From AI to Rap: Two Jacksonville Builders Rethinking How We Get There

AI is moving fast enough that it can sometimes feel as though the rest of us are running behind it. Businesses are trying to figure out where it fits. Educators are watching students grow up with tools that didn’t exist a few years ago. Parents and employers are wondering what skills will matter next. And almost everyone seems to be asking the same question:

How do we keep up?

But during an episode of Buzzworthy Businesses, host Steve Strum brought together two Jacksonville builders asking something more useful:

How do we make what’s next actually work for people?

Sitting across from Steve were Florian Vlad, Founder & CEO of twinzAPP, and Marques Reynolds, the educator and innovator behind Vocabulary Rap Camp.

One is helping companies figure out whether they are ready for AI while using technology to make Jacksonville’s business community easier to navigate. The other is finding a remarkably creative way to help young people master advanced vocabulary.

Very different work. But the longer they talked, the more connected it became.

Everyone Says Your Company Needs AI. But Are You Ready for It?

If you run a business, you are constantly hearing that you need AI. Your competitors are adopting it. New tools appear almost daily. Someone has a demo promising to save hours, cut costs or transform an entire department.

So naturally, the question becomes: What AI should we implement?

Florian thinks there is a question that needs to come first: Why?

What problem are you trying to solve? Where is your team losing time? Which processes could benefit from automation? Is your data ready? Are your workflows clear enough for AI to improve them — or would you simply automate a process that wasn’t working well in the first place?

In other words: Is your company actually ready to implement AI successfully?

As Founder & CEO of twinzAPP, Florian works with the technology every day. His company develops and implements AI tools, so he sees both what AI can do and the gap between being excited about it and being ready to use it well.

That’s where The Why Before AI comes in. Powered by twinzAPP, the free AI-readiness assessment helps companies understand where they actually stand before they start investing in AI. In about seven minutes, it looks at the pieces that matter beneath the technology — your data, processes, workflows and organizational readiness.

Florian described the result as something like an “X-ray” of your organization’s AI readiness.

It might tell you that you’re ready to move, reveal where AI could create real value, or show you what needs fixing before you spend the money.

Sometimes knowing not yet is just as valuable as knowing what next.

We’re just scraping the surface right now.

Florian believes AI will change the way businesses operate far beyond what we’re seeing today. But that doesn’t mean every business should chase every new tool.

I think we need to see AI as a tool, as a smart tool that can enhance us. Of course, with human in the loop.

Use the technology. Know why you’re using it. And keep the people who understand the business in the middle of the decision.

Interestingly, that same thinking led twinzAPP to another project born from a completely different frustration.

How Many Great Jacksonville Events Have You Found Out About the Day After?

If you’re active in Jacksonville’s business community, you probably know the feeling.

Someone posts photos from an event. The room looks fantastic. You recognize people you would have loved to meet.

And your first thought is: How did I not know about this?

Finding out what is happening across Jacksonville can feel like a job of its own. One organization lists events on its website. Another posts on LinkedIn. Someone else uses Eventbrite. Then there are Chamber calendars, association pages, newsletters, Meetup groups, social posts and individual invitations.

The information is out there, but it’s scattered enough that good events are still easy to miss.

As Florian put it:

Jacksonville, it’s a great city, but it’s large and it’s fragmented all over.

So twinzAPP built JAX Business Calendar, a free platform bringing business and networking events from across Northeast Florida into one place.

The idea is simple: spend less time searching and more time doing something with what you find.

Because JAX Business Calendar isn’t trying to make networking digital. It is using technology to get people to the real-world connection faster.

The Calendar can help you find the opportunity. But it cannot shake someone’s hand, start the conversation or make the introduction.

You still have to show up.

At the time of the interview, JAX Business Calendar had been live for about six months, and Florian shared that the platform had already generated approximately 240,000 clicks and 14,000 users.

But perhaps the better endorsement came from Steve himself. He had used the Calendar, found events, attended them and run into people he knew.

