Flywheel Members Daniel Alvarez and Jason Levinson Unveil AI Big Picture, Redefining Strategic Solutions

Since the start, Flywheel has made it a mission to not just provide a space for people to work, but a space for them to grow. We have always been centered around our commitment to the entrepreneurial community and the spirit of innovation in Winston Salem. It always feels incredible when we get to see the product of that energy through the success of our members. But it is extra special when we see them succeeding together. Flywheel members Daniel Alvarez and Jason Levinson have been working together for almost three months in a partnership that was born out of this space. After being placed on the same team during Startup Weekend (one of the winning teams, I might add), they found they had a common passion for helping individuals and businesses meet their full potential.

Jason has spent the majority of his career working as a head writer for training companies and has written and produced hundreds of hours worth of business training resources and materials, all focused on areas of profit building, effective communication, and marketing. After attending Velocity, a business accelerator program put on by The Center for Creative Economy, he pivoted towards public speaking and consulting, bringing a full suite of knowledge to the table for the companies he supports. Daniel, who moved to Winston Salem a few years ago from Venezuela, has held a passion for coding and tech since a young age. After graduating, he dove head first into entrepreneurship, learning the ins-and-outs of successful operations when he started his first company. His years spent helping companies scale their own businesses is what inspired his current project, AI Big Picture– AIBP for short.

Daniel presented this project at Flywheel’s Idea Expo back in February. The idea was pitched as a service that utilizes AI to identify pain points within a business and generates a blueprint to help them scale. While an incredibly helpful tool, someone raised a point that it would be beneficial to have some educational aspect that helped people understand the how and the why. As fate would have it, he crossed paths with Jason a few weeks later when they worked together for TechStars Startup Weekend. Having spent their separate careers identifying the pain points of different companies, they found that their skill sets complement each other in a way that can be mutually beneficial for the companies and individuals they are wanting to support. “Daniel is good at supporting young companies to scale better. He equips them on the technical end and assesses needs to automate processes. And I’ve always loved empowering people through corporate training. In short, I just love teaching,” says Levinson.

When asked about their individual roles within AI Big Picture, Levinson uses the metaphor, “Daniel lays the blueprint and establishes the foundation. I pour the concrete.” In short, AIBP is seeking to provide AI solutions to companies by generating a unique and individualized blueprint that provides the clearest view of the roadmap needed to optimize their operations by removing the noise and clutter. However, the solution is two-pronged. Once equipped with the plan, the next step is to train and inform. When discussing the exponential rise in AI’s relevance and use in the professional space, Levinson puts it plainly; “They know they want it, but they need to know the how and the why.”

In regards to their hopes for the future of AI Big Picture, Alvarez said, “Ultimately, I want to see it become a breakthrough in AI, bringing in the human side of things to help people understand how to use it to their benefit. You can see people trying to make sense of the AI madness. I want them to understand that it’s more than just ChatGPT and bots. It can do a lot if they have the opportunity to learn. They just don’t know what to do or where to start.”

For us, it is stories like this that fuel our fire and inspire our continued commitment to the growth and success of our community alongside our other partners within the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. “Having access not just to Flywheel, but the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem creates an environment where it’s easy to meet and network with people that work in the same space as you do,” says Levinson. When asked about his experience at Flywheel, Alvarez responded, “For me, Flywheel has been life-changing. Coming from another country and being able to find such a community-driven workplace has been great. The offices and services are really good but what keeps me coming back is the people and the events they put together.”