What is the future of the tech industry in Detroit? One of the people on the forefront is the co-founder of Black Tech Saturdays, Johnnie Turnage.
We talk about the changes being driven by tech, how Detroit can take advantage, the role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and so much more. You won't want to miss this!
Listen in the player below, and scroll down for a complete transcript.
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Transcript of the conversation with Johnnie Turnage
Jer Staes: Hello and welcome to the table at Tech Town. I am Jer Staes. To my left is none other than Mr. Norris Howard. How are you, sir?
Norris Howard: You already know what it is. The Prince of Brightmoor returns! I'm back here once again in studio. I had a little break, but, you know I can't stay away for too long.
Jer Staes: Never, never. And joining us is a very special guest, a return visitor to the Daily Detroit studio, Johnnie Turnage. Black Tech Saturday is, I think, one of the leading voices around technology and community in the City. Welcome back to the show, Johnnie!
Johnnie Turnage: Glad to be here! Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
Jer: Yeah, absolutely. So there's been so much going on. You seem to have just like, gotten off of planes. What have you been up to?
Johnnie Turnage: Look, it has been an interesting journey here. We are recently returning from Afrotech down in Houston, Texas. We're currently doing a roadshow with the state of Michigan's Office of Growth. And we went down there, and we held "Bright Future x Black Genius" to really celebrate the culture of innovation that we have here in Detroit, Michigan.
Jer: That's awesome. Is there something that you're picking up in all these travels?
Johnnie Turnage: Yes, yes. One of the things is a lot of people, a lot of expats, a lot of people who are seeing Michigan in a new light were learning what other places are doing and bringing that back.
And I think we're also making sure people just take another thought about what's happening in our ecosystem. One of the things that I've seen has always worked best is if you have a tech or entrepreneurial community that's really doing it, you have to tell everybody so people know and you have to send the right signals.
And so one of the things we are picking up is seeing that people are looking at us in a whole different light. While we were down at Afrotech we actually got to talk with the founder of Afrotech, Morgan DeBaun, and it was huge when she was like, I" follow you." And I was like, "Oh, you're the celebrity in this situation. But thank you. Thank you."
Norris: Nah, that's really cool. And, you know, for those who are unfamiliar with Black Tech Saturdays, this is, I'm gonna say this is the pre-eminent sort of meetup for tech. And you know, even just tech adjacent professionals, because I'm not in tech, I worked in gaming for many years. And I consider myself tech adjacent. But you have media modules. You have small business modules. I mean, every month and every week, you all are doing something different, headquartered down there at New Lab where you're having stuff all the time. And what has it been like to see not just the growth of Black Tech Saturdays to turn into a meetup and then a convention, and now this roadshow? The ascendancy of BTS has been incredible.
Johnnie Turnage: The growth of Black Tech Saturdays has honestly been ... It's been a special blessing. I mean, a year and a half ago, it was me and Darren Riley meeting up in a cold March in a building that was mostly under construction. And even as we grew to a few more people and have grown, it's been beautiful to see how the community's grown; how many people are in this world or adjacent to this world; but how many people are - kind of like we were talking about earlier - are finding that third space, finding a little bit of a home to be in. I do believe when you go, from just being like on your lonely journey to finding some people who are as crazy as you, you start to just see some really cool stuff happen.
Jer: There is something special about doing the weird thing and having people around you that want to help you do the weird thing. Because if you want to build something special, you can't do what everybody else is doing. And one of the things that you're doing to help support this stuff is you actually have a holiday celebration and pitch competition coming.
Johnnie Turnage: Yes! Yes! Yes! December 14th. Oh man, this is our second year doing the holiday celebration. Last year we did an art and tech showcase. This year, we recently raised some money. And I'm a big believer of you really just gotta invest in people. We have a lot of really talented people, and we're always trying to make sure BTS as a whole is a platform for more people to share their stories and get the support they need. And so this year, we're giving away a little over $30,000 in pitch competitions. I think first place is 15, second place is 10, third place is 5. And then we have a couple community choice awards for people who are there. The cool part is we had over 200 people submit to pitch. And weaning that down to just 30 companies who are gonna take the stage was both hard and lets us know we're definitely gonna be doing another pitch competition probably here in Q1 just to get people back there. I think a lot of people, they're working on some really cool things. It's amazing to go from ... I saw this person when they first came to Black Tech Saturdays. I'm like, "Oh, you've gotten pretty far. I like what I'm seeing. Let's support that." And it's, our new year celebration. It'll be a time for people to celebrate together. We have something called a "hot chocolate lounge." We'll be doing some matchmaking, both professional and personal, because I love to see all the couples at Black Tech Saturdays.
