Hello, welcome to the careers4kids podcast
where kids learn careers.
This is Maxwell Valencia.
And this is Henry Morrison.
And today we have Angela Mascarenas,
an AI engineer who will started an AI furnace and vocal AI.
Hello, Ms. Mascarenas.
Thank you for spending your time
to be on careers for kids.
We have a great interview now let's get started.
Thanks so much Henry and Maxwell for having me.
So excited to share more about my journey today.
Yeah, we're excited as well just to have you here.
So Maxwell is gonna start us off.
Tell us what you're currently doing now.
Sure, so my name is Angela Mascarenas.
I am one of the founders of Vocal AI,
a deep fake detection company focused on identifying deep fakes
on behalf of enterprises for fraud purposes.
Nice. And so it's a brand new AI company
focused on new problems related to generative AI.
And then I also co-founded the AI furnace,
which is one of the fastest growing AI founder
and operator communities in the world.
Oh wow. Yeah, really amazing.
Yeah, I mean, it is definitely a very set after job nowadays.
Yeah. This is gonna be
really cool thing for a podcast.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
I think the space is rapidly moving
and I know even as kids,
like you guys are interacting with it,
whether it's like chat GPT or some new tools
that are coming out.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
We're both pretty interested in AI.
Yeah, especially I'm really interested
in like technical engineering stuff,
not necessarily like AI, more like hardware stuff,
but you know, a lot of that gets like integrated
and intertwined with that.
And it's just kind of really, I don't know,
I find it really cool.
Yeah.
That's so cool.
Have you guys like tried any cool AI tools
that are out there?
Mm-hmm.
I've used chat, well, I've used chat GPT,
but I've also, Microsoft recently released this thing
called Co-Pilot, so I've been using that
and having a little bit of fun with it,
generating images and stuff.
I've been using like the Google thing.
It used to be called bar and now it's like
called Gemini or something.
Wow, you guys are light seats ahead.
That's amazing.
Thanks.
We really like technology, both of us.
Yeah, I'm proud of you.
So, yeah.
But tell me more about your career
and how you got to this position.
Sure, so I originally came from New York City.
I went to school at an engineering school called RPI
or Rentalator Polytechnic Institute.
Oh, that's where I wanna go.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Yeah, so I went to school there.
I studied business for my undergraduate
and then I did my master's in financial engineering
and quantitative analytics, which is around data science
and also like programming mixed with math
for my major.
Yeah, I'm learning boolean algebra currently.
Yes.
I'm just learning.
Oh, wow.
That's so impressive.
Yeah, so I started my career kind of in that space
and then from there, I actually worked
on building out digital products for enterprise.
So I worked on multiple mobile apps
that you guys might've interacted with,
but I first worked on the Girl Scouts mobile app
and e-commerce site, helping to bring the cookie program
online for the first time.
And so I built that out as a product manager and engineer
and then also scaled it nationwide
and then also worked on a number of apps
within mobile apps within FinTech, including chase.com,
the Chase mobile app, digital wallets.
Do you guys have a digital wallet?
Do you know what that is?
I mean, I do for like movie tickets and stuff sometimes,
but yeah.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So I worked on digital wallet.
I worked on banking for Gen Z and millennials.
And then my last company was focused on educating teens
about Web3 and then also participating in buying
and selling cryptocurrencies through a custodial account
between teenagers and their parents.
I've spent the past year in AI,
working on building out deep fake detection.
And then as I mentioned,
I run this community of AI founders and operators,
and we're currently 12,000 members across New York,
London, Dubai, and Boston.
That's really cool.
So, Max, I'll ask another question.
Sure.
What part of your job?
What?
Sorry.
I'm just laughing.
This podcast is so fun.
Oh yeah, I'll do question number three.
Okay, okay.
What part of your job do you enjoy the most
and dislike the most?
Sorry for the laughing.
No, no problem.
The thing that I like the most is that I'm meeting
really, really talented AI researchers and engineers
around the world right now.
And so that's really cool.
And so I've been meeting AI engineers coming out of MIT,
Harvard, Oxford, Imperial,
and kind of learning about all the amazing innovations
happening within technology right now.
And so that's the thing I like the most.
I like that.
And things that I dislike,
hmm, while I like meeting some of the people,
some of the aspects of event planning
sometimes are a little bit manual
and I would love to see more automation
and more innovation happen in that space
so that you don't have to put as much work.
Yeah.
So was this the dream job you imagine yourself doing
as a kid?
Yeah.
Oh no, not at all.
Yeah.
Obviously there wasn't much,
I mean, you really, I mean,
I have no idea how old you are, but like,
Yeah.
You know, I know until recently AI didn't become
super mainstream and then recently.
Like five years ago, I think.
Yeah, well, do you guys take coding classes right now?
I took a little before.
I kind of taught myself.
I know basic HTML and basic Python.
Actually, I know advanced HTML and CSS.
I know some C++ and some Python as well as a little HTML,
but I don't know.
Oh wow, what age did you guys start coding?
