On this episode Jack Keating, a 2021 graduate of the University of Nebraska’s mechanical engineering program, tells us about the creation and development of his business Corral Technologies. Jack is joined by Dr. Santosh Pitla, a professor in the Biological Systems Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska, to discuss his work, current research, and inspiring another generation of engineers.
On this episode Jack Keating, a 2021 graduate of the University of Nebraska’s mechanical engineering program, tells us about the creation and development of his business Corral Technologies. Jack is joined by Dr. Santosh Pitla, a professor in the Biological Systems Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska, to discuss his work, current research, and inspiring another generation of engineers.
Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and has not been thoroughly reviewed for completeness or accuracy.
Jack Keating and Santosh Pitla Episode - S2E6
[00:00:00] Gus Herwitz: This is Tech Refactored. I'm your host, Gus Herwitz, the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the University of Nebraska. Before we kick things off today, I want to remind our listeners that we want to hear from you. You can submit your topic ideas on our website, or tweet them at us at UNL_NGTC or directly at me, your host at at Gus Herwitz.
One of the great things about being a professor at a university is seeing students develop new ideas and actually do things with them. Today we're going to be talking with, uh, both sides of that equation, the professor and the student. We will be speaking with Dr. Santosh Pitla, a professor in the biological systems engineering department at the University of Nebraska.
And Jack Keating, a 2021 graduate of the University of Nebraska's Mechanical Engineering program. While he was a student, Jack developed a new virtual fencing technology, which recently won first [00:01:00] prize at the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska College of Business' New Venture Competition.
Jack first dreamed of the concept for his company, which is uh, called uh, Corral Tech. Well, growing up in a small town of Atkinson, Nebraska, with the help and guidance of his professors, including Dr. Peta, Jack was able to make that dream a reality. Today we're going to talk with both Jack and Santos about the creation and development of the idea and the company, and talk, uh, generally with, uh, Santos about his current research and his time at the university working with student.
Jack Santos, welcome to Tech Refactored.
[00:01:38] Jack Keating: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
[00:01:41] Gus Herwitz: So, Jack, let's uh, start our discussion with you. Can you tell us a little bit about your background before you came to the university and your time growing up in Atkinson?
[00:01:52] Jack Keating: So I actually originally grew up in Kearney, Nebraska. So I was born in Kearney.
And then my family has a ranch out in northern Nebraska, north of Atkinson. [00:02:00] So it's basically like weekends we were up at the ranch and then all summer we're up there spending our time. And so we have, we have a ranching operation, so we own cattle. Spending your time spraying weeds, fixing fence, putting in fence.
Growing up, it makes you realize a lot of stuff hasn't changed in the. Who knows how many years to actually help these ranchers be more successful, more profitable, while not having to work those 10, 12 hour days, basically seven days a week over holidays and all that stuff.
[00:02:30] Gus Herwitz: So you've brought up already a couple of concepts there.
Profitability, uh, and running a successful, uh, business. And also just the idea. A ranch and ranching and fences. Can you paint a picture for listeners who might not really be able to understand when you're talking about ranching and fencing, what, what are you talking about? Are, are you talking about a couple acres with a square fence around it?
We
[00:02:53] Jack Keating: have about 150 head of cattle up at our place. So we have a, a good sized ranch, [00:03:00] about 2000 acres. And so you think about that and how much, how many miles of fence you need to go around that to contain these animals. It's, it's a lot of work to maintain. And so every year, you know, in the spring you go around your fence and we have a crew of, it's usually me and my high school buddies that go up there and we are putting in fence or replacing fence.
Most of the time, you know, fence posts get broken by deer just like floods. Floods can tear out fence, so you have to go around that fence to make sure it's up so your cows aren't getting out. So it's at least a week long process with a crew of guys up there doing those 10 hour days. Um, digging fence posts.
By hand, which if you've ever done that, it's uh, kind of a pain in the butt to do .
[00:03:41] Gus Herwitz: And as you said that this technology, this system really hasn't changed much in uh, uh, a long time. A fence is still a fence. A fence post is still a fence post. A
[00:03:51] Jack Keating: fence is still a fence post and you know, we're getting better with, um, being able to break up pastures with just like poly wire, which is like your electric [00:04:00] fence.
