Leigh Monichon shares a deeply personal and practical roadmap for navigating special education—and why she built Aspire Advocacy to help families do it with confidence and compassion.

In this conversation, Leigh traces the origins of her advocacy to her son’s journey with autism and the hard-won lessons that followed. What began as a parent’s “mama bear” instinct evolved into a calling: teaching families how to work the system without losing heart. She explains the realities many parents face—confusing processes, opaque options, and decisions often constrained by budgets—and how understanding the rules, timelines, and sequence of an IEP (Individualized Education Program) can turn a stressful fight into a structured plan.

Leigh breaks down her collaborative, non-combative style: assume educators want to help, use questions to surface the right solutions, and build relationships that make it easier for teams to say “yes.” Empathy is non-negotiable—but so is a bit of emotional distance, which lets her be the calm advocate in the room when parents’ hearts are “on the table.” She coaches families to find their voice, decide when to speak or let her be “bad cop,” and stay engaged more than once a year so goals don’t drift.

You’ll hear standout success stories—from a student once isolated for behavior who learned to read and now leads in junior high, to families who finally feel heard and supported. Leigh highlights why personalization matters in a school system built like a production line, and how the right supports (behavior plans, literacy interventions, AAC/assistive tech, targeted services) can transform outcomes for students and classrooms alike.

The episode also explores:

- How to recognize the signals that it’s time to seek an advocate.

- Why knowing options behind the “three curtains” of services is power.

- The role of data, documentation, and sequencing in getting appropriate services.

- How to stay current on federal/state regulations (and why polite, persistent questioning works).

- Coaching parents from anxiety to agency—so meetings go from adversarial to effective.

Looking ahead, Leigh shares Aspire Advocacy’s momentum: speaking with a Stanford autism group (tech hiccups included), expanding impact with a new partner who brings special ed leadership experience, and building a lasting legacy so the work continues well beyond her own career.

If you’re a parent, educator, or community leader seeking a humane, strategic approach to special education, Leigh Monichon offers a masterclass in turning overwhelm into action—and in remembering that the goal isn’t to fit kids to a system, but to fit the system to each child.

About Leigh Monichon:

- https://aspireadvocacy.com/

- leigh@aspireadvocacy.com

About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎

🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers

- 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/

- 🌐 https://densitylabs.io

- ✅ https://prevetted.ai

🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡

- 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast

- 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod

- 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast

00:00 Introduction to Aspire Advocacy and Lig Monichon

01:07 The Journey to Becoming a Special Education Advocate

05:31 Challenges in the Special Education System

10:49 Understanding Aspire Advocacy's Mission

15:14 Transformative Success Stories in Special Education

18:27 Misconceptions About Special Education

19:44 When to Seek Advocacy Support

21:55 The Education System as a Production Line

24:31 Holistic Support for Teachers and Students

27:46 Success Stories in Advocacy

32:05 The Role of Empathy in Advocacy

35:32 Navigating Regulations in Special Education

42:32 Future Aspirations for Aspire Advocacy

Dr. Ewelina Kurtys is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur pushing the frontier of bio-inspired computing. In this conversation, she traces her path from a PhD in neuroscience and 20+ peer-reviewed papers to commercializing deep-tech and advising startups. Curiosity pulled her beyond academia into fast-moving environments where she could turn technical knowledge into real-world impact.Ewelina explains her work with FinalSpark, where teams are prototyping processors made from living neurons—3D “neurospheres/organoids” of ~10,000 neurons placed on electrode arrays. Researchers stimulate these neurons electrically or via chemicals (like dopamine) and read their spiking activity, aiming to program living tissue to process information. It’s early: they’ve demonstrated storing one bit and are building methods and automation (Python-scripted experiments, 24/7) to scale learning.Why do this? Energy efficiency. Neurons are vastly more energy-efficient than today’s AI hardware. While digital systems excel at speed and memory for repetitive tasks, biological systems may better handle complex, generative tasks at a tiny energy cost. The goal isn’t niche accelerators but eventually general biocomputing, culminating in cloud-style bio-servers people can connect to—like today’s GPU clouds.She is frank about the challenges: we still lack a full mathematical framework for how neurons encode information; brains are plastic and messy, so outputs vary over time; and biology brings stability and longevity hurdles. FinalSpark has kept neurons alive on electrodes for months and is pushing toward years, while also engaging philosophers on ethics as public interest grows. Their remote neuroplatform lets universities and companies run experiments over the internet, scaling collaboration and reproducibility; 10+ universities already use it, and first commercial subscribers have arrived.Key takeaways:- Transition: from academic neuroscience to startup commercialization and strategy.- FinalSpark vision: living-neuron processors for AI tasks with orders-of-magnitude lower energy.- State of the art: organoids on electrodes, chemical/electrical programming, automated, scriptable lab.- Hard problems: encoding frameworks, plasticity, stability, neuron longevity, ethics.- Platform: remote, 24/7 wetware lab for global teams; growing academic and commercial interest.- Past papers: PET imaging, microglia & diet, CAR-T tracking—methods that shaped her applied mindset.- Future: bio-servers accessible like cloud GPUs; LLM-driven automation accelerating science.About Ewelina Kurtys:- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewelinakurtys/- https://finalspark.comAbout Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers- 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/- 🌐 https://densitylabs.io- ✅ https://prevetted.ai🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡- 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast- 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod- 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast00:00 From Neuroscience to Entrepreneurship02:13 Lessons from Academia03:46 Bio-Inspired Computing: The Future of Technology08:45 Challenges in Developing Living Computers13:52 The Complexity of the Brain19:22 Nutrition and Brain Health24:41 The Nature of Scientific Discovery27:53 Challenges in Peer Review and Publication29:22 The Power of Imaging in Neuroscience32:33 Translating Animal Research to Humans34:28 The Debate on Full Body Scans38:26 Advancements in CAR T Cell Therapy41:08 Innovations in Remote Biocomputing46:15 The Future of Science and Biocomputing

