Building Future Leaders – Skills Needed In a World of AI and Autonomous Technology with Don Wilder

Explore the essential skills needed to thrive in a world dominated by AI and autonomous technology. Join us as Don Wilder discusses future trends, how to prepare our children (and ourselves) for rapid change, and the launch of the GFA Future Leaders Program.

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[00:00:00] Episode 453 of Global Developing Future Leaders have a black friend and really cool guy, Don, while they’re back on the show talking about a, a new program. For those of you, like us that have kids that want future leaders, let’s tune into this special episode. Welcome to the Global from Asia Podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice.

And now your host, Michael [00:00:30] Micheli. Thank you so much for watching or probably listening to Global from Asia Podcast. We are in early 2025. I am still here in Chang Mai at the Studio Home Studio. I had some pretty cool visits to a, a VC office and a friend Ian at Dark Star vc and I was recording this cool show with Don Wilder.

He’s also a new father. His daughter will be two. I have as maybe many of , an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, soon to be nine and [00:01:00] 11, and we’re working on a leader program for up and coming leaders at Global Asia. So we’re gonna talk about that. I know more and more of you are parents and we are working hard to help, help, I think, , ’cause I think we’re stressful.

What is the future of education for this new generation? So we also talk with some AI [00:01:30] and some, and some, even some stories of childhood of his and mine. So it’s a fun topic and also some ways for you. To get involved if you have kids that want to be leaders and entrepreneurs and e-commerce sellers, not just in the matrix.

So let’s tune into the show. Let’s do it. Do you enjoy the podcast? Global? Amazing. Do you enjoy all the community events that we do? The best way to support is coming out to our annual cross border [00:02:00] summit.com in Chang Mai this November 3rd, fourth and fifth, 20, 25. I have amazing speakers, ama amazing people get together.

We’re pushing the limits. We’re making things happen. This is where the movers and shakers and the deal makers come. It’s a limited supply of attendees and tickets, and we have been selling out every year, so I recommend checking out earlier cross border summit.com. Thank you for choosing some. Listen to another Global from Asia podcast.

[00:02:30] We’re here in Shanghai, Thailand at the Dark Star vc. Office. Office. I should be at coffee shop. But it’s a, it’s a great spot. And of course we have us back with us. Don Wilder. What’s up, Don? Hey guys. Yeah. Pleasure to have you back, man. It’s good to be here. Yeah, always. We had a little bit of some extra coffee and getting everything rolling here, so we’re just kicking off 2025 and we’re, we’re gonna talk about it a little bit later, but we both are fathers and it’s a, it’s a life [00:03:00] changer, right?

You, you, you’re, your daughter is eight. How old? She’s about to turn two next week. Wow. Perfect. The, the terrible twos have already, , come. Yeah. It’s a, it’s a honorable thing. It definitely is a, a life changing. It’s a life changer. Same, same here. So, so today we’re gonna talk about, , future leaders.

But before we get into that, Don, , you’d be, you’ve been on the show a couple times, like product developments and, and , helping people grow their, their, , business with, with unique product [00:03:30] design, or do you wanna give us some more what? Sure. So a little bit of a backdrop before coming to Thailand, Chang Mai, I lived in China for nine years and had a product development company with a couple Chinese buddies.

And we did all kinds of consumer electronic accessories mainly, and all of it was, was original design products. So basically coming up with a new unique concept and then bringing it all the way down the line to get it out into the market. So I was able to, to really do a lot of unique product development being located [00:04:00] in the workshop of the world there in, in Guangzhou.

Yeah. But it, it, it spun up into some other opportunities to do a lot of consulting for manufacturers. Helping manufacturers that typically sell OEM or like white label products. To come up with something more unique. So I was in Shenzhen for a few years just doing that, and also closely connected a marketing tool called crowdfunding to help basically presale a product and show the market demand before ever having the manufacturer.

So I became more of a specialist in [00:04:30] crowdfunding on Kickstarter and go-go. And then yeah, ended up transitioning out here to, to Thailand in 2018. You had already moved over here? At that time, about the same time I think. Yeah. Remember we were chatting while we were both kind of coming here.

Yeah. It was and you, you, I remember you, you came first and we met up when I came here. Yeah. It was it was nice to see a friendly face from Yeah. I remember from China when I first got out here. But, but yeah, so I’ve had all kinds of, um, , unique experiences in, in the product development space for physical products.

