30 Dec Denys Linkov: A GenZ’s take on the value of commitment, TU20, Education and more

Choose how you engage with this interview:

• Listen to the podcast TILT the Future with highlights
• Watch it on the YouTube channel with subtitles
• Read the full transcript here

Learn:

• About Tech Under Twenty and how the TU20 Cup Challenge came about
• Why commitment matters when you are Generation Z, and how that helps you pace yourself in Education and Work
• Future of Work is the only work climate that GenZ will ever know. So how do their expectations differ from the reality.
• How TU20 creates mentoring, internship and extra-curricular opportunities for eager young minds.

How can you participate?

Make. Take. Talk.

No matter our age on the spectrum from 18-80, let us use our particular talents to support this younger generation:

Make – the effort to search out local groups of talented youngsters who like to lead
Take – Offer your support – especially internships, summer jobs and mentoring
Talk – Be full of curiosity. Discover the technology and passions that fill their minds and their days.

Employers Make opportunities available for eager young minds that are willing to solve problems. Mentor. Create internships.

Tech-obsessed GenZ high school or university student? Take action: Start a school chapter. Pull a team together to participate in the TU20 cup challenge. Climate Change is the 2020 theme! Try out the Learn to get hired event (it is great interview experience).

If you are a guidance counsellor or high school STEM teacher: Talk. Let your tech-savvy students know about this unique initiative.

Parents: Talk to your teens and support their journey of discovery.

Interview highlights:

[11:22] Halton is uniquely situated in a Tech corridor.  They can meet potential employers & stay local after graduation.

[12:50] Teens with Tech Talent – These are teens with a proven expertise in complex technology. “..sometimes local employers don’t know what students are capable of”  These teens come in with business curiosity, tech savvy and want to solve real problems. It’s not just tell me what to code. Tell me what problem to solve and then we’ll work together to address that.

[18:30] Future of Work – How solving problems is the most important thing in the new nature of work. The advice I give to younger people is take responsibility for what you’re working on and work within the framework of your job.

[28:00] Discovering your IQ and EQ strengths

[32:25] Interesting new Technologies –  AI/VR/AR, Blockchain. Sometimes you can be too early to the new technology cycle.

[38:10] Commitment – it is useful

[39:55] University is a series of sprints

[41:28] Being a PhD student is like being an entrepreneur  – you are both committing to a long voyage of exploration and discovery

[44:00] Where do you see yourself in 2035? Steer with a goal, but be flexible

[45:25] Connecting the dots on opportunities – RBC, networking, TU20 each choice brings different opportunities

[46:00] What is next for Denys?

[49:10] Step into the opportunities “Step into whatever is offered to you and take advantage of it.

Watch the video

Do you prefer to watch? Follow my YouTube channel Tilt the Future to watch this video and others in the series:

YouTube video interview with Denys Linkov with CC

What can YOU do? Find and nurture young talent

TU20 is my local example of this phenomenon.

If you search in your local schools, tech incubator, Arts school, soccer team or Model UN,  you too will find clusters of young minds eager to lead and make a difference to offer the best of themselves to the world.

Make. Take. Talk.

No matter our age on the spectrum from 18-80, let us use our particular talents to support this younger generation:

Make – the effort to search out local groups of talented youngsters who like to lead
Take – Offer your support – especially internships, summer jobs and mentoring
Talk – Be full of curiosity. Discover the technology and passions that fill their minds and their days.

Full transcript

Introducing Denys Linkov

Karena de Souza: Hello and welcome to TILT the future.

Thank you for visiting my podcast and Denys Linkov is our guest today. Kyle Newcombe is co-hosting with me and my name is Karena de Souza. Welcome to all of you.

Denys Linkov:  Thanks for having us Karena.

Karena de Souza: So Denys, we actually invited you over because you’re one of the co-founders or one of the original founders of Tech under 20 (TU20 ) and from my perspective it’s a unique organization in our area.

Unique because it accesses young people at such a high level of technical expertise and teams them with a lot of local ideas, local knowledge, local partners – in terms in terms of mentors and in terms of opportunity. Before I start that I should introduce Denys and say who he is and how he came to be a guest on our show!

So Denys Linkov  is a young gentleman who comes from the Halton area. He’s just recently graduated his computer science degree at the University of Toronto – Congratulations! – And I believe is going to start working the next couple of weeks. Denys, would you like to do a little more of a broader introduction of yourself?

Denys Linkov:  Sure. So as Karena mentioned, I just graduated University from the University of Toronto. Before that I went to high school at White Oak Secondary School in Oakville, and some of the things I’ve really been looking to address in the past couple of years is trying to figure out the gaps that exist in education and work system for young people so thinking about the present. How do we help people succeed now and in the future as well with things like the future of work automation artificial intelligence all affecting our career paths going forward. So as Karena mentioned I’m starting full-time work in a couple of weeks and I’ll be starting as a cloud engineer at RBC.

