Shhh! We're Working Here!

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Shhhh! Its been busily quiet here at the EMC this afternoon. Ray and Ken are out, Lauren's not here today either, leaving just Sarah and myself behind the "glass".
There have been about 15 students silently, thoughtfully working away. It's a funny thing —I'm so fond of each one of them. I can recognize their hopes, their anxieties, their passions, and most importantly their spirits and bright shining intelligence.
I am remembering those likewise who worked so diligently and played so hard here. I was first prompted by a college meeting about our grads and their employment out of EMC.

To note is that to date we’ve worked with roughly 130 students since start-up (2 years). This summer we had a full house with approximately 30 students working on 6 projects all summer long. This Fall many of those projects will end but we have a number of others that will continue.
So here's our grads:

• Kate Baxter, ’09 Software Engineering, is a Junior Programmer at 2K Boston and recently returned from doing a “sea-mester” abroad sailing the Caribbean for 40 days in a program focused on leadership, communication and experiential education. Kate began with the original IBM project, joined the second IBM project, and then our UN team. She was also a Governor's Institue of Vermont in Information Technology (GIV IT)resident advisor.
• Emily Benton, '09 Game Art & Animation is working freelance on art for Disney. Emily was the artist on the original Masie Learning 2007 conference and then the MPI: Meet Different conference. She was also a GIV IT resident advisor.
• Dan Bergeron, ’09 Marketing, is working as an Account Manager at 800response. Dan was on our UN project as a market researcher and first identified soccer as the unifying cultural theme!
• Corey Cunha, ’09 Software Engineering, is working as a Developer at EF Educational Tours in Boston. Corey programmed on our CIMIT and Cystic Fibrosis projects.
• Casey Hopkins, ’09 E-Business, is a SEO Analyst at Dealer.com . Casey was on our UN project as a researcher traveling with us to South Africa.
• Wes Knee, ’09 Game Art & Animation, is interning as a 3D Infographiste at Mistic Software in Montreal working on art for Nintendo DS games. Wes was on almost everything to include America's Army, Info Lit, CIMIT, the various Masie, CIMIT and MPI conferences, and the UN project to include presenting at MIGS last year on the UN project - that's where his current employer saw him first. He was also a GIV IT resident advisor.
• Lauren Nishikawa, '09 Game Design, both ourselves and Amanda Crispel (Hoozinga) scooped her up. She's the Junior Creative Director for our Empowering Play (UN) Project. Lauren just was on EVERYTHING and was the first recipient of our EMC Interstellar Award. She was also a GIV IT resident advisor.
• Iain Bissett, ’08 Game Design, is working at 3DVIA in Boston and has a great blog documenting his professional life: http://www.iainbissett.com/. Iain was our writer/designer on the first IBM interactive project.
• Renee Gillett, ’08 Game Design is an interactive designer at the Museum of Science in Boston – creating games for the museum’s exhibits. Renee participated in many demonstrations - to include the original Game Change Summit in Kingbridge where she first met her future employers.
• Tim Hamel, ’08 Game Design and 3D Art & Animation, is working as a Level Designer at Vicarious Visions and has worked on the Transformers games among others. Tim worked on various projects to include the original IBM interactive and was first leader of our student chapter of the IGDA.
• Nick Malatuma, '08 Game Art & Animation, is working as an artist at the EMC on our UN project to End Violence Against Women. That's him below with some of his incredible artwork!

So here's to our students - past and present. They have built the EMC right along with us. They are our bright future!

Vermont

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By now, reading this, it's readily apparent how avid I am about our young people's destinies and the future role of interactive communicative technologies. There is another devotion I must share. I am passionate about Vermont. Though not born here, in my adulthood I've grown up here. The opportunity to move to my mother state of New York was presented two years ago. Even as excellent opportunities called out, there is an essential quality to this state that I could not abandon. 

What a state it is. One can look out one's window and see such natural beauty! The air clean and pure, space unfolds, and our forests beckon, and then there are Vermont's people! Some will say stoic, stubborn, taciturn New Englanders but in Vermont you need not look far for warmth and ingenuity. When disaster strikes; stuck in a snow bank, a forest falls around you, or to coach your child in softball, they are there—hard working, supportive, with few words but a warm handshake or a tractor if need be.

