Pioneer Institute, The Immigrant Learning Center Co-Produce New Weekly Podcast

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JobMakers to higlight immigrant entrepreneurs

BOSTON – Pioneer Institute is pleased to announce the launch of JobMakers, a new weekly podcast that explores the world of risk-taking immigrants who create new products, services, and jobs in New England and across the United States. JobMakers is produced in collaboration with The Immigrant Learning Center (ILC) of Malden, MA.

LATEST EPISODES:

Sandro Catanzaro Takes His American Dream to Mars and Back

This week on JobMakers, host Denzil Mohammed talks with Sandro Catanzaro, who started several businesses in his native Peru but had no idea he’d end up helping NASA go to Mars, or that he’d use that same technology to plan and buy video ad campaigns. Now Head of Publisher Services Strategy for Roku, which acquired the company he founded, dataxu, in 2019, Mr. Catanzaro is an emblem of ingenuity and inventiveness. His demand-side platform, device graph technology and analytics platform help accelerate Roku’s ad tech roadmap and ability to serve a wide array of advertisers. But he’s not done yet!

Christina Qi Goes From Welfare to Wall Street 

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Christina (Chi) Qi, who started a hedge fund at just 22. They discuss her background and journey, moving with her family from China to Utah, being on welfare, and then attending MIT. She went on to co-found Domeyard, a quantitative trading firm, in 2013, among the longest running high-frequency trading hedge funds in the world, and was trading up to $7 billion dollars a day. In 2019, she founded Databento, an on-demand data platform for asset managers and quantitative analysts. They discuss how being an immigrant, Asian, and a woman in the cutthroat, male-dominated world of Wall Street didn’t deter her from success.

Herby Duverné Keeps Americans Safe & Gives Back

Welcome to JobMakers, a new, weekly podcast, produced by Pioneer Institute and The Immigrant Learning Center. Host Denzil Mohammed explores the world of risk-taking immigrants, who create new products, services and jobs in New England and across the United States. In the debut episode, Denzil talks with Herby Duverné, CEO at Windwalker Group, an award-winning small business with more than 25 years of experience in physical and cybersecurity solutions that protect and prepare companies through custom learning and training solutions.

The host of JobMakers, Denzil Mohammed, directs The ILC’s Public Education Institute. His work focuses on specialized online education, research, teacher resources, and publications and events that educate Americans on the contributions made by immigrants. “TJMaxx, KraftHeinz, Goya and even iRobot were all started by immigrants,” Mohammed said. “They are and always have been net economic benefits to the United States. The entrepreneurial spirit that drove them to the U.S. extends into their drive to succeed and their higher-than-average rates of business generation. This is the real immigration narrative that should inform public discourse on immigration in the U.S.”

“The important role of immigrants as strivers, and as creators of products, services, and jobs is not told often enough,” said Pioneer Institute Executive Director Jim Stergios.  “There’s no better time to launch JobMakers and share the stories of dynamic immigrant entrepreneurs than now — as we emerge from the pandemic and turn our attention to getting Massachusetts and the country back to work.”

The guest for the first episode of JobMakers is Herby Duverné, a Haitian immigrant and CEO at Windwalker Group, an award-winning small business with more than 25 years of experience in physical and cybersecurity solutions that protect and prepare companies through custom learning and training.

JobMakers is released every Thursday at 12 pm. Subscribe to JobMakers through your favorite app, or find it on Pioneer Institute and Ricochet.

About Pioneer

Pioneer’s mission is to develop and communicate dynamic ideas that advance prosperity and a vibrant civic life in Massachusetts and beyond. Pioneer’s vision of success is a state and nation where our people can prosper and our society thrive because we enjoy world-class options in education, healthcare, transportation and economic opportunity, and where our government is limited, accountable and transparent. Pioneer values an America where our citizenry is well-educated and willing to test our beliefs based on facts and the free exchange of ideas, and committed to liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.

About The Immigrant Learning Center

The Immigrant Learning Center, Inc. (ILC) of Malden, MA, is a not-for-profit organization that gives immigrants a voice in three ways: The English Language Program provides free, year-round English classes to immigrant and refugee adults in Greater Boston to help them become successful workers, parents and community members. The ILC Public Education Institute informs Americans about the economic and social contributions of immigrants in our society. The Institute for Immigration Research, a joint venture with George Mason University, conducts national and local research on the economic contributions of immigrants.