Norris: I'm single, so there we go.
Jer: This is Detroit's most eligible bachelor, in my opinion.
Norris: I'm there. I'm there.
Johnnie Turnage: Yes. Yes! And, you know, celebrate the fun. I think I'm a big believer [that] you should work very, very hard. But also you have to celebrate the little victories. And so celebrating some milestones and end of the year with a bang.
Jer: One of the key things I took away from a recent conversation on the show - we had Brian McCullough, who is the host of the Techmeme Ride Home podcast, and he lived in Michigan for a long time, now, is based in Brooklyn, and really talked about the startup community and all those things.
And one of the keys was that community aspect, that idea of those happy hours, those ways that people can make the connections to find the people they want to hire, the resources they need. You can't just throw money at the issue. You have to have, like, the rest of that infrastructure. And it's kind of amazing how BTS has, even since February, when you were last on the show, moved in leaps and bounds.
Johnnie Turnage: Yes. Yes. Look, I think BTS is the example of why community is so important. We only grow because of a very strong and powerful community. Making recommendations, showing up. I mean, like, February. It's funny, when we were here in February. We had never had a Black Tech Saturdays that had over a thousand people.
Jer: Heard it here first on Daily Detroit!
Norris: Yep!
Johnnie Turnage: Look, we had only gone to Baltimore. We've now been to D.C. [and] Houston. This Saturday we'll be in Miami. Alexa's gonna be speaking in L.A. Soon as we were talking to some people at UCLA, and we've grown a lot. I think we've learned a little bit about how to make some things run smoother. And our community has grown a lot. There are people who've gotten funded that they were just ideas back then.
Jer: Well, I think that plays an important role because Detroit seems to be at least around technology ... And maybe you can help me with some of the knowledge around this. Detroit seems to be a city and a region in transition. So much of our technology has been automotive driven. And I know listeners of the show who have had changes in their jobs and things because of technology shifting in automotive. So where do you see the future of, like, technology in Metro Detroit? Is automotive part of it? Is it the base of it? What other kinds of industries do you see coming here?
Johnnie Turnage: Yeah, I think what's happening right now is Michigan's going through our own, like, tech renaissance. I think we declared a BIPOC tech renaissance when BTS kicked off, and the whole state has gone through the space as there's new industry running here. We were really big in clean energy.
We're having a lot of talk about what does it look like to have an AI incubation hub here? What are the other kinds of innovation that can take place? I think we're seeing consumer packaged goods show up. Technology can touch everything. And I think when it comes to technology, it's usually about how you amplify what people can do. And when you don't have all the resources to make something happen, technology can be a good plugin.
And Detroit is a place that a lot of the problems we deal with can be solved with technology. They can be scaled. We're going to see a lot of different kinds of technology. We're going to see more clean energy. We're probably going to ... I mean, we don't talk about it a lot, but we technically do have like a Space Force base up in Selfridge.
So I'm like there's more space tech. We're actually going to do a govtech summit with the Department of Defense in NASA next year. And it's like, things like that let me know that there's going to be a lot of different kinds of technology because we do have one of the most diverse populations to test things with.
Norris: Yeah. And it's really interesting, and I want to hit on something that you specifically said talking about, like, AI incubators, because particularly in southeast Michigan, there is, I wasn't going to say apprehension towards AI. Ah, especially as we begin to see, quite frankly, a lot of manufacturing jobs be lost in southeast Michigan as electrification of vehicles requires less workers. AI starting to replace a lot of the white collar workers.
You've always been very bullish on AI. And so I want to just pick your brain about this. You know ... how do we reconcile with the fact that AI is going to streamline a lot of jobs and occupations? And that also means that there are going to be some changes in the workforce for a lot of people, specifically in the City of Detroit.
Johnnie Turnage: 100% I love this question. One, because it touches a real personal part. Before all this tech, I was a union negotiator and we represented meat plant workers, food workers, Kroger. And I'm like, automation has always been coming. Automation is coming to every industry.
Think of the ATM, the automated teller machine, and what that did to banks. So it used to, for me, I was actually like, oh, no, we don't need ... this is going to take people's jobs. But the thing is, it's happening. And so if we pull ourselves out, we don't learn it, and we're missing an opportunity.
