Day 188: Shadi Farhangrazi
“I’m inspired every day by the people I see, by the young generation that I teach … I’m inspired every day by the scientists that I see that struggle every day in the lab, and I try and do my best to help them. … I can also tell you that I’m inspired by the children I see all over the world, and I see really the future as their world, and what I leave hopefully tomorrow for them I’m hoping is going to be a much better world than we see today.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Shadi, for agreeing to be with us today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Shadi Farhangrazi: Yes, Toni, thank you so much for having me today. My name is Shadi Farhangrazi, and I am the founder and the coeditor of Biotrends.org. It is a nonprofit focused on science education. I am also the President of Biotrends International. It is a management consulting company focusing on helping biotechnology and life sciences companies with developing their strategy. I’m also a faculty at the University of Denver. I teach business classes at Daniels College of Business, and these classes include innovation and entrepreneurship.
Toni: Well thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Shadi, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?
Shadi: You know, this is kind of an interesting question, because I think most of us who inspire others – and this is probably the longer version of the answer from the question that I’m hearing – is that when we inspire others, we don’t think about it as inspiring others.
So for example, I don’t get up every morning thinking that “Okay, I’m going to do something today to inspire others.” I think we do what we do. We are passionate about what we do and, as a result, I believe that hopefully we’ll inspire others. For example, when I teach my classes, I do hope that I inspire my students. I do a lot of work internationally and, for example, when I’m in Africa working with children, many times that when I’m talking to them or when I’m giving talks and workshops, I do hope that I inspire them. I inspire women and girls, and boys when I teach these classes.
So, I think … I guess the longer version of the answer to your question is that I do hope that I inspire the people that I work with and I teach every day.
Toni: In your teaching, just using that as an example — because in your introduction there are so many things that you are doing, but just to zero in on your teaching — how do you think your teaching style or what you are teaching might inspire a student, or the children in Africa that you spoke of? How does that happen? What are doing, particularly?
Shadi: Let me take for example the work that we do, focus on science education. I’m a scientist. I’m a biochemist and a neuroscientist, and I do what I do because I’m passionate about it. I truly believe in the impact of science on people’s lives. So because of the work I do every day, and because I take those examples of what I do every day and I use those examples in my teaching, I do hope that I’m able to make sure that my students, for example, understand the impact of science and technology on their lives.
So as a result of that, I hope they are inspired to really follow the path, even if they don’t go into science and technology, but really being able to comprehend and understand what the impact of science is on their lives. I do hope they’re inspired.
Toni: By having that happen, how do you think that you might help someone to explore their own potential?
Shadi: I think all of us go through a period of … I’m going to start with myself, and then I’ll tell you why I think that’s helpful for others. We all go through different stages of our lives, and we try and find our potential. In a way, we try and find a better version of who we are, and this is a long process.
What I do in my teaching is that I try and make sure that I can share my experiences with my students and the people I talk to. I also give a lot of public speaking, and so when I talk about science, not only I have been on the side of science where I have spent hours and days in the lab really looking at data and I’ve spent days doing experiments, but what I’ve done is that over the last few years I have been able to really take that and be able to translate that into making sure the people understand what the impact of that science is.
So when it comes to others really looking for their own potential, I hope that I can share my experiences of how I have come to where I am at this juncture of my life, and hopefully the students and people who are listening to my talks can really, you know, take away some lessons from it.
Toni: Can you give an example of how you’ve gotten to where you are?
Shadi: Oh, gosh. Okay. For example, you know, I am really a scientist, and I always introduce myself even though I actually went on after getting my Ph.D. and becoming faculty, I went on and got my MBA, and it wasn’t an easy decision. It was actually … I came to that decision after really thinking about what I wanted to do. I had to ask the question, do I really want … I want to see the impact of the work I do, and I want to make sure that I can help others. I can help others to find it, and companies to really take the science and technology and take it all the way to the hands of their patients.
So for me, that was a really long learning experience. It was really from being able to … first of all, being able to make sure that I have done the work and I’ve had the understanding of the science, and then taking this process of going back to school and getting an MBA degree. And today I always tell people I work at the cross-section of science and business.