[00:05:00] So. The process of, of course, involve a lot of entrepreneurship and learning how to be resourceful and, and, , how to be a, a, , leader in particular elements that I think could be useful for, for younger generations to, to learn from. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s the future.

I mean, kids, but I think another thing, I don’t know what you think about the next generation, but AI and, and world and bots and all this new tech and , you, you actually sometimes send me some new [00:05:30] softwares just coming out and ai, but I, you feel, I feel like you one of my go to people about ai.

What, what do you see happening now? I mean, is it, I guess it’s good for the next generation or what, what are your thoughts? , overall about where I. I think it’s it’s amazing, I guess you’d call it the technology that’s only going to become more integrated into society, kind of. There’s gonna be so many useful applications for it, and it will have a element of replacing a lot of jobs and [00:06:00] roles.

And so businesses will need to adapt in order to to survive. And for the workforce as well. I think there’s a lot of, a lot of positions that will be unnecessary once, once really the u UI or AI has become integrated. But but I think, , with any new advancement in technology, there’s gonna be a downside which people are tend to be a little more vocal about, but then there’s gonna be tons of new opportunities.

Yeah. And new growth potential. So I think, I think it’s, it’s [00:06:30] something that if, if and depending on your approach towards it, it can, can really do some amazing things. So I’m, I’m a somewhat of an optimist when I, when it comes to ai. Yeah. I mean, I saw this joke, I saw, I should have saved it, but I saw a picture once on social media of a black and white photo of people on a bus in the 19, I don’t know, twenties.

It says. Newspapers, everybody’s, nobody’s talking to each other. Everybody’s reading newspapers. It’s gonna like destroy society. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like the me the meme or like [00:07:00] the complaint, people complain about newspapers destroying the Yeah, the, the jobs of people with like, maybe that were handwriting or copying books or whatever, like the print press is gonna destroy the world and jobs.

So it’s gonna evolve. And even, even this program, we’re gonna be talking about. , my wife Wendy’s been doing this online learning platform as, , GFA kids now since covid three, four years. And a lot of the the parents are also entrepr e-commerce sellers and their chin most are [00:07:30] Chinese.

And they’re also really wanting to have their kids to learn, not just of course, like English or just, or, or learn the new normal school, but to actually learn these future. Concepts and I think, , I I, maybe your daughter’s still a little bit young, but she can get in everyone mm-hmm. When she’s ready.

But I’m excited for, for my children to participate and I think this is where certainly where it’s, it’s going, right. These skills are getting more, more important than just the traditional [00:08:00] school system. Yeah. I, I, I definitely agree. I think traditionally the education system hasn’t really been updated much, right.

Since probably when we were in our parents even. You think about how much change has happened in, in society and through with use of technology and and you project that out in the future, seeing the, the speed or velocity that we’re moving with integrating all this new tech that could have profound changes on, on, , the way that society is going to function.

So [00:08:30] I think, , being able to kind of churn out a bunch of people into the workforce under like an industrial model. Where, where you’re on assembly line, just plugging in, , components and I, I, that’s, that’s outdated, right? So it’s not, it’s not really going to be necessary in the future.

So I think what, what kids now especially need to learn is how to adapt to this rapid change, right? Because whatever we teach ’em today, probably in five years, it’s gonna be outdated if not sooner. Yeah. Learning how to, to adapt and [00:09:00] basically move with the changes is, is going to be a key feature, I think, for the younger generation, more so than ours.

Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. I, I think it was three points off top of my head, but in a, in a, in a article I read about what are the future skills needed with this AI and robots that I might even get it a little bit wrong. So we try, try best, but it was, emotional intelligence. Right. Not iq, but eq. Yeah.

Right. Knowing how to deal with people. Yeah. [00:09:30] Communication and kind of like influence or leadership, right. Like maybe sales a bit, but these are the main points three that I’m roughly saying are around, less about like knowledge. Yeah. It’s more about like, like you said, kind of adaptability or dealing with.

Situations, dealing with people, dealing with changing environment, changing people, motivating community gathering. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. I like to think of it more like, I mean, hard skills versus soft skills. [00:10:00] So hard skills are more of a technical element, right? That people go to study. And, and what companies typically tend to value more without realizing that soft skills tend to support company growth better in many ways.