For every technological innovation, there still needs to be a tech. There still needs to be an engineer. And then there's a report Atlanta did, the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative. And when they talk about what's going to happen with their economy as things get more automated, as AI, takes over, they're literally trying to put in place a plan to say, we're just going to have to create the jobs that are going to disappear because of tech, because of tech and innovation.
So as things start to decrease in another area, I'm like, well, there are new problems. Think of you, mentioned EVs. When we were talking EV no one realized we're going to need a lot of electric vehicle technicians.
We're going to need charging stations. There's someone - Ms. BB's - she has the first mobile electric charging vehicle truck. So it's like a tow truck for electric vehicles, so when they run out of charge. She just won second place at a pitch competition recently, and she's buying her second truck. And I go, "Honestly, that's a really good idea. If there are tow trucks, there needs to be electric vehicle tow trucks"
Jer: Like, because you normally would just grab a can of gas at the side of the road. Yeah, everyone's done that lone walk, that lonely walk down the side of the road. Yes, but that's interesting to me in context because I think about AI as a thing that is coming regardless. Yes, but the jobs are going to be not taken by AI, but they're going to be in creating the AI. Like, your job isn't going to be taken away. Your job is going to be controlling or leveraging AI to your benefit in some way.
Johnnie Turnage: We become the ultimate quality check. There are limitations to every tech tool. They can only do so much.
They will still need your expert and your genius. And one of the ways that I think about that is I've been using AI over the last year and a half to also teach myself to get much better at the things that I'm good at.
Because I realize I'm like, you could always learn new things or you could become an expert in what you know very well. And so I read more. I do AI challenges. I have it write campaign plans to see if my campaign plans are as good as its campaign plans.
Like all those things to try to make sure that I am like fine tuning my craft, because then that means, in an AI sense, I will be the best at activating it this way.
Jer: But AI also requires, if you're going to go ahead and be the person doing the inputs, it requires a certain level of like, education and skillset. And I think not just in Detroit, but also across Michigan, we've been dealing with some issues as far as skills gap and education. Are there some ways that we could address that or maybe even tailor what we're doing educationally to help support that 100%?
Johnnie Turnage: I think one of the things that we're gonna definitely have to see here in Michigan is how we are preparing both our public education institution, our private institutions for this tech wave, and prep them for what's the future of work looks like. What's the future of learning? I think we're starting to see more digital learning. One of the things we're going to be doing at Black Tech Saturday is, I think, late Q1, early Q2, we're going to be rolling out our first five courses. It's like a BTS Academy.
Norris: Awesome.
Johnnie Turnage: We're going to use a combination of AI tools and videos to teach people new things: like how can we help people keep learning about some of the things that you should know. Because if you can master the tools and start that learning journey, you can start getting further. But we're all gonna need it, whether it be computer skills, email skills. I'm like we still are not number one when it comes to the digital divide. We have a gap that we have to get over.
Jer: Spoken like a true negotiator.
Norris: Yeah. No. True. We are still not number one. I love that.
Jer: We are not number one.
Norris: I love that. Nah, but I think that's a very interesting point. As somebody who I will freely admit, decidedly more ... I don't want to say averse.
Jer: But you're skeptical.
Norris: I'm skeptical. There we go. I'm more of an AI skeptic, not because of the technology, but because I don't trust other humans. But like the concept of teaching people how to properly use the tool. Because there's already courses out about, like, how to properly prompt the AI to get it to actually do what you want it to do. Because, it's not Google. Like, people are using the AI and ChatGPT like Google, and this ... That's no wonder it's giving you crazy answers. But I think the thing that I get most concerned, and I was leading up to asking this question that I get most concerned, is AI's ability to proliferate disinformation.
And obviously, we just came out of a political year, so I don't want to get too into the political side of it. But the ability now for language learning models and image generation to just make stuff up that's untrue ... You know, what are your concerns around that? Because I think definitely moving into this next administration, whatever safeguards we were thinking about putting in place, out the window. We can forget about that.
So we got at least a few years of the wild, wild west of AI. How do we best prepare ourselves, our communities, for potentially an onslaught of just fake crap?
Johnnie Turnage: Yeah. So that's something that we're excited [about] because part of our campaign pillars for next year with BTS - that's responsible AI. We are going to have to set the standard of what is responsible AI.
First, we have to teach people what it is, teach people how to detect it, and determine the difference. Even with ChatGPT, I'm like, look, you can come copy and paste text and run it through something to see how much of this is AI generated.
How are we helping people do that so they understand and explain to some of our elders and some of our young people, this image is AI created. So that way people are very clear because there will be some fake news. Think of our Detroit sign faux pas.