Ken Pickering, CTO of Scripta Insights, joins Federico to unpack how his team is using AI and large-scale data to tackle the opaque, often unfair U.S. pharmacy pricing system. Ken explains why drug costs vary wildly person-to-person, how that opacity drives prescription “abandonment,” and where Scripta intervenes: ingesting messy plan documents, inferring benefits and conditions, modeling deductibles, and recommending clinically sound, lower-cost alternatives (including cash-pay options). He draws a surprising parallel to his work at Hopper: much like airfare, drug pricing is non-deterministic to consumers, so the real job is reducing ambiguity with clear UX and trustworthy recommendations.Ken reflects on what excites him now—building at startup speed while doing work that measurably helps people afford and adhere to their meds. He traces his path from a curious kid disassembling record players, to BASIC and web tinkering, to early hardware work on military vehicles, then into consumer and B2B2C software. His move into leadership was the familiar story of “you’re in charge now,” but he stayed because he loves teams, shipping, and the thrill of delivering products people actually use.On leadership, Ken argues CTOs should remain hands-on enough to understand hard tradeoffs, coach principal ICs, and prototype ideas—especially with modern AI tooling that enables quick scaffolds between meetings. He shares how growth changes the job: leading 20 engineers vs. 200+ means shifting from direct architecture decisions to building managers, processes, and culture that still produce on-time, high-quality outcomes.Culture under stress is a recurring theme. Ken favors blamelessness, psychological safety, and trust—so people raise problems fast, learn, and move on. In startups, chaos is guaranteed (demos, P0s, shifting roadmaps), so resilience and clarity about “shipping matters” are essential. On hiring, he rejects “soft yes/no” and trains interviewers to make clear calls; for senior leaders, he even starts at “no” and asks candidates to convert him to “yes,” given the high blast radius of a bad leadership hire. He and Federico also discuss humane rejections with actionable feedback and “not yet” guidance.Ken opens up about the hardest, least visible part of being a CTO: the weight of responsibility for budgets, headcount, and company outcomes—especially during downturns or black swan events (like selling flights in 2020). Layoffs, misses, and market shocks carry a personal, emotional toll leaders rarely get to share, yet the work demands steady judgment and care for people.Takeaways for aspiring leaders: stay technical enough to lead credibly; cultivate trust and a shipping mindset; design hiring you can scale without lowering the bar; and choose problems worth your energy—ideally ones that make complex systems simpler, fairer, and better for the people who rely on them.About Ken Pickering:- http://www.scriptainsights.comAbout Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers- 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/- 🌐 https://densitylabs.io- ✅ https://prevetted.ai🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡- 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast- 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod- 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast00:00 Introduction to Scripta Insights and Pharmacy Pricing Challenges02:40 The Role of AI in Pharmacy Solutions05:12 Ken Pickering's Journey in Technology and Leadership07:50 Navigating Engineering Leadership and Team Dynamics10:33 Building Trust and Motivation in Startups13:36 The Importance of Technical Knowledge in Leadership16:10 Challenges and Stress in Startup Environments25:52 Navigating Stressful Demos and Live Presentations29:27 The Evolution of Engineering Roles33:05 Managing People and Processes36:24 The Burden of Leadership43:49 The Emotional Toll of Hiring and Firing