First in Future: Where Emerging Ideas Take Flight is a podcast of the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State University that connects you with people thinking big thoughts about the future of North Carolina. Each week, we talk with business leaders, elected officials, researchers, people working bottom up and top down to make North Carolina great. We hope you’ll use their thinking to jumpstart your thinking about our state – where it is and where we might go together. At the end of each episode, our guests will identify the biggest issues they think our state is facing; they recommend books; they’ll identify up-and-coming leaders; and they’ll answer at least one completely off-the-wall question as they tackle the IEI Five!
Know a North Carolinian who’d be a great guest for our podcast? We want to connect with the people you know – the forward-thinkers, the problem-solvers, the futurists, the leaders, the movers and shakers and changemakers. Scour your LinkedIn and cross-check your Rolodex; if you know someone working to make North Carolina a better place to work, live and play, we want to talk with them! Submit your guest ideas here!
First in Future is proud to partner with UNC-TV and the North Carolina Channel in production of its special TV series, recorded in UNC-TV’s Legislative Studio in downtown Raleigh. Taped segments air on the North Carolina Channel, which focuses on “civic affairs, issues, entertainment and educational programs relevant to North Carolina.” Visit UNC-TV for specific show air dates.
First in Future airs on the North Carolina Channel on:
The First in Future/UNC-TV podcast series can be viewed over-the-air on the following channels:
| Asheville 33.4/25.4 | Linville 17.4 |
| Triangle 4.4/25.4 | Lumberton 31.4 |
| Concord/Charlotte 58.4/44.4 | Roanoke Rapids 36.4 |
| Edenton/Columbia 2.4/20.4 | Wilmington 39.4/29.4 |
| Greenville 25.4/23.4 | Winston-Salem 26.4/32.4 |
| Jacksonville 19.4 | Canton/Waynesville 27.4 |
The North Carolina Channel can also be seen on Spectrum Cable channel 1276 (for former Time Warner Cable subscribers) and on other select cable systems throughout the state. The channels will be different for Spectrum Cable subscribers on former Charter systems. Visit UNC-TV’s Channel line-up here for more information.
First in Future is also available for online digital streaming on the NC Channel website. New “audio only” podcast episodes are available each Tuesday, available for download on iTunes or on the First in Future website.
Summary: This week, our guest isn’t just a community builder, he’s also a community listener. We talk with Andy Fox, a landscape architect from NC...
Summary: What does one do after leaving the job of top salesperson for an entire state? For Sharon Decker, that doesn’t mean retirement. After serving as Secretary of Commerce...
Summary: Here is a fact, North Carolina citizens are getting older. Currently, there are about 1.6 million citizens who are over 65. Over the next 20...
Summary: Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t...
Summary: This week thousands of freshmen enter college in hopes that in four years they emerge with more knowledge and maturity and a deep substantive understanding...
Summary: The words “public policy” conjure up images in the mind of legislative or municipal hearings or cubes of bureaucrats, but this week’s guest want to...
Summary: In honor of our upcoming forum on civic engagement, ReCONNECT to Community, being held Sept. 17 in beautiful, scenic Asheville, we’re doing something special. This...
Summary: In honor of our upcoming forum on civic engagement, ReCONNECT to Community, being held Sept. 17 in beautiful, scenic Asheville, we’re doing something special. This...
Summary: In honor of our upcoming forum on civic engagement, ReCONNECT to Community, being held Sept. 17 in beautiful, scenic Asheville, we’re doing something special. This...
Summary: In honor of our upcoming forum on civic engagement, ReCONNECT to Community, being held Sept. 17 in beautiful, scenic Asheville, we’re doing something special. This...
Summary: In honor of our upcoming forum on civic engagement, ReCONNECT to Community, being held Sept. 17 in beautiful, scenic Asheville, we’re doing something special. This...
Summary: The Asheville of today is a many-splendored thing. It’s appeared on numerous “Best of” lists and received countless titles – like “One of the Best...
