Educating a data-literate generation

Educating a data-literate generation

Author: Daniel Whitenack and Chris Benson August 8, 2025 Duration: 44:41

Dan sits down with guests Mark Daniel Ward and Katie Sanders from The Data Mine at Purdue University to explore how higher education is evolving to meet the demands of the AI-driven workforce. They share how their program blends interdisciplinary learning, corporate partnerships, and real-world data science projects to better prepare students across 160+ majors. From AI chatbots to agricultural forecasting, they discuss the power of living-learning communities, how the data mine model is spreading to other institutions and what it reveals about the future of education, workforce development, and applied AI training.

Featuring:

Links:

Sponsors:

  • Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai

Register for upcoming webinars here!


There's a lot of noise out there about artificial intelligence, but cutting through the hype to find what's genuinely useful can be a challenge. That's the space where Practical AI operates. Hosted by the team at Practical AI LLC, this technology podcast moves beyond abstract theory to explore how AI, machine learning, and large language models are actually being applied right now. Each episode features unscripted conversations with a diverse mix of experts, developers, business leaders, and curious minds. You'll hear tangible discussions about implementing machine learning systems, the realities of MLOps, the evolution of neural networks, and the practical implications of breakthroughs in deep learning and GANs. The dialogue is grounded in real-world scenarios, focusing on how these technologies solve problems, drive productivity, and create value in accessible ways. Whether you're a professional building models, a business person integrating AI tools, or an enthusiast eager to understand the landscape, this podcast offers a clear, conversational entry point. It’s about making sense of a complex field through the lens of practical application, demystifying the concepts that are shaping our world without losing sight of how they work on the ground.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Practical AI
Podcast Episodes
Image Generation and Visual Intelligence with Black Forest Labs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:21
How has AI image generation evolved from blurry outputs to powerful visual intelligence models? Dustin Podell, Co-Founder and Researcher at Black Forest Labs, explains the progression from diffusion to flow matching, how…
AIUC-1: Building trust in AI agents [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:08
How do we build trust in AI agents before the AI hailstorm arrives? Emil Lassen from the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC) joins the show to discuss how the enterprise flywheel of standards, certificati…
Zero Trust for AI Agents [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:02
As AI agents become more capable and autonomous, they also introduce new security challenges. In this 'Fully Connected' episode, Dan and Chris unpack Anthropic’s Zero Trust for AI Agents security framework and what it me…
Breaking down the 2026 Stanford AI Index Report [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:13
AI models can win math olympiads… but still struggle to read an analog clock. In this fully connected episode, Dan and Chris break down the latest Stanford AI Index Report and explore what it reveals about the current st…
Rebooting Enterprise AI with MCP and Kubernetes [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:09
What happens when AI agents start acting less like chatbots and more like coworkers? In this episode, Dan and Chris sit down with Craig McLuckie, CEO of Stacklok to explore MCP, Kubernetes, ToolHive, enterprise AI, and t…
Hermes Agent: Agents that grow with you [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:42
Open Source AI is entering a new era, one shaped by self-improving AI Agents, recursive learning systems, and rapidly evolving AI Tools that blur the line between software and autonomous collaborators. In this episode, D…
U.S. Congressman Beyer on AI challenges facing America and the World [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:05
U.S. Congressman Don Beyer returns to Practical AI for another far-reaching conversation with Chris about many of the most important AI challenges facing America and the world. Blending political savvy and statesmanship…
The Myth of Model Wars: Open vs Closed AI in 2026 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:22
In this fully connected episode, Dan and Chris break down one of the biggest questions in AI today: do open vs. closed models still matter? From the rise of physical AI and edge devices to the shifting landscape of open-…
The mythos of Mythos and Allbirds takes flight to the neocloud [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:07
In this Fully-Connected episode, Dan and Chris start with Anthropic's Mythos frontier model, parsing what is publicly known about its cybersecurity capabilities and projecting its possible implications from "We've been h…
Open Source Self-Driving with Comma AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:04
Autonomous driving is not just a big tech or closed-source game, it's becoming accessible through open innovation and real-world deployment. Dan and Chris sit down with Harald Schäfer, CTO at Comma AI, to explore how Ope…