It's a lot easier to put in, but you still have to basically have a lot of permanent fences, which are digging those fence posts, which they now have like augers and whatnot. But if you're running an auger all day, And clay playground, then your back's gonna be hurting pretty bad.
[00:04:16] Gus Herwitz: and you say breaking up pastures when you're fencing in, in closing a pasture, uh, it's not just a single border fence.
What sort of fencing do you have there? Yeah,
[00:04:27] Jack Keating: so if you imagine, you know, a 2000 acre ranch, right? You're gonna be breaking this pasture up into. However many pastures you want to or how many you can afford to break it up into. And so what it means is you're basically taking this one large pasture and breaking it up into smaller pastures, ultimately increasing the amount of like area the cows use during their time in that pasture.
So instead of only using 30% of that 2000 acre pasture, you're having to put in all these internal fences to break [00:05:00] up that larger pasture and. Then the cows are able to actually use those smaller amounts of pasture better.
[00:05:08] Gus Herwitz: So you went from Carney and Atkinson to here at the University of Nebraska. What brought you here and what did you study while you were here?
[00:05:18] Jack Keating: What brought me here, I mean, it's home state, right? So it's uh, close to home still, but still a good program for engineering and everything. And so I studied mechanical engineering while I was here at the university, which was, uh, a great chance and great opportunity to grow my skills for sure. And, uh, learned a variety of things along the way.
[00:05:37] Gus Herwitz: And why mechanical engineering? Did you just stumble into the program or did you come here knowing engineering? That's why I want to be. I pretty much
[00:05:47] Jack Keating: stumbled into it. Yeah. Like going into college, I didn't really know what I was gonna want to do. I didn't know if I was gonna be like business or economics or something, but my buddy was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do mechanical engineering.
So I looked into it and I was like, Yeah, I liked like [00:06:00] building stuff like that sounds pretty neat. And so after taking a few classes decided, hey, this looks, this looks pretty neat. And decided to stick with it. So at
[00:06:09] Gus Herwitz: uh, what point did you. Come up with your, I, I guess, actually, let's take a step back. What, what is your idea?
What, what's the idea behind, uh, uh, Corral technologies?
[00:06:20] Jack Keating: Yeah, so a good way to visualize it would be if anyone knows an invisible fence for dogs where the cables are buried and it keeps your dogs in your lawn. It's very similar to that. But instead of having to bury those lines, the ranchers actually can draw their pastures on their phone, tablet, computer.
And then they put collars on their cows. And the cows are then contained within the boundaries that the rancher draws. They can track their cows, move them, and hopefully, eventually get health data to keep the cows healthier while they're out in the pasture.
[00:06:50] Gus Herwitz: So this is a, a two-way fencing system, not just, uh, telling the cattle where they go, but also tracking them and, uh, communicating back, uh, to, to the [00:07:00] ranchers.
Exactly. Exactly. And can you tell us at, at all about how this technology actually.
[00:07:09] Jack Keating: I could say a little bit. The system uses, uh, GPS on the caller so we can keep locations on the cows and using that, the coordinates are basically stored on the device, so you can know where that cow is at. Cow knows where it's at in relation to that boundary.
And then we have sound and shock in the collar to basically stimulate the cow to make sure it knows when to move. That it shouldn't go in that direction and everything like that. And the whole goal is to get 'em to basically, you know, just like a dog, to get 'em to hear that sound so that we don't have to deliver that shock to, to move '
[00:07:39] Gus Herwitz: em around.
And when did you realize that, Hey, this isn't just a, a cool idea, but this is, this is a cool idea. I, I should try and do something with it. Yeah, so the
[00:07:50] Jack Keating: whole idea originated. I think I was in high school, my dad and I were gonna go fix fence one day and he was like, You know, we got these invisible fences for dogs.
Why don't we do 'em for cows? And I was like, Yeah, that sounds cool. [00:08:00] And then at the time I was like, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I have no clue how I would even start that process. And then, um, I was working on several ideas throughout college, and then my junior year I said, Maybe I should take this more seriously and start focusing a lot more on this idea.
And after doing that, I started going pretty much full throttle towards this idea. And here we are today.
[00:08:23] Gus Herwitz: So you say that you had no idea how you had, you had the vision for the idea, but you didn't know how to actually do it. Can you break down your process at all from an engineering perspective? I, I described, Here's an idea.