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Jim Stergios on Why Immigrants Are Crucial to Our Success

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer Institute, about why Pioneer collaborated with The Immigrant Learning Center to produce this podcast. They discuss the overrepresentation of immigrants in terms of job creation in America, contrary to the myth that immigrants “take” jobs.

ASU’s Julie Young, Virtual Schooling Pioneer, on Digital Learning during COVID-19

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-host Cara Candal talks with Julie Young, ASU Vice President of Education Outreach and Student Services, and Managing Director of ASU Prep Academy and ASU Prep Digital. They discuss the implications of COVID-19’s disruption of American K-12 education and the future of digital learning.

Economic Long Covid: Mixed Health Messages for Baystate Businesses

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with NFIB’s Chris Carlozzi and Retailers Association of Massachusetts' Jon Hurst about the challenges and future prospects for businesses as they adapt to widespread consumer confusion caused by vague and often conflicting public health messaging from our political leadership.

Jaisang Sun Gives the Facts About Refugees

Jaisang Sun, research associate at The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute, clears the air with JobMakers host Denzil Mohammed on refugees and the resettlement program, including costs and benefits to us, and more importantly, he profiles just who refugees are – people like you and me, except displaced and persecuted with nowhere to go.

UChicago’s Dr. Leon Kass on Genesis, Exodus, & Reading Great Books

This week on “The Learning Curve," guest co-host Jason Bedrick and co-host Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Leon Kass, MD, the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago. Dr. Kass describes the important pieces of wisdom and humanity people today can still learn from reading the Book of Genesis, the topic of his 2003 work, The Beginning of Wisdom.

Enduring the Maelstrom: Lessons from MassPort Leadership During 9/11

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with author and former MassPort CEO Virginia Buckingham about her recently released book, On My Watch: A Memoir, which chronicles her experience leading the organization through 9/11 and the life and leadership lessons learned from that tragic day.

Jeff Goldman on How Immigrants Keep America Competitive

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Jeff Goldman, immigration attorney and Chair of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s Advisory Council on Immigrants and Refugees, about how best to ensure that highly skilled and innovative immigrants can remain in the U.S., start companies, and create jobs for Americans.

NYT Best Seller Dr. Kate Clifford Larson on Fannie Lou Hamer & the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement

This week on “The Learning Curve," co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, a New York Times best-selling biographer of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer. Kate shares why she has written about these historical African-American figures, and how she thinks parents, teachers, and schools can draw on their lives to talk about race.

Rescuing Afghan Refugees: Finding Redemption amidst the Wreckage of Collapse

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Jeffrey Thielman, President and CEO of the International Institute of New England, about the path refugees must take to resettle in the US, how organizations like his facilitate and integrate refugees including those recently displaced in Afghanistan, and what individuals concerned about the fate of refugees can do to support their resettlement. 

Valhalla Foundation’s Nancy Poon Lue on STEM Access & Equity

This week on “The Learning Curve," host Gerard Robinson talks with Nancy Poon Lue, incoming Senior Director at the Valhalla Foundation, where she will be leading their K-12 math funding initiatives. Nancy shares her recent work with the EF+Math Program, some of the challenges America has faced in ensuring students have a strong grounding in math and science, and the kinds of results she aims to achieve for kids in all ZIP codes. 

Untangling Variants & Outbreaks: Can Vaccines & Natural Immunity Outrun Delta?

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with author, surgeon, and public health expert Dr. Marty Makary about the COVID-19 Delta Variant, the durability of natural and vaccinated immunity, the benefits of booster shots, and the health risks for children as we move into the fall.

Trevor Mattos Shows How Massachusetts Runs on Immigrants

This week on JobMakers, Host Denzil Mohammed talks with Trevor Mattos, research manager at Boston Indicators, the research center at The Boston Foundation, which educates state and local leaders on the important contributions immigrants are making. They discuss the urgency of this work, particularly in a time of divisive disinformation about immigrants and the uncertainty of the pandemic, and some of the surprising findings on the disproportionately large impact immigrant workers, entrepreneurs and innovators are having on the local economy