Summary: Just listen to someone else. Hear what they are saying. Recognize that other people see things from a different angle, and it changes the way...
Summary: Just think about the impact on southeastern North Carolina of a place like UNC Pembroke—an institution originally built to train Native Americans teachers and nurses,...
Summary: In the 90s, it was recommended that every resident state should have access to affordable high-speed internet. General thinking was that with broadband speeds...
Summary: This week’s First in Future guest was a New York born, Georgia raised and Duke educated law clerk, and former school superintendent who’s now the...
Summary: This week’s First in Future guest, Andrea Harris, is the Senior Fellow at NC Institute of Minority Economic Development. The past 50 years she’s been...
Summary: In honor of Independence Day, July 4th, First in Future’s guest is the secretary of North Carolina Department of Military & Veterans Affairs, Larry Hall....
Summary: A scene is repeated in cities across the state, this company leaves, that plant closes or fails, and it rocks the town to it’s core....
Summary: What do you think about public schools? Do teachers get paid enough? Are there too many administrators? Do we test students too much? Not enough?...
Summary: Here is a fact, North Carolina citizens are getting older. Currently, there are about 1.6 million citizens who are over 65. Over the next 20...
Summary: In order to lead people, a leader must know what they think and why and then “bake” that into the culture of their organization—at...
Summary: Imaging how strange it must be to walk down the halls of your high school, the best in the state at something, and nobody...
Summary: Seventy out of eighty rural North Carolina counties are described as “medical deserts”, meaning they have no primary care doctors. Finding solutions to rural...
Summary: How many of you are doing what you thought you would be when you graduated? That is a question that our guest asks when...
Summary: This week, we talk to Jessica Hong, a junior at Apex Friendship High School and president of her school’s DECA club, an organization that...
Summary: If you make judgements about someone based on what they are wearing or how their hair looks or how they talk, you have an...
Summary: Sometimes we try to avoid looking forward, almost like if we ignore the pending changes, they won’t happen. The state’s population is growing and...
Summary: A recent survey showed that only a third of millennials consider public service an appropriate career track. A group of young NC legislators want...
Summary: “Tell the truth, do the right thing, and let the chips fall where they may.” Those are the words that motivate North Carolina State...
Summary: In this week’s First in Future, Institute for Emerging Issues Director Leslie Boney talks to Amy Strecker, the stakeholder philanthropy manager for Duke Energy,...
Summary: North Carolinians are good people, strong people, people who want to do the right thing, even if it involves debate. Tom Campbell, the host of...
Summary: It’s the middle of March, which means it is time to talk about . . . mechanical and aerospace engineering, and March Madness. The “Sweet...
Summary: First in Future begins it’s second season today. Want to know how rural North Carolina’s doing these days? Well, here’s a statistic to think...
Summary: Next month the Institute for Emerging Issues will be launching KidsReadyNC, a four-county Tier 1 and Tier 2 focus on early childhood education.This initiative is an...
Summary: This week we wanted to revisit our conversation with Read Charlotte Executive Director Munro Richardson and his approach to tackling the goal of doubling...
Summary: A few months ago, we heard from Abdul Rasheed, CEO of theWilliam C. Friday Fellowship for Human Relations, on how to make a difference in...
Summary: Frank Emory, of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, sat down with us in the summer of 2017 for us to discover many insights, such...
Summary: If you’re looking for someone to give you a thorough political summary on the political history of North Carolina and where the Old North State...
Summary: Well before his passing, James. B. Duke already had a vision for his philanthropic legacy, and he created the Duke Endowment with specific issues...
Summary: Did North Carolina’s investments in pre-kindergarten programs like SmartStart make a difference for our state’s children? How long did the effects last? Did they...
Summary: Over the 31 years of the Emerging Issue Forum, we have had CEOs, governors, and presidents as speakers. The first time ever, we have booked...
