Tony Mobley is the creator and host of Conversations with Tony Mobley, a weekly live interview show about technology, education and the digital divide. He describes himself first as a husband, a father, a son, a minister and a teacher, and as someone driven by curiosity and a lifelong love of learning. The show began in 2021 and reached its 230th episode in November 2026.
His aim is simple: to help everyday people get comfortable with the technology in their lives, through honest conversations with the people who build, teach and use it.
From a darkroom to the printing press
Tony grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and attended St. Benedict’s Prep, where part of every school year was given over to project-based learning. In 1976, the year of the United States bicentennial, his class rode bicycles to Revolutionary War sites across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, keeping a journal along the way. Another project taught him to take photographs and develop film in a darkroom.
That darkroom skill opened his first door into technology. Offset printing depends on developed film to make printing plates, so when he applied to the City of Newark’s printing department, his darkroom experience got him the job. He worked there for four years and learned to run a printing press.
Morehouse College and his first computers
At 24, Tony bought a one-way ticket to Atlanta and arrived on November 1, 1982, to study at Morehouse College. He worked the printing press in the college’s public relations office, along with other jobs, and graduated in 1986. In his final year he also worked weekends at Hewlett-Packard, running backups for the large computers there. In 1984 he saw prototype touchscreen computers in the office lab, years before any were on sale.
His first everyday computer came with a job as a case manager at Big Brothers Big Sisters in Atlanta, matching volunteers with young people. He stayed late so often to explore that PC that his wife bought him a computer for home. He read every computer magazine he could find.
He also managed printing services for the City of Atlanta on behalf of Xerox for four years, after training on Xerox’s large production machines. He also produced the CDs, cassettes and newsletter graphics for his parents’ Christian radio broadcast and newsletter ministry, working in PageMaker and Adobe software.
The special education years
Tony also worked in Atlanta schools. At an Atlanta middle school he began in in-school suspension, then became a paraprofessional working with non-verbal children, and was named Paraprofessional of the Year in his first year in the role. He later became the school’s media assistant, responsible for every computer and piece of technology in the building.
He went on to work as a paraprofessional in a program for exceptional children serving Atlanta Public Schools. There he saw how much iPads and Apple’s learning programs could do for non-verbal students: even children who could not speak lit up when they used them. In his view, Apple offered the best environment he had seen for that population.
Ministry and media
Tony is a licensed minister. He served as a minister of evangelism, at a church that sent cassette tapes to members away in the military or at college, and later as a youth minister in Atlanta. Today he is part of the media team at Miracle Bible Way Church of Christ in Georgia, where he is one of the regular Sunday speakers.
How the show began
When the pandemic closed church buildings in 2020, Tony helped Miracle Bible Way Church of Christ move its services online, with help from the Office Hours community of video and audio professionals. Every Sunday evening he also met his siblings on Zoom, and he shared so much of what he was learning that his brother told him to share it with other people instead.
A group of friends from the Office Hours community agreed, and urged him to start a show of his own. Tony doubted he was equipped. He had a 2012 MacBook Pro near the end of its life. He started anyway in 2021. The show was meant to be called Technology for Everybody, and it became Conversations with Tony Mobley because the conversations themselves turned out to matter most.
Conversations with Tony Mobley is independent. Tony remains part of the Office Hours community and appears on some of its broadcasts.
The studio
The show is now produced from a full broadcast studio in Tony’s home, in what was once his oldest son’s room. It runs on four computers and two iPads, a Stream Deck, and an ATEM Mini Pro switcher handling four video inputs. The broadcast is produced with mimoLive and Zoom, and viewers send questions through the Mukana live chat or YouTube. The same studio lets Tony support his church’s media ministry.
The show’s team works from around the world, including the Philippines, Australia and Texas. Meet the team.
In his own words
“If I did it based on what I had, there’s no way that I should be doing Conversations with Tony Mobley.”
“Pray about whatever you want to do and then take a step of faith, because faith without works is dead.”
“When people sit down and truly talk, something powerful happens.”
Tony told this story in full on the show: Tony Mobley Shares His Journey With Technology. He explained why the show exists in Part 1 and Part 2 of his digital divide episodes.
Conversations with Tony Mobley is live every Wednesday from 8:00 to 9:00 PM ET. Browse every episode, send Tony a question, or get in touch. You can also follow the show on YouTube and connect with Tony on LinkedIn.