How do you make this happen? How do you conceptualize? How do you break the problem down into something that you can actually.
[00:08:42] Jack Keating: Yeah, I think you gotta break it down into problems first, What are the unknowns? And then walking through your highest priority of unknowns saying this is, if this doesn't work, then it's, you know, the ideas could put.
And then walking through step by step by step all the way until you get finished through those unknowns and create a, this,
[00:08:59] Gus Herwitz: this, [00:09:00] uh, product has. At least two big parts. It sounds, presumably you didn't build the GPS system or put the satellites. Uh, they, they were already there, infrastructure that you're building upon, but you have both the app side that the rancher is going to use to control the system.
Then you have the caller side. How did you go about developing each of those? Uh,
[00:09:23] Jack Keating: Yeah, I think a lot of it was still unknown. Even like with, with some of the knowledge coming out of, of college, like programming. Um, mechanical engineering only required one class and so, which is, is a class you actually need for kind of hardware development and everything, which is nice.
And then on the electrical engineering side, on the hardware, it. It's pretty open as well. We only have about one required class, so a lot of it was research online and and doing that sort of stuff. And then the enclosure design, that's a lot of mechanical engineering and so [00:10:00] thankfully that was kind of taken care of through classes and everything like that.
But a lot of it was. You know, a lot of research online, a lot of help from other people just out, out in the world like Santosh. He was helpful with walking through that electrical system. And so a lot of pinging different people and research online. .
[00:10:20] Gus Herwitz: Any uh, particular stories or challenges or problems that you encountered that looking back, you laugh at today or you think, Wow, I learned a lot trying to solve that one.
[00:10:32] Jack Keating: I would say just like starting out with the system and junior year I had pretty much no like hardware development, like programming or electrical engineering type background. And so looking back on, I had one guy help me. Looking back on it now I'm like, Wow, we were really moving slow compared to, uh, kind of what I'm doing now.
It's, it's a lot more advanced what I'm doing now, instead of just doing like a [00:11:00] simple program on a debt board, you know,
[00:11:04] Gus Herwitz: and it, I I don't mean to, uh, uh, diminish what you've done at all. It, it sounds like. It's a box on a collar with a battery and a, uh, you can connect the battery to the cow's neck if you need to.
And there's a speaker. How complicated is that? And of course, the, the , uh, the reality of integration and design is, it's really complicated. .
[00:11:24] Jack Keating: Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of people look at it and they're like, Oh, you're just making a dog collar. Just use one of those. And it's like, No, it's, it's a little bit more than that, you know?
It's a little more connected, a little smarter .
[00:11:34] Gus Herwitz: Mm-hmm. . So you, uh, got the idea to commercial this, commercialize this, and uh, you entered it into the new venture competition. How did you go about doing that?
[00:11:49] Jack Keating: Yeah, I think through the Center of entrepreneurship was, is a great opportunity for a lot of students to get involved with as well.
But they have that new venture competition every year [00:12:00] and I'd seen it a few times and I was like, Hey, you know what, this would be a great option for funding and to get this thing going and at least get some funds so we can buy components. I'm not having to spend a bunch of my money on, um, these different components and everything, so, Basically went to a center of entrepreneurship, met with Sam Nelson, he's the head there, and just talked with him about it and about my idea, and he kind of helped formulate what I needed to enter in and kinda look through my business plan and everything
[00:12:28] Gus Herwitz: so that that brings us to.
The next stage in your venture, you've gone from, uh, this is gonna be a painful question. You've gone from engineer to entrepreneur, which means you're now in the, the business, and I expect the, the legal side of things for first. I, uh, should ask, uh, uh, do you have patent protections or, uh, anything like that for, that you've had to learn about and negotiate?
[00:12:52] Jack Keating: Oh yeah, we definitely went through you. Luckily at UNL we have the Weeb Bling Center for Entrepreneurship, which is a great resource for student [00:13:00] entrepreneurs where you can go and get your business developed. Legally and get it all written up into an llc. But for patent protection, you know, we are getting a provisional patent right now, waiting for the final go ahead for that.
They're just basically putting it into lawyer terms and everything, and then we'll be good to go there. But it's, it's been a, it's a different lifestyle than the engineer, right? You gotta do it cold calls, you're having to do some marketing, writing up emails and everything. So it's, it's a lot different.
