S2E8: James Barrood on Leveraging Technology and Making a Positive Impact

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Purposeful Prosperity Podcast. I'm Seth Waters, and I'm here with Jack Smith. And you know, Jack, Jack is an entrepreneur, founder, investor, and world changer. Jack, excited to be with you.

Jack Smith (Host): Excited to be here too, Seth.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Yeah. We had a great conversation today with James Barrood.

Jack Smith (Host): Absolutely. It was wonderful.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Yeah, really excited about that. And one of the things that James says in this conversation, he talked about how entrepreneurs will always be at the leading edge, making society better and launching solutions. Jack, how can purposeful leaders stay at the leading edge to provide the solutions needed?

Jack Smith (Host): When you're emboldened with purpose, it's important to make sure you stay relevant. I think that's what the key to staying on the leading edge of technology and whatever purpose inspires you. Because if you're emboldened with that, then you have a duty to yourself and to your consumers and your people and everybody that mission that you're emboldened with to succeed and to continue it forward. If you're not staying up with the current technologies, understanding how the new generations are relating to whatever it is that you do, and really put that value first, I think they're starting to vote with their dollars in a way that you can't be successful unless you embrace and face that.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Yeah, that's really good. Well, I know you're going to talk more about that in this conversation. Let's jump right into it. Here's our conversation with James Barrood.

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Jack Smith (Host): Hi everybody. Welcome to Purposeful Prosperity. I am Jack Smith, your host, and I'm excited today. I've got James Barrood. He is the founder and CEO of Innovation Plus. He's curating a global community of engaged entrepreneurs and innovators. I can't wait to talk to you to James. Welcome.

James Barrood (Guest): Thanks for having me, Jack.

Jack Smith (Host): Well, thank you for coming. I can't wait to learn a little bit more about Innovation Plus. You're kind of an advisor. You've got your hands in a bunch of AI and tech startup stuff. So maybe tell our audience a little bit about who you are, James, and kind of what Innovation Plus is.

James Barrood (Guest): Sure. Well, I come from mostly the entrepreneurship world, right? So I come from a family business when I was growing up and worked in that family business after graduation, and I went back to grad school. And after grad school, I was about to take a corporate marketing job. And I had this opportunity at an entrepreneurship center, one of the few at the time. And I ended up staying there 17 years. So actually running the- this entrepreneurship center at Fairleigh Dickinson University, a large private school. And then, I was recruited away to run a tech trade association. So I did that for five years. And again, most of this is in New Jersey or the tri-state region, New York through Philadelphia. And so, doing much of the same work that I was doing, helping entrepreneurs and innovators in academia on a larger platform throughout the tech industry. And then I left there in 2019 and right before the pandemic, fortunately. And since then, I've been just sort of helping my network, right? Advising companies, consulting with companies, bringing people together, mostly online during the pandemic, and sort of elevating the ecosystem, right? All those amazing entrepreneurs and innovators from all sectors. So that's sort of my story and what I've done my whole career.

Jack Smith (Host): I love it. So you say you do a lot with elevating and growing organizations. Can you tell us a little bit about how you do that and kind of the value that brings for your partnerships?

James Barrood (Guest): Sure. So again, so I have a very robust network. And from elevating the entrepreneurship center to elevating the New Jersey Tech Council, I have a lot of experience in doing that. And that's really about getting the word out about organizations or projects or entrepreneurs to a larger group of folks. And we do that through a number of ways. Right now, it's podcasts. I have a podcast, I have a large email list, and I do events online and in person. So those types of engagements within an ecosystem are, in frequency, are important to not only elevate initiative, but also entrepreneurs, also companies, also universities, also government and nonprofit agencies, and investors, because everyone needs to raise their profile and get connected. So I'm sort of like an Uber connector in many ways.

Jack Smith (Host): Yeah. An Uber connector. I like that. And before we came on the air, you talked about the importance of community and I heard that woven throughout everything you just described, the Uber connector that you're basically a community builder in a James.

James Barrood (Guest): Yeah.

Jack Smith (Host): I dig that. So tell me a little bit about the importance of community and how you're connecting those entrepreneurs, because that's really where you blend purpose and prosperity, right? You take these entrepreneurs and you connect them to the communities that they're a part of, and they're both better for it.

