Hester, the S.C. Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics and InnovateHR shared how South Carolina is preparing students, teachers and workers for AI. They also covered what employers need from new hires and where to find free training.
GREENVILLE, S.C. – More than 62% of business leaders say they don’t have the in-house expertise to get value out of AI, according to Google research Lilyn Hester shared Sept. 24 at “Hired for What, Exactly?,” an i4Series panel at the Greenville Technical College Center for Manufacturing Innovation during Tech Week Greenville.
Hester, a 14-year Google veteran who works on community and workforce development in South Carolina, said that number lines up with what she sees on the ground. “It takes a lot for someone to come to the table, to come to a room and say, I don’t know what this is,” she said. “My boss has told me I need to understand it.”
AI touches a fraction of most jobs
Hester pointed to Google’s AI and economy study. AI touches about 21% of tasks in a typical job, she said, and fewer than 10% of interactions fully automate the work.
“You have to have someone in the driver’s seat who’s going to lead the strategy,” she said.
Her example was close to home. The American Cornhole League in Rock Hill uses AI to catalog thousands of hours of tournament footage, work that once meant someone sitting through every video.
South Carolina is going the other way
While some states have paused or banned AI in schools, Hester said South Carolina is “moving forward, full steam ahead.” She credited the Governor’s School partnership with giving South Carolina grab-and-go AI curriculum for teachers that she said no other state has.
She also told the story of Rolling Study Hall, a program she pitched about 12 years ago after riding Google’s Wi-Fi shuttles in California. Berkeley County put Wi-Fi on school buses so rural students with long commutes could do homework on the ride. During COVID, the district parked those buses in neighborhoods without internet access.
Google.org has funded a long list of South Carolina work, Hester said, including a $1 million cybersecurity grant at Trident Technical College and $1 million for Central Carolina Community Foundation to teach nonprofits about AI.
Free training, close to home
Hester said Google offers free AI courses built for every level, from beginners to power users. In the past two weeks alone, she said, Google ran three free AI trainings in South Carolina, including an AI 101 lunch session for about 40 small business owners in Berkeley County. Attendees get a digital coach for one-on-one help afterward.
Small businesses with 500 or fewer employees can take Google’s AI Professional Certificate free at coursera.org/business/google-ai-training. Teachers can take Google’s free, two-hour Generative AI for Educators course through grow.google/ai-for-educators.
A gap, but of what?
Moderator Doug Kim, an intellectual property attorney and founder of Kim, Lahey & Killough Law Firm, showed a study finding 74% of employers say AI skills are a strong advantage or required for new hires. Only 14% of recent grads call themselves highly proficient.
Danny Dorsel, president of the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics, said nearly everyone already uses some AI. The gap is confidence and knowing which tools matter in a given job.
Paula Fulghum, founder and president of InnovateHR, said tech companies are hiring entry-level AI talent, but most other businesses aren’t “because they don’t even know how to create that job.” She said it’s hard to hire someone you have no idea how to manage.
Her company learned that firsthand. Bids on an AI project came back way off. “We gave the project to the one person on our team that does not use AI,” she said. They started over.
Lead with the problem
Kim aimed his closing advice at AI vendors. “Stop telling me about what you’re going to do. That’s how you make money,” he said. “Start telling me how you’re going to help me. That’s how I make money.”
Fulghum said the specialist her company hired was “the one that could communicate the best.” Hester said even inside Google she now works as a translator between engineers and policy teams. “Think of Google as a college campus,” she said. Policy people sit on one side and engineers on the other, and AI has the two sides talking to each other.
Start small
Dorsel described the Governor’s School AI Fellows program, funded by a three-year Google grant. Seven teachers learn AI tools and each builds curriculum that’s free for educators statewide. He offered to share the curriculum with any company that wants to start its own volunteer cohort.
Educators and districts can learn more about the AI Faculty Fellows, the free summer institute and district training at scgssm.org/AIEducatorProgram. Applications for next summer open February 1, 2027.
Hester’s challenge for the room was to find “the messiest, most disgusting project that has been driving you crazy” and try AI on it. She photographed her father’s pill bottles and had Gemini build a spreadsheet of every medication for his doctors.
Dorsel’s hiring story was similar. A candidate for director of research ran six years of student research abstracts through Gemini and came to the interview with three analyses. “More importantly, she told me what she would be doing with that data,” he said.
From the audience
Asked about data centers and water in rural communities, Hester pointed to Google’s yearly environmental report and offered to connect people with Google’s water and energy teams. “We know we have more to do,” she said. “Folks like you keep us on task.”
A film school graduate in the audience asked where people like him fit as AI takes over entry-level work. Fulghum said she’s had the same fear. She uses AI every day and argues with it constantly, because her experience tells her when it’s wrong or just telling her what she wants to hear. She said newcomers should build the skills AI can’t copy. “It can’t look somebody in the eyes and make them feel better because they’re working through a problem,” she said.
Thanks
Thanks to Kim, Lahey & Killough, innovateHR, MTN Video & Production, Greenville Tech for the space and The OrangeByte, which built the new i4Series website. Thanks also to Andrew Miller of Rebel Ops, who recorded the session and helped build the recap.
Families with students interested in the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics can sign up to shadow current students this month. Find that and how to apply for the class of 2029 at student-scgssm.outcomescrm.com/dashboard.