Just going to design and everything, but I like it a lot. You know, like I said before, I was thinking about business or economics before coming to college, and so I still like that side of it. And I think it's, it's nice to connect with, I mean, ranchers like going in, doing cold calls is a fun thing to do most of the time.
and I,
[00:13:46] Gus Herwitz: I should ask, uh, are, are you doing this alone? Do you have a partner?
[00:13:52] Jack Keating: It's me full time right now. And then I have some guys that I basically do individual contracting with on kind of the programming side as well.
[00:13:59] Gus Herwitz: [00:14:00] And what's the marketplace reaction, Ben, Uh, as you've been doing these cold calls, are, are you getting a, a good footing in into the market?
[00:14:09] Jack Keating: Yeah, definitely. I mean, doing cold calls, it's different, right? Something you're just like, Oh, I don't really wanna do it, and you're like, Okay, I need to do this. And just pressing the call button makes you do it right? But we've gotten great feedback from ranchers across the us, you know, and. Sometimes I'm a part of the, the incubator, the combine, incubator over an innovation campus.
And sometimes they'll post on Facebook. So we get some flow from that as well. And I had a guy from like Baja Mexico call me the other day and say, Hey, when can I get this? And I'm like, We still gotta, we still have a little ways to go before we get down there.
[00:14:43] Gus Herwitz: Well, it sounds like, uh, there's a, a bright path into the future there.
One, one, uh, last question before we take a break. And this is a. Hard conceptual question there. There is no answer to this, so I'm just curious your thoughts. Why hadn't anyone done this before?
[00:14:59] Jack Keating: You know, it had [00:15:00] been done before, back in 1998, and then up until 2007, I believe, was the last study that was done.
So universities were doing studies on it, but at the time it wasn't economical. You know, when you're thinking about $2,000 collars on every cow, it just, it doesn't make sense for ranchers to do. But now that we get this price point down farther with the new technology, it, it starts to become economical for 'em and makes sense for them to actually use.
In their pastures cuz it's gonna eventually make them have healthier cows, earn more profits, and ultimately save them hours upon hours, um, in their days.
[00:15:36] Gus Herwitz: I'm fascinated by battery technology, so I just have to ask, was getting a small enough battery into the collar, uh, with a high enough voltage, was that one of the big tech challenges?
[00:15:46] Jack Keating: Yes, and the battery is obviously still an ongoing effort constantly and just conserving as much power as possible. As Dr. Pete knows, it's a major problem that a lot of hardware faces. [00:16:00]
[00:16:00] Gus Herwitz: Great speaking, uh, with you, Jack, uh, and you, you can stick with us in our, uh, as we bring, uh, Dr. Pitla into the discussion.
But first, we should take a brief break. Uh, we will be back talking more about, uh, student innovation and the role of the professor in bringing about these ideas in a moment.
[00:16:25] Elsbeth Magilton: I'm Elsbeth Magilton, the executive producer of Tech Refactored. I'm so glad you're tuning in today. You must be a very smart person interested in technology and society. Sound like you? Check out our weekly tech roundup posted to our blog, The Record, every Friday. This weekly roundup highlights tech news nationally, but with a special focus on Nebraska and the Midwest.
Also, we know word of mouth is critical to reaching new listeners. We hope you tell all your tech interested friends about us and encourage them to listen and check out our. Now back to this episode of [00:17:00] Tech Refactored.
So we are back. We've been speaking with, uh, Jack Keating, a recent graduate of the University of Nebraska, talking about his new Venture Corral technologies. And the virtual fencing technology that's implementing. And we're going to bring into the conversation now, Dr. Santos Peta, one of Jack's pro uh, professors and mentors here at the university.
And Santosh, can we just start with a bit about, uh, your background and your own work at the university? Yeah.
[00:17:36] Santosh Pitla: So thank you for having me cuz. So I'm a, my name is Santosh Bit. I'm urgently from India. I got my undergrad degree in mechanical engineering, so that's a common thing, Jack. Uh, and, um, I got my ag engineering degrees at UNF, Kentucky, and right now, um, here associate professor at unl and my, I have both, uh, research and teaching appointment.
So [00:18:00] my research is in agricultural robotics and machine systems automation primarily for crop production and precision. But I've been working with, uh, some animal scientists and precision animal management experts to how we can use technology, and I teach, uh, both ag engineering and mechanized systems management students
[00:18:18] Gus Herwitz: here.
