This article originally appeared as First Look content, as a member benefit to SU Global Community members, inside the SU Global Community here.
Surprise... It's time for a Member Spotlight! Today, I will be replacing Darlene's usual Impact Spotlight with a special feature on one of our SU Community members.
Keith Phillips was one of my first connections at SU. He is a member of a wide variety of SU communities, including IdeaFront, Technology, and Leadership & Transformation. He has a passion for using technology as a tool for educational change, and is specifically interested in how AI can help people learn new languages.Here is a little more about him, in his own words:
I am a former humanities major, turned foreign language college professor, turned EdTech entrepreneur, turned AI innovator. I taught French and Spanish for 20+ years, interacting with over 6,000 adult students ages 13–83 from all walks of life. I’m now leading a language-learning startup based on our patent-pending Curated Immersion™ Approach. realLINGUA offers an immersive foreign language-learning application that helps people learn to really speak a language. It’s the language as it’s really used everyday — unscripted, in-context, at-speed — making our approach as close to the way humans naturally learn language as possible!
One of my passions and I believe my ultimate calling is the innovative application of AI for positive gains in education — Positive Gains From Conversational AI in Distance Learning. My team and I were recently awarded a startup grant to pursue another patent that will serve as the basis of a conversational AI our company is developing specifically for language-learning— Can AI Show Empathy Like A Parent Teaching A Child? realLINGUA Is About To Show Us.
Some fun facts about Keith:
--> I have over 2,000 books in different parts of the house.
--> I once ran with the bulls in Spain.
--> I have walked across, taken a red double-decker bus across, and driven across (left-handed stick-shift!) the London Bridge.
--> I speak 3 languages fluently and know bits and pieces of a few others.
--> I very nearly majored in theater in college and did some improv training at The 2nd City Chicago a while back.
--> I am one of the few people that enjoys public speaking.
--> I grew up in the same neighborhood in Chicago as George Wendt (Cheers), Michael Flatley (Riverdance), and Craig Robinson (The Office). I went to the same all-boys parochial high school as Chris Chelios (Detroit Red Wings), Denny McLain (Detroit Tigers), and Donovan McNabb (Philadelphia Eagles) - and my dad!
Let's give him a warm welcome!
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