Incubating Talent In The AI Era

It was a beautiful April day in New York City when I walked into a private event at the Andaz hotel in the heart of Manhattan. Joe Reele and Kevin Brown from Schneider Electric had assembled a room of executives from the digital infrastructure industry, the iMasons Climate Accord (iCA) Governing Body, and a number of parallel industries including mining, metals, distribution, and automotive. The goal was to learn from each other and explore how we could work together to accelerate the decarbonization of the digital infrastructure industry supply chain. This was the first event I had attended that united digital infrastructure, upstream and parallel industries on a common objective.

The event was a remarkable experience. Not only did I gain new insights and connections from parallel industries, but I also encountered a full circle career moment. A simple introduction inspired me to launch a new global program.

Serendipity

During a break, I was approached by Brandon Gries from Equinix. Nancy Novak had introduced us in June of 2022. Brandon, inspired by the iMasons Climate Accord launch earlier in that year, had a bold idea and was searching for someone with just the right amount of crazy to help him pull it off. I was eager to join him. Over the next six weeks we created the Bare Metal Project – a documentary film highlighting the challenges we face in decarbonization of materials in data center construction. The documentary was so well received that it inspired Schneider Electric to convene this conference to unite industries and drive meaningful action.

I love collaborating with Brandon, but I found out that he had another reason to connect with me at the conference. He wanted to introduce me to Jean Park, an NYU student that he had invited to the event. She is majoring in Computer Science and Math. I was excited to see new talent being exposed to our industry through an event like this. What he shared next brought an even bigger smile to my face. Jean Park was a recipient of an iMasons scholarship through our capstone program while she was in high school. Brandon was her mentor during the capstone project. Now Jean was in the conference room at the Andaz watching the Bare Metal documentary and hearing different industry executives explore how we can work together on decarbonization. It warmed my heart to see that the work that we do at iMasons could come full circle.

But Brandon wasn’t done. He said they are filming an update to the film at the conference, and he would like Jean to interview me. Fast forward two hours and I was in a studio on a couch with Phill Lawson-Shanks being interviewed by Jean. She pulled it off flawlessly. Not only was she poised and articulate, she was tough. She challenged Phil and I on data center power consumption, efficiency and potential impact on the environment and communities.

After the conference I was able to spend more time with Jean. I found that she was involved with numerous NYU student groups focused on machine learning, programming, and venture capital investment. She said their biggest wish was to have a chance to work on industry projects to gain real world experience while they were in school. My mind immediately went to the impact if this connection could be made. Students gain insights and experience and have a shot at job offers or even get inspiration for their own school work or startups. Companies get access to student talent and could have their projects completed. I then shared what I do in my day job at Cato Digital providing low cost, low carbon bare metal servers for private cloud platforms, GPU marketplaces and developers. We do this by redeploying retired hardware from hyperscalers in alignment with the  iMasons Climate Accord. We essentially enable a second life for servers and a carbon-free platform for companies to grow. Jean was intrigued and wanted to learn more. I said I would love to take her on a tour of one of our data centers in Manhattan on my next trip to NY.

As I traveled back to California, I could not stop thinking about our conversation. What the students asked for was simple. Could they get their hands on real data from real companies to complete real projects and gain real world experience while they are still in school? That experience can help get real jobs. Could iMasons make that connection? Could we create a platform that would connect students with AI tools, companies and projects? Could this be open to any student anywhere? I was inspired.

Over the next three weeks I dug in, and a program concept emerged. The iMasons AI Incubator: a dedicated private AI platform that provides students with tools to simplify building, training and fine tuning models and deploying agentic AI agents. This service would be free for students. We would also develop a marketplace where companies could submit projects that students could work on through this efficient AI Platform. Companies could sponsor student accounts and credits for students to run their projects on GPU clusters. The students would then have access to free infrastructure and tools to work on those projects. Essentially companies share real world challenges and students solve them.

The next step was to pitch this to the iMasons Board of Directors. In June Santiago Suinaga, CEO of iMasons and myself pitched the concept at our board meeting. We all saw this as an opportunity to raise industry awareness and help fill the pipeline with desperately needed talent resources at this unprecedented growth moment for the industry. The board unanimously approved the pilot program, and we were off to the races.