I started, I just got interested in the topic of stuff
when I was like probably at 10 or nine or 10 or something.
Yeah, me too around that.
I started getting interested in technology and like,
Yeah, it's been more recently.
I've definitely been more interested
in like the hardware side of things.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
So yeah, I mean, when,
I actually didn't start coding classes like till probably,
till probably high school, but when I was a kid,
I kind of thought I would either end up as a teacher
or as a wedding planner.
Yeah.
And neither of them really involved technology.
And then I fell into technology,
after going to school and then fell into like
the most innovative areas of technology
through my career in consulting.
Wow.
In my Maxwell, what's your dream?
What's your job?
What do you want to be?
I really want to be like,
I'm like a rich businessman when I go to classes.
Interesting advice.
How will you get that money?
How I get that money?
What I'm going to do is I'm going to invest it.
I'm not sure that's a great idea.
That's a great idea.
Like I invested in AI, did you know that?
What company?
Nvidia, it gained like at least 600% in a year.
Wow.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
I just want to be like a good like hardware engineer
and like, you know, computers and stuff like that.
Maxwell's another question.
Yeah.
Who were your main idols when you were young?
Yeah.
My main idols.
Doesn't even have to be like your current job.
Yeah.
Just like an idol from when you were a child.
Yeah.
I mean, I always really liked the entrepreneur,
Richard Branson.
And I just really liked the way that, you know,
whenever he does a new venture,
he thinks about doing it in a fun way.
And I really liked that.
He's always, you know, kind of doing things that are from,
like vacationing for fun or like creating an airline
and creating more fun environment.
But I've always really looked up to him
and then also my own dad who, who was a CTO.
Wow.
That's interesting.
That's, I don't really know much about like business.
I mean, I know a decent bit,
but Maxwell's really the person that,
especially just even in our company,
he knows a lot of that stuff.
Yeah.
But onto the next question.
Why did you pick this job?
And like, what made you do this?
Yeah.
Did you guys hear about when Gen.AI first came out
that people were using it to create deepfakes songs
for like Drake and like Taylor Swift and stuff like that?
Do you guys hear about that?
Yeah.
It's still going on.
I mean, I saw like the government's trying to do some stuff
to stop it now.
Yeah, exactly.
So we got inspired to work on Vocal.AI
from kind of listening to kind of hearing about
these deepfakes going around on behalf of artists.
And so we started off building our technology
for a music artist use case to help protect, you know,
Drake or Taylor Swift to counter some of like the deepfakes
audio and video that was coming out.
And that's why we decided to start working on this
and build a company in this space.
And then once we started building it,
we realized that there were a lot of use cases
for this type of technology in other sectors.
Whoa.
Yeah, definitely a very innovative area to get into.
I agree.
Yeah, it's a very like R&D type of area.
It's like similar to driverless cars and stuff like that,
where you have to like build a lot of R&D,
AI R&D for it to make progress.
Nice.
Also, what was the biggest highlight
of your entire career?
Like the biggest, like best highlight?
Yeah, one of my favorite highlights actually was working
on that Girl Scouts mobile app.
I was a former Girl Scout.
It was really amazing to like build technology for kids
and working on creating technology that can help kids
be the next generation of leaders.
And so that was one of my favorite like highlights
from my career was kind of giving back to an organization.
I was a Girl Scout.
I don't know what, are you guys like Boy Scouts
or anything like that?
No.
How do you?
Yeah.
What do you think of as a Girl Scout?
Yeah, what kind of clubs are you guys in?
I'm in a lot.
I'm not really in much.
I'm more focused on my own thing.
Yeah, I mean both in the National History Day Competition.
Yeah, we moved on during, like we moved on from regionals.
We're going to states.
Oh wow, that's amazing.
Yes.
For what, is it like a business club?
It's like, so basically, I did a documentary.
Basically you enter something like an entry
on like a turning point in history.
And you got to do a bunch of stuff to like support
that it was a turning point in history,
bunch of information.
I did a documentary, Maxwell did a website.
And well, they were, I guess they were good enough
because we exceeded, like not exceeded,
but we're going to states.
Yay!
Yay, that's amazing.
Thanks so much.
So what are the biggest challenges
that you think can be solved by our generation
that you would want us to solve for you?
Yeah, I'm really interested in seeing more AI
being leveraged for good.
There's a lot of AI that's being leveraged right now
for content generation, for cost cutting.
And so things that I would love to see
your generation work on is creating tech
that's like really good for humanity.
And so that could include things like solving for poverty,
using it to enable access to financial services
for lower income and more inclusive types of communities.
And then even things like, what is it?
Like the environment and helping out with global warming.
I would love to see you guys apply
these new latest technologies in ways
that we're not even thinking about
and make progress in this area.
Yeah.
Yeah, cool.
I mean, I've said this probably a bunch of times
during this, but yeah, definitely a very
innovational area to just go down into.
Yeah.
And I don't know, you have a lot of,
just with like, especially what you're doing
and how large you are and like,
the artificial intelligence area,
you could definitely make a big change for that.
