- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by PNC Foundation.

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PSEG Foundation.

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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program talking about organ tissue donation with a young man who's a real leader making a difference.

Divakaran Manimaran is founder and president of Piscataway High School's Donate Life Club, and a volunteer at the New Jersey Sharing Network.

Good to see you, Divakaran.

How you doing?

- I'm doing good, how are you doing?

- Doing great.

Listen, as we tape this program, I'm getting ready for the 5K coming up that goes out of headquarters in New Providence for the Sharing Network.

We'll put the Sharing Network website up.

We've been involved in public awareness in organ and tissue donation for years now.

Tell everyone how you got connected to this initiative, and why you care so much?

- So, hi, everyone.

My name's Divakaran, and I got involved with the New Jersey Sharing Network when my mom, who was, at the time, a nurse at RWJ.

She was involved with the Sharing Network at our hospital, and she took me to the Sharing Network's annual 5K event at the headquarters, and I went there just for volunteering to have fun with my mom, and I went with my sister as well.

And while we were there, I had lots of meaningful interactions with all sorts of people from all walks of life who've been touched by organization through different ways, and all of these experiences inspired me to create a Donate Life Club in my high school, where I spread awareness about organ donation to my peers and the local community.

- You've been recognized on the state level and nationally as a leader in organ and tissue donation.

It wasn't your intent when you got involved, but you're 18 years of age, you're a senior in high school, you're clearly a leader on so many other levels.

What is the message you have for other teens as it relates to organ donation, because it doesn't seem like it would be a topic that would come up a lot, if at all?

Go ahead.

- Yes, yes.

So, for me, initially, organ donations, to be honest with you, seemed like something for people who are older, who had medical conditions.

It didn't seem like something that would be relevant to me or any other teenagers, but my first experience when it came to organ donation was actually meeting someone my age who received a heart transplant when they were younger, and that was when it clicked for me that organ donations are actually something that impacts everyone regardless of their age and medical status.

It can affect anyone.

So, for me, the message that I would give to everyone is, especially for people my age, is that organ donation, it affects everyone, and it doesn't necessarily take a lot to go and make an impact in other people's lives.

It's very easy, if you're passionate about it, you can make a lot of differences in saving lives.

- So, a lot of young people around 17 are getting their license, their driver's license.

Divakaran, help people understand why, when you get your license, when you're awarded your driver's license, and when you pass the test, and everything you need to do, what is the connection between getting your license and becoming an organ donor?

- Yes, so, one of the main ways that you can sign up as an organ donor is actually through your DMV, where when you get your license, you'll be prompted on whether you would like to be a potential organ donor or not, - Right.

- And you can hit Yes or No.

And as a teenage advocate, a lot of my friends have been getting their licenses recently, and I encourage them to select Yes when prompted, which is something I've also done.

- How do most of your friends respond when you bring this up?

- So, when I first started a club, most of us had no clue what organ donation was.

To them, they're like, "What's organ donation?"

Like, I had someone come up to me, explaining, "Isn't that the thing for old people?"

But now, when I talk to more of my friends, they're more involved, they know what organ donation is, and a lot of it's just about the education aspect.

Most people, when they encounter organ donation, it's actually when they're asked whether they want to be an organ donor or not.

So, one of the things I do is try to make sure that people hear about organ donation really young and not in the moment where they're asked on whether they want their relative to be a organ donor.

- You know, a lot of our friends at the New Jersey Sharing Network, when we were talking about you, said, "This young man is a role model.

We need more young men and women, young people who are leaders like this, role models."

To what degree do you see yourself as a role model?

- Yeah, so, that's something I have been told before, but to me, on being seen as a role model, I realize a lot of it is on how passionate you are for what you'd want to do, so- - Why are you so passionate about this?

- To me, it's because I've seen both sides of organ donation.

I've seen the family who've lost their loved one, but I've also seen the people who've been touched, who've received an organ, how much more of their life they're now been able to live, and I'm like, when I look at this, I'm like, "This is what organ donation is."

It's even in the loss, you're able to save a life, and that's what makes me so passionate about organ donation, and that's why I encourage so many people to register as organ donors.

- You're gonna go to college.

Does that mean your advocacy, your leadership, as it relates to organ tissue donation, ends?

- Certainly not, I'm more than 100% sure I'm going to be still being connected with organ donation and all of the advocacy that comes with it, 'cause, to me, organ donation, it can be advocated for in very simple ways, as simple as having a discussion with your family.

When you're sitting around at the table, you're saying, "Oh, this is what organ donation is," or "I want to register as an organ donor," and having these conversations is something even more simply as telling your friends, as well.