James Barrood (Guest): Yeah, well, that's correct. And as you know, entrepreneurship is a lonely job, right? You're in the trenches, you're working 24-7, and you just don't have the time to get out or connect or to sort of take a pause and see a larger vision for your company, for yourself, for your community. And so when I get connected to folks, I'm able to, again, connect them to other people, to partners, to talent, to investors. And that will help them not only get more business, grow their companies, but also have a richer life, a richer business life, a richer personal life. Because if you have balance, if you're engaged and you build relationships within those communities and outside those communities, that helps everyone, including the business, those teammates in the business, with those stakeholders outside the business.

Jack Smith (Host): Absolutely. It's the impact to the community. That's what I love most about being an entrepreneur. Both from what the business does, as well as the families that we get to feed and the people we employ. But it's the ripple effect of all of that, right? It's not just the dollar transaction, but the impact and that quality of life, which is as much a part of wealth as money, right? So you are part of AI for Good. And you've kind of got a lot of things that are going on in the AI space. Can you tell me a little bit about your view of AI, what your purpose is for AI for Good, and kind of what the opportunities or challenges are around AI?

James Barrood (Guest): Sure. There's actually that organization and another organization. So I'll mention AI for Good and it's a subsidiary of it called TechAid. AI for Good has been around for a while. TechAid is a relatively new subsidiary of it. TechAid is actually doing work with refugees in Ukraine. They are in the nonprofit space trying to help people in need get the resources they need and leveraging AI for that. That's one initiative. There's others involved in AI for Good Foundation. The other organization is called the Future World Alliance, which focuses on education and ensuring responsible, ethical AI in all things relating to education. Those are two really big areas, leveraging AI for good and responsible, ethical AI. We all know the great benefits. We all hear about the great benefits, speeding up things, automation, transforming businesses and communities. But there are downside risks, including bias, including job destruction, as we've discussed before, and of course, misinformation, which I'm really worried about these days, deepfakes.

Jack Smith (Host): And what can we do, what can our listeners do as we are navigating this world with all of these fakes and AI and all that? How do you fight the misinformation, I guess, is the real question in that, right? How do you fight the misinformation of AI?

James Barrood (Guest): Yeah, it's a moving target, frankly. And I think being educated and not sort of assuming everything you see is correct or truthful, right? So you need to, we need to have sort of, we need to pause, right? Whenever we see things from now on and think, where did this come from? And check it out, right? You can go back into, you know, back into the history of a document or a video and say, where was- where did this come from? And is this real, right? And increasingly, it's going to be the next year or two or three are going to be super difficult because the technology to watermark or ensure that things are real and truthful and verified is in a race against the negative forces, which are very powerful, unfortunately. And so it's a race and until that settles down and the verification and authentication technology is superior, or at least one step ahead of the bad technology or the technology that people are using for bad purposes, then we're all going to have to be on edge and try to be better educated about what we view and listen to.

Jack Smith (Host): I dig it. Staying more educated. I think we need a lot more entrepreneurs solving that problem, right? I think that's the beauty of entrepreneurship, I think, over governments and other entities, NGOs, that might be trying to make change happen. Entrepreneurs move quickly, they learn fast, and they're agile, and especially in an AI world, technology changes almost on a daily basis at this point. So we really need more entrepreneurship and that's really important to kind of your mission and your community building. Can you tell me a little bit more about what entrepreneurship means to you?

James Barrood (Guest): Oh, well, you know, again, I've been around my whole life and I've, I've met so many, you know, thousands of entrepreneurs and every story is wonderful and different. And I was just at a women's entrepreneurship pitch last night and the stories are amazing. And that's what's- that's really compelling about it. Amazing stories, amazing persistence, amazing success, and failure. We don't always talk about that, but we have to realize that for every unicorn, there's 1,000 failed companies.

Jack Smith (Host): Even on the journey to being a unicorn, they failed a dozen times along the way as well. I think that's really important to remember that just because they're a unicorn doesn't mean they didn't fail. They failed into being a unicorn just like everybody else.

James Barrood (Guest): 100%, absolutely. And so it's that persistence and learning from failure, which is so important and vital to the business economy, but also society. And it makes, again, everything so much richer and our progress in innovation so much richer, you know, mostly in the States, but around the world, right? Entrepreneurs will always be the leading edge, making society better through innovation and improve products and services.