Karena de Souza: Congratulations,   that’s a wonderful area to be in at this time and RBC is a great place to work.

Denys Linkov: Thank you.

Karena de Souza: I’m actually going to turn over the next segment to Kyle.  He and I had been chatting earlier and he’s most interested in how Tech under 20 came to be and with your position there.

I think that will be a fantastic conversation for me to listen to.

Tech Under 20 – the early days

Kyle Newcombe: Yeah, so I was thinking, you know, I’m in high school as well. And obviously there’s a lot going on there. So I was kind of wondering what like obviously what made you want to start Tech under 20? And also how I like as one of the founding members obviously there’s a lot of work to do.  So, how did you manage that with your high school commitments as well?

Denys Linkov: So I’ve been a involved Tech under 20 (TU20) for the past four years. I actually didn’t start it.

What happened was that there was an event in 2015 showcasing all the talented things that students were doing, hosted by Silicon Halton. The question came about of how do we showcase the young talent we have in our community and how do we actually create opportunities for them. So that was the first event that was launched. It focused a lot on the robotics community – sort of the cool stuff they’re doing there.

Pitch yourself

And afterwards what happened is that they had their first ‘pitch yourself‘ day where they brought in a bunch of mentors and a bunch of students. So 30 of each and we rotated through for our benefit to talk to different people and also picture ourselves or potential summer job. So the way I heard about that event back in 2015 was that I was avoiding studying for my IB exams and I’m like, okay, my teacher recommended this event. Let’s go and see what’s up.

So I attended the event. Met some great people there and got a job at a company called VL Omni. I built out an IOS app for them that helped out with some of their new innovative projects. So that was 2015 and at the end of that summer. I’m like hmmm Tech under 20 seems like a great organization to join!

So I reached out and joined the team which was Ella, Jean and Kalli and we had our first team for the upcoming year to run some new events. And since then it’s been sort of continuing on with the work that’s being done within Silicon Halton and Tech under 20 to make sure that there are opportunities for young people in a bunch of different areas.

How did you decide which events to run?

Kyle Newcombe: So. Yeah, that’s really interesting. So, how did you like near at that time early on how did you guys decide you know what events to run because I’m sure there’s a lot of ideas that were going around but obviously you can do them all. So how did you decide what would be like the most or the best option for the members of Tech under 20 in the students in the area?

Denys Linkov: For sure, so that’s an excellent question. And I think what we started off with was the first year I was there, we tried to replicate the success we had at that first event because there’s a lot of energy – there’s a lot of students involved, a lot of great mentors. So that first year we focused on how do we make our presence more digitally felt so we launched a website and ran some social media promotion and then we ran that same event twice – one in March and one in May.

And the goal for that? Was that high school students and University students and also students who want to be a little bit ahead of the curve versus going with the flow. We thought that these different groups of students would benefit from having two different events and things didn’t go exactly as planned.

We had lower attendance before but we discussed why that happened and sort of retooled for the upcoming year. And then that year it was really a question of okay, we ran this event twice some things work some things didn’t but how do we better engage students? Because we don’t just want to be an annual event organization.

Birth of the TU20 Cup challenge

So that summer sort of I was working and talking to different people. And I think okay, what are two main ways we can engage. So the first thing I came up with was that okay, we have hackathons that are on the rise that exist. We have business case competitions, but there’s nothing that really brings those two things together.

So that’s where the version one of the Tech under 20 cup came from. Is thinking about okay, how do we make students work on projects that are long-term impactful and combine the business technology and entrepreneurial skills that they need to succeed? So that was version one of the tech under 20 cup and I brought this up just in a meeting and we said okay, let’s try to do this. So we ran that one in February.

School Chapters

The second initiative we were focused on running was a school chapters program. We wanted to engage with high school students within their schools because it can be challenging sometimes to get out and about two events. So we started three chapters and found some great chapter leaders who are leading chapters at Oakville Trafalgar, at Iroquois Ridge and at King’s Christian Collegiate.

That was the start of our chapters program and both those chapters are both the chapters and the cup have grown significantly since we’ve added a lot more schools and a lot more people into the competition and sort of changed how it’s worked.

But the philosophy is Tech under 20 is run by students for students.

And sort of the main capacity because we say that students are the ones who know the challenges they face. Young people know where they’ve been and where they want to go. And with the support of Silicon Halton as sort of the incubating body and where Tech under 20 runs under, we’ve been able to get a lot done and that’s something that the team’s really proud of. And every year we try to add something new.