Our First Ambassador

One month later I was back in NY and took Jean to the most connected data center on the east coast, Hudson Interxchange. As we entered the building, I explained that this  98-year-old building was the center of communications before the internet was born. It was the headquarters for the Western Union Telegraph company. Over the last 50 years, as technology advanced, 60 Hudson became one of cornerstones of global internet infrastructure and a digital nexus for New York City.

Our tour ended in the Cato Digital data hall on the 6th floor. Jean saw our deployment of Open Compute circular hardware assembled into clusters to serve cloud and AI workloads. It was great to show her the engine that runs the software that she will be creating through her work in computer science. It was even more fun to share that she inspired me to create a program to help her and her fellow students get real world experience. I asked if she would be the first student ambassador for the iMasons AI Incubator. She immediately accepted and said she would recruit the first group of students from her machine learning group.

Road Trip

Over the next three months we finalized the approach, including expansion into a new data center in Texas. We pitched the concept at the kickoff of the iMasons Dallas Fort Worth Local Chapter in July. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We agreed to launch an incubator at our new Evocative data center in Plano and align with SMU Lyle School of Engineering. After a tour of the Plano data center site with Dr Klyne Smith, associate professor of the SMU engineering program and creator of our industry’s first masters degree in data center engineering, we were cooking with gas!

Shortly after, Santiago Suinaga, Ana Franco and I flew to Brazil to kickoff the iMasons Rio Chapter. We pitched the Incubator concept and had the same positive response. We also had a chance to visit Impa Tech which has degree programs focused on mathematics, technology and Innovation. We also visited an Elea data center where Alessandro Lombardi, CEO of Elea Data Centers, had already reserved rack positions in preparation for an Incubator deployment. Every conversation was positive. Everyone wanted to get involved. They wanted to help. We knew we were on to something special here.

Celebrating Education in Vegas

In September, we took the program to the next level at the Yotta conference in Las Vegas. We were able to have Jean Park join us for her first trip to Vegas and her first large conference. We had a chance to sit down and dig into the cluster deployment and align on the first project her NYU cohort would take on.

After our sync up, Amber Caramella and I had the privilege to host the iMasons 2025 Awards ceremony which gathered over 250+ executives to celebrate this year’s industry champions. I was proud to see Brandon Gries and Jean Park at the front table. During the Education Champion award segment, I took a moment to share Jean’s story. I thanked Brandon for introducing us and Jean for inspiring me to create our new program. With that, we officially launched the iMason AI Incubator. That evening we raised over $130,000 for scholarships and started the ball rolling to have companies step in to sponsor student accounts, fund student AI cluster run credits and provide projects on the platform.

Full Circle

As I reflected over the last five months, I couldn’t help but smile. A fortuitous encounter at an industry event turned into a program to help address our talent resource shortage and elevate the digital infrastructure industry to the AI level. Our industry builds the engines that power the platforms that make innovations like AI possible, but we also face significant challenges.

We are witnessing the largest growth in our history doubling global capacity in just two years. Over 40% of our current workforce is greying out in the next five years. Our pipeline for new talent is not primed. Without programs like the iMasons AI Incubator and our combined efforts to recruit, retain and grow talent, our industry will not be able to support that growth.

Your Alma Mater, Students, & Projects

My request to you is simple: get involved. Who is your alma mater? Could you align them with the program? Recruit your company to sponsor a dedicated cluster, student accounts or credits, or submit projects on the marketplace for students at your school to work on. The students will get exposure to your company. Brand awareness. You get exposure to the student talent. Direct pipeline for recruiting. Students help complete your projects. Cost effective, creative project work. It is a win-win-win.

If every iMasons member recruited one student ambassador who recruited a 25 student cohort we would have over 150,000 students on the platform.

With over 15,000 colleges, universities and trade schools around the world, this program could create a Facebook  moment, attracting millions of students from every corner of the world.

It’s time for us to create our own hockeystick.

IM AI Incubator

Companies get access to student talent. Students get access to companies and real world projects.

Learn more at imasons.ai or reach other to incubator@imasons.org to learn more or get involved.