1234.

Get my shoes in.

Out the door.

Five.

I'm lost.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Feels great.

I'm gonna shine.

After I do what I'm gonna do.

I do it again.

Yeah.

Look at the sky with the beautiful color.

But never just for me.

You gotta share it with another.

I got to show, to give.

Let I want singing show.

Take a look and say a beautiful morning that turns into a beautiful evening.

And together make beautiful art.

And if you wanna see that, come along with me.

That's right.

Welcome to Experience Michiana.

Thank you so much for being with us as we get out and explore the Michiana area.

On this week's show, we're headed down to Nappanee to find out about an airplane and car show that's part of the Napa Apple Festival.

Really cool.

You want to check that out?

We're also going to look at the latest video in our partnership with the Elkhart County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

It's their well crafted series.

So you want to see that it's featuring this week.

But first we are finding out about an artificial intelligence road show that's happening tomorrow, Friday on the campus of Notre Dame.

This is one of the best views you can get, especially during the Notre Dame football season.

But I'm here at Innovation Park, just off campus, and you can see this beautiful background behind me, including the Golden Dome.

And I'm here with Dave.

Dave, tell me a little bit about your role at Notre Dame and what we're here to talk about today.

Great.

Thanks, Dave.

I'm part of a group called Industry Labs, which really focuses on leveraging Notre Dame resources for the benefit of the region within 45 minutes of campus.

So that could be working with nonprofits.

It could be working with businesses.

It could be working with large companies, small companies.

But how do we leverage what Notre Dame's got its students, its research, its faculty for the benefit of the community?

And I know that sometimes I had an office here at Innovation Park when I first started my business, actually, and it was great to get that connection because sometimes it can feel.

Notre Dame can feel a little bit like an island, but actually when you do enter into the area, people are very collaborative and very helpful.

It's just sometimes we need to bridge that gap for sure.

And what we find is companies are trying to solve very similar problems.

University as a business, right?

It has operations, it has HR, it has finance, just like any company.

And so what are the things that Notre Dame can do to help those organizations?

And conversely, what are the things that we can do and learn from those organizations that we can then leverage to make the university better?

And I know today we want to talk about artificial intelligence as well, because of the roadshow coming up.

Right.

And so AI is one of those things.

People say it and like we think we know what it is, but it's an entire industry in itself and it's so varied.

So where do we even start with that?

Like what does the road to what's the purpose of it?

What's it hoping to bring to the community?

Yeah.

Well, Governor Braun in April made an announcement announcing this thing.

He's calling in AI, which is basically how does Indiana become a leading state in artificial intelligence.

And that's in terms of how do we use it for the benefit of the citizens of the state, its companies, and its employees.

And so part of the roadshow is really they take that on the road to actually take it around the state to different areas so companies can come understand, how do I work with AI?

What is it?

Should I be scared of it?

How do I get started?

And we've been doing that here locally with companies for the last 6 or 7 months, using students to help companies actually do AI projects.

So some of that will be happening in the roadshow.

But we already started some of that here with Notre Dame.

Nice.

And so what are the details then for people watching?

Because again, it's such a variety of people that watch.

How can they get involved.

How can they learn more about the roadshow and just learn more about artificial intelligence in general?

Yeah, let's start with the latter part.

So the great news is all the major artificial intelligence vendors, be they Microsoft, my former employer, Google, anthropic, OpenAI, all the big AI vendors, they all have a ton of free training on their website.

So you just go out and do a search around AI and training or AI and free training.

You'll find a bunch.

The state sponsored some with Google.

We have these roadshows, which are really more kind of on the applied side of how do you get started as a company, but any individual can start to learn those things.

The things they think about.

AI is really just a very strong prediction engine based on all the data that's ingested.

It knows what the next logical thing is going to be based on what you ask it, right?

What's the next word, what's next logical part of that picture.

And so understanding that it's not the same thing as going out and doing good search and getting all these results back.

It's more about what's what's this thing predicting it's going to go do.

And then so how do I actually understand and kind of validate it.

Right.

Because don't take it as, you know, gospel if you will.

But it'd be smart enough to kind of question, hey, did this thing that come out?

Does it make sense?

Right.

And I think people are you know, they're obviously everyone's worried about anything that's new.

And I think you hear a lot about it, like replacing jobs.

And in some cases it already has.

And I think there's there's such an industry worry about it in terms of like labor and different things.

So is any of that looked at here as part of the Indiana Roadshow, or is it just full steam ahead with with artificial intelligence?

Well, I think it's about how do you how do we be smart about it?

Right.

So people don't want data centers in the backyard, just like they didn't want to factor in their backyard back in the day.

Right?

And yet the data center and the factory are both very similar ones, a digital analog of what the physical world was when we were building things.

So the roadshow talks about how to use it.

Responsibility.

That's one of the key things around Indian AI is a very people centered view of AI.

How are we using it as a tool and assistant, as a partner versus as a people replacement?

Now, there may be some job dislocation that comes out of it, but there's also net new jobs that are going to be created.

There's a new role that's called the forward deployed engineer.

It's a crazy title, but it's basically these how do we help companies actually adopt and use AI?

It's the hottest job in the country that can't hire enough of them.

And the salary is huge.

What we're trying to do with some of these student projects is help equip students to actually go into those sort of jobs, because they've got real world experience in addition to their academic background, to go deliver on that.

And so, you know, most people, when they think of AI, like people are dabbling in things like ChatGPT and, you know, different models like that, Claude, things like everyday uses for it.

You know, I know I use a lot for my business to but for people that aren't necessarily in roles that they can use it.

Why should they really care about AI right now?

Like, how is it going to impact their life?

In some ways, it'll probably impact the way in which they interact with a lot of their services.

So it could be, hey, I'm not talking to a human being initially.

I'm talking to a chatbot first, which can be more efficient.

Sometimes it's not.

They should think about like, how are they ways in which they could use it to be more efficient?

So am I using it to help plan my trip better, or to do some research for a product that I'm buying, similar to the way they would do a search today, but it's much more enabled and much richer.

So that's kind of the personal productivity side.

And then what we're seeing is more and more businesses moving into kind of this agent world.

We're actually the AI is not just returning answers, but doing things right.

It might be sending emails on my behalf.

It might be comparing invoices to make sure that what they said they were going to ship, they actually did ship, right.

We see roles like that over and over again, where it's really about taking waste and inefficiency out in the business to make it more effective.

I, you know, I feel a couple of ways about AI because in one way, it saves me from having to hire a personal assistant for probably 20 hours a week on so many things, especially when I'm driving.

You know, I can tell the things and it can put all of it together for when I arrive at my destination emails or whatever, like that.

But on the other hand, you know, there's so many things about like some of the AI models, when you think about how some of these models have like broken out and like hacked into systems without the kind of creators knowing about it, like there's a there's a part of it that feels a little bit out of our control as human beings.

So how do you try and reassure people of that?

Because it is an unknown whether, you know, we can talk about the positives, but there is a part of it that's a little bit scary for a lot of people because it is such an unknown.

Yeah, I think, and that that unknown has always been the case, whether it was electricity at the beginning.

Right.

Whether it was kind of computers in the early days.

I think the thing to think about in these sort of breakout scenarios is part of what these labs are doing, is trying to actually make these things do as much crazy stuff as they can and see what happens.

Yeah.

So the things that we're using and modifying at all, but the models that we're using on a daily basis aren't that way.

Right.

And so, so to some extent it's a little bit there's a bit of fear mongering.

There's a little bit of we need to be smart about this stuff.

And we also need to make sure that we have the right sort of, sort of controls and guide points in place, which is a lot of what I think Indiana's thinking about is like, what's the responsible ways in which you use AI, right?

How do we teach people about that from the get go?

So that we're all kind of thinking in the same direction on that?

Well, I think it's scary, too, because it's the first time we're creating something that inevitably will be smarter than us.