Jer: Oh, my God. That was two months of content for us.
Norris: But, you know ... it was. It was. But, you know, it's so funny because it's like, you know, Johnnie we millennials. Why is it that millennials fall into that sweet spot of, like, knowing how to discern Internet crap? And then it's like the younger generation is so online that it's all real, and the older generation has just never experienced it, so it's all real to them, too. This is so interesting.
Johnnie Turnage: We grew up in a world where we had technology at a certain point in our lives. And depending on your family's economic status, you grew up very, very, like since my seventh birthday, my mom ... For most of my life, there was a computer in the house.
Norris: Facts.
Johnnie Turnage: Or we went to the library. We tinkered. We toyed. I was encouraged to be curious. There are some people who didn't have that journey. So the way they embrace it is different.
The things they've tried to do are different. We have to think about AI just like that and go. We just need people to start thinking about how to use it. And so one of the things I love to do is let's get them to use it for like, grocery shopping.
Let's get them to use it for like, everyday problems that you just know are repetitive. If you hate planning your workday, your list, I can use AI to help you make a plan to clean your house. Let's just give you assignments.
Jer: Let's start there so that it's not making decisions, but it's really being an assistant. And when I see the usage of AI, whether it's in medicine or other things, that's actually where I see it.
Norris: Oh, I love it. Yeah.
Jer: Having more impact where it actually can run multiple tests and do things that would just be kind of like human drudgery, if you will. You two are mentioning about generational differences. And I am a geriatric millennial or an elder millennial depending on what listeners like to say. And for me, I do feel like there is a difference in how people approach technology. You're [Gen] Z, Alpha versus older and the idea of like, being willing to tinker. Like, I've built computers.
Johnnie Turnage: Yeah.
Jer: So a lot of people younger than us, like the phone is the computer, and like this is it. And it doesn't ... There isn't that same, like, behind the scenes, like, "Okay, I wrote basic programming and did this and figured that out." And I think it makes you approach technology different. I also would assume you have to approach technology education different.
Norris: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point, Jer, because, ah, as both of you had just said, I grew up the same way. Like my last PC I built, you know, and not this. I just bought a pre- built which don't, you know, get mad at me. But the one before
Jer: Only your gamer friends are going to be mad.
Norris: Yeah, but the one I had before that I built and that was only because I had the experience of our computer, when I was 11 years old, was too old. I had to know how to upgrade the RAM. I had to know how to change the graphics card. That stuff. You had to just know. You had to go and study it. You had to go find the answers. But I think that comes from having to use a library at one point in your life and the analog world kind of forcing you to go look for those answers.
Jer: When I played multiplayer games, I had to connect them with the token ring network with those BNC cables in the back.
Norris: Bro, were you like in Alaska? Like why were you using a ring? [Did] that work?
Jer: Yeah, down the stairs. So this tells you what kind of nerd I was in high school that on my prom night, we had gaming night.
Norris: Like, what are you talking about?
Jer: No, I had to do, like, in order to do the gaming within the group in the same house, we ran those cables up and down the stairs and, yeah, with the T connectors and everything.
Norris: Just the LAN party. Massive LAN party.
Jer: And had to build it ourselves.
Norris: Geeks.
Johnnie Turnage: I love it.
Norris: I mean, I love it too. It's not like I ...
Johnnie Turnage: What's special about that though is it's us to remember a lot of the crafts, a lot of the arts that we take for granted that we grew up with. We had to figure it out. People are going to be really good at their why and their what. The how is going to be a big question mark.
Norris: Yeah.
Johnnie Turnage: And what our responsibility is, especially with all this AI. We have to be ones to say how otherwise AI is going to make it up. Otherwise a younger generation is going to be like, I guess this is how it happened. Because we won't tell them how. So we have to explain that. We have to show like this is possible because they don't know.
Norris: That's where the user comes in. That's the point where the user takes the place of the technology and says, "I know you got here, and I know you started here." But the in between, that's solved by us. And I really like that perspective, as somebody who is skeptical about AI, because that concerns me. And hearing that does give me a little bit more hope for the future, at least in the City of Detroit.
Johnnie Turnage: Terminator. So stay skeptical.
Norris: I'm there.
Johnnie Turnage: Who have a, like plan B and.
Jer: A plan Z. Yeah, I mean, I remember RoboCop.
Norris: We don't want Skynet, doggy!
Johnnie Turnage: Yes. RoboCop was made about Detroit.
