Yesterday’s Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckerberg hosted three innovators in different tech industries.  From nonverbal communication to the youth nation to online learning, these tech trendsetters are ones to watch:

Andreas Forsland CEO and Founder of Smartstones — nonverbal communication devices that fit in the palm of your hand.

*”I like knowing people more than at their face value.”

“My mom was in the ICU and couldn’t speak. She didn’t have a smartphone. So I tore one apart and used all the sensors to speak to me like a text message.”

“When we watched the product we had an outpouring of hope of people who needed it. Especially parents of autistic kids and people with ALS.”

“It looks like a river stone and uses a specific app to configure different phrases and gestures.”

“Everybody is always disengaging with each other, this keeps us always connected.”

“We have a purely Bluetooth version and one that is untethered for kids and the elderly who don’t have a smartphone.”

*”We didn’t look at crowd funding as a way to fund the company, we wanted to see where the best market fit for us would be.”

“You can build businesses that are purely profit driven or build them from the ground up to do something helpful, cool and fun.”

“There are so many people who actually recede into the shadows because they feel like they don’t fit in.”

“Braille was invented 190 years ago, Morse Code, ASL—they’re all analog. We’re creating the 21st Century’s version of nonverbal communication.”

“Knowing who you are, start with the why versus the what and how to articulate why you’re going where you’re going. You’re taking a stand for something.”

“Don’t fall in love with the solution, fall in love with the problem.”

“Prose is a gesture to speech app we just launched.”

Learn more at Smartstones.co

Matt Britton author of YouthNation: Building Remarkable Brands in a Youth-Driven Culture (out April 20th)

“CEOs of major companies have the responsibility to take a stance on social issues.”

“If you look back to the 60s and 70s the youth culture was on the fringe of society. They couldn’t influence major change. Now youth culture is the driving culture of global business.”

“The reason Bally’s went out of business was because it was about working out not the experience.”

“The Color Run is perfect for that Instagram moment. You’re covered in paint.”

“Times have changed to preferring the status update over the status symbol.”

“The financial collapse helped shift toward experiences, which means less money to buy items. Which leads people to rent as opposed at buy.”

“This generation is flocking toward festivals like Burning Man, where older generations are connecting with younger generations.”

“One major shift in the career world is the free agent economy. A specialized marketable skill to work within multiple companies at once.”

“Companies need to reframe how they recruit to young people.”

“Be passion-driven instead of financially driven.”

“Obamacare allows you to become a dependent until you’re 26. It’s a 10-99 movement.”

“Millennials will make up even a greater voting size for this next election.”

“The rise of collaborative workspaces like WeWork are becoming a huge trend.”

“Building your personal brand is more important than ever before.”

Read more at YouthNation.net

Shannon Hughes, Director of Marketing from Udemy—the world’s largest destination for online learning

“Us at Udemy and our 6 million students are passionate about the idea that you can learn anything.”

“What’s happening in traditional education isn’t necessarily aligned with what we want.”

“We’ve taken away that middle man who keeps telling you what you need to learn. We don’t put judgment on what people want to learn.”

“Courses on negotiation to how to grow a vegetable garden. There were a lot of tech related courses to start. But now it’s so diverse.”

“We have a body language class that’s very, very popular.”

“There’s a lot of emphasis now for training for soft skills.”

“Our instructors have a private Facebook community they engage with on a day-to-day basis. Any questions get real life feedback from both those teaching and those moderating the site.”

“Head to Udemy.com and click on the teaching link to get started.”

“There’s a lot of power and motivation from knowing that people are doing the same thing as you.”

“You can learn anything and you can teach anybody anything.”

“I’ve worked in brick and mortar education and saw there was a need that Udemy was fulfilling.”

“Become an expert in something to prove your core strength.”

Start learning at Udemy.com.

Join Dot Complicated with Randi Zuckerberg next week to hear all about what’s trending in tech only on SiriusXM Business 111, 9am PT / 12pm ET.

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