Throughout recent months, there has been a switch to a gatekeeping, elitist attitude toward education and subsequent skills. This type of thinking is harmful and should not continue.

So often, we talk about Intel when it comes to Microchips, and in Data Literacy, we don't talk about the WHY enough and how microchips contributed to where we are. Lynn is the reason microchips are as efficient as they are, yet all we hear about is Moore and the other inventors. Our technology rate of change is exponential because of contributions like Lynns.

For a long time, I didn't share my story about poverty and thought talking about it would diminish who I am today. Somewhere in the past five years, I learned to embrace my background and let it empower me and hopefully inspire someone struggling today. There's always hope, even when it's dark.

Data literacy is simply the data skills required to thrive in a digital society. It exists because the cost of education has increased, along with the velocity of technology change, and our adaptation as humans to keep up with it has not kept pace.