AI Is Changing Who Gets a Tech Career - Here's How to Close the Gap | Bertina Ceccarelli, NPower

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the nature of work across every industry - but who actually gets access to the careers it creates? As the tech workforce evolves faster than ever, the risk isn't just disruption. It's that economic opportunity becomes even more concentrated among those who already have access.

In Episode 3, Dorothy Stuehmke speaks with Bertina Ceccarelli, CEO of NPower, about how AI is transforming the digital economy - and what it takes to ensure that transformation expands opportunity rather than narrows it.

Bertina brings a grounded, practical perspective on how the tech workforce is evolving and why lasting success in this landscape requires far more than technical skills alone - including the growing importance of adaptability, confidence, and the distinctly human capabilities that no algorithm can replicate.

Together, Dorothy and Bertina explore:

• How AI is changing the skills, pathways, and expectations that shape tech careers
• Why companies that define talent too narrowly are missing out on their best potential workforce
• How NPower is expanding access to careers in the digital economy for young adults and military-connected individuals
• The human capabilities that technology cannot replace - and why they're more valuable than ever

This episode connects to the Do Good on Purpose Giving Circle, where you can directly support NPower's work to expand access to opportunity in the age of AI.

🤝 Support NPower through the Do Good on Purpose Giving Circle – https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/LjPhN5M/Do-Good-on-Purpose-Giving-Circle

🔗 Connect with Dorothy Stuehmke:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorothystuehmke/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dorothystuehmke/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dorothystuehmke

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Change rarely happens by accident. It happens when people decide to do good on purpose. Welcome to the Do Good on Purpose podcast, a place to step back from the noise, hear thoughtful conversations about the defining challenges of our time, and discover how you can be part of the solutions. Each episode connects to the show's giving circle, where listeners can choose to support the work we discuss. I'm your host, Dorothy Stumke. I've been thinking a lot lately about the future of work and what opportunity really looks like, and how technology and artificial intelligence are reshaping who has access to it and who gets left behind. At a time when the future of work is changing so quickly, there's a need to focus on technical skills, but we also have to remember how much confidence, adaptability, and soft skills are needed to truly succeed. NPower is a nonprofit that's doing just that, and they're opening doors into the digital economy for young adults and for military-connected individuals. Bertina Ketcherelli has led NPower for the past decade, bringing a combination of urgency and heart to this work. She believes so deeply in the potential of people, especially those who've been overlooked, and in the power of opportunity to transform individual lives and entire communities. In this conversation, Bertina reflects on her journey, challenges common assumptions about AI and the future of work, and shares how NPOR is creating new pathways to opportunity, while also encouraging companies to rethink how they see and support talent. As always, this episode is connected to the Do Good on Purpose Giving Circle, where you can take action by supporting NPOR directly. You can give any amount, even a dollar, counts and will be pooled with other people's donations for greater impact. Because doing good isn't just something we talk about, it's something we choose to do on purpose. Bertina joins us now. Bertina, thank you so much for joining me today on my podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you here today and to spend some time with you and to get my audience to get to know you a little bit and the work that you've been leading at and power for the past decade.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Dorothy, I'm just thrilled that you suggested this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Thank you. Thank you. I think the audience is going to be really inspired by the work that you've been leading, especially, I think, in this moment that we're having in this country. I think we're having a moment of reckoning really around artificial intelligence. And I want to actually start the conversation there because you're such a powerhouse of knowledge when it comes to the tech industry and artificial intelligence and the employment landscape. And we can't talk about creating jobs for individuals in tech without mentioning AI in the same sentence. AI is fundamentally changing the way we work. It's taking jobs away, it's really transforming hiring practices too. And it's forcing us all, I think, to rethink what opportunity means, what education means, and also who actually gets to get ahead here. So with that in mind, I would love for you to share with our audience what's the real issue that NPOR is trying to solve for here. What is it that you are leading today?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, Dorothy, I really appreciate that framing. And everything that you said about the impact of AI is real. And we see it every day in our work. And maybe just to step back a little bit to give some context for what we do and why this conversation about AI is so important right now, today, in our mission, is that we exist to help catapult economic opportunity and social mobility for populations oftentimes that are shut out from opportunity. It might be young adults from lower-income communities who don't have the resources or the access for a college education. It might be a veteran who chose to enlist in the armed services to serve our country, but is having a really hard time translating those skills into civilian employment. So when we think about the audiences that we are tool to serve, to help them go from, on average, a $10,000 annual salary through grit gig and part-time work, that is the average of pre-programmed salaries for empowered students, to $50,000 to $80,000 a year. And we do that today through IT training and certifications and power skills development and connections to employment opportunities. Now, I could say all of that and feel really good about it, but everything I just said is exposed to disruption by AI, which means we have to think about everything that we do within our own operation, but most importantly, the skills that we are training our students to become proficient in before they get to their job site. And I I think it's a great conversation, Dorothy, for us to have about some of the specifics of what we're seeing in that equation.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