So, even after I graduate high school, I'm leaving the club behind, I still, when I go to college, I'm going to go and spread the message of organ donation.

- Are you wearing your green New Jersey Sharing Network wristband?

- Actually, no, I left my wristband downstairs, (Steve chuckling) but I am repping the 5K T-shirt, which I got first year.

- You're repping the 5K?

Will I see you at the 5K with my colleague, Jacqui Tricarico?

We go there on location, will I see you there?

- [Divakaran] Yeah, most certainly.

This is gonna be my third year at the 5K.

I went in 10th grade, 11th grade with my friends, and I'm going definitely going this year as well.

- I am a student of leadership, I talk about it, obsess about it all the time, teach, write, make mistakes as a leader, and the one thing I have convinced myself of is I know a leader when I see a leader.. You're a leader, you're making a difference, and you'll continue to do that.

You make a lot of people proud.

Keep doing what you're doing, young man.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, that's Divakaran, he's a great leader and a role model making a difference.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Dr. Teik Lim, who is President of NJIT, that's New Jersey Institute of Technology, fully disclosed, one of our higher ed partners.

Good to see you, Dr. Lim.

- Good to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me here.

- You got it.

We've been wanting to talk to you about several things.

One of 'em is artificial intelligence and higher education.

How the heck are you and your colleagues in NJIT managing, dealing with the AI universe?

- Well, we are embracing it for sure.

In case you don't know, we are New Jersey only public polytechnic institution.

So we specialize in STEM education.

We have actually been doing AI before AI was a buzzword.

In fact, if you look at the landscape of AI at NJIT, the last four years, we have educated over 1600 students that are well-versed in AI or related area.

Last year we have $60 million in AI research.

We have close to 30 faculty members who are working on AI, various aspects of AI, like machine learning, human-computer interaction, and many other topics of AI.

So we're doing well in AI.

- Dr. Lim, a devil's advocate question.

For those who say, you know what?

I mean, AI is gonna allow students to potentially be less than honest in their classwork.

How do you regulate, manage, and deal with the perception, potentially the reality that AI allows for more, quote unquote, opportunities for cheating?

- I don't believe that is the case.

Cheating has always gone on since human kind came into this world.

You can cheat with any technology.

Someone asked me, what do I think about, say, ChatGPT?

And I took out a pen.

And I say, the pen is a tool.

You use it to write and sign checks and do all sorts of neat thing with it.

But you can also use it to poke somebody's eyes.

So don't do that.

So ChatGPT and AI is the same thing.

We need to embrace what's coming, but we need to use it mindfully.

And we need to be methodical about educating our students to use AI for the good, not for cheating.

Those who cheat will find ways to cheat no matter what.

- They don't need AI to do that.

- They don't need AI to do that, right.

- Dr. Lim, let me follow up on this.

The student body at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, describe it, A, and B, the diversity on the campus is critically important to the culture of the university.

Please.

- Yes, definitely.

So, as you know, a year ago we became an NAPIC, an Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander-serving institution.

Several months ago, we were also designated as a Hispanic-serving institution, and this is by the Federal Department of Education.

So we're both NAPIC and HSI.

We're a very diverse campus.

In fact, if you think about New Jersey as an R1 institution, a research institution, there's 140 some R1 institution in the country, three in New Jersey: Princeton, Rutgers, and NJIT.

And then you throw on top of that, we, being a polytechnic institution, as you know, STEM has been one of the main factor in technological and economical progress of this country.

If you take all those four factors in one place, there's only one institution that have all four in one place.

That is NJIT.

So if you think about that, the country is getting more diverse.

In order for the country to move ahead economically and technologically, there's two ways.

One, you continue immigration, and we know that has actually fueled economic and technological advancement.

The other one is to make sure everyone gets involved.

And we're doing our part in getting everyone involved.

Because of the diversity on this campus, we're educating Black, Latino, Asian, white, engineers and scientists.

They're the future, in my mind, of this country.

- Along those lines, the diversity of the campus speaks for itself.

People can look at the NJIT website and find out more about the breakdown of the student population.

I'm gonna talk about student opportunity in just a moment.

But the role of a college president as we tape this program at the end of April, is evolving all the time.

You and I were just talking about, before we got on the air, change is the only constant.

Where do you see the role of a college president and the role of a college/university in promoting and protecting free speech, while at the same time protecting its students?

- Yes.

- And faculty, please.

- Of course.

And in the entire campus community, we wanna make sure that anyone that come to this campus can achieve what they set out to come here for, what their goals are, whether they're faculty, students, staff, visitors.