So in a way, that has been a learning experience, being able to have gone through that and being able to be here today, but also, you know, with the economy over the last two years, I’ve also gone through my own learning experiences. I see companies who have not been able to raise investment, and every day I work with the CEOs and the management team and make sure that I can present their work and their company’s findings and discoveries and amazing technologies so that they could actually get the strategy right and get the funding so that we could make sure that their technology and science and therapeutic applications get to these people.
Toni: So really, your work becomes even more intense in times like this, because the funding that might have been readily available in the past may not be as readily available now, and so the work that you’re doing on connecting the dot and the importance of that, I would imagine, is even tougher right now.
Shadi: Oh, absolutely. And there is also another part of this. You know, in this country, here at home we are talking about job creation. What I do, and I talk to my students in my Innovation and Entrepreneurship class, I talk about the jobs that we need today, but also the jobs that are out there tomorrow.
The jobs of tomorrow have to do with technology, with innovation. If we want to remain competitive, if we want to have the edge that we have had in the past, we need to make sure that the investments are done in the right areas in our country. So as a result of that, when we talk about job creation … and you know, sometimes I feel like people get tired of me talking about this, but I have to do this. Those of us in the innovation sector, in the technology sector, in the life sciences sector, we need to continue to talk about this.
We need to make sure that the public understands and the government understands that the real investments have to be where the jobs of tomorrow are. So not only today talking about these companies that need the investment, need the right strategies to survive, but also creating tomorrow’s companies and tomorrow’s jobs.
Toni: Absolutely. It’s so important, and I’m so … it’s almost a relief to hear from your point of view how the human capital is also intertwined in that, and that’s amazing. You don’t hear a lot of that. Technology is incredibly important, but the human capital has to be there as well.
What inspires you? What do you need to be inspired?
Shadi: You know, I think that really it’s a process. Again, going back to asking the questions. I think a big part of being inspired has to do with really knowing first what I do is what I’m supposed to be doing. For example, I have had to ask the question “Does doing what I do make me happy?” And then, the other question is that is doing what I do really what I’m supposed to be doing? And then the third question and probably the most important of all – I guess as important as the first one – is that will it have the right impact on other people’s lives?
So that’s a part of being inspired, but I can also tell you that I’m inspired every day by other people. I’m inspired every day by the people I see, by the young generation that I teach, that I see out there that hopefully will be inspired by hearing my stories and my experiences and sit in my classes. I’m inspired every day by the scientists that I see that struggle every day in the lab, and I try and do my best to help them. I’m inspired by the people who have done a lot of work in the past in our history and really on their shoulders we stand today.
I can also tell you that I’m inspired by the children I see all over the world, and I see really the future as their world, and what I leave hopefully tomorrow for them I’m hoping is going to be a much better world than we see today.
Toni: Oh, that’s fantastic. Shadi, what do you do to continuously explore your own potential so that all of this work that you’re doing can still be done by you?
Shadi: I think the learning process continues. It’s not a static process. I think people like me continuously are out there and we look every day, even when I do small things, you know, like driving around.
Actually, I always keep this little book, and I show it to my students or my talks a lot. I always jot down notes. So if I’m working late at night, you know, 11 or 12 at night, and I’m working at my computer and suddenly I have this idea, I write it down in my book. If I’m driving around and I think of an interesting idea, I write it down.
So to really explore my full potential is to continuously be thinking about what to do next, how to help this company, or how to bring this other idea to the market, how to be able to create a better educational system so that our next generation of kids could be trained much better in sciences and technology. My potential … to really explore my full potential is to be able to think of better ways of bringing more things to other people.
Toni: Shadi, thank goodness there are people like you that are in these types of fields and industries, because you have given an absolutely beautiful interview and opened our eyes into needs. And it’s so comforting to know that there’s people like you that are keeping your eye on and working towards the needs of technology, science, and the people who have to make that happen. We cannot thank you enough for being part of this Project today.
Shadi: Toni, thank you so much. You are very kind, and thank you for having me today.
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For more information about Shadi Farhangrazi: www.BioTrends.org
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