So last year we did an AI case competition focused on policy and decision-making. We’ve been reforming and sort of modifying our hiring events and such. So it’s always looking at the problems that exist, looking at the solutions that students come up with, and then combining it with sort of the knowledge we have already and where we’ve been to take the next steps.

Kyle Newcombe: Just to point because I think getting Tech under 20 into the chapters in the schools is great because that’s how you know, I and a lot of people I know found out about it – through the chapter that’s at our school.

Where school expands to meet community and commerce

Karena de Souza: Yeah, that was a very smart idea. And what I also like about the entire concept is it doesn’t run purely through the school. It is actually an event that reaches out into the community and engages the commerce and the economy in our region as well. There’s this combination that happens.

Denys Linkov: For sure the goal is that a lot of things in schools remain it within the schools and it’s sometimes very challenging to get out of those bubbles. As a high school student the only real contact I had with people outside my school were within sports activities. And I also did competitive debate.

And if I hadn’t done those things it just would have been go to school. You talk to your friends, talk to your teachers, and that’s it. And that’s sort of where we really emphasized the get to know your community, get to know people at other schools. Come to the events make some new friends from your school, from other schools. Go to community events whether they are Silicon Halton events or something else. But just be involved. Because it’s a challenge for students to do that. Sometimes they don’t even realize it.

So one question I ask when I’m talking to students is ‘Can you name three local companies? Whether it’s in Oakville or Burlington or Milton? And they think about it. Then they pause. Them they say “Oh, no, I actually can’t.” So this feeling of community can sometimes be lost and that’s what we’re trying to rebuild. And really get people together for for these events because otherwise it’s so easy to just get stuck within your school or on your phone within those bubbles and not go out and meet people face-to-face and engage in that manner.

Waterloo-Toronto Hi-Tech corridor

Karena de Souza:  And I actually our particular region (Halton region) is a very (technology) rich region. We run between the Cambridge Waterloo complex all the way to downtown (Toronto) in the Mars AI District. So it’s actually a corridor of intense technology opportunity and I think for many people, as they graduate, they do not get exposed to the opportunities that are available locally.

Their instinct is to go for Google, for Facebook or Tesla, and be thinking purely of (Silicon Valley) the West coast of the US – when we have so much to offer right here, right in our backyard. So I think that’s a fantastic way of exposing them to local business.

And similarly for local industry to engage local homegrown talent. We have a great education system. It’s the envy of many in the world. So we should be able to leverage that for ourselves.

Teens with Tech Talent solving real problems

Karena de Souza: I’m intrigued. What was the project that you brought to showcase at Tech under 20 at that first event? What was your interest at that point?

Denys Linkov: So I didn’t go to the showcase. My first engagement was at the hiring event. But what I sort of brought to the table was I had a couple of projects:

•  I’d been working on for school and doing some freelance online. So I brought in some screenshots. And aspects from that saying okay. This is what I can build for for your company. This is some of the work I’ve done in the past.
• I had some demos on my phone. So that’s sort of one of the key things that I want to show case that I have practical experience.

I can do these things and it’s interesting – because at every event you go to, you talk to employers and sometimes they get the shock of: ‘ Oh you’ve done this before?’ And sometimes local employers don’t know what students are capable of.

The very example – one project I was working on I was told I told them I had worked on a business application and they’re  ‘Oh so you did data entry?‘  I’m like, no I built this application.

And it’s not necessarily the fault of the employers. It’s just we don’t have the same connection and the skills that employers expect and students have their there. They’re disconnected at points. So that was so showcase on the technical side.

But I also wanted to emphasize that I just didn’t only care about the technical side of things. I am also very curious about the business cases, marketing, sales and such that I would have been doing in competitive debate.

So I understand some of the world issues and weighing perspectives on different topics. So that’s something else I wanted to showcase is that I have these technical skills that I built things before but at the same time I can also understand that the business needs as well. So it’s not just tell me what to code. Tell me what problem to solve and then we’ll work together to address that.

Karena de Souza:  That’s interesting because so for instance when I met Kyle it was at the ‘Learn to get Hired’  and I was quite taken by his outstanding experience in podcasting and video – which is way past anything that I have to offer even at this point in time. Just the calibre, the experience. His investment not purely in the technology, but in the education – just learning about the details.

You could hear the joy in what he was doing. So it was clear that he was bringing that with him. That’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen him to co-host this with me because it was such a clear link.

So for you, what was the technology? Was it the application development on mobile? Was that your niche that you walked in?

Denys Linkov: So the niche was mobile development at that time. There’s still a little bit of a craze for everybody wants their own app right now. It’s changed a little bit in terms of everybody already has an app and they’re trying to find a way to engage people more. So that was sort of the skill set I brought in on the technical side of things.

