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How do you build a strong talent pipeline? Get them interested early!

Part 2: Tulsa's academic community and nonprofits are working together to teach Tulsans – including some very young Tulsans – what they need to know for a career in tech
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What does it take to reinvent a community, revive a local economy, and reinvigorate a workforce? In this five-part Work in Progress podcast series – Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland – we look at how Tulsa, Oklahoma, is embracing in-demand tech industries to do just that. At the heart of the effort is a strong foundation of education, entrepreneurship, health care tech, energy tech, and cybersecurity.

In the first episode of Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland, we explored how this city, once known mostly for oil, gas, and aerospace, now has big plans to be a major player in several technology fields. To do that, stakeholders from the Oklahoma governor, to Tulsa’s core universities, to its entrepreneurial ecosystem, are working together, with the help of the Tulsa Innovation Labs, to take a coordinated approach to tech growth

This time, we look at educational opportunities helping Tulsansincluding some very young Tulsansget a start in tech. What’s more, the leaders of schools and workshops are invested in making sure those tech careers are achievable for everyone.

In this episode, hear from:

  • Libby Ediger, executive director of Holberton School Tulsa, a global network of software engineering schools that are teaching software programming in less time than it takes to get an associate degree
  • Pete Selden, vice president for workforce development at Tulsa Community College, which is helping prepare students for the tech sector to entry- and mid-level jobs with associate degrees and short-term certificate programs
  • Leigh Goodson, president and CEO of Tulsa Community College, on the effort to increase diversity and inclusion in the Tulsa tech community through strong, affordable career pathways
  • Sal Aurigemma, associate professor at The University of Tulsa, and instructor helping build interest in STEM jobs through a training program that is helping the Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma get a badge in cybersecurity
  • Mikeal Vaughn, founder and executive director of Urban Coders Guild, which offers a free course to middle schoolers from underrepresented communities in IOS app development and web design.
  • You’ll also hear from Urban Coders Guild instructor Will Smith (a Tulsa Community College professor), student Quentin Roebuck and Quentin’s mom, Shardé RoebuckTaylor.

You can listen to the full conversation here, or look for the Work in Progress podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Destination Tulsa: Tech Hub in the Heartland is made possible by the support of Tulsa Innovation Labs.

Episode 220: Destination Tulsa: Educational Pathways to a Career in Tech
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0
Music for Destination Tulsa series: From Bensound.com
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
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.