The website did its job and got out of the way.

The real outcome wasn’t the click. It was Steve walking into the room.

As Florian put it:

Use JAX Business Calendar to find your rooms, show up and do your networking.

And suddenly, The Why Before AI and JAX Business Calendar don’t feel so unrelated.

One helps a company cut through an overwhelming world of AI possibilities to figure out what actually makes sense for the business. The other helps people cut through countless websites and calendars to figure out where they actually want to show up.

Different problems. Same instinct:

Remove the friction. Make the next step clearer. Help people move.

And sitting beside Florian, Marques Reynolds was applying a surprisingly similar idea to an entirely different problem: What if the obstacle isn’t what students need to learn — but how we’re asking them to get there?

Marques Isn’t Making the Vocabulary Easier. He’s Making the Way Into It Smarter.

Marques has spent 22 years with Duval County Public Schools and currently works at Jean Ribault High School. He knows the classroom — and he knows the way young people consume information has changed dramatically.

Students still encounter advanced vocabulary on the SAT, ACT and CLT. Those words can affect comprehension, test performance and ultimately the scores that help open doors to scholarships and universities.

But students today may not encounter as much of that vocabulary through classic literature as previous generations did.

Marques could have blamed phones, social media, short attention spans or changing reading habits.

Instead, he built a bridge.

Vocabulary Rap Camp takes advanced vocabulary to the places students are already paying attention.

Rap. Pop culture. Video. Visuals. Repetition. Memorable associations.

Words that might otherwise appear unfamiliar on a standardized test are given context students can recognize and remember.

And here is what makes the idea so good: Marques isn’t lowering the academic expectation. He is finding a better way to help students reach it.

The vocabulary is still advanced. Students still need to know what the words mean.

He simply changed the route.

Florian immediately recognized what Marques was doing:

Instead of sending the kids to old books, he’s bringing the concepts from the literature to the technology, where the kids are.

Instead of asking students to step backward in time before they can learn, Marques is taking valuable knowledge forward with them.

Behind the creativity is a serious purpose: helping students recognize vocabulary that can stand between them and the scores, scholarships and university opportunities they are working toward.

That’s meeting students where they are without lowering where you believe they can go.

Then AI Walks Into the Classroom

Marques called AI both a “gift and a curse.” Used correctly, he sees it as an enhancement. But when AI begins doing the thinking instead of supporting it, the relationship changes.

His example captured the strange moment education finds itself in: a student may use AI to write an essay, while a professor may use AI to grade it.

So where, exactly, is the human thinking happening?

Marques doesn’t believe the answer is keeping AI outside the classroom. In fact, he argued that someone who isn’t learning to use it may already be putting themselves at a disadvantage.

The distinction is between working with AI and letting AI do the work for you.

AI can enhance what students do and become another tool for a generation entering a very different workforce. But their ability to think, learn, question, create and communicate still has to come with them.

And suddenly, the two guests didn’t seem to be working in such different worlds after all.

Maybe We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question

Steve opened the interview by describing Florian and Marques as working in both the “technology universe” and the “human universe.”

By the end, it was difficult to see where one stopped and the other began.

A company doesn’t need AI simply because AI exists. It needs to understand what it is trying to accomplish and whether the technology can actually help.

A business professional doesn’t need another website to browse. They need a faster way to find where the right people and conversations are happening.

And a student doesn’t need advanced vocabulary made easier. They may simply need a better bridge to reach it.

We spend a lot of time asking how people will keep up with technology. Florian Vlad and Marques Reynolds are asking something slightly different:

How can technology do a better job of keeping up with people?

With businesses trying to make smarter decisions. Professionals trying to find one another in a sprawling city. Students learning differently but still capable of reaching high.

The tools will keep changing. But the most interesting work may continue to come from people who know not to start with the tool.

Start with the problem. Start with the opportunity. Start with the human.

Then build from there.