Let me start by asking, when did you decide you want to be a professor? Why, why aren't you out in the world, uh, in the corporate world doing mechanical engineering? What's brought you to the univers? I
[00:18:34] Santosh Pitla: describe myself as a lifelong learner. So for, for that university is the best place, um, where there's a lot of creative activity.
So that's, that's what I really like about university and also, Interaction with the students and next generation of students. You know, especially students like Jack who have these ideas since they're high school, right? And they want to develop that into full product. You know, you get to see, uh, all these cool [00:19:00] innovations and come across students.
That's what drives me, uh, to work at the university.
[00:19:03] Gus Herwitz:Thinking to your own research, precision agriculture and, uh, animal systems, what, what are some of the challenges that might surprise people about working, uh, in engineering in these.
[00:19:16] Santosh Pitla: Yeah. You know, one of the hardest things is when you develop an engineered systems, especially in the field of agriculture, these engineered systems need to work in very harsh environments, right?
So whether it's a, it's. Crop cropping systems or animal systems, you know, in the cropping systems, especially the dust, the moisture. So these are all very harsh conditions. So, so everything that works in lab, uh, is not going to work the same way out in the field. So that's something, uh, uh, a lot of people miss on.
That is very important consideration. And also your engineered systems need to work with animals. You know, in the Jacks, in Jack's case, you know, cows. And then if you think about [00:20:00] bonds, you know, swine and pigs, you know, so pigs are very curious animals, you know, So they can, they'll show on anything, right?
You need to be very careful about, you know, how you de. Deploy these
[00:20:10] Gus Herwitz: engineered systems. I, I love it. Part of my own work is cybersecurity, and one of the things that makes cybersecurity so interesting and difficult is it's an adversarial setting. You always have someone who's trying to break whatever you've designed.
And I, I guess it sounds like you've got the same problem there with a swine. What about. The economic side of things. Jack, when we started speaking with you, what one of the challenges and one of the reasons, uh, your innovation is so important is, uh, the business case and the economic challenges of, uh, maintaining something seemingly simple, the fencing system.
H how do you think when you're trying to design a system or thinking about problems to solve, identifying where those economic invi abilities are to try and make them economically viable?
[00:20:55] Jack Keating: Yep.
[00:20:56] Santosh Pitla: Um, that is such an important aspect, [00:21:00] especially for farming, right? So we don't have a lot of margins, uh, in this field,
So whatever system you, you develop, If it needs to be acceptable by producer community, it has to be economical and you need to give a clear picture on the written on investment or the roi. But since I work in the driverless tractors and robotics area, so I've seen this, auto steer is a great example that pays for itself on tractor.
Recently, there's the driverless cars are getting all the attention. We've been steering autonomously or automatically tractors since 2005. So I would believe , I would say, you know, so since then, farmers are adopting auto steer because it pays for itself. So I think it's really important to understand where is the technology needed and what are the gaps the technology's trying to solve.
Uh, that's a very important consideration, uh, for the. Aspects of any [00:22:00] engineered system.
[00:22:00] Gus Herwitz: Yeah. So it sounds like, uh, from this part of the conversation, and, uh, again, with, uh, Jack, there are at least two things to look at and think about first, where are costs high and where can we try and then bring them down?
And where has technology changed? Where are things that we, we've been doing this way for 50 years because that's how we've always done it. But hey, li lithium batteries are pretty cool. Maybe we can do some things differently now just because of these, uh, changing technologies. Uh, I understand you have a recent grant from the Department of Agriculture's, uh, National Institute of Food and Agriculture relating to farming robots.
Can you tell us a bit about that?
[00:22:42] Santosh Pitla: Yeah, so, so today in agriculture there is, Concept of using multiple small robots instead of one big, big ma traditional machinery. So let's say you have a 16 row planter. So the idea is to replace a 16 row [00:23:00] planter with, let's say four four row planters. Okay? So instead of using one big machine, let's use four small machines.
All right? So, So when we do that, you have. Lower capacity for each planter, right? Your seed tank capacity reduces for this smaller planter. So by doing that, you have to refill the small planter multiple times. So now the question is, is that efficient? So how is it going to refill? How are we going to refill the tank?