Being able to actually communicate well have, have a position as a leader or learning how to be a team player. , have the emotional intelligence, understanding with empathy. And these are, these are, , if you think about with the future of tech, many of those hard skills, as we mentioned are gonna [00:10:30] be unnecessary or how dated, right.

So it’s the soft skills. I think that the human element that is gonna be even more important for mm-hmm. The younger generation to develop in order to thrive. Agreed, agreed. So let’s start talking about this, , the, the GFA Future Leaders club. We’ve been talking about it a bit and the idea here is this is the first kind of pilot program that we’re putting together.

And you, you and I will be helping with our, with these small group of, of future leaders. My kids will be in there [00:11:00] and some others , high level business people’s children will be in there. And the idea is. I’m a little bit afraid to say the exact details ’cause we’re still evolving it.

But once, once a week and a two hour session online where, , you, you’ll do some I’ll do, some will be about these kind of things we’re discussing. So working with a small group of, of eight to 12-year-old. People in this club. Mm-hmm. And I, I maybe for, I could share some what I’m gonna share, but if you wanna [00:11:30] share about Yeah, sure.

I, I’ll be happy. Like, basically what I’ll be focusing on with the kids is a lot around you could say more of the, the marketing side of you business, business and entrepreneurship. So teaching the kids like how to understand things like visual design. Creating a logo , learning how to create a, a promotional poster.

We’re gonna be playing with some fun tools in the AI space Exactly. Using generative AI to support the process, which will be, which will be fun to see how [00:12:00] the kids use this. But there’ll be, there’ll be a number of things because we’re, we’re basically gonna be building out a, a business concept through the course.

So the kids will have a chance to kinda showcase this and build their own little kind of business. So there’ll be some video editing. There’s even gonna be. Music creation. Yeah. Oh yeah. So it’s gonna be a kind of a big bag of fun things that the kids are gonna learn and apply in a space around business and entrepreneurship.

Yeah, yeah, I know. ’cause you have, I’ve, I’ve seen the tools you’ve used and, , we’ve [00:12:30] done projects together and I’m excited for it to be applied to these future leaders. For me on life side, it’ll be the community building ideas, the ideas of, content creation and also business models and business mindsets.

So maybe helping them fleshing out a little bit of a, of a business model, like of course, knocking into deep Excel. Understanding you have to make money. There’s gonna be cost to this. Like how is it gonna sustain [00:13:00] itself? Maybe some different channels of revenue. Mm-hmm. So some ideas, maybe not just sell the product, maybe make a service or make a supplementary income stream for that related business.

So it’s gonna, it’s gonna be a, a good time working with these with these future leaders. I keep calling them. Yeah. And yeah, I’m excited. I think the, what I love. About working with kids. ’cause I mean, when, when I first went to China, my first year, I was there teaching English to kids and I, I loved it.

I mean they [00:13:30] have such a, a natural curiosity and creativity that put in the right environment. Some of the, the most unique ideas will come out. Yeah. Because I think as we get older, we get more conditioned. We don’t really exercise the same level of imagination or curiosity on the day to day. But with kids, it’s, it’s a, it’s a much more open space.

So I’m excited to see how that can, can come be fostered within, within this group of kids. Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m super excited and, and , I’m also [00:14:00] doing this for my own children. My, my, my kids are eight and 10, , my daughters she’ll be nine, actually, almost, almost say birthday and January, late January, and my son will be 11 in May.

So they’re getting older and. , they both have different styles. I think you’ve seen the differences and they’re mm-hmm. But I can’t, , I’m also doing this to put, to help my own kids and to, at the same time help other select yeah. Future leaders to go through this. Those great. Yeah.

I mean, I, I know [00:14:30] a big part of why I got into design, graphic design was a teacher in high school I was a. I was a sophomore and there was this really funk, like spunky t-shirt that always had the wildest stories that he would tell, , and crazy jokes. His name was Mr. Collaby. Oh, okay. And and I literally signed up for all of his classes, which just happened to be in graphic design and video production because I just enjoyed his personality.

Wow. Right. [00:15:00] And so through the process of just getting to hang out with Mr. K Cloudy, I ended up learning some really cool stuff. Yeah. Through like the Adobe Suite and, and for me pro and all this stuff. And and I got really good at it. But, but I, , of course took an interest in, in the subject, but I think I would never have gone there without this type of personality of the, the, the, the teacher that he was.