And the principal focus of my job here is to ensure that this is as belonging and as welcoming place as possible so that people can learn and teach and do research and can do all sorts of neat things to improve their lives, to improve lives of other people.

At the end of the day, that's what it's all about, is we are here to improve the lives of mankind.

And the way to do it is through education.

And so we're principally focused on that.

In fact, we just launched our Strategic Plan 2030 to become the nexus of innovation, and the number one priority of our Strategic Plan 2030 is student success.

We're obsessed with student success.

And how that happen is, an innovation nexus is where a physical and intellectual focal point for ideas, for creativity, for actions, for people, focus on innovation and entrepreneurship that include researchers, learners, entrepreneurs, partners from government, industry, higher ed, and the community to serve the students of the future.

- To what degree do you see NJIT, New Jersey Institute of Technology, as an institution of higher learning that creates opportunities for students who historically have not had access to those opportunities?

- Oh, we do that really, really well.

I've always felt that talent is everywhere, no matter where you come from, what demographic and ethnicity.

But opportunity is not.

So we're here to align talent with opportunity.

And the way we do that is number one, we make sure that our education is affordable.

We make sure that our education is attractive.

We know it's attractive, because guess what?

Steve, you may or may not know this.

A third of the engineers and scientists currently working in New Jersey graduated from NJIT.

- One-third.

- One-third, right.

And you know that New Jersey has the highest concentration in the United States of engineers and scientists.

- I didn't know that.

- It's the highest concentration, right.

So we're doing our part in ensuring that people that come from the underserved community, family with limited means, have access to an education.

Almost 50% of our student body are first generation.

92% have some sort of financial aid.

And, guess what?

I did the calculation a couple months ago.

My staff does that from the Office of Finance.

And our in-state tuition fee is about 18,000, give and take, per year, which is still.

- In-state, right.

- Which is still very attractive, very affordable.

But the average out-of-pocket cost of an undergraduate student here is $6,000, average out-of-pocket cost.

- 6,000.

- 6,000 average.

- Interesting, affordability.

- That's very affordable.

- Yeah.

Dr. Lim, sorry for cutting you off, but Dr. Teik Lim is the President of New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Again, one of our higher ed underwriters.

Dr. Lim, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

We'll continue the conversation in another segment.

Thank you, Doctor.

- Thank you, Steve, for having me here.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

To see more Think Tank with Steve Adubato programs and to listen to Think Tank with Steve Adubato the Podcast, visit us online at steveadubato.org.

If you would like to express an opinion, email us at info@caucusnj.org.

Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/steveadubatophd and follow us on Twitter @steveadubato.

- We're joined once again by Evan Weiss, who's President and CEO of the Newark Alliance.

Evan, good to see you again.

- Good to see you, Steve.

- We'll put up the website of the Alliance.

Tell everyone what it is.

- Newark Alliance, actually, we're turning 25 this year.

We're an economic development entity in Newark, New Jersey.

We were founded by Ray Chambers, Art Ryan, the CEO of Prudential, former governor Tom Kean, to drive inclusive economic growth in Newark.

And so we do that in a bunch of ways, which we'll talk about, but we're a membership group, so we're made up of the biggest corporations, universities, hospitals, CDCs, property owners, et cetera, to get our work done.

- One of the areas you're working on a lot has to do with homelessness prevention, working in cooperation with the city.

What is the problem as it relates in Newark as it relates to the homeless population.

A and B.

What are you actually looking to change as it relates to that situation, which communities across this nation are facing?

- So we are doing well, I have to say that, so compared to some of our peer cities across the United States, I think the efforts of the city, of the state of the Alliance have been effective.

We're primarily targeting chronic homelessness, meaning people who have been on the street for a prolonged period of time.

One of the things that surprised me, Steve, when we started working on this, was that you often think of homelessness as being signed that is tied in with mental health, substance abuse, which it absolutely is, but that's not the majority of cases.

It's mostly people who missed, you know, a rent payment, a utility payment, they got in a fight with their spouse.

What we've learned is that it doesn't take that much.

It takes a little over $750 on average to help keep someone out of homelessness.

So we're trying to do that preventative work with our partners and also with the more difficult chronic cases, help folks find the right resources.

- And every community deals with the problem or the issue of homelessness differently.

And I just mentioned this to Evan before we get on the air for this interview.

As we do this program at the end of April, this United States Supreme Court will be hearing a case making a decision.

In Oregon, an Oregon community has passed an ordinance where being homeless is tantamount to a crime and the Supreme Court will determine if it's constitutional or not.