Jer: Yeah.
Johnnie Turnage: Yeah.
Jer: Although that statue is supposed to be showing up somewhere. It was supposed to be happening. Yeah, it was supposed to happen this year. I don't know if it's that that. No, no.
Norris: But as long as though nobody come in naming their company OCP or Umbrella or nothing like that, we'll be all right.
Jer: The Office of Complete Podcasting now owns Daily Detroit (kidding).
Johnnie Turnage: Those will be a couple of fun AI memes. When you all get bored next year, you should just drop "Umbrella Corp moves in. OCP moves in." AI images.
Jer: You know, I've always wanted to start like, a comedy news site. Now that he's leaving office, I feel like maybe we should roll out "Mayor Mike Puggan" and just do like fundraisers for the Humane Society. Just have a pug that's dressed up as the mayor.
Norris: Oh, my God, you're so old.
Jer: I know.
Norris: So old sometimes.
Jer: I know I'm old, but I also am familiar with some of the challenges that we have here in Detroit and BTS being based here, and not just in Detroit, but there's actually a number of communities in southeast Michigan as well as the country. How do you envision finding ways to fill that gap? Because the education gap is so big. If you're saying in a lot of ways the future is AI and involves AI, how do you speed up that gap?
Because that is something that worries me really badly when I think about the future of Detroit. Detroit being a magnet for talent. The people have to be there with the talent, but you gotta kind of grow that to an extent.
And what are the ways like bts, or are there ways we could think about education differently to try to to build that? Because now, you know, you've got this group, you've got these things happening, but there's also some there's some real stuff going down. You know?
Johnnie Turnage: Exactly. Exactly. No, I'm aware. I think one of the ways is really getting clear about advocacy and education. We have to acknowledge our lawmakers, our educational professionals. They might not have all the answers in tech and given wherever their careers came in. So one of the things us as BTS is going to lean is we're going to be really working to try to make sure we get more of our, like, tech founders on nonprofit boards.
We get them involved in groups because that expertise, that knowledge has to share out there are things that it's easier to get it out there if everybody's talking about it. So being that beacon to make sure people are in different places sharing how it works. I think I already mentioned we're going to be doing more of a BTS Academy.
We're talking to a couple universities on how not only we can get you through these courses, but what does it look like to just do a really big push on certifications? What are the things that people are going to need, the education stamps they can take with them, so no matter what they do, it's theirs. And how do we get them going and really learning what does our startup community need, what are our corporate companies going to need and how do we get a pipeline going?
Norris: And I love that. And you know, I think also having that available to, you know, a wide swath of Detroiters because I've done the research into a lot of those certification programs. And while the entry point and the barrier is low there with a lot of them, what they don't tell you is that on the back end, oh, here's another $25,000.
You gotta pay for the rest of the program to get the actual training and certification. And so there's still the cost prohibition of additional training as we talked before on this show. And I feel like that's a space that BTS potentially could help with people getting new skills.
Jer: What are some things, in your view, in the next five years that Michigan and Metro Detroit could do to be prepared to really grow that tech sector?
Johnnie Turnage: Honestly, we should talk to entrepreneurs, people who are running some of the biggest companies. What are they seeing and what are they going to need? How are we gearing what we're training the up and coming generation to do to where they're going to be needs? If you're talking to CEOs who are planning long-term, they know what jobs they're going to keep investing in.
And they know what things are going to be kind of like, we're going to have to automate that. Let's start queuing that up. I think we wait a little too late to start prepping our youth, especially here in Michigan.
And last year I spoke at Digital Inclusion Week with a entrepreneur from Detroit who's mostly based in D.C. He was hiring high school kids right out of high school at 150k to tech jobs. Software developer. Because the school was teaching it. And I was like, okay, we're doing something wrong here. Yeah, we need to be over ...
Norris: And they're coming out 12th grade with certifications.
Johnnie Turnage: Right. We need to be able to think about, like, how are we setting up our children, our youth for where the world is going and understanding their multiple pathways. You might be headed to trades. You might be headed to college. You might be jumping right into the workforce. But how can we give you the skills that when you're 18, you can make that decision, because the world is changing.
Even with student debt, as crazy as it is, and with things changing in our country, I'm like, well, there's going to be another barrier for people to getting some of that higher education. And so community college is going to be a different piece. I just learned that Oakland Community College and Wayne Community College have actually been doing a lot to train people on some of the trades and some of the largest arts because it's like actually we have a shortage
Norris: of plumbers.
