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In this heartwarming and enlightening episode, co-hosts Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias welcome the dynamic father-son duo, Conor and Finn Grennan, to discuss their journey teaching generative AI in Nepal. Connor, Chief AI Architect at NYU Stern, and his 16-year-old son Finn share stories of cultural resonance, the universal challenges of AI adoption in education, and how peer-to-peer learning can drive real change. From Kathmandu classrooms to critical thinking conundrums, this conversation explores why the messenger matters just as much as the message—and why students everywhere might be the future's best AI evangelists.

Conor Grennan is Chief AI Architect at NYU Stern School of Business and trains large companies on how to drive AI adoption. He's worked with organizations like NASA, McKinsey, PWC, Google, Amazon, and many more. Finn Grennan just finished his sophomore year in high school where he has been asked by the administration of his school to help set AI strategy.

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🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
ChatGPT ➞ https://chat.openai.com
Claude ➞ https://www.anthropic.com
AI Mindset ➞ https://www.ai-mindset.ai/
Conor's Post About their Trip to Nepal ➞ https://shorturl.at/W3GwR

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Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this dog-dedicated episode of Sidecar Sync (Happy 12th to Ninja!), Mallory Mejias and Amith Nagarajan tackle two extremes of the nonprofit tech landscape. First, they dig into Cloudflare’s bold new default to block AI content scrapers—what it means for associations, the rise of pay-per-crawl, and whether blocking AI is smart strategy or short-sighted fear. Then, they shift gears to dissect a revealing Chronicle of Philanthropy survey on nonprofit tech adoption, where some orgs are experimenting with AI while others still won’t accept credit cards. The result? A growing digital divide—and plenty of lessons for association leaders looking to future-proof.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Claude ➞ https://claude.ai
Gemini CLI ➞ https://cloud.google.com/gemini/docs/codeassist/gemini-cli
ChatGPT ➞ https://chat.openai.com
rasa.io ➞ https://rasa.io
Cloudflare Article ➞ https://shorturl.at/xY54H
Nonprofit Tech Survey ➞ https://shorturl.at/2U9jb

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://meetbetty.ai/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this episode, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive into the world of AI agents, hackathons, and the secret cyborgs in your office. Fresh off a high-intensity AI agent-building retreat, Amith shares how association leaders—regardless of technical skill—can use open-source tools to build powerful, secure AI assistants. Then, the duo explores a framework by AI researcher Ethan Mollick to explain why organizations are lagging in AI gains despite skyrocketing individual productivity. They unpack the importance of visionary leadership, encouraging experimentation within your team (and your members), and building your own “lab” to prototype the future—even with limited resources. This episode invites you to chart your course and navigate AI’s uncharted waters with confidence and creativity.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://meetbetty.ai/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Member Junction ➡ https://memberjunction.org
Claude ➡ https://claude.ai
GitHub Copilot ➡ https://github.com/features/copilot
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://meetbetty.ai/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias