This week on Forbes Avenue, we had a chat with Dave Mawhinney, executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.

While the days of Pittsburgh’s Industrial Revolution are in the past, a new revolution is happening in the city: the emergence of tech startups. We discussed all things entrepreneurship with Dave, including his own experiences starting tech companies in Pittsburgh and how he’s trying to help students and alumni at CMU become entrepreneurs themselves.

Listen to the interview: Dave Mawhinney

Credits:
Archan Das, host, researcher, audio editor
Riona Duncan, audio engineer
Recorded October 8, 2024; WRCT debut October 29, 2024

This week on Forbes Avenue, Carnegie Mellon student Jaden Singh relays how he is able to dive deep into three independent areas of life: computer science, art making, and exploring the natural world.

Find out about Jaden’s endeavors in Wyoming with the US National Park Service and how he manages to still explore the outdoors in Pittsburgh while remaining focused on his studies. Jaden reminds us the importance of remaining curious about the world around us. This conversation will inspire your next adventure!

Listen to the interview: Jaden Singh

Credits:
Kate Smigie, host, researcher,
Riona Duncan, audio engineer, audio editor
Recorded October 2, 2024; WRCT debut October 22, 2024

Back in July 2021, we caught up with Professor Brian Junker of Carnegie Mellon’s department of Statistics and Data Science. He has since retired from the CMU faculty; but the points he made in our discussion still ring true in 2024.

Professor Junker talked candidly about the need for all of us to improve our “Numeracy” — the numeric equivalent of literacy — so we can understand what’s behind the numbers people talk about in politics, medicine, investments, news reports. We must understand the assumptions behind the numbers to make sense of different claims about “what the data means.” Since Professor Junker and his interviewer first met as musicians, the conversation went on a very interesting tangent about how music informs his professional life. A thought-provoking conversation!

Listen to the interview: Prof. Brian Junker

Credits:
Richard Gordon, host, researcher, audio engineer, audio editor
Recorded July 22, 2021; Forbes Avenue debut October 15, 2024