Exploring Mathematics, Innovation, AI Futures, Affordable Housing, and the Power of Music: A New Season Kickoff

Welcome to a new season of For What It's Worth that promises to be a whirlwind journey through the world of innovation, music, and social issues. Our first guest is John Mighton, whose contributions to the fields of Mathematics, Literature, Drama, Education and Social Entrepreneurship are nothing short of extraordinary. His charity organization JUMP Math  is changing how we can create intellectual quality in our society through the teaching of mathematics.

Can you imagine a world governed by Artificial Intelligence?   Eric Montiero, a robotics engineer, analytics executive, and author, paints a fascinating picture of this future through his novel, ALMA

But the excitement doesn't stop there. We'll be diving deep into the affordable housing crisis, dissecting this complex problem from varied perspectives. We'll share the heartwarming story of musician Douglas Cameron, who lost his cherished Gibson guitar, only to find it in an extraordinary project, One Guitar, 100 Hands, by the multi-talented George Tierney. You'll also meet Edwin Morris, founder of Pioneer Knowledge Services, who explores the critical role of knowledge management in non-profit organizations. If you love thought-provoking discussions, inspiring stories, and engaging guests, join us next week for an exciting kickoff to Season 5 of For What It's Worth.

Blog post for this episode

The music for this episode, "High Water"  is written and performed by our current artist in residence, #DouglasCameron

You can find out more about Douglas by visiting our show blog and by listening to our episode, #TheOldGuitar

Knowledge Management Institute of Canada
From those who know to those who need to know

Workplace Innovation Network for Canada
Every Graduate is Innovation-Enabled; Every Employee can Contribute to Innovation

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Blake Melnick: 0:10

Well, here we are, season five of For what it's Worth. I'm your host, Blake Melnick, and we have a fantastic season in store for you, and here's a little taste of what you can expect. We have one of Canada's great Mr., John M, coming on the show. John's accomplishments in the field of mathematics, literature, drama, social entrepreneurship and education are nothing short of extraordinary. John and I will do a deep dive into the importance of helping students develop the mindset for mathematics and innovation. We'll discuss the importance of creating intellectual equality as a means for addressing many of the social issues of our time. We have a number of crossover episodes in season five, and the first will feature author Eric Montiero. Eric is a robotics engineer by training and analytics executive by profession and a writer by accident. Eric's novel Alma presents us with one possible future in a society governed by generative AI. Eric and I will discuss the implications of artificial intelligence now and in the future through the lens of his novel Alma. We have Edwin Morris, founder and president of Pioneer Knowledge Services and host of the podcast series Because You Need to Know coming on the show. Edwin and I will discuss podcasting as a service. We'll talk about the importance of knowledge management processes, practices and methodologies in supporting the work of not-for-profit organizations. Pioneer Knowledge Services is the first not-for-profit knowledge management firm in the United States.

Blake Melnick: 1:45

We have musician George Tierney coming on the show. In addition to being a musician, George is a board member and secretary of the Canadian Folk Music Awards. He is the president of the Eastern Ontario Folk Music Project and the Upper Canada Folk Festival. George is coming on the show to talk about an initiative that he helped to found a couple of years ago, called One Guitar, 100 Hands, which celebrates musicians, instruments and their history. This is a crossover episode. Many of our listeners may recall that when we launched our series in the company of readers and writers, we had musician Douglas Cameron on the show to talk about his story Old Guitar, and through our interview we discussed whether or not that old guitar, that old Gibson guitar, might actually be the missing guitar of Robert Johnson's. For those of you that had a chance to listen to Old Guitar , Douglas had this guitar stolen, but it eventually found its way into the hands of George Tierney. As it turned out, George had fallen in love with Douglas's guitar, so much so that he launched an initiative One Guitar, 100 Hands where the idea was to take this old guitar and give it to 50 of the best musicians around to record their songs on it. When Douglas discovered that his old guitar was still in existence and in the hands of George Tierney, he reached out to George. George asked him if he could hold on to the guitar as this initiative unfolded. Douglas loved this old guitar, but he felt that what George was doing - that his One Guitar, 100 Hands initiative was so cool that he agreed to let George hold on to the guitar, at least for now. We'll talk to George about One Guitar and 100 Hands and all the fantastic musicians that have recorded on the guitar to this point. We'll also discuss whether George believes this could be the missing guitar of Robert Johnson and hopefully George will give us some clips or some tracks that he's recorded that we can play for you on the show.

Blake Melnick: 3:47

I'm really looking forward to this episode.

Blake Melnick: 3:50

I'm going to do a multi-part episode in season 5 on the subject of the affordable housing crisis.

Blake Melnick: 3:57

There's been a lot written about this, a lot of finger pointing as to the root cause of the problem and who or what is at fault, and much of what we read in the news is sensationalized and either not supported by sufficient research or the research is skewed by special interest groups looking to further their own agenda or by politicians using the media attention around this issue to garner political support.

Blake Melnick: 4:20

In order to find workable solutions to problems with this level of complexity, it requires that we truly understand the nature of the problem from all perspectives. My concern is we've seen a number of policies being put forward and implemented at the municipal, provincial and federal levels to address the issue of affordable housing, which may be ill-conceived and which may, in fact, create more of a problem than a solution. So, again, this will be a multi-part episode and I want to have guests speaking to different elements or different aspects of this challenge so that we get the full picture. We also have some other exciting surprises in store for you this season, which we'll let you know about in a future episode, but I do hope you'll join us next week for the opening episode of season 5 of For what it's Worth.