Jack Smith (Host): I dig it. Speaking of entrepreneurs and launching entrepreneurs, you're part of, or we're part of veterans launching veterans, right? So you can tell us a little bit about maybe your veteran journey and some of the veteran entrepreneurs you had a chance to kind of help launch?

James Barrood (Guest): Sure, sure. Now, this is a while back, so I don't remember all the stories, but when I was running the entrepreneurship center, I developed this program, which, again, helped veterans, which all whom already, as you know, already have a lot of these great skills, leadership, persistence, resilience, right? Selling ability, right? So, gave them some more skills to be entrepreneurs. It was really rewarding. I can't remember all the companies, but the program still exists 10 years later or so. I'm delighted that that has persisted and that has helped graduate many veterans into the role of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. So whether they start their own business or just went to work for a small business or a family business, or even a big business or nonprofit, those entrepreneurship skills and mindset, as you know, are really important for business success.

Jack Smith (Host): Absolutely. And I love that you touched on the Ukrainian companies and the refugees that you're helping. Immigration is really crucial to innovation to you, right? So tell me a little bit more about that. I really appreciate that as a global organization ourselves, we all impact one another.

James Barrood (Guest): Yeah, well, immigrants and immigrant entrepreneurs and innovators are really important to this country, right? We are obviously made of immigrants. And that's one of the reasons why this nation is so strong and so robust is because of the entrepreneurial and innovative immigrants that start, I think, 60% of the Fortune 500 or something like that, or 50% of all unicorns or things like that. Those statistics are really off the wall in there. They're wonderful. One-third of the biotech workforce are immigrants. When we talk about the medicines that help save our lives and combat pandemics like the one we just had, those skills and that talent is critical to our country. And I should say it's harder than ever to keep them, unfortunately, because other countries and regions realize that they want to get the best talent. And I just wrote an article about Canada stealing our great talent because they have a better immigration policy and make it easy for smart, particularly tech entrepreneurs and innovators to migrate to their countries. So this is something that's really crucial to our success historically as a country and critical to its strength and success in the future. And so I feel very deeply about making it easier for immigrants to come and stay here.

Jack Smith (Host): I dig it. We have a friend of ours, the Ciroli Institute, they have, they call it enterprise facilitation, where they actually seek out the entrepreneurs in a refugee community as part of their intake processes as we're doing that. And so we're actually integrating that into some of the solutions that we're doing right now for some communities that are being displaced. So I love that. When we get done, I'll make sure I introduce you to those folks because I definitely think there's a ton of “cross-pollinization” and networks are all about that influence, right? And how can we help make a difference in all these communities? Well, James, I really appreciate it. You've taken your time to tell us about purpose, prosperity, and your passion. Is there anything that you'd like to share with our audience that you didn't get a chance to?

James Barrood (Guest): Well, this has been a great conversation. I just think whatever we can do to stay engaged with our community, engaged with one another, including entrepreneurs and innovators, both in the private and nonprofit sector. I think that's a good mission for everyone. I said to myself after the pandemic, I said, this is a year of engagement. I said, I'm going to meet as many people as I can to make up for all the lost time because I know that new opportunities, new relationships, serendipity will take place. And indeed, in eight, nine months here, that's what's happened. It's just remarkable how lucky, just by meeting more and more people, how many opportunities and sort of really enjoyable conversations, engagements, events have taken place just by getting out a little more. You just never know what possibilities there are until you put yourself out there.

Jack Smith (Host): I love it. Serendipity. We talk about staying curious all the time around here, so you never know what happens when you're out there in the world making connections. Thank you so much, James. I appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing your wisdom and your skills. We'll make sure to point everybody at Innovation Plus and see how we can help you with AI for good, as well as all the other wonderful endeavors that you have yourselves into. Thanks for your time.

James Barrood (Guest): Thank you, Jack.

Jack Smith (Host): Thank you listeners as well for tuning into the Purposeful Prosperity Podcast. Tune in next week where we'll give you another amazing entrepreneur doing world-changing things. Until then, please like, follow, and share, and keep doing good in the world. Thanks for listening.

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