Since then it’s evolved to broader technological sort of capabilities because at the end of the day, you’re solving problems with technology. It’s not about what skills that you have. It is that you have a problem for a customer or a world problem you’re trying to solve and you have to pick the technology that you want to use the best to best solve that problem.

So right now it’s really a question of okay, I started mobile development. I did some back-end and front-end. I’m going to be doing Cloud development and at the end of the day, it’s about solving those problems and not letting titles or specific technologies hold you back.

Karena de Souza:  I like this because I was a programmer in the 1980s. So that’s how I started and I can tell you that the first language you learn will NOT be the last language you learn! It really does come down to using what’s at your fingertips at the time in order to solve the problem.

And sometimes that solution isn’t technical. Sometimes it might purely be turn your desk and face the window, you know – it’s just having that experience. What I’ve loved hearing right now is how you took something that was starting, was nascent and you stepped into actually developing and solving for a bigger problem.

I see that as you taking a skill. And understanding a void. You saw a hole that wasn’t met in our ecosystem locally and you stepped in with something that was already just being born and thinking all right, how can we extend this? How can we actually have it serve the community that it’s being designed for, which here is this young population.

That is actually what the Future of Work is to me right now. It is not the titles as you mentioned not the positions that we were used to in my generation. We were all about how fast can you get to be VP – and it’s not that anymore.

Future of Work

Its more about what holes do I see?  How can I fix them? How can I bring the talents I have, and the people I know, and the knowledge I have access to, and try and figure out a way to solve for this. So is that also the way either of you’ll see the Future of Work?

Denys Linkov: So I think that we won’t completely move away from titles or positions because at the end of the day, we have to distribute responsibility somehow and we have to set boundaries on what people are doing. There will definitely be an evolution as with leadership models where we’ve seen in the past 50 years, where leadership sort of became more structured and we’ve adopted new techniques.

So evolving from things like servant leadership to sort of distributed and cross-functional teams. All these things have changed how we work. The advice I give to younger people is take responsibility for what you’re working on and work within the framework of your job.

Whether it’s a full-time job with a specific title or an entrepreneurial venture and really explore that and focus on the problem solving. Because when you come into work and say your manager tells you to do these three things, and you come back at the end of the day and say okay got these three things done and here are three next steps that I see to to be issues that we need to talk about and you talk with your manager about that, you have suddenly made their job a hundred percent easier. Because they don’t have to think about what they’re going to give you next.

You’ve identified problems and you’re working with them to solve them. And just working with people who do that is just such a fantastic experience. And that’s why I encourage the TU20 team to take that initiative. Solve those problems. Figure out what to do next. And then obviously work with the team because some problems are much more complicated than you initially thought or you need other people’s advice or just you just need to sort of think about how it affects the whole structure of the team.

But at the end of the day feel that ownership and the initiative and really focus on those problems. 

And then think about your own future. So there are a thousand and one problems out there and you can solve all of them. So the question becomes what am I interested in and what am I good at. With that sort of initiative you take your interest and your skills. That’s where you explore and find your niche, find your impact. It doesn’t ever have to be restrictive. You just need to make sure you have that focus and attention to what you’re doing because it’s very easy to get lost otherwise.

Kyle Newcombe: I agree with what Denys is saying here. And I also think people are always talking about how the work environment is changing. It’s not like here’s your desk, here’s what you need to do, and work with teams. You can work in different areas. And I think part of that is less positions, less title.

And that kind of ties into how the work environment as a whole is changing in terms of where you work and what your title is. I think all of that is changing right now.

Karena de Souza: I noticed I think that Tech Under 20 is running a few seminars and has blog posts that are helping the people who are within the community be a little more engaged, a little more knowledgeable about how things might be changing.

Denys Linkov: So we always try to figure out how to help young people out. That can be on the outbound side. So saying these are some blog posts, here are some events. But it’s also on the inbound side. And some people reach out to us and say okay I have this project or I’m interested in this how do we help them out?

And we try to make sure that we understand what the student needs are. So we did a survey a couple of months ago and the top thing that students were concerned about in school from our sample was knowing about real-world skills. Just [00:39:32] learning about the real world and it’s funny because the number of students brought up taxes and we’re like, okay, maybe they care about taxes.

Maybe there’s just a bunch of ads right now for taxes because it’s tax season. But it’s figuring out what those niches are and what’s not being addressed and then working with Community Partners to do that.

We’re Tech under 20, and we focus on the technology, business and entrepreneurial side of things.

So running a tax workshop isn’t directly in sort of our focus area. But if there’s a need we will partner up with an organization and figure out how to deliver that content and those contacts and that expertise – because that’s what the community needs at the end of the day.

