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Google, AI, and a free up-skilling program

A conversation with Andrew Dunckelman, head of education and economic opportunity, Google.org
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“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are having profound changes on the way that we work,” says Andrew Dunckelman, Google.org’s head of Education and Economic Opportunity. We’re all going to have to learn new things on the job, but “reskilling does not have to be a scary thing,” he adds as he points to his own company as evidence.

Dunckelman describes Google as an AI-first company in which everyone needs some command of artificial intelligence. To make certain employees are getting the skills they need to change with their jobs, Google developed a Machine Learning Crash Course.

“It’s 40 hours of content, delivered by Googlers for Googlers,” he explains. “We’ve actually encouraged our engineers, every level of the company, whether you’re a junior, an entry-level engineer, all the way to our most senior staff engineers, to go through this program.”

More than 18,000 people inside Google have completed the free course, and now the company is making it available to the world at large, also for free.

For this episode of Work in Progress, Dunckelman and I sat down after his presentation at the Talent Forward 2019 national workforce conference held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation this fall.

Andrew Dunckelman, second from right (Photo: David Bohrer/USCCF)

Our conversation covered efforts inside and outside of Google to address the skills gap. We agreed that businesses need to step up, as well as local governments, educators, and employees themselves. “Solving for how the economy is going to change will require all of those actors. Anybody who tells you that they can reduce it to one group is a charlatan,” he argues.

I’d love you to hear for yourself Dunckelman’s thoughts on the issue. You can listen to Work in Progress here, and, of course, you can find the podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Episode 116: Andrew Dunckelman, Head of Education & Economic Opportunity, Google.org
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Engineer: Daniel Tureck
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.