So tell me about the specifics that you're seeing in the equation, then.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

So, well, let's just start with the facts. Right now, today, I think there's a misconception that tech jobs are going away. But in truth, right now, the unemployment rate is half of what it is for tech professionals that it is in the general economy. Moreover, tech sector jobs are projected to grow at twice the level of the general economy. And where we see specific growth are in categories like data analyst, cybersecurity, IT operations, all the sorts of categories of training that Empower specializes in. So let's just sort of level set and first say yes, AI is a factor and it is changing the shape of an IT job, but the job itself is not going away. The second thing that we hear is that entry-level jobs are becoming fewer. That part is true for a moment in time. And here's what is underneath that that we're seeing. It's not so much that companies don't need early career talent. It's that in a race to fund AI investment, a lot of mid-level leaders have been laid off. Well, who is it that recruits and hires and on boards and manages early career talent? It's that middle level. And so one of the things that we're seeing that I think is quite fascinating is a reduction or construction and that middle level of a company hierarchy that is a bottleneck right now to bringing in early career talent. And so one of the inflection points we're gonna see is mid-2026 to project that we're gonna see a reversal because companies can only do that for so long before they recognize we really need some of that junior talent for roles we didn't quite understand we needed a year and a half ago. So that's that's I think one important thing to anchor the conversation in is that talent is still needed. And part of the work that we are doing at Empower is working very closely with those hiring managers to really get underneath how is that job changing for the entry level? And what do we need to do differently to ensure that the students we train are fully prepared to be able to take those jobs, whether they be data science or cybersecurity or IT operations, and importantly, understand how to use AI to be more efficient and productive at the jobs they have.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

That's really helpful, Bertina, addressing these myths and really positioning and understanding the landscape in a way that people understand and believe that the jobs are out there. It's just a matter of repositioning skill sets, repositioning the training in a way to kind of adjust and rise to the occasion of the new job, really.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

They are new jobs. They are new jobs. So if we think about today, the role of a cybersecurity analyst, there's some of the very same functions that are acquired around threat analysis, but now there are tools to help you with decision making, to help you with the analysis, to help you with the remediation that help you attack, attackle, fix those problems, those threats more fluidly. Having said that, right now, today, many of the corporate institutions that we work with are prepared to fully outsource their cybersecurity operations to a bot, right? There is still a critical need for human judgment and human intervention to remain in the mix. And as AI advances and becomes ever more sophisticated, the cybersecurity threats follow suit. So that is one of the just tremendous growth areas that we see right now for our graduates. We can't train people fast enough.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

So let's unpack that a little bit. I really think that that's an important point in understanding sort of the secret sauce to your model at NPOR, really, these power skills, these soft skills and the importance of that and not losing sight of that, despite sort of more the technical training piece of it. So can you talk a bit about credentials, right? The credentials that employers look for vis-a-vis soft skills, techno technical skills versus soft skills.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

You know, here's what's so interesting. And this, I would say, is also a function of AI and something that we are seeing evolve. We used to categorize soft skills or professional skills in a different way than we did the hardcore technical skills and the industry certifications that came along with that type of training. It's beginning to blur and to blend. And one really good example is a 21st century skill we know every employer is looking for is curiosity. Can I bring on somebody who is going to be so interested and curious about my business that they're going to ask a lot of questions about what's working, what is the business model, what are the external threats, what are the things that we need to be aware of to advance the core business where technology is used to help do that. Now, the savvy IT professional knows how to do that. Why curiosity is ever more important in an AI-powered environment is if you are going to write prompts to leverage AI as a tool to help you do your job better, you gotta have an understanding of the business concept to ask the right questions. We know some IT professionals who have prompts that are two pages long or more because they understand the business so well and they can get so precise about how they're framing a challenge to be solved, that their productivity using AI is so far better than the productivity of somebody who might have a really simplistic two-sentence prompt on the same issue. Curiosity is something that we can help our students understand how to develop and how to ask the right questions in a way that is supportive and that is advantageous, value add to the mystice, as opposed to arrogant or maybe misunderstanding the assignment. And so that would just be, I think, one example of a power skill that sits at the intersection of kind of the old idea or traditional idea, professional soft skills development, and leveraging technology the best.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