So, you know, and I've met humans, so it's hard, you know, it's kind of hard in that sense that I think, you know, when you create electricity, it doesn't feel like you're creating something that's beyond us, you know.

But and so again, I know there's just I'm trying to really think from the point of view of people and what they're hearing and all the things.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, you know.

And so how is Notre Dame specifically teaching students about AI?

Because obviously, even if you're in like your third year here, I mean, it's changed a lot even in that time.

So how are you preparing students to apply it in the real world?

For sure.

So more and more of the colleges are teaching introductory courses around AI.

And then we've got a program here in industry labs that we call the AI Leaders of Tomorrow, which is a paid fellowship program.

We take students and give them extra training and have them do real world applied AI projects with companies in the region.

So the companies benefit.

The students get an amazing sort of resume experience and really a leg up on their hiring competition out in the world and are able to take the theoretical stuff they're learning in the classroom and apply it in real world settings, where maybe the data isn't as perfect when the processes aren't as good, and they can learn how to actually use it in real life.

So tell me a little bit about the road show.

Is it actually happening at a specific time or it's 9:00 in the morning over at the Morrison.

This is one of several locations around the state.

Indiana.

I also has online kind of webinars that people can sign up for.

So just search on in AI and you can find all the information there.

It's kind of put on by the CEOs and corporate partnership, kind of the public partnership around the state of Indiana.

So they're really doing a lot of nice work around workforce development, around trying to educate the population.

And to me, the thing that's most signing is they're trying to make it so that AI isn't just a big company thing, right?

Small businesses can get access to this.

They can hugely benefit from it.

And so how do we help them really get started?

Because once you get started using it and do a few things, you begin to realize you can do more and more of that and start to take waste cost or to your point, like take some of that drudgery out of it so you can focus your time on the things that are more meaningful to you or more meaningful to the business.

Yeah, no.

For sure.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate your chat today and I appreciate this view.

It never gets old.

Being here on the campus.

So thank you so much.

Great to have you.

Yeah.

Thanks, Dave.

Well, unfortunately, Dave is not here today, so I get to hang out with the airplane.

There's an awesome event that's going to be happening this weekend at the Apple Festival, but Wings and Wheels, that is a show that has been sticking around for probably a couple dozen years now.

But even though the Apple Festival is celebrating 50 years, you guys are bringing the show out with the wings and the wheels, right?

This is pretty awesome.

Yes, we're looking forward to it on Saturday.

So we have all kinds of events happening at the airport.

Part of that is our wheels portion of the wings and wheels.

And that's where we're going to have an antique classic car show.

That's awesome.

And I have to say like, how many cars are you expecting for this?

Well, last year we had 110.

That's a lot.

Yeah.

So we're expecting we're expecting more this year because we lowered the price.

Okay.

The entry fee last year was $20.

We've lowered that to ten.

So you get to bargain.

That's right.

So yes.

Okay.

So tell us, do you have a car in it?

Well I do, but if it's raining.

No, but I will bring my car if it's not raining.

So, you know, they're kind of.

We are kind of.

I've learned I've only had mine a couple of years.

We get fussy with our cars and I've learned to our planes.

Right.

Yes.

And you have a plane here as well, right?

Yes.

The plane right behind us.

That one's yours.

Tell me a little bit about your plane.

Well, it's it's a dynamic.

It's a light sport aircraft.

Very lightweight, very sporty.

And it's a blast of fly.

I love that.

So now for the wings portion that you guys are going to be doing.

Tell us what that means.

Well basically there's a couple portions of that.

We have T34 and a 13 and a PT 26 coming in.

And they're going to do flyovers at the parade with smoke.

So that'll be happening.

They'll start the parade in town and then they're going to be here.

And then after that we have pilots that are going to bring their own aircraft, and they're going to volunteer their time to give free rides to kids from the ages of 8 to 17.

That is pretty cool.

And I mean, how long have you been flying or at least interested in airplanes?

Boy, I've been.

I built my own RC airplane when I was 15 years old, so I've been in it for a long time.

What does that mean for, like, the kiddos who've never had an experience to actually fly up in an airplane?

What is that like?

It's like nothing else in the world.

It's just it's unimaginable.

It's a whole new world.

And hopefully we get new pilots coming out of that, too.

Right, right.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love that.

Now, you guys have a lot of activities that are going to be happening all weekend long.

And I know Saturday does have a small chance for rain showers.

What is your guys's rain plan for that?

Well, that's a great question.

First of all, we're praying and hoping.

No rain, right?

But so in the event that it does, the best way to stay connected is our social media channels.

Okay.

We have Facebook and Instagram.

We will be updating their live time.

So that's going to be your best way to know what's going on.

Obviously people you know, we want you to come out to the festival.

The temperature is supposed to be great, so we could all get wet, but we understand cars.

And if if we do reschedule Ruby schedule for Sunday, oh, so everything will run on time for the car show portion on Sunday.

So that's what we'll end up.

And same thing for the airplanes too.

Or I guess the airplane flyover will happen, probably rain or shine, because the parade is still going to go on.

It depends on how bad the weather is.

Sure.

Light rain?

Yes, it'll still happen.

Okay.

Anything worse than that?

Yeah.

They will cancel because that's important that they stay safe.

And that's pretty cool that people have the opportunity to come in and get up close with an airplane, because I always think, you know, it's surreal to see an airplane up in the sky.

But when you're a person to person, a person to plane rather like right in front of it, it's a whole different experience.

Right.

And we will also have aircraft on display that they can walk right up to and actually see, and mine will be one of them that will be on display.

And we'll have other aircraft.

We usually have a crop duster, which is kind of unique and big really.

Now see, I've never seen one up close, so I think that would be pretty cool.

They are huge.

Really?

Yeah, they are really huge.

So yeah, they're usually a treat for kids to see.

Yeah.

Especially knowing the important job that they have, especially here in our community.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now the wheels that are coming, I'm sure there's going to be some classics.

Is there like a range of what you're expecting to see?

Is there like a certain time period or can anybody bring their car.

Anybody can bring their car.

Matter of fact, we added a new category this year.

So it's going to be for those younger people who are fixing up their vehicles, but they're not completely finished.

So like a fixer up category.

So that's something new.

We added our patriotic category this year just because of America's 250th birthday.

So but yeah, we have cars, I think 1920s all the way up.

We have truck category, motorcycle category.

You know, if you've ever been to a car show, it's like one big family, right?

They park their vehicles.

They put that.

Yeah.

You know, some of them bring their little grills in and it's it's super cool.

So we're looking forward to hosting that here.

We're going to have trophies.

We're going to have giveaways every half hour.

So we have local businesses that have donated car care kits.

You know, I'm State Farm agent Nappanee.

So, you know, we're donating some stuff there.

We got a diecast car that we're donating.

And so just having some fun, it's a great day.

We got 6070 music playing and just a fun time.

So I love that.

Boy Scouts will be planted here.

And they're going to be serving food so you can support the Boy Scouts.

And then we're actually having homemade ice cream.

Is that right?

No no no.

You like that in like you're making.

Well, he organized it.

It was kind of his thing.

I got it in.

So.

Yeah, I'm into ice cream.

I love ice cream.

So I got that and I love it.

But.

And another thing that I forgot to mention earlier is we're going to have paratroopers jumping in at 2:00, and they're going to have a big American flag that they're going to be dragging.

So that that is happening as well.

That's incredible.

And for those people who are coming to see the shows, where's the best place for them to park at?

Yes.

So we have a couple things.

If it's for the car, show the register at 9:00 and they park right out in front of the hangar.

We organize them in a nice straight line and take $10 fee and set the registration up.

If it's for the wings portion of it.

Challenger design has graciously allowed us to park in their parking lot, which is right next to here, and then there is some parking on the airport.

Or you could fly your airplane in.

Absolutely.

We welcome all airplanes to fly in.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And we do have quite a few that fly in at times.

Yeah I love that.

Okay.

So this is all happening Saturday rain date for Sunday.

But tell us a little bit about the festival because you guys are celebrating 50 years.

That's a big deal.

Yeah it is a big deal.

And this year our grand marshal is our director.

So her and her husband, Rick, we're our grand marshals.

Yeah.

So the seven foot apple pie weighs 600 pounds.

They started cooking that today.

And they'll start slicing that on Friday.

And you can find that at Don Carlos restaurant downtown.

And then they will take slices to the Apple Store, which was it was the maximum that someone can consume from that pie.

There's a lot.

And if you don't get it quick, it's gone by Saturday.

After really quickly I see that.

Okay.

All right.

So you got to get your apple pie.

But there's lots of other apple things happening this weekend.

I know there's lots of different shows.

There's lots of performers.

What else can people expect for the weekend?

Because it starts tonight or today rather.

Yep.

5:00.

So we're in full fledged mode.

We have entertainment.

We have the crowning of our Apple Festival queen.

So that'll be going on.

We have entertainment live entertainment tent.

So there's constant entertainment.

As the night goes on, the entertainment gets better.

We have carnival, there's rides, we have all of our local, our Kiwanis Lions Club.

They set up boost to serve food, but we also have all that great fair carnival food there.

Sure.

Yeah.

There will be anywhere from 85 to 100,000 people that come into town.

Oh my gosh.

And you have to be one of those.

Okay, if you're any of the updates, what's the best place to get hold of you guys?

I would say our social media channels is going to be the best way just to know what's going on.

So you can catch us on Facebook and then Instagram as well.

Okay.

Can we go fly away?

Absolutely.

All right.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

I'm here at the Learner Theater with Terry is from the Elkhart County.

Visitor bureau at Terry.

Tell me a little bit about the well crafted video series that we've been highlighting on Experience Michiana over the last couple of months, so we really want to take a deep dive and tell the stories of some of the great creatives, entrepreneurs and successful locally owned businesses that we have in Elkhart County that make make us unique.

What I've loved about this, like it's been everything from Bonneville Mill to the orchestra that performs here at the Learner Theater to, you know, small artists.

And I love that.

Who?

Even one that was out there back in a workshop out there back and and I love that because they all make Elkhart what it is when it comes to the wild crafted series.

It's not about the size.

It's about like the impact and and the work that they're doing.

Yes, yes, it's been really great to show that variety.

And and one of the things I'm happy about, even though it's actually warm out today as we're recording this, I did decide to wear a bit of a fall shirt today, but we're getting into the fall series, into the fall season, and I love the fact that we're going to be focused on Kerchers, because they were one of the organizations and one of the businesses that we highlighted in this well-crafted series that we're going to show.

So for anyone watching, tell us a little bit about and they've been here a long time, right.

Oh, yeah.

Kerchers is I think, 3 or 4 generational family owned orchard.

So they do all sorts of different kinds of produce.

What I think the public is knows them best for is for apples.

And so September and October is really prime time for picking apples.

Everyone has their favorites.

You can go out into their orchard and pick your own apples, or you can just gather up a basket from there from their store.

And and then they have many fun experiences a hayride, pumpkin patch, and apple themed treats that you can buy.

We've done all that now because, you know, having a three year old and a six month old, I mean, the three year old loves all that fall.

It's just my favorite season.

I still call it autumn, though, you know?

It's just it's just my Irish brain still wants to call it.

I'm not sure why.

Why it's different, you know.

Do you know?

Because everything falls to the ground is that way.

Not that you're here to talk about why the seasons are called, what they are.

I can't speak to the the differences.

I just know that fall is also my fall.

Autumn is also my favorite season.

Yeah, no.

It's great.

You know, as you talk about apples, there's also the Nappanee Apple Festival as well.

So is there like a thing with this area in apples or is it just happens to be like that?

You know, that festival?

Well, I think we're just blessed with great growers, entrepreneurs who take that tradition and make it into something fun for the entire community.

The Apple Festival celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, so be sure to.

I think you definitely want to be sure to get their seven foot a piece of their seven foot apple pie and see the drone show, which is their special commemoration of their of their milestone.

These drone shows that are being put on are absolutely incredible.

I don't know, you know, they're phenomenal to watch.

They really are great.

And I know the Nappanee Apple Festival is such a big event on its own.

I mean, it must attract a lot of people into the area.

It does thousands of people, and they're all right within a few blocks of downtown, the food court and vendors all over the place, a carnival for the kids to enjoy.

So and entertainment stages.

So there's will be plenty to do to fill your weekend.

Yeah, it's all happening.

This weekend, of course Kerchers is open all throughout the season, and that's what we're going to have a look at now.

The well crafted series with thanks to the Elkhart County Visitor Bureau.

So let's check out Kirk's in Goshen.

So we at Kerchers, we believe that we have made a well crafted experience for you by growing some of the finest quality fruit and vegetables.

And we love you to come and experience that craft that we've polished and improved over the years.

Purchase has been a part of the Elkhart County Goshen community for 103 years.

So it started with W.W.

Kircher back in 1922, and he had a dream of actually having a commercial apple orchard.

And it started along the Elkhart River on the south side of Goshen.

And he planted 40 acres of trees, thinking, everybody will buy my apples.

And they did.

People sometimes think that Johnny Appleseed was the folklore, but he really was a businessman, and he had a business in Ohio, and they just happened to be in the same town that the Kircher moved from in 1851.

And the creatures brought a lot of seedlings with them when they came to Goshen, and they planted them.

And so the history really goes back for centuries with apples.

And the in 1992, we moved our market from Main Street to this location at 19498 County Road 38, which is just a mile.

It's not even a mile from the old location, but it afforded us the opportunity to be able to open up the fields and say, yes, you can come and pick your own apples now.

Field trips have been a big part of our outreach to the community for many years, way before me, and I've been doing it for 42 years.

So with the opportunity with the kids coming, we thought, well, they're picking apples.

Then everybody else can come pick apples on the weekends.

And then we thought, well, why not?

Hey, rides to the pumpkin patch.

So it just kind of all evolved.

And before entertainment, agriculture was popular, we did it.

We were entertainment agriculture in the 90s.

We opened in April and we closed Christmas Eve.

In between.

There's a whole lot of growing going on.

We start in the spring with flowers and we have asparagus, and then it goes on to strawberries, and then it goes on to blueberries.

And some of these things we don't grow here, but we have other friends that do grow them in the state, and we buy them from them and have them here for the people.

The main season, the fall season really begins about August 1st because that's when the peaches come in and people love our peaches.

Apples.

You pick apples now because of the newer varieties out.

We have a sweet Mya and it starts picking mid August and we are super excited about the sweet Maya.

I always say that you come to Kerchers to get your fall on to to really feel that fall feeling, to see the the corn stalks and to smell the apple pie baking and the apple dumplings baking and to taste the cider and just it just get all the good feels of fall and it makes people happy.

They love fall and they love to enjoy it.

So between the flowers and the pumpkins and the hay rides and just the really nice way you can bring your whole family out and see that generations come out together, they'll come at 11:00 and at 3:00 I'll still see them.

And I thought, what have they been doing all that time?

But they're just enjoying gettin We want to share our orchard with the community.

We know that generations are moving further and further away from the farm, and we want them to be able to enjoy it.

We want to open up our farm in the fall and say, please come pick our apples, pick our pumpkins, and enjoy watching the fruits of our labor being brought in from the fields, wagon loads of pumpkins and wagon loads of corn.

And it's just a lot of fun to see their faces when they see that big load of pumpkins pulling in.

We would love to have you come and visit us at the farm and be a part of that farming experience.

So come on out and come see us.

Well, that's it for this week's show.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Remember, if you're out exploring the Michiana area and you run across something that you think we should know about, hit us up on Facebook and let us know.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.