And I don’t think that the traditional sort of model of work is going to go away. Within Tech under 20 we have clear rules. Somebody’s work on marketing.  Somebody’s working on events. And I think that will continue on. But the question is if you’re working on that as your prime responsibility, what kind of other initiatives are you taking on?

And it’s not necessarily focusing in on the gig economy and such and trying to do a bunch of smaller projects. It’s really helping people explore those and figure stuff out. Because we’ve had people come in who are like, oh we want to be developers. That’s what we want to do on the team. And that is great, lets work on that.

Then we get them involved on the operation side of things, on the marketing, on outreach. And they (realize) these are really important skills.

So from our perspective, even though we’re running the organization as sort of a structured organization, it also is something that’s a learning program for students.

And that’s one of our major promises if you become an Executive on the team. You’re learning is is so essential because if you’re not learning and you’re not growing then what’s the point of Tech under 20?

Karena de Souza: What I am hearing is that the opportunities arise at the intersection of your passion and your frustrations. You notice a void – as you did with the ecosystem in our area – and you then create a solution. And that is where most of the new work and new opportunities will come from.

You’ve been with tech under 20 for a couple of years now. How did Tech under 20 and your experience with that change or influence the way you picked your degree?

Denys Linkov: So I actually joined Tech under 20 when I started University. September was the starting point for University for me and same with tech under 20.

I always knew I wanted to do a formal education in computer science because I didn’t take any courses in high school – I was self-taught. I wanted to get some structure in there. Figure out how things are taught. And I use Tech under 20 as a vehicle to explore other interests. So within the team itself, there’s not that much programming work.

So I was doing programming work in the summer and I was doing it in my degree and to supplement those things I was working on project management sales and marketing other skills and things that I’m interested in.

And that was a way for me to focus on the technical things in school, but then also explore other areas because it’s often challenging for myself and many other young people is that there’s so much cool stuff to do in the world, but you need some structure so you’re not just spinning your wheels.

So for me the division of interest and the division of work was to focus on programming and on the technical side of things with your work and with your schooling. And then Tech under 20 and other initiatives are a way to build those other skills and explore other interests.

Karena de Souza: [00:27:0026:16] So one of the I often talk about the division between EQ and IQ. In my day the person who knew more got ahead and that’s why there was a huge focus on things like accounting and being a doctor or lawyer. The sooner you could actually access that vital piece of information, the more valuable you were.

But then along came Google! And now so long as you know the right question to ask, everyone has equal access to IQ now. The skill is in learning what to ask.

Now we see a huge focus on the EQ (emotional quotient) skills as becoming much more valuable to balance out the IQ. And what I’m hearing in your conversation is exactly that you are developing the EQ side of yourself.

In the past we call soft skills things that I call Foundation skills. Essential skills.  Human skills. They’re the things that are going to come in and help us augment the IQ skills and take it up to the next level.

Discovering your IQ and EQ strengths

Denys Linkov:  Yeah, so I think. There’s always been the debate and discussion of what being smart means and there’s so many different aspects of it is and it’s important to learn what you’re good at and what you’re not.

So for example on the programming side of things you get the combination of okay I know how to approach this problem because I’ve done it before I can quickly make a website or a mobile app. So that’s a very hard skill to have as you mentioned. Then there’s all the questions you need to ask so.

So much is changing in programming:

• you come up to a new problem so you have to ask the question
• you have to know how to structure your approach
• you say okay I’m going to Google this and I’m going to look at this topic and explore that.

As a programmer, there’s so much time you spend on Google and stack Overflow and all these documentation sites because they’re trying to figure out the best approach.

Likewise on sort of the the non-technical side of skills there are also very hard skills you have to learn. So for example in sales, there’s the whole sales process, right?

• How do you do research on what problems they’re trying to solve for a potential client?
• How do you prospect and find the right clients?
• How do you go through through the pitch and meet with the decision maker and follow-up?

All those sorts of things and that’s a very hard skill to have. And then the soft skills of being approachable and coming off as a positive person and having that initiative is also very important.

And I think that at the end of the day the skills really blend together.  Take the example of building a strong relationship with somebody:

If you have a good memory, you can remember things from your interaction with that person. You can follow up about how their week. To did they mention they’re going to the cottage or that they’re working on the steel and that’s obviously something very important – beneficial – is remembering these things. On the flip side of things you need to you know what to say next and make the person feel comfortable and take that initiative to follow up.

That’s a little bit more of a soft skills. So even at that same problem, you’re utilizing the different skills in very different ways.

And then you have to understand sort of where your own strengths lie. So if you don’t have the best memory, it’s like okay, let’s take some notes. Let’s figure out sort of how can I store this information to retrieve it easily.