What other soft skills or power skills, as you call them? What other things do you look to hone in the individuals who come through your program? So curiosity is one.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

And I will tell you the question that you're asking is so timely because even as we speak, we are doing a deep dive on elevating the level of power skills or durable skills that we teach both in our classrooms, as well as the type of self-study we ask students to do, because this is taking on ever more of a priority by our corporate employers. So other types of power skills, collaboration. How effective can you be in working with a team? And that team might include, by the way, an AI chatbot. It might include agents, right? How are you working? How are you doing in terms of that group dynamic in getting to the ideal solution for a company the fastest and the most efficient way? So collaboration is one. Communication always tops the list. And that's both how you present yourself and your ideas. Because as you arrive at a solution, you got to be able to effectively communicate that, whether that's to a group of colleagues, to your boss, to somebody who's going to help implement that solution. So being crisp and concise and compelling, something that we have been leaning into in our durable skills training. And then the other that I would just really sort of lean into if we talk about curiosity, collaboration, communication, it's also a measure of being critical. And critical thinking connects with curiosity because you want to be able to, as a particularly a new person coming in, evaluate the landscape and the existing systems and be able to say, I think there's a way we could do this better. And with some of our young adults who we are training who are practically AI natives, they just very well may be in a better position to say, I think there's a solution using AI that can address and execute this system in a more effective way. If you think about it, some of the traditional processes that a lot of legacy companies have are almost like wallpaper, right? They're so embedded in the culture and in the operation that people almost forget about them. But what we hear from some of our employer partners is we want young talent who come in and will challenge the way that we're doing business. And so to help our students cultivate that critical thinking and to be able to come in fresh and to pose questions and solutions is certainly something that we're leading into more and more.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Do you find it hard to have these conversations, or do you find that corporations or companies that you partner with, or maybe they're companies that you're you're not partnering with and you're hearing about it? Are they not getting this piece of it? Or do they want to get this piece of it and but they still don't realize how to go about working with staff to hone these skills? Where's um, I guess I'm trying to get at where's this disconnect still?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, no, it's a really, really great question. And I will tell you, in almost every conversation I have, employers want to get there. They see the opportunity, but some of it requires some culture shift. If you want your younger staff members, and also maybe if we put a real fine point on it, younger staff members who come in from non-traditional backgrounds, maybe they are hired through a skill-based program, not necessarily out of college, many of the students, for example, that we would serve. There needs to be an environment where a company creates what we like to call psychological safety, creating conditions. It's okay to challenge the system. And I think for a lot of young talent, regardless of where you come from, you don't want to be seen as rocking the boat or challenging something that's been around for a really long time. So therefore it must be working. So the more that we at empower, and I would argue colleges and universities and other training institutions, can create the kind of pathways and orient those employer partners to think very carefully about the culture that you're creating that allows for that innovation and inventiveness and constructive challenging, the better the business processes will be in any operation as long as they're, again, well conceived and communicated. And I think companies who are pioneers in that regard and open to the strength of young talent are going to fly.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

So if I'm understanding correctly, then you as an organization are not just training individuals in the skill sets that are needed to go out there and get a job in the tech industry. You're also working with companies to help make that cultural shift as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

We have to do both. We have to do both. We have to not only help prepare Talad to be the very best contributors that they can be, but we also, if we just left it there, it would be pretty successful. But to go back to your phrase, the secret sauce is also having those really close relationships with corporate partners who are open to a new way of thinking about onboarding talent, right? And this sort of goes back to some of the challenges that we see that when you have a constrained level of middle management, it becomes harder to do that. But the companies that will succeed using AI, the companies that will be strong performers of the future, will be able to find ways to unleash their mid-level talent to be the mentors and the native guides and to encourage that talent that is coming up in creative ways, it helps to unleash a new way of thinking. Because those individuals today who are 22, 25, 28, who are getting these skills early on, they're going to reinvent the future of business.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

So what makes Unpower different from its peer organizations or its competitors?

