Affecting world change with Electronic Dance Music (EDM)

mitchell on fire · "Water" by Tyla - Mitchell On Fire Edit

For many years, I wrote in this blog while I hustled around the world, using urban planning and design skills to make the world's hardest problems - like poverty and war - a little less bad. I lived in Afghanistan. I worked in Mogadishu. I developed novel methods while working with governments and NGOs in Egypt, Kenya, and Ethiopia. 

A lot has changed since then, and in some ways, not so much.

In 2014, I stared a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University. My goal was to build an AI company that could continue this work, but allow me to experience other aspects of life. I wanted to have a family. I wanted to learn new things. And I wanted to heal from all the psychological strain I had acquired over the years.

• I went on to have two children.
  
  
• I worked for President Obama at the White House on his innovation team.
  
  
• I joined the US State Department to develop and introduce new AI technologies to better identify and validate violations of international treaties concerning nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
  
  
• I built an AI company, working with the self-made entertainment billionaire Thomas Tull.
  
  
• In 2020, the AI company was purchased and I finished my PhD. I started working with another AI company to invent new technologies to hack and secure machine learning models.
  
  
• In late 2021, I started going to therapy.
  
  
• In 2022, I went to Detroit for my first Electronic Dance Music (EDM) experience.
  
  
• In 2023, my mother died, and from this I discovered just how important it is that we live our fullest and most authentic lives.
  

And now, after all these years of loving and writing music, I have immersed myself into the world of writing and performing EDM.  During all those years above, I used to collect audio and video recordings of my time spent in war torn cities, AI labs, and halls of power. Today I use those field recordings - alongside my hard earned expertise to write pulsing dance music. 

Why?

Because music is powerful. It affects all of us. It changes us. It heals us. And so, I thought maybe I would fire up this blog again. There no harm. Enjoy.