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

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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 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:
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📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
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🎉 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!
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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 energizing interview, Mallory Mejias is joined by leadership legend John Spence to unpack the three essential quotients of leadership—IQ, EQ, and AQ (Adaptability Quotient)—and why AQ might be the most critical of all in today’s AI-driven world. With decades of global experience, John shares how leaders can foster resilience, embrace change, and build cultures that thrive in uncertainty. From AI pilot projects to emotional pulse checks, this episode is packed with practical wisdom (and a few gut-check moments) for association leaders ready to adapt and grow.

🔗 More about John Spence:

At 26, John was the CEO of an international Rockefeller foundation, overseeing projects in 20 countries. Two years later, Inc. Magazine named him one of America’s Up and Coming Young Business Leaders. John has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Business Thought Leaders in America, one of the Top 100 Small Business Influencers in America, one of the Top 50 Small Business Experts in America, and one of the top 500 Leadership Development Experts in the World.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbspence/
https://johnspence.com/

🤖 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:
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com
CRM Systems with AI Capabilities ➡ https://www.salesforce.com
Gallup Employee Engagement Research ➡ https://www.gallup.com
Amazon Predictive Logistics ➡ https://www.aboutamazon.com

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
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📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
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🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://meetbetty.ai/

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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 episode of Sidecar Sync, co-hosts Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive deep into the cutting edge of AI-generated audio and video. Mallory demos the stunning new ElevenLabs V3 voice engine and the lifelike hand gestures of HeyGen's Avatar 4, while Amith shares behind-the-scenes insights from a recent hackathon focused on building agentic software. The pair also unpack Apple’s eyebrow-raising research paper, “The Illusion of Thinking,” and debate whether AI models are truly reasoning—or just pattern-matching very well. Whether you're building AI learning hubs or just wondering when Siri will finally get it together, this episode’s for you.

🎥 Video Demo of ElevenLabs V3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv_IoWIO5Ek

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💡 Find out more about Sidecar’s CESSE Partnership - https://shorturl.at/LpEYb

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
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📕 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:
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🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
ElevenLabs V3 ➞ https://www.elevenlabs.io
HeyGen Avatar 4 ➞ https://www.heygen.com
Claude ➞ https://claude.ai
OpenAI Voice Mode ➞ https://openai.com/chatgpt
Synthesia ➞ https://www.syn

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
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📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
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🎉 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 of Sidecar Sync, Mallory Mejias sits down with Jason Marchese, Learning Content Specialist at Sidecar, to explore the exciting frontier of AI-generated interactive web apps. From solving everyday meal planning problems to analyzing U.S. migration trends, they demonstrate how anyone—even non-technical folks—can build useful tools using Claude and ChatGPT. The conversation then shifts to a groundbreaking internal project: the Learning Content Agent (LCA), a dynamic AI-powered system that streamlines and customizes educational content at scale. Whether you're curious about AI's impact on personal productivity or ready to revolutionize your association’s learning programs, this episode is packed with inspiration and practical insights.

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

💡 Find out more about Sidecar’s CESSE Partnership - https://shorturl.at/LpEYb

🔎 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:
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🛠 AI Tools & Resources in This Episode:

Claude Dinner App ➡ https://shorturl.at/BQzBq
ChatGPT Dinner App ➡ https://shorturl.at/2ccPX
Census App ➡ https://shorturl.at/ehNKF
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com
Gamma ➡ https://gamma.app
ElevenLabs ➡

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
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📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
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🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://meetbetty.ai/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
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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 electric episode of Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias unpack the latest AI announcements from Google I/O and the highly anticipated Claude 4 release from Anthropic. They explore what Google's Deep Think means for AI reasoning, debate the creative and ethical implications of video generation tools like Veo 3 and Flow, and rave about Claude's new voice mode. Plus, they reflect on the seismic shift AI is bringing to content, coding, and SEO—alongside some AC/DC-fueled Chicago memories and a preview of the upcoming digitalNow conference.

"If you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more." - Erik Shinseki
https://shorturl.at/39XvA

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

💡 Find out more about Sidecar’s CESSE Partnership - https://shorturl.at/LpEYb

🔎 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

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://memberjunction.com/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Claude 4 Opus ➡ https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-4-opus
Claude Voice Mode ➡ https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-voice-mode
Gemini 2.5 Pro ➡ https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini
Gemini Ultra ➡ https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini
Gemini Flash ➡ https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini
Google Veo 3 ➡ https://deepmind.google/technologies/veo
Google Image 4 ➡ https://deepmind.google/technologies/image
Flow by Google ➡ https://deep

🔎 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
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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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This week, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive deep into Google's groundbreaking AI breakthrough—AlphaEvolve. In their first-ever single-topic episode, the duo unpacks why this agent’s ability to autonomously invent and refine algorithms marks a pivotal moment in AI history. From shattering a 56-year-old math record to its potential to reshape how associations tackle "unsolvable" problems, Amith and Mallory explore what AlphaEvolve means for science, business, and the association world. Plus, they discuss how associations can remain relevant in the face of rapid AI advancement—even when the tech seems impossibly complex.

📽 Supporting video by https://www.youtube.com/@Pourya_Kordi:
https://youtu.be/PcjhXA2bsh0?si=WuQeA3BuDAAROHIp

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

💡 Find out more about Sidecar’s CESSE Partnership - https://shorturl.at/LpEYb

🔎 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/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
AlphaEvolve ➡ https://shorturl.at/3vzXm
Gemini ➡ https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini
Claude by Anthropic ➡ https://www.anthropic.com/index/claude
Perplexity AI ➡ https://www.perplexity.ai/
Betty ➡ https://www.meetbetty.ai/
Isomorphic Labs ➡ https://www.isomorphiclabs.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