And if you’re not a strong on the the soft skill side of things like okay before this meeting. Let’s make a list of questions that I can go through because spontaneity might not be your strength. So I think that’s really important – is not separating EQ and IQ. But is thinking about the problem you’re solving and the hard skills you have and the hard skills you don’t. Obviously practicing the different things because

you can practice knowing more and learning more and understanding more of the sort of knowledge that you need to have that will help you solve a problem. But you can also practice the initiative, the talking to people, the research skills, the spontaneity.

So you need to find where your gaps are, find what you’re good at and sort of balance that – so you can again solve that.

Karena de Souza: Kyle, do you have a question?

Kyle Newcombe:  I was just thinking when Denys was giving that answer obviously one of the places where you learn the most is when you start working. As he was saying you have to always be learning and working on things that you aren’t necessarily like terribly good at. That way you maintain your value whatever your job is.

ALWAYS be Learning

Karena de Souza: I like the way you both bring  up ‘Carry On Learning’. Because that is actually an underlying premise of what I talk about. And I think that’s something that’s going to be one of the most significant changes. You’ll probably won’t even notice it because it’s just going to be the way you all are in your generation and beyond. But I think they had been a concept in earlier years that you do your four years of University and thats that.

Now learning going to be constant and continuous. I recently did a class with MIT and the phrase that came out of there was ‘K through gray‘. So basically it’s always going to be out there learning which as a human being is a fantastic concept!

All of us are constantly learning, discovering new things and it doesn’t always have to be in the area of our expertise. It could be learning how to play an instrument or discovering, how to cook something. Challenging yourself to create or recreate a recipe. So all of that is learning. But I think the important word that is a difference from prior generations to this one is ALWAYS be learning.

[00:32:19] So it’s like there’s now an emphasis and an ownership issue. It wasn’t that the business will come to you and tell you when you need to upskill. Now you should be looking for those opportunities and seeking them out yourself just as you as you go along every day.

So I think that’s going to be one of the major shifts that will see from my generation to yours.  Like I said, you’ll probably won’t even notice it!

Interesting new Technologies – and the craze cycle

Denys in this journey that you’ve had so far, have there been any surprises or joy’s that you’ve come out with? From the entire range of people you’ve  interfaced with or projects that you’ve seen or technologies that people  have come to you with. As I’ve interface with tech under 20, I’m just astounded by literally the breadth of technologies that our local young Community is engaged with. But is there any interesting ONE that stands out for you?

Denys Linkov: So I think it’s like there are so much things that are going on – and that’s sort of what really energizes me! As you go out to the tech under 20 cup or learn to get hired and you learn about all these things

• whether it’s a team talking about AR and VR.
• Or block chain
• or a mobile application that just hits the nail on the head with solving a problem

And then you go to ‘Learn to get hired’ and meet people like Kyle and all the other participants we’ve had. And you hear their story. I think that’s really amazing.

I think one interesting experience was actually in the first Tech under 20 cup we ran which was in 2017, where the winning team what they actually did was they created a video and audio recording system that would use AI to analyze your public speaking capabilities. And it was interesting that a very similar idea came up at the 2019 cup – using VR to coach students (Articulate)

What was interesting was following their journey afterwards, as they try to prototype this within different schools and such.

So when that happened it was interesting how if that solution came out on the newer cups, they potentially could have more traction because we had the AI craze 2018-2019 – as opposed to early 2017 – where businesses and people just really got excited. We’re sort of in that excitement phase right now and probably go into sort of the trough of reality when people realized sort of the gaps that exist.

But sort of seeing that similar ideas with different executions and different next steps get presented is awesome. I think the most exciting part of Tech under 20 and what we try to bake into the culture and the approach is

You done something great. Now what how do you take it to the next level? How do you continue on it?

That’s why we don’t run hackathons. Because hackathons are a weekend-long project – and then it’s done. There are plenty of hackathons that exist and we support along the community but for us the importance is you built this project – now how are you going to help the client?

How are you going to use the learning that you learn to continue on with new things and I think that continued development and seeing how much people can progress in six months or a year is amazing. Whether it’s on the project side or within your team. You see somebody grow so much in that short amount of time just.

Commitment

The value of commitment tell a university or employer about you?

They put in the effort and the commitment. So I think at the end of the day the major takeaway is How can you work on a project for a long time?

And it’s funny because this sort of clicked for me when I was at a conference this CUTC which is a Canadian undergrad technology conference in 2017.

There was a guy Rob asking about who had actually worked at McDonald’s. And everybody raises their hand.
OK all the students there had basically worked at McDonald’s or something similar at some point in their life.
He asks who there has worked for six months and then maybe 25 hands went up.
Then he asked who there has worked for more than a year. And I was the only one with my arm up.
So that was sort of, oh people don’t do things for one, two, three, four, five years?