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Well, I I like to think that when you work in the nonprofit sector, there's value, right, in all organizations that are doing this work. And I would say that like organizations who do workforce training and connect individuals to opportunity, there could be so many more of us doing this work. And so the more that we are supportive of one another, we're just stronger as a group. But I would say within that, what distinguishes MPower is a couple of things. First, we have a motto, we weave people in, we don't weed them out. And so why that is so important in tech is that there's many different levels of a technology career that you can start in. And we have individuals fresh out of high school who have worked before, but lack the professional awareness or positioning. Maybe they have some tech talent because of what they learned in their high school programs. That individual needs to be woven into a different kind of program than, say, a military veteran who's worked for 20 years as a signal core specialist. And so we want to make sure that as we weave people in, that we find the best opportunity for them to excel the fastest and to customize curricula and customize their experience with professional development in such a way that helps to land them the best paying job that they can get out of our program. So that's one. I think the second is we take a very holistic approach. And even though we're beginning to embed a lot more AI and agentic technology into our own operations so that we can be more efficient, what still matters is that personal relationship. So by having the individual connection to most of our students, we are able to provide referrals to support networks in their own communities. Understand each individual need and help connect them to housing resources in their local cities. If an individual needs to work with transportation or childcare assistance, we've got a network of social support managers who are full-time staff members who work with local agencies and other nonprofits to make sure that we can reduce those barriers so our students can complete the program and then get the jobs that will help them have far more than a living wage.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

So let's put that into context for some people who are wondering what that actually looks like? I think we tend to talk a lot about impact numbers and percentages. Tell me about an individual, a person who's gone through your program, who has received the credentials, who's gotten the soft skills, who's really leaned into all of the training and the networks and everything that NPower offers and has gone out there and landed a job and is thriving. What does that actually look like? Yeah. Oh my goodness, there are so many, Dorothy.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

I'm sure there are. Well, I will I will share with you one that's top of mind and close in my heart because just before our call together, we had a celebration with a coalition we called Command Shift. And it is a group of corporate leaders who are deeply committed to the success of women in technology, and specifically women who are transitioning from careers that tend to be lower paid, but where women develop fierce skills that are directly transferable to technology. For example, somebody's been a customer service manager, but they're making $25,000 a year. It's hard to provide for their family, but they've they're facile with technology, they can travel multiple priorities, they can manage under pressure. So there's a lot of value there that when somebody is an applications developer and working under deadlines, that is a directly transferable set of skills, once they've got the technical training. Yvesca Fretsois. She joined a small program that we piloted 18 months ago in Georgia. She was a home health care aide making $20 an hour. And she heard about our program online, and she said, you know, it's a free program. These are her words. It's a free program, so how good could it be? But I really need to do something. So let me give it a shot. She said it was harder than anything she'd ever done. But one thing that she said that is so important, and I hear this over and over from the students who go through our program, people at Empower believed in me more than I believed in myself. And after having the support of her instructors and the team that surrounded her and 50 other women who went through this program, she is now a healthcare IT specialist. And not only is she making a far bigger salary, she has bought her first home. Vecca is about to have her first child, and she said something that just like brought us all to tears. She said, I'm gonna be able to give my child something I did not have, which is a stable roof over their head. There's a lot of power in that. Now, not only has she been able to develop wealth, right? Because when you can begin to invest in real estate to begin to develop equity, you've got a stable job with healthcare benefits at a position now that she can grow from. And this is the power of technology that wherever you start, if you commit yourself to lifelong learning, there is no limit to where you could grow. And I have no doubt that Iveca will be managing that department one day. She's already got one promotion in the year that she has been with this healthcare IT company. So that is just one story, but what I thought I want to share with you because it's sort of relevant to this discussion of AI. So Iveka had a job that is not necessarily gonna be disrupted anytime soon by AI. Home health care aid is one of the fastest growing professions, but regrettably, right now, it's also one of the least paid. She made a choice. I am not gonna listen to the noise, I'm gonna bet my future on tech. And it's gonna pay off for her. Same thing happened with Jordan Reese. So Jordan Reese joined our program in Houston. And you know, Jordan is a Jordan's an interesting example. He graduated from high school, he had a lot of ups and downs, you know, he had yet a few run-ins where he just in college wasn't gonna be the thing for him, and he ended up working as a janitor for a hospital in Houston, realized this is not gonna be a career for me. He had always been interested in tech, learned about uh empower through a local news channel, and is now earning 60% more salary by working as an IT specialist at a company that does IT support for auto dealers, right? So when you think about these sort of interesting companies, it's not all big tech, but every company has some sort of tech operation. And he had a job, you know. If you're a custodian, again, your job's not going to be disrupted by AI anytime soon. But he made a choice and said, I can have an another pathway. In fact, so much so that he's he suggested to his cousin in Ohio that he try our program out of Dayton. His cousin is now a data center operations manager, and Ibeka also referred to of her friends. So I share this because there's power in a network, there's power and the potential of a tech pathway. As long as somebody remains curious and says, I am in it for the long term, I just have to keep refining my skills. And I think that's part to the fact that what differentiates and power. We really encourage our students and make available all the kind of upskilling that is going to help them succeed, not just on that first job, but as they continue to grow in their careers.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I mean, this is this is incredible. These are great stories because there's such a ripple effect that you talk about too. Homeownership, second chance, growing your career. So it's not just about an entry-level position and working with young individuals right out of high school or college. I do know that you work with young adults, but it's also about people who are halfway through their career or maybe further along in their career who want to make a change, who really are taking a bet on the tech industry, contrary to all the myths that are that are out there, right? I love that. So you work with women, you work with adults, you work with military personnel. Anyone else?