Evan, what do you believe would cause a community, people in a community to wanna pass an ordinance slash law that would identify people who are homeless as criminals?

- You know, I can't speak to that community, obviously, but what I- - Not just that, 'cause they're not alone.

- But I think what people are feeling are, you know, it's been something that we've had in Newark or any city in America for decades, obviously, but the pandemic really heightened it and I think that heightened a lot of pressure.

You see New York City, you know, taking some also pretty aggressive action.

But I think, you know, we start a lot of this work because of what's, you know, been going on at Newark Penn Station.

That's often people's first experience, you know, coming to Newark if they're a student, if they're going to NJPAC, if they're going to work, busiest train station in New Jersey and people see the homeless population there.

And so one option would certainly be, you know, a kind of option that Oregon is pursuing.

What we thought, you know, again with our partners was to try to have a more compassionate and I believe, effective approach, you know, at solving this long term.

- The migrant situation exacerbate the homelessness problem?

- Yes, yes.

- Describe it.

- So at this point in time, Newark has been doing everything it can in New Jersey to try to deal with this as much as we can.

But frankly, New York still remains the epicenter of this in our region.

New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, et cetera.

And so we haven't borne the brunt of it yet, but we know it's coming.

And so we do what we can locally.

We have great partners like in the North Ward, La Casa de Don Pedro, you know, another Newark Alliance member.

But we unfortunately, you know, so much revolves around federal policy and politics that are out of our hands.

And so we try to do as much as we can here, just making sure people can quickly, you know, find support.

- Evan talk about the Halsey Street Project.

Halsey Street is a very significant, historically relevant street in the city of Newark.

What is the Halsey Street Project and why does it matter so much?

- It's about two things, really.

It's about ownership and it's about connection.

So I think on the ownership end, Halsey Street is really interesting where it's right in the middle of the central business district, very unique, where Halsey Street kind of looks like a small town or you know, small town streets in Maplewood or something.

But then a block away is Prudential World Headquarters, Audible's, Rutgers-Newark.

It's all right there.

It's a thriving community, particularly of black entrepreneurs on the street.

But what we've noticed is that, we looked at about 167 properties on Halsey, zero of those, as far as we can tell, with operating businesses, operated by people of color, actually owned by people of color.

And so, what that means to us is that, as Halsey Street continues to rise in its fortunes, we want to make sure that the entrepreneurs that have given so much life to the street have an ownership stake in it.

- So, black and brown folks run the businesses, don't own the businesses?

- Don't own the buildings.

And if I botch that statistic, I think.

- But they don't own the building.

- Yeah, exactly.

So they're renters.

And so, that's what we want to try to improve upon because again, with the enormous amount of investment in Newark right now, this is a chance to have a stake in that and and to grow wealth.

And I think one of the most amazing things about Newark, it's been an engine of wealth creation for generations of people, but a lot of black and a lot of particularly recent immigrants, you know, from Latin America, haven't had that same chance.

And so we're trying to do what we can to correct that.

- Final question about, there's so many aspects of life in Newark.

I think Ken Gibson, the former mayor, said, wherever American cities are going, Newark will quote unquote, and you know the rest of the quote, right?

- [Evan] Get there first.

Yep.

Get there first.

- One of the places we're not getting to first in Newark, excuse me, is internet access.

What is the problem issue with internet access and what are you and your colleagues doing to address it?

- Newark is the center in many ways of the American internet infrastructure, which is an incredible thing.

Right in the old Bambergers store is one of the main hub, you know, for the entire country.

But Newarkers, too many of them, about a quarter, don't have in-home high-speed internet.

And so, what we've been doing with the partnership of Invest Newark and also the federal government and some, you know, great corporate partners and business partners is trying to expand access and make it more affordable to individuals.

And I think the show piece project we've been doing is with the Newark Housing Authority, again, led by Invest Newark, and a company called Andrena, to make sure that people in those buildings have different options for internet access and are price competitive.

So the other thing we've done is put basically what looked like satellite dishes on top of these buildings, which being high as they are, can then kind of beam internet around the neighborhoods and areas that haven't had it historically.

- So many people take it for granted.

And so many folks, I can say it again, one in three or one in four do not have access.

- Yeah so, one in four.

- Just think about what that means, folks, and the impact it would have on your family if you didn't have access.

Evan Weiss is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Newark Alliance.

Evan, thank you as always.

- Thank you, Steve.

Pleasure to be here.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by PNC Foundation.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

The Fidelco Group.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The North Ward Center.

Veolia, And by The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

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But we do.

Veolia, more than water.

Resourcing the world.