So, The small tracker has to go back to the field edge and to a seat, tender vehicle and refill the seed and then go back and resume planting. So, so I think we might lose some efficiency, you know, so it might take us longer. So that's the reason why this project addresses that gap. So why not use drones?
To deliver seed to this ground robot that is actually planting, You know, because we know there are limitations for drones. You know, today drones can be in the air. Again, going [00:24:00] back to the battery capacity, they can be air only for 20 or 25 minutes. Right? Well, it's hard to apply it with drones, so why not use drones to just deliver the seed?
To the ground planter that is always doing the planting, you know, So that way we are very efficient with the logistics. You know, once that drone drops the seat, it can go back and to its charging station. So that's kind of the idea. So we're trying to use the, uh, best of both worlds, you know. So drones are good at some things, and ground robots are good at some things.
So we're trying to use unmanned ground and aerial robot
[00:24:32] Gus Herwitz: coordination for. That's, uh, fascinating on so many levels. I, I assume that when we're talking about the seed hopper capacity, we're talking volumes. So, uh, uh, radius cubed, if you shrink the size of the vehicle cutting the radius in half, you've, uh, decreased the capacity by a factor of eight.
So that the way that the math works out there is a, a really interesting, I'm surprised though. Intuitively, I generally expect these [00:25:00] sorts of systems to tend towards bigger, more complex machines that can operate at scale. But it sounds like the, a trend here is towards, uh, smaller. Machines, So cut the large machine by a factor of four and also break it up into a larger number of separate systems.
That, that seems so counterintuitive that that's the direction that the technology's going first, I guess, am I right about that? And if I am, what? What's, what's driving that? Yeah,
[00:25:28] Santosh Pitla: that's a great question. So, if I said this, maybe let's say 10, 15 years ago, you'd be like, Well, that's not possible. You need four operators to drive four machines, right?
So that's where, you know, going back to what Jack was talking about, their technology has changed so much today with the GPS technology and with the advances in computing, computing hardware and electronics, we can have one person manage 10 machines. You know? So that's where we're trying to take advantage of this autonomy, you know?
So these four [00:26:00] robots, they are driverless, right? So all you need is a single operator monitoring, you know? If you both go back and think, why did we come to a point where we are using these very, very large machines? The idea is one operator can do a lot of, uh, uh, can cover a lot of ground, right? But it does not have to be that way in the future because we can have these autonomous machines that don't need a driver, right?
So, so one operator can manage tens or even 20 of these machines, you know? So I think that's what changed.
[00:26:33] Gus Herwitz: Turn into your role working with students like Jack. I'll just ask, what is your role working with students like Jack? So
[00:26:41] Santosh Pitla: we, we have a lot of students in our department. I wish that Jack did agriculture, engineering, , uh, so that we could have worked a lot more, you know, one on one.
I just recently got a chance to meet Ja when he started his company. I'm very excited when students take [00:27:00] ideas to practice level. Taking it to a startup level, a startup company level is, is very, uh, commendable. So I appreciate that. It's very important that students have this entrepreneurial insight because, uh, a lot of times the ideas can be simple, but if they're executed well, that's where the products could be really useful to help the community, you know?
So, um, yeah, like I said, you know, so Ja, I interacted with him a couple of times, um, talking about his project, but hopefully more in the future. Similarly, you know, in, in our department here, we have two programs. One is Ag Engineering, the other one is Mechanized Systems Management. So many of these, uh, students go back to the farm, and recently we have seen a good percentage of students who wanna go back and improve their farming operations.
And, you know, technology will play a key role because they, they're learning a lot of new things here, , and they want to go apply on their farm. And again, going back to that, how do we [00:28:00] increase margins by some smart innovation, You know, that's gonna be
[00:28:03] Gus Herwitz: important. Uh, bringing you back into the conversation, Jack.
Do, do you have any idea where your entrepreneurial spark came from? Why you. I, I've got this idea. I can solve this problem. Let's make a company out of it as opposed to, and let's take it back to our farm and try and implement it there. Yeah, I think by
[00:28:23] Jack Keating: entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial spirit just started because my dad has always had, you know, his full-time job.
And then like on our weekends we were doing ranching. So it was like watching him do a constant, you know, and he traveled a lot for his job. So it was like constant, um, grind, kind of never stopped. And so watching him and my uncle followed their kind of entrepreneurial experiences was an inspiration to me.