SPEAKER_01 29:12

So so today we really define the populations we serve as threefold. Young adults, roughly 18 to 26. Um, we also serve women, where we have a special interest given that they are such a small percent overall of the tech workforce. And then what we think of as military-connected families. So whether that is an individual who's on active duty, maybe a reserve, somebody who is transitioning out of the military through a program we have with the Department of Defense called Skillbridge, or spouses who are often overlooked within the veteran community because they can't commit to careers the same way that maybe a civilian spouse can. So those were our three populations. However, once you have graduated from in power, we invite all of our alums to come back for upskilling. So that might be a 25-year-old who's graduated and has had success in their career for 10 years at head a bunk of the roof. And so even though that person is older than the average population we serve today, we welcome them back with open arms because we realize it can't just be a one-time intervention that success in any career requires a network, it requires mentoring, and it requires continued growth in your technical and professional and your leadership skills. That's what we help with.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah, I would imagine that the upskilling piece is so critical because the sector is just evolving so rapidly. So there's always going to be a need to jump back in and refine those skills.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

In fact, Dorothy, we were fine, that is one of the highest growth areas for our work today. And one of the things I'm very excited about is creating more pathways for that kind of upskilling for our alums and even opening up potentially down the road for some new audiences, particularly those who maybe have been laid off because their job was impacted by AI. So, how can we grow our services in a way that through some automation helps to serve as many people as possible? Introducing more curricula, introducing higher level skills. I think that's what you can look forward to from Empower in the year ahead.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Let's shift the conversation a little bit and turn the camera on you now, Bertina. I think this is incredible work that you're leading. I want to get to know you a little bit better. I want our audience to get to know you a little bit better because this is not easy work. You're an engineer by training. You had a successful career in the corporate sector. You made a conscious decision to pivot and leave and join the nonprofit sector to do this work for 10 years. I know you were in the nonprofit sector shortly before with other organizations as well. So you've been in the nonprofit sector a bit longer than just 10 years, 10 years with NPOR. But why did you make the shift? What brought you to the nonprofit sector and you know, what brought you to NPower?