Summary: If you are talking to the smartest people in the state, you have to talk to David Reese. He’s figured out how to deliver a...
Summary: As we move into the new year, we sat down with former Governor Jim Hunt to try to exact some of what he has...
Summary: Through out his long service to the state, even former North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt’s opponents admit that he was a man perfectly suited...
Summary: The use of the evergreen trees to symbolize the arrival of winter goes back well beyond 2000 years. But over time they came to...
Summary: What should we be learning – or having our kids learn – to get them ready for the future? Should we be preparing students with...
Summary: In the late 1990’s, North Carolina leaders did something remarkable. As part of the national settlement agreement with tobacco companies, North Carolina was projected...
Summary: What sector of North Carolina’s economy is comprised of 380,000 people, pays $16 billion in wages each year, and generates another $200 million in...
Summary: This week’s podcast promotes domestic harmony. You’ll be able to use what you hear around the table to change the subject if one of...
Summary: Brian Etheridge, the president of Leadership North Carolina, each year finds a new crop of 50-some individuals from business, nonprofits, education and government and...
Summary: Next week marks the start of Global Entrepreneurship Week – seven days celebrated around the world, with events designed to recognize and encourage more...
Summary: A couple of weeks ago I went to the Southeast Raleigh Innovation Challenge, a pitch competition designed to get more people thinking about a...
Summary: If you were looking to identify a poster child for citizenship, you could do a lot worse than Kel Landis, co-founder and partner at...
Summary: When solving big problems, local folks are the canaries in the coalmine – they are likely to notice a problem before anyone else, and more...
Summary: In the late 1990’s, I worked on a project called the North Carolina Rural Prosperity Task Force. The idea was to develop a series...
Summary: From the beginning, it was a romantic idea. In 1954, a building contractor named Romeo got together with North Carolina’s state treasurer and a...
Summary: The old joke about economic developers is that they like to be buffalo hunters; they are always looking for a giant beast of a...
Summary: If you are a nonprofit wondering how to raise money more effectively, this episode is for you. If you are a business trying to...
Summary: The hardest job I’ve had in my life was my first job out of college. I worked regular 80-90 hour weeks – 106 was...
Summary: A couple of years ago, the Institute for Emerging Issues took on a challenging topic: what will all of us be doing for work...
Summary: Today’s show starts in an unusual place. With a question: why do bad things happen to good people? The writers of the Bible were...
Summary: It is the middle of August, and ridiculously hot these days. It’s the time of year Reverend Richard Joyner hated, growing up in Pitt...
Summary: Tomorrow, about 34,000 students, 2,300 faculty and 6,700 staff will run into each other at North Carolina State University, the start of another year...
Summary: Why is it that anybody gives something to someone else? Today’s guest, Jennifer Tolle Whiteside, has asked herself that question more than maybe anyone...
Summary: Three years ago, the state of North Carolina launched a new approach to economic development. Essentially, we bet that we would have a better...
Summary: Across the state, North Carolina’s community colleges pop up like beautifully spaced dots on a map, and if you put all 58 of them—plus...
Summary: Why is it that some communities take off, and others, even if they appear to have the same kinds of assets, don’t. Today’s guest...
Summary: This week, our guest isn’t just a community builder, he’s also a community listener. We talk with Andy Fox, a landscape architect from NC...
Summary: For most of us listening, becoming a citizen was an involuntary act—we were born here, so we were citizens. But, for about 750,000 people...
Summary: If you had to pick out the most outspoken critic of higher education in North Carolina, it wouldn’t take you long to find the...
Summary: A few years ago, some people in Charlotte got ticked off by a number – 39. Just 39 percent of third graders in Charlotte...
Summary: At the Emerging Issues Forum on Innovation a couple of years ago, one of the clear findings was that outside of the Triangle and...
Summary: On the one hand, who could have predicted it? Laura Gerald grew up in Robeson County, went to Harvard and Johns Hopkins for her...