Great.
And change for good.
Yeah, definitely.
And if someone wants to follow in your footsteps
in your careers, what would you tell him or her?
Yeah, I would say, I don't know if you guys have this.
Are you guys in middle school?
Yeah, we're in seventh grade.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Have you guys heard of hackathons?
No.
I have not.
Yeah, me too.
Okay, so they typically like actually happen,
like they're starting to happen now
like in late high school and in college,
but hackathons are when you have a theme,
it's like, oh, come up with a solution
that is going to help a problem
that's happening in your local city.
You get together with other kids or other people your age,
and then you have different diverse people there.
So you have like developers, business people, designers,
and you build up like a product,
like a digital product over the course of a week.
And I really recommend going to hackathons,
like learning how to code,
trying out new AI tools.
Like, I don't know if you guys have heard of this one.
Have you guys heard of Mid Journey?
No.
Not really.
I have not.
You try that one.
The images from Mid Journey are so cool.
And so for someone that wants to follow my footsteps,
I would say to be curious about like these new AI tools
that are coming out,
because some of them are really, really cool,
where they'll even taking texts
and you can create videos now.
You can take texts and create videos and images,
and some of them are very, very realistic.
And so I would try and test out this new technology.
And then I would try to like build solutions
for problems that you're running into in your day to day.
Yeah, that's, I'm definitely gonna test that out
because before like co-pilot became like
more of a mainstream thing, not a mainstream thing,
but you know, access to like the public
or anybody with a Microsoft account.
I'm like a Windows insider.
So I actually got like early access development for that.
And I was able to make some like photos.
It was pretty cool.
That's cool.
Have you guys ever started a business before?
Yeah.
We actually, this is kind of one,
I mean, we're making some money off of it.
So. Yeah.
We've been,
we evaluated it, but we can't say in public.
Sorry.
Oh, okay. Wow. That's amazing.
Yeah. My first business,
I actually didn't start until several years,
like after working.
So I think that you guys are taking the right steps,
like interviewing really people
with very different diverse backgrounds,
trying to solve problems that are in your local community
and identifying the problem
and then coming up with a solution
to put in front of them to help solve it.
That's what I am an AI engineer
and I am an AI entrepreneur.
And so being able to have those skills,
those are skills that can carry over
into wanting to go down this path, down the road.
That's really cool.
So what can you, sorry about this,
but can you name like the programs
or like even like the apps that you've like helped develop
or developed in the past?
Yes. I've helped,
I've built out the Girl Scouts e-commerce website.
Yeah.
Also their standalone mobile app.
Wow.
I've worked on chase.com and then the chase mobile app.
I've worked on digital wallets.
So like paying with like your credit card on your phone
through like, you know, like when you're on the subway
or something like that and you use your phone to pay,
I've worked on that app before.
I've worked on banking for like Gen Z and millennials.
Creating like an app that's specific
for that type of generation.
And then I've also worked on a teen crypto app.
Like one of the first teen crypto apps
that allowed teens to learn about crypto
as well as buy and sell it.
And then my current company that I'm working on
is called Vocal and we're building out an AI tool
that can help enterprises identify
if audio content is real or AI created
to prevent fraud.
That's awesome.
I mean, even our website,
which I can share the link with you later,
the careers for kids website, I'm just made,
like I made, it was pretty much like just straight up
like editor, but then I had to do a little bit
of like the backbone HTML stuff.
And I also created, so a program using,
I believe C sharp on my Mac that it's not a graphic app,
but it's you just launch it in terminal
and drag in SH file into there.
Yeah, I've showed Maxwell.
Yeah.
Wow, I'm checking out the website.
It looks great.
Thanks.
You built this from scratch
or you use like a platform for this?
We used a platform, but some of it was from scratch
because there was some like really cheap package.
So we didn't have to pay like a bunch of money.
And I believe it was like half price
of like the regular package.
So I had to do like some HTML coding in the back,
but it wasn't painful.
So.
That's amazing.
You guys are picking up on new tech so early.
It's so great to see.
Thanks.
Yeah.
So what is your main life advice
for kids listening to this podcast?
Yeah, I would say for kids,
kids are starting to like pick up.
I think adults underestimate what kids are able to do.
Kids are picking up on AI from like a really,
really young age or like learning how to use these tools.
So my advice for kids listening is to like be curious,
like learn about new types of technology,
start observing the problems going on in your community
and think about how you can solve them
with this type of technology.
The entrepreneurs that I'm meeting now
are becoming younger and younger.
And so some of the things that were obstacles in the past,
like they're no longer as relevant.
And so it's just been amazing to meet other kids
and teens who are changing the world,
whether it's globally or even in their own local communities.
Nice.
Yeah, so.
I think that's a wrap.
Thank you, Angela, for allowing us to interview you.
I'm sure more kids will be inspired by this interview.
To whoever's listening, thanks for a great season one.
And yeah, it's done.
But thanks for listening to the podcast.
See you next time.
All right, thank you.
Bye.