not, you know, those behind tables and just kind of make decisions. instead they're kind of there, right, like on the battlefield, like actually. Helping and be close to people that they serve. In my commencement, nerd Dam commencement, the commencement speaker was, the founder of Homeboy Industry. And he talked about, you know, instead of helping others, we should all see ourselves in kinship with them. And I think that's something that I remember quite fondly and also. It's a memorable line because it goes against the conventional wisdom of like, you gotta lead, you gotta charge, you gotta make decisions, right? You gotta manage. I think all of that is incredibly important, but deep down is this desire to, to do something like to actualize your own talents and the best way to do it. It just to be generous with your time and, um, what you can do.

Speaker 4 49:49

Yes. Hmm. How do I add to that? I think the most important thing I'd give, especially to young alum who are coming out and like looking to make an impact or to find, to build something, whether it's a company, whether it's a career, like I think April and I can both attest to the places that we are today, took like years of training and connections and schooling to get to. and so to borrow a piece of advice from my father-in-law time is your only non-renewable resource. and so my advice would be start today. So if there's something that you want to do or something that you want to achieve, you have to start with it now. it's gonna be one step at a time, one day at a time, but some of those other things that we've mentioned. Finding a mentor, someone who can help you to help chart a trajectory. these things are possible and you can do some really great things and build great, exciting careers, exciting robots. Um, but you gotta start somewhere. So might as well start today.

Speaker 3 51:02

Awesome. I think that's both great advice. Thank you guys so much for that. I think the only question. I wanna ask left is what is next for you guys? what do is in your, what is coming up for you guys? What's in your windshield? Whatcha looking forward to, whatcha trying to work on what all your goals, stuff like that

Speaker 5 51:25

Professionally, Emilio is currently in, you know, 14 states serving about 161,000, uh, incarcerated individuals in their families. Our goal in the next three years is to grow it to be in 30 states and serving 10 times that population. personally I think I, I have been. I've started rereading philosophy, which is, uh, an important, uh, aspect of my life. And so, especially I think given the time that we're currently in politically, uh, philosophically and then also societally, I really would like to restart writing. I think about how, you know, the democratic system works and works for whom. So personally I've been trying to write more, and then start putting my thoughts out there. Not just the directives from the CEO, but actually thoughts on what I think should be and be vulnerable about, you know, some of those thinking that each of us might have been doing but have not shared, you know, with with others. It's a personal project.

Speaker 3 52:36

Is there a place you're writing that people can get to or is it

Speaker 5 52:39

not yet? I will share it. Okay. Okay. Awesome.

Speaker 4 52:44

Nathaniel? Yeah, so, well I think the thing that's on the, the near term for us is our, our research program, which is all about novel robots for urban search and rescue support. We just had a, a large grant awarded in that regard. So we're really excited to be able to continue to push that technology and to develop, technology that's gonna support humanitarian disaster relief operations worldwide. So that's sort of on the short term and we're excited to build like a new generation of more capable robots. I think one of the things that we're also trying very hard to do with this work is to open source as many things as we can. So pieces of technology that we can share with communities across the world, we're, we're putting a really big premium on that of what can we do to make these robotic systems easier for communities across the world to be able to build and implement themselves. So those are, there's some pretty exciting developments coming down the pipeline. Um, I can't promise anything specific timeline wise, but we're keeping that at a core for our research programs. yeah, I think that's kind of where we're going. Awesome.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Speaker 3 53:58

Well, I think we only have a couple minutes left, so I'll wrap us up here unless you have anything else, Caroline?

1 54:05

No. Thank you all so much. This has been an awesome conversation. Really appreciate you both sharing your time with all of us.

Speaker 3 54:13

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys all. We'll be hosting additional installments of this, so please come back for more. We have another on the 27th, I believe. Is that right, Caroline? Yep. Yes. And, uh, one of the best ways to stay at the loop is to follow us on Instagram. but we're on Facebook, I believe, and a couple others. So, follow along. But thank you both to our guests, Nathaniel and April. You guys are amazing.