David Ochi for Strategy Alliance Video Testimonials

Speaker: David Ochi, Executive Director

David Ochi: Hello, my name is David Oi. I'm the executive director here at the Cal State Dominguez Hills Innovation Incubator. My background is mainly entrepreneurial. I started my first company when I was 13 and have been start up slash early stage company guy ever since. probably most notable was launching Disney consumer products in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. That was a ton of fun. More recently in the past decade or so. I've been working with higher education helping students to launch companies at UC Irvine. I focused mainly on scalable ventures. More recently here at Cal State Dominguez Hills. We've been focused on something slightly different more around side hustles. Our goal is to help students earn 500 to 1000 a month on 5 to 10 hours a week. If we are able to do that at scale, which is what we're working on right now. Our strategy is to have it so that Cal State Domingo sales becomes the first university in the United States to graduate by the class of 2030 an entire graduation field with zero student debt, not through philanthropy and someone giving them free money. But instead where students have earned and learned the skills and mindset of an entrepreneur to help make sure that they graduate debt free and are able to start their career without the burdens of student debt.

David Ochi: You know, strategy officers are really facing a number of challenges, not the least of which is the workforce. Everything seems to be shifting as a result of COVID. And as we come out of the COVID era, we're seeing a lot of challenges appear that aren't going back to normal higher ed. And its value is being challenged by over 50% of college students that could rapidly change artificial intelligence, of course, is impacting things in many ways. Gen Z is redefining what they want a workforce to be and how they want it to look and how they want it to be a part of their existence. And of course, innovation and entrepreneurship has exploded post COVID and that's also redefining how large and small companies are addressing what they want from workers and what kind of environment they want to have available to them and how that fits into their strategy. So we'll be looking at all these factors and how they relate to the workforce and how workforce can continue to be a strategic advantage in these emerging times under a tremendous amount of transformation.

David Ochi: One of the things I'm really hoping all of the attendees will get out of this. It's really twofold. One is to just see that the workforce is undergoing a massive transformation. COVID obviously threw a big monkey wrench in many workforces. But there are other trends like the role of higher education, lifelong learning AI, of course, innovation and entrepreneurship. These are all things that are transforming what Gen Z and other generations are looking for as a workforce. and the second thing I'm really hope that attendees will be able to do is take and look at those transformations and figure out how to make that a core part of your strategy, not looking at workforce as a constant or an element that the company has to deal with. But instead look at it as a transformational opportunity that strategy can take advantage of to really position a company for sustainable long term competitive advantage. Looking forward to seeing everyone.