Johnnie Turnage: Plumbers! We have a shortage on things that we're all going to need. It's not going away. So how do we help future proof that, and how do we think about innovations around that work?
Jer: But also how do you attract people to those fields? Because part of the reason we have a shortage is that it's not in the conversation. If there's something that I know that BTS has been able to do is get into the conversation.
And that's kind of worked for you, I think in a unique way. I've never seen an organization doing the kind of work you do, make the splash that you have. I've never seen it. I've been watching this stuff. I remember when like Automation Alley years and not to be smurch anyone specifically, but I've seen initiative after initiative that usually has 313 or Detroit or something like some sort of word soup. And I never hear anything beyond that actual pressure.
Norris: But I can tell you why it's different and I could tell you why, from the perspective of a Detroiter, born and raised, you know, been here my whole life.
Jer: Prince of Brightmoor.
Norris: Yes, Prince of Brightmoor. Right. Is because there's a feeling when you go to BTS or even the adjacent stuff from BTS that has splintered off the smaller parties and events and all, that is that I go to those events and I see people I went to high school with; I see people I went to college with; I see a cousin of a cousin; I see the City.
And that is the biggest difference is that we're seeing the City, the actual people who are here working through all of the doldrums and the dark times, coalescing with the movers and shakers, coalescing with those who can be the investors, be the power brokers and be the people who can bring some of these ideas to fruition. I think there has been a reluctance in years previous for those communities to come together.
But now because of this sort of renewed energy in the City, you're starting to see a lot of that come together. And I'm sure, obviously, Johnnie you could talk way more to that than I could. But just as a, attendees and outsiders perspectives, that's what I see. That's different from all of those other groups.
Johnnie Turnage: I would agree. I think, definitely a big part of it is its access. You can get into a room with different people. It's, funny. We're here in Techtown and I think right, next door is 6001 Cass. We had BTS there in February, and one of the students at the Apple Developer Academy after BTS he's like, "You know, you put me in rooms with people that I just never thought I'd meet in my life."
Like that Saturday, we had a rapper; we had the speaker, the DNC chair; we had Doug Song. I'm like, we just had all these interesting people show up on one Saturday afternoon, and it's like, well, 50 people who had never met a unicorn got to talk to a Doug Song. People got to talk to the head of the Democratic Party and talk about their apps. You got to talk to celebrities. I'm like, that's a part of it. I think going back to your question and getting deeper there, I realize storytelling is a piece that is so much more important. And one of the things I think I'm seeing in this new Michigan administration as a state, we're embracing our creatives and our storytellers.
We haven't been telling a story about some of these industries, and we kind of relegated them to this other category. But I'm like, you could actually have a really great life and a lot of these things, and you can make a lot more money than people think. If you get in there, you build the business, you get the skills, they become skills that you can take with you. And we haven't like it comes to almost like the AI piece.
We haven't shown people how, so they know that they do it. But we haven't passed generational baton of, you're a plumber, but you're not just a plumber. You can build a business here. We actually. It's funny. Earlier this year, we had a plumber show up to BTS, and he talked to Andre Davis, the CFO at LiveGistics, and he was like.
He came because he was like, "I think I should be doing more with tech. I've been running this plumbing business for all these years." And after 15 minutes, Andre had walked into a path of either building his own pathway or just how to use technology to manage his business. And he's like, he just started taking notes and went to work and I was like, a lot of us have great ideas, but technology, it also helps us scale.
Detroit does hustle harder. So when I think about some of these industries, we just got to help the people who've been getting to success and put that spotlight on them so other people can follow.
Jer: So as we wrap up here, you know, we've got this pitch competition and holiday celebration on Saturday, December 14. But what are you looking forward to? What are you looking ahead to in 2025?
Johnnie Turnage: 2025 is fun. It's going to be exciting for us. We are looking to do a couple more national partnerships. We want to bring some more people here, want to keep that spotlight on Detroit. We're going to be expanding our team. I think I've said it enough. Be on the lookout for BTS Academy. It's going to be quite exciting just to give people learning opportunities whether they're in the room or not. You know, we had our first summit this year.
We had over 3,000 people. We're definitely going to have another national multi-day convening to bring people here and keep putting that spotlight. And my favorite piece is we are going to do a lot more telling of the stories of all the people in the BTS community. We did a bunch of BTS awards at the Digital Empowerment Summit, and they've been finishing pictures and storytelling around them.
And so we just want to make sure people know. There are hundreds if not thousands of people you should know who are doing great work here and we want to make sure we highlight them.