Right. So yeah, I think whatever subject is being taught, it’s always. Push through the medium of the teacher. So I, one of my hopes as well for my daughter [00:15:30] is to be able to kind of prepare her for the future because we know it’s gonna be radically different than what it is now. And building out that, that channel and kind of being able to take part of it is what it, what excites me.

Okay. Well that’s that’s pretty powerful. Yeah. I mean, I’m on the spot here by my teachers, but I, I I definitely had some, I, I guess I feel like I should bring up 1, 1, 1 of my stories was third grade. This is Bell. Okay. And there was the , in the auditorium there was like some kind of like cla every class had to share.[00:16:00]

They had to have some student share on stage something. I can’t remember what I had to share about. Yeah. But for some reason she picked me and this other girl in our class to, to go up on stage in for not just our, our class, but like the whole school. Like I think K to eight maybe, or, I don’t know. It was definitely lots of classes, like, , hundred, couple hundred Ks in order in a gymnasium.

So I was so scared. I was really scared. Yeah. And yeah, she encouraged me. To, to, to do it. And and , I [00:16:30] mean just maybe even this show just re I’m always trying to put myself out there and Yeah. I mean Mr. Is Bell. So that, that was kind of a pivotal point for you. Yeah. , like the public speaker.

Yeah, well maybe or like even to, to today. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that was cool. , like I said, kind of the environment. ’cause when you have the right environment, kids can do what they do best, right? They kind of will gravitate towards certain things. So like if you give ’em the opportunity, you put a bunch of kids in the room, you’re gonna see the boys tend to gravitate to, to more physical actions.

The girls will know, , and I think it’s, it’s, it’s great. But just giving them the opportunity and [00:17:00] access is important because I, like you said, most schools, they don’t, they don’t cover this type of material and it’s not, it’s, and doesn’t look like it, it will be in, in the future as well. If, if it, if it will, it’ll be quite slow.

So this, this, I feel like it’s, it’s definitely necessary. For, for kids that want to be more parents, I should say, that wanna be more proactive about helping their kids , be ready to, to grow and adapt. Yeah. And that’s what this Future Leaders program is about. I was just, Wendy couldn’t join us today.

She take care of kids. [00:17:30] But , she’s talking about these e-commerce sellers that are really successful, that are excited for this program that kids will be joining. So I think. I think we’ll wrap up. I know you actually, we, we did this time for both of our kids. You have, , your daughter , we revolve around our children, our life, our business, everything.

So I, I think you have to maybe get out soon and I’m wrapping up here, so I think I. We’ll we’ll put the show notes link for the program. It’ll be shared, but gfa kids.com. It’s been [00:18:00] the ongoing thing, mostly led by Wendy, my wife, may of you maybe know. And we’re expanding. This is a new expansion for the Future Leaders Program and it’s gonna be a pleasure to work with God and Emily with, and and I look forward to it.

So thanks for sharing with us today. Right. Looking forward to it. The future of e-commerce is waiting. Load pipe is back. It’s a protocol. We are making the new way to do e-commerce with blockchain technology. This is very early [00:18:30] stage and we have, Hamza is our first marketplace in this new ecosystem. It’s very epic if you wanna participate, we are on alpha stage in Q1 2024, where you can be a buyer.

Or a, a vendor application only. Check it out@hamza.biz for the marketplace or the overview of this protocol and subscribe for updates@loadpipe.com. See you there. Thanks, Don, for coming back on the show. It’s always a pleasure. He’s [00:19:00] always inspirational to me and got all these always up on the newest tech and get me ideas, so thanks.

I hope you’re excited. I am. My kids are gonna be in this pilot program. I think it’s only eight to 10 children. We already got a few. Even Ian watched the recording. He’s like, I want my son to join. So we will be getting this rolling in February and check the show notes@gfakids.com as our main site for many years for the children’s learning.

And this is a new program we’re doing [00:19:30] here. I hope to see you participate. Or let us know, maybe your kids are too young or you don’t have kids yet. But I feel like our, our whole community’s getting, , into parenthood and we don’t wanna go into the old system that we grew up in. I, I, I mean, I appreciate, I love my parents, I love, , my teachers in that system and society, but I think the world’s changed a lot since then.

And we want our. Children, the next generation to be leaders and know how to [00:20:00] navigate this new world. So thanks for watching. As always, check out the show notes, subscribe, like, share, blah, blah, blah. See you in the next episode. To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website@ww.global from asia.com.

That’s ww.global from asia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.