So it goes back to the old quote about people underestimating how much stuff they can do in a long period of time and that’s sort of where the encouragement is.  Do something for a sustainable amount of time. Keep the energy up.  (tweetable quote)

Don’t just cram it into a short project. But really use it as a learning opportunity. And I think for students – in particular in Tech under 20 – the most impact you get is when you stay for a longer amount of time. Whether as a participant or an executive the first year you sort of figure out what’s happening, get involved. But then in year 2 3 4 5 you realize:

• what your capabilities are
• what the organization’s capabilities are
• how we can work together

And then you’re really accelerate your path forward – because that learning really comes – that second phase of engagement.

Karena de Souza: That almost echoes something that I heard from an admissions officer at Waterloo. Essentially what she said is when we’re looking for people, we’re looking for commitment. We’re looking for the ability to stick it through. Because in the end, it is a matching conversation – just as someone accepts you for University position, you are also finding your match.

You are actually using a spot. You’re taking a seat. And it’s in their interest to make sure that you stay in that seat and that you graduate. That is the joy for them – because then they get to say this person came in,  and they graduated and look we now have an alumnus. But in order to be able to do that, they want people who are not going to crash and burn.

And so when they’re looking at your application your commitment to even if it’s like playing an instrument over a certain amount of time – they’re looking for people who have shown a little bit of tenacity,  a little bit of stick-to-itiveness. And people who are  going to be able to stay in the game, especially when it’s new and especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Because apart from it not being the right fit that’s when you’re likely to say, alright, this is not for me. So that is a really key skill.

University – a 5-year commitment with a number of sprints

Denys Linkov: But one thing I wanted to add is – that it’s interesting – we look at University as a four or five year commitment.

And at the same time you have a bunch of sprints in there. A class in university is 12 to 13 weeks. And that’s not that long a time period.

You go from writing your first exam or test sometimes in the first three weeks and then it’s a continuous sort of juggling of projects and things. So it’s interesting because we think of University as a long-term commitment, but it’s really a commitment to (individual) courses that are very,very short.

Sometimes what changes students perspectives is that in high school or university you do a project and the longest time you might work on it might be a year if you’re doing some sort of Capstone, but that’s later on.

But in the working world your projects might be one day long. They might be two hours long or they might be two years long and I think that overseeing those challenges and working on those longer projects offer you that that different set of skills.

So University you do the sprint – you have your requirements and you present something. And something a bit more open-ended you might have a theme that you work under. And then as you get to work and sort of two more senior positions people say here’s a problem go figure it out.

So that you have very different skills on execution and creativity and tenacity within those different areas and I think. It’s important people get exposed to all of them and figure out what they’re good at:

• Is it short engagement where they have a clear direction and they can just get it done?
• Is it that longer sort of ‘figure out where we’re going’ exploration or path?

How being a PhD student is like being an entrepreneur

And I think that’s a key underlying aspect that a lot of people forget and they don’t explore they kind of box they’re in. Or think about it in a sort of very specific context.

Because at the end of the day if you’re trying to be an entrepreneur or a PhD student, for example, you’re committing yourself to 5 6 7 8 years of exploration and discovery.

People see PhD students and entrepreneurs as being very different but at the end of the day if you can commit and be creative and sort of explore without that much guidance then both of those are good career paths for you with very different lifestyles, with very different expectations, with very different hard skills and people you engage with. But you if you think about on the broader term you sort of open up the potential for different careers and opportunities.

Karena de Souza: Very wise. Very insightful. I teach a class  and I should talk about how understanding your personality type is actually a huge indicator to your own success because if you try and do what somebody else is doing, well it may not necessarily fit with your personality.

But before you leave I’ve got two other questions:

I think we’ve touched already on how we think that the tech under 20 experience helps prepare you for the future of work. It’s through your education and then into the future of work, but I think the way it exposes you to an experience way beyond what you would expect have in a classroom

• you basically get to geek out with people who are thinking about technology just the same way you do!
• the vibrance of that Community is fantastic
• I like the Tech under 20 concept – where you bring in the mentors from real corporations – real life people who can actually offer young minds a little bit of history, experience & vision.

But coming back to you – seeing as my podcast is called Tilt the Future – I like to ask

If it was 2035 where do you see yourself?

How do you see the progression of Denys over the next couple of years?

Denys Linkov: For sure. So one of the challenges I faced is that there’s so many interesting things around which makes it a little hard to focus on what I want to do as I mentioned before at some point.

• I want to start my own company whether it’s in 2 years or 20 years. I’m not particularly rushed on that people sometimes label themselves – I want to work at a big company or at a start-up or start my own company. For me it’s more about solving the problems and picking up the skills and.
• Getting to know people that’s really important
• And at the end of the day, I still think that entrepreneurship is probably the best vehicle for me to solve some problems with with in the world. So that’s an eventual goal.

