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Rebecca Schatz, Who Inspired Thousands Of Youth To Take On Engineering Challenges, Passes

July 21, 2015 By Phil Wilson

rebecca_schatzI’ve had the true pleasure of working with Rebecca Schatz as she continued to inspire and encouraged kids and young women to get into the tech space. The news of her passing, succumbing to cancer on July 13th , was truly a blow.

Rebecca, a software engineer and network manager, founded The Works, a hands-on museum/discovery center that makes technology, science and engineering interesting, understandable and fun for young people in 1987. She went on to found Code Saavy in 2012. That organization spawned programs including CoderDojo Twin Cities, Northside Code Club, Get With the Program (for educators), Code Camps for Kids and TechnovationMN, of which I’m proud to be a board member. Each and every one of them is a source of inspiration for those that might not be exposed to the tech world including kids and young women.

Rebecca was passionate about getting more women into the innovative, exciting, and growing world of technology. I can personally attest to her drive and desire to drive others. She was never content with “what is”, preferring the “what could be.” I would even venture to say “what should be,” especially as it pertains to more women in tech.

Her passion was incredibly infectious. Jean Weiss, Executive Director of Code Saavy noted, “She knew that change is the work of many and she inspired everyone to stretch, grow and develop themselves.” She went on to say, “Rebecca left an inspiring, sustainable, and lasting legacy to encourage kids and teens to explore their curiosity, learn coding and creative problem solving, and for the volunteers, family members, and mentors who make it happen.”

Selfishly, I will miss the chance to work alongside of her to realize her vision. However, that vision will continue to inspire so many…and I know that, in spirit, Rebecca will be alongside of us.

Filed Under: Minnov8 News, Thought Leaders

Tedx Comes South of the River

October 29, 2013 By Phil Wilson

IMAG0230Lakeville saw it’s first Tedx on Monday night…and Lakeville was impressed. Ok, not all of Lakeville saw it, but about 150-200 of its residents did. In case you’re not familiar with Tedx, it’s the local, independently organized version of the popular Ted Talks that have been popularly educating audiences, and YouTubers, on everything from driverless cars and neuro-science to global warming and conservation through using only one paper towel to dry your hands.

Tedx Lakeville was spearheaded not by some local brain trust, board or politician, but by a senior at Lakeville South High School (I know, right!). Dylan Adelman is by no means the embodiment of a stereo-typical high school senior guy. He shows very few signs of ‘senioritis,’ waiting for high school to end so he can celebrate the “Summer of Dylan.” Instead he decided Ted, and its series of short presentations, needed to come to Lakeville and he made it happen. The result was “The Next 100 Years: The Future of Politics, Education and Technology.”

So how did it go? In a word…fantastic. Ok, the placement of a tweet wall to the left of the stage was troubling. If you know me at all, you know I despise the tweet wall during speaking events. It’s distracting, a source of pointless tweets and a trolls playground. Not to mention it’s just plain rude to ask a speaker to present only to enable an insane distraction to their topic and presentation…(Oops, I’m ranting). I’m happy to say, after a few Taco Bell tweets, cooler heads prevailed and the tweet wall was turned off. (Well played, all.)

Topics included presentations from local business leaders. politicians, educators and students. They presented on subjects including, Redefining Failure, The Digital Self, Quality Candidates and Education and more. I was particularly taken with the Discovery Learning presentation by U of M Junior, Anthony Fleck in the first half of the show. However, the second half is where Tedx Lakeville took off.

I was most impressed with the last two presentations of the evening. Betsy Grawe, a teacher in Lakeville, presented “Going Off Script”. It was a great combination of the perception vs. reality of the thinking of that group known as millenials. It included results of a poll of Lakeville millenials compared to national numbers. But more importantly it conveyed the message for them to not follow the script for life that has been presented to them.

Finally, Matt Little, Lakeville’s 28 year-old Mayor presented an incredibly well prepared look at solving our current political gridlock in “Beyond Bipartisanship.” His desire to for each political party to take a more pragmatic view to serve the constituency rather than their own party was very interesting and indicated to me that the mayorship will not be the only stop on his public service journey.

All in all Tedx’s trip south-of-the-river was well put together. It lacked only in preparation and focus by some of the presenters that lead to some disjointed and unnecessarily long presentations. The topics were sound and the execution of the event itself was incredibly well done. Mr. Adelman was a standout as he deftly transitioned from presenter to presenter. This guy is a rock solid speaker and, with the help of his team and advisors, delivered a rock solid event. (If no one has said it to him yet, “This will look great on a resume.)

I can’t wait for the next edition of Tedx Lakeville.

Filed Under: Edutech, Events, News & Events, Thought Leaders

Deloitte’s “TMT” Predictions for 2013

May 17, 2013 By Steve Borsch

deloitteThought you might be interested in a report by Deloitte, LLP, the U.S. branch of  Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), a UK private company. This global organization (57,000 people just here in the States) sends out an annual predictions report covering the Technology, Media & Telecommunications sectors. Good stuff in here including:

  • The PC is not dead
  • The end of password-only security
  • Enterprise Social Networks
  • Crowdfunding
  • Connected TV
  • LTE adoption
  • Smartphones ship a billion
  • Looming spectrum shortage

Download the report here: Deloitte_TMT_Predictions_2013 (PDF)

Filed Under: Thought Leaders

Bruce Sterling’s Talk to Startups

May 3, 2013 By Steve Borsch

ipad-brain-150x150Always on the hunt for thought leaders who are thinking strategically about the future, I watched the video below last night and it sparked so many thoughts I was compelled to share it with you.

Bruce Sterling is one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction. A prolific science fiction author, he is generally recognized as one of the world’s foremost visionary futurists. He also has a blog you should follow at Wired called, “Beyond the Beyond.”

In this talk at NEXT Berlin, “The leading European conference for the digital industry,” Sterling talks about design fiction, touts a firm called called superflux out of London (and Anab Jain has recreated her NEXT13 talk in blog post form, “Design for the New Normal“), and brings forth something a bit uncomfortable for anyone doing a startup: You are working to make VCs richer and not yourself.

What is ‘design fiction’? In this Slate interview Sterling sums it up as this:

It’s the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change. That’s the best definition we’ve come up with.  The important word there is diegetic. It means you’re thinking very seriously about potential objects and services and trying to get people to concentrate on those rather than entire worlds or political trends or geopolitical strategies. It’s not a kind of fiction. It’s a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories.

Watch this and make a comment on what you think…

[youtube http://youtu.be/2VIoRYPZk68]

Filed Under: Thought Leaders

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