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Well, Dorothy, I really appreciate you asking that question. But I especially appreciate you acknowledging, hey, this is hard work. Given that I have had a career in the corporate sector before being in the nonprofit sector, I often liken this role to being Ginger Rogers. I do a lot of what my corporate colleagues do backwards and high heels, because almost my definition as a nonprofit, you have to be scrappy and you've got to be resourceful and really think innovatively about how you make the most of what you have. And in some ways, I think that's the story of my own background. And I appreciate the question because I will tell you the peers I have in this sector, and there are many such outstanding leaders who I've just grown to really admire and count as mentors and support friends, is that we all have a story about why we do this work. And for me, I had the opportunity of having a couple of really outstanding mentors, people in my life, high school counselors, people like Connie Wallace and John Copeland, who at the right moment in my high school career said, maybe you should give some thought to college and let's help you figure out a way to get there. College was not a foregone conclusion for me. Turns out neither of my parents graduated from high school, and we didn't have a lot of resources. I was blessed with parents who cared about education, who knew that they wanted that from me, but didn't have the wherewithal or the education themselves to really guide me in the way that at times I probably needed. And so, in some respects, it was the luck of the draw that these people were in my life. And there's a responsibility, I think, that comes with that. I was fortunate to go to UC Berkeley, get a degree in engineering, and I actually worked my way through college in IT support jobs. So, in some respects, this work at power is so full circled for me, not just as a as a as a as a professional highlight, but soulfully, right? Being able to um acknowledge that I have an opportunity and an obligation to be able to be that force in somebody else's life in a moment in time, but they might need just a little push, a little bit of encouragement, a little bit of what Iveca talked about, which is somebody believed in me more than I believed in myself. And I can't tell you how many times in my own career I felt I had that. People in the background who just said you could do this, just give this a try or think about this a little bit differently. And so I think in many respects, it's not just my role, but it is the team of people who surround me, who lead this organization with purpose and intentionality, who bring that same light and that same energy. And when you can magnify that, and oh, by the way, all the corporate volunteers who engage in our work who feel that same sense of obligation, there's a lot of power to that. We talk about movements, it starts with one person caring, one person saying, Hey, somebody made a difference in my life, now it's my turn to do the same for somebody else. And it's more than just paying it forward, it's getting involved. So my role as a leader is to demonstrate that in action and hopefully to inspire others to understand the power you can have in somebody's life, in their children's life, in their communities, uh benefit. And that's where we see waves of change and value that gets created. So that's what I love about the role that I have here at NPower, and it is personal, and no amount of AI will ever change that.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

So you've also recently announced that you will be leaving uh NPower after a decade of service and work. Can you share a bit about your thoughts around the legacy that you hope to leave?

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Yeah, no, I will tell you it's so interesting. I think in some respects, less about legacy, since I feel that that's such a backward-looking concept, and more about the path ahead for this organization. But there is a place where those two ideas intersect. That I feel I think most rewarded by is the team that exists here at this organization, the incredible bench of talent that has grown up as leaders here at Empower and who share the same passion and enthusiasm and commitment. And in some respects, Dorothy, this is why I feel after 10 years, it's a good opportunity for me to give the reigns to somebody else. Because I know that there is a group of individuals who will help us help this organization soar to the next level. And there will be a new CEO who can take us from where we are today at 35 million, certainly 2,800 people a year to 90 million people a year. And I think that's what I am most hopeful about in this transition. And it gives me an opportunity to take a little bit of a pause. I think, as you know, these jobs are very demanding. I have loved every minute of it. I will continue to love every minute of it until my successor is named. But I think what I'll do is take a little bit of a breath and then figure out what the next adventure looks like. But what I can tell you is whatever it is, it will be about purpose and making a difference. I hope.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Well, I certainly wish you the best of luck, and I know we'll keep in touch. And I can't wait to hear what's next for you. As we wrap up our conversation, I just wanted to ask you to share with the audience a bit about where donations would go and what would it benefit in the organization.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Well, so I think that is such a great question, and I will tell you, we exist on private philanthropy. We, for a reason, keep our programs free to students. It is oftentimes the only backstop they have to help escape poverty. And we do it with such care and with such efficiency. So any donation that is given to End Power goes directly to our training resources. We have full-time technical instructors, we have full-time social support managers, we have emergency funds. If a student is really in a pickle at a utility bill, it's about ready to be shut off. We can help subsidize that because oftentimes $50 will make a huge difference between completing the program, heat on at the house, or not. And so there's a real impact. And I I would say that you mentioned something really important earlier, which is the stories matter and the data matters. We have a reputation for being among the most effective training providers in the country, with over 80% of our students completing the program and between 70 to 80% of our students getting great employment once they graduate. So I think of every philanthropic investment in this organization as just that an investment that has a long-term return and the impact on somebody's life.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Thank you so much, Bertina, for spending some time with me, sharing your vision, sharing all the work that you've been leading at NPower, all the good work that NPO is doing to prepare all of your participants for amazing jobs in the tech industry, and for sharing your thoughts on AI and AI disruption and the and the myths that exist around there that we need to really kind of rethink. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode on the Do Good on Purpose podcast. And if today's conversation inspired you, please consider supporting the work through the Do Good on Purpose Giving Circle, which is linked in the show notes. And if you really enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. Share it with someone who believes in building a better world because change rarely happens by accident. It happens when people decide to do good on purpose.