And 2035? Who knows where I’ll be?! 16 years ahead I could still be with RBC.

I could be at another company. I could be starting my own business. So at this point it’s really looking into the near future and the far future and saying, okay, where do I want to be and work backwards.

Connecting the dots on opportunities

But if I think about the past and sort of how different things were going to be. So at the end of first year, I had a couple different opportunities of where I wanted to work.  And I worked at RBC after my first year of University. But I could have worked at different companies. There’s another startup I could have worked at. There was a mid-sized technology company. And I had those options and you look back and you say okay. How did this affect my future?

• RBC – So for example with RBC there’s a direct line.  I came back after working there for two summers. But there’s also the things I was exposed to so. For example, I heard about Tech Toronto from RBC and that was a networking event – sort of the first major ‘adult networking event’ I went to and sort of solidified the importance of that and being involved with not just my local community and Halton & Oakville, but also expanding beyond.
• What happens if I chose to take one class instead of the other and I met a different group of friends?
• So if that decision was made and I went to work at a start-up or other company, so much could have change. So I can’t even imagine where I’d even be looking backwards 3-4 years.
• What happens if I didn’t send that email to get involved with Tech under 20?

What is next for Denys

So it’s all it changes so quickly, so I sort of have the higher level goals and I have some of the problems I think I could solve and could do a good job solving.

Right now, I think that in the future I’m interested in education and human resources and the Future of Work, AI and such. So with those different areas I have a direction to steer with but if somebody comes to me in a couple years – if some of my friends say Denys, let’s start a health tech company –  I’ll be like, okay, what do you have in mind? And if it sounds good away I go right?!

So to sort of summarize that I see entrepreneurship as a key route to solve some problems. Going forward I’m not too particular whether it is through entrepreneurship or working at a big company or for somebody else’s startup. And I don’t really like thinking too far in the future on details because so much changes every day.

I have a general strategy and a general approach for the near term and then hopefully takes me in a good path in terms of skills and personal development going forward.

Karena de Souza: Well, we wish you all luck. You’ve made a huge impact on so many people in our area. So first of all, let me say thank you to you for that. To you and your team – but there’s obviously a significant amount of leadership that comes from you.

I thank you for taking that on and for encouraging so many other people to follow in your footsteps. That’s a great legacy to have left at such a young age. Good luck on your new job. And hopefully we’ll see you back on this podcast.

Denys Linkov: Awesome. Thank you for your time. And thanks for having me and as always thank you for being involved in our community. We can’t do it without people like you and everybody else who is involved. So thanks for having me.

Karena de Souza: And I’d like to say thank you Kyle as well for being a co-host. Do you have any questions or any comments to make at the end Kyle?

Kyle Newcombe:  I know Denys was talking about how you got to take all opportunities – and if you didn’t send an email or do this thing. And I was just thinking like if I hadn’t RSVP’d and signed up to go to the ‘Learn to get hired’ event at Tech Under 20 we might not be here right now!

So you can’t close any doors. You can take opportunities and just see where it leads and hopefully it works out.

Step into the opportunities

Karena de Souza: Absolutely! To step into whatever is offered to you and take advantage of it. And I think that’s a wonderful note for us to close on.

Thank you gentlemen for your time. Hopefully we’ll see you around and see you doing great things in the future.

Denys Linkov:  Thank you

What can WE do? Find and nurture young talent

TU20 is my local example of this phenomenon.

Search your local schools, tech incubator, Arts school, soccer team or Model UN,  for clusters of young minds eager to lead and make a difference to offer the best of themselves to the world.

Make. Take. Talk.

No matter our age on the spectrum from 18-80, let us use our particular talents to support this younger generation:

Make – the effort to search out local groups of talented youngsters who like to lead
Take – Offer your support – especially internships, summer jobs and mentoring
Talk – Be full of curiosity. Discover the technology and passions that fill their minds and their days.

Employers Make opportunities available for eager young minds that are willing to solve problems. Mentor. Create internships.

Tech-obsessed GenZ high school or university student? Take action: Start a school chapter. Pull a team together to participate in the TU20 cup challenge. Climate Change is the 2020 theme! Try out the Learn to get hired event (it is great interview experience).

If you are a guidance counsellor or high school STEM teacher: Talk. Let your tech-savvy students know about this unique initiative.

Parents: Talk to your teens and support their journey of discovery.

Other interviews in this series ‘Never too young to lead’

• E38: Never too young to lead
• E39: Denys Linkov – TU20
• E40: Henry Greenberg – SOAR
• E41: Kyle Newcombe – TU20

The best ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, at any age.