And what I've always been told is, you can do whatever you. As long as, uh, you know, there's a will, there's a way so. You know, if you want it bad enough and you have the passion for it, you can, you can go [00:29:00] accomplish it. So I thought, you know, why not? Why not? Go for it. With all I got,
[00:29:05] Gus Herwitz: so I I, I'm gonna put you on the spot, Jack.
And th this is an unfair question. I'm just gonna let you know, did you decide you, you wanted to turn this into a. Uh, company because you realize, Wow, this is a business opportunity and, and I can get, I can make money doing this, or was it a this is a cool product, I can probably sell it and help a lot of other people out with it.
Yeah. I think
[00:29:28] Jack Keating: the, the main purpose behind it is just like, to help my family out. I mean, You, the margins are very thin and ranching. Like you're, you're working like 70 hour weeks and barely skating by. Right. And so from like watching my family do it or neighbors do it, and like it's, takes a major toll on your body.
So watching that over the years, you're like, Something's wrong here. Something is not right where these people are working so much and getting so little in return to where I was like, there, there's gotta be a better way to do this and [00:30:00] some way to help these people out. Yeah.
[00:30:01] Gus Herwitz: That, that's the, the most commendable thing about your enunciation of the entrepreneurial spirit.
And I think that's, it's always there in the entrepreneurial spirit. It, it's recognizing, Hey, I, I solved this problem for myself and it can help others. , that's what the market is good for doing, taking a solution to one person's problem and making it a solution to lots of people's problems. Santo Sha I'm curious, uh, as you work with students, how do you try and get students thinking entrepreneurially and transitioning from I'm trying to solve a problem for me to, Wow, this is something that can help others?
[00:30:40] Santosh Pitla: Yeah, so. You know, I deal with mostly technology related coursework, but. I have some entrepreneurial spirit too, in myself, you know, so, so again, you know, I go back to what are the problem you're trying to solve. So, I'll, I'll just give an example here. So, you know, it's very similar to what [00:31:00] Jack, uh, has trying to solve problems so that it can help others, you know.
So one of the student in my classes, he wanted to monitor, uh, his windmills remotely because, uh, If, if you did not have it connected through cellular or wireless, someone has to go drive, drive all the way to the windmill in the ranch that are so far apart, right? And then figure out, okay, what is wrong with that?
You know? So if you had a remotely connected windmill that. A operator or producer can monitor that will save so much time. You know? So again, it, it's, again, going back to the cliche that need is a mother of invention, you know? So, so I think that that's something that, that is, uh, so important for the entrepreneurs.
So that's kind of the, my angle is I'm trying to, Okay, I'm teaching about, you know, sensors, controls, programming, but what are the entrepreneurial aspects? Talking to Jack, I, I came to. A lot about the Center for [00:32:00] Entrepreneurship and other, I need to figure out how we can collaborate with, with some of these technology
[00:32:05] Gus Herwitz: courses.
Well, I think we are coming up on our time, Jack and Santos. Thank you both. I look forward to, uh, seeing both of your work, continuing to do great things, and I hope that this discussion has been a inspiration for some, hopefully to go into mechanical engineer. Maybe some to go into patent law and lots to go into entrepreneurship.
I, I was going to ask Jack, what would you have done with all that free time that you had growing up if this technology had existed back then?
[00:32:37] Jack Keating: Oh, trust me, there were, uh, plenty of sticks to pick up. There's no shortage of jobs at a ranch, so my dad would've found something else to do. There's always something.
[00:32:46] Gus Herwitz: Thank you, uh, to our listeners as well. I've been your host, Gus Horowitz. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Tech Refactored. If you want to learn more about what we're doing here at the Nebraska Governance and Technology, Or submit an idea for a future [00:33:00] episode, you can go to our website at ngtc.un.edu, or you can follow us on Twitter at UNL_NGTC.
If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave us a rating in review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Our show is produced by Elsbeth Magilton and Lysandra Marquez and Colin McCarthy. Created and recorded our theme music. Our research associate Neil Rutledge provided topic in substantive development for this episode.
This podcast is part of the Menard Governance and Technology Programming Series. Until next time, keep those fences invisible.[00:34:00]