Yet there is more to Vermonters, whether born to or chosen by the place. They are self-reliant, innovative, passionate about the world in which they live. Ready to go against the grain if need be. I have been lucky to know these people. People like John Cohn, a top researcher at IBM who is working with our students to support an IBM initiative around engaging young people through games to the sciences and technology. Or people like game developer Chris Hancock.

Chris, recently moved to Vermont, is creating a serious game business—Tertl Studos LLC. He is known industry-wide for creating the premier game in the educational space for science and math, "Zoombinis". Chris and John define the Vermont lifestyle. How many top engineers do you know voluntarily work promoting science education—and have fun while doing so? How many game developers that heat by wood? Or live a short walk from the capital building?

Which brings me to today. Greg Morgan and I parked in Chris's driveway to visit the capital for Governor Douglas's State of the State address. Once inside the capital I photographed a lovely painting that captures the Vermont spirit—independent, loyal, with a heart and sometimes a life given for our society. Also I was compelled to speak to the youngest Vermonters there.

There was Tyler a young artist sketching the proceedings. He draws daily realizing continual observation and practice develops his skills. There were the young pages who were chosen based on their written essays. They were using cell phones to photograph each other, digitally recording their big moment. They were all giggles and charm but when the proceedings began—all business. They define our future. They are why I was here. Their direction is what this distinguished assembly of legislators determines daily.

Today a keystone event occurred for emergent media and the future of this independent state. Governor Jim Douglas in his address proposed investing in a pilot project to be managed by the Emergent Media Center in collaboration with Champlain's B.Y.O.Biz and Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. The goal to grow student created businesses in the serious games and emergent media space. To quote:

"Now with one eye to the future, and one on the bottom line, we must strike the right balance of protecting key government sevices while making smart investments for the years ahead...

...To further inspire investments in technology, I’m proposing we invest a quarter-million dollars in two pilot projects—a partnership with Champlain College and the University of Vermont’s Center for Emerging Technologies to provide grants to start-up businesses that are developing cutting edge software; and an e-communities grant program to enable more local internet content, discussion forums, wikis and blogs."

Governor Douglas's proposal is an exciting opportunity aligned with the Emergent Media Center's mission.  Through the collaboration with B.Y.O.Biz and VCET, we can continue to lay a solid base to launch new, future-defining Vermont businesses. Businesses begun by our students. Businesses that have at their core use of emergent media, in formats yet to be defined such as serious games, blogs, wikis, and social networking, to share the Vermont vision of the future. One built on hard-work, neighborliness, innovation and concern for our world.  I believe—actually, I strongly believe—that Vermont with its mix of creative artists and technological innovation is the perfect place for these businesses to thrive. 

Businesses that our young pages will wish to be part of, to build and to create. They will have the opportunity to share a Vermont-inspired vision of networked community with our world. Let's dance to that.

 

Following Stars

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A Ritual to Read to Each Other

by William Stafford, from The Way It Is; New & Selected Poems, Graywolf Press, 1998

If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

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Above is a bit from a thought provoking poem that I was introduced to 2 weeks ago at an Investor's Circle Conference in Boston. It was following a grueling three weeks of travel that included an IEEE Computer Society meeting in Cancun and a Masie Center Learning 2007 conference in Orlando. Head to head I was able to participate in incredible technologies and then view and ponder great poverty. All has been rambling about my brain since. How does one bring the powers of technology to bear on our societal disparities? How can emergent technologies be effectively applied to connect cultures and impact change? Likewise should one? Do we follow the Startrek imperative or the Dr. Who imperative? What is the "star"?

What I do know is that we need to share our wisdoms...that sharing means being open to learning from one another. New technologies offer tools to do so. Yesterday John Cohn, a truly magical IBM engineer, was working with the students of the EMC and I wished I had brought my camera. The engagement was as thick as peanut butter and jelly. John had created an intricate mind map of a project they were beginning work on and also had programmed the Wii-remote to work with the PCs. Ideas buzzed about, new concepts building upon each other in a tumble of discovery.

It was similar to other moments captured in these photos of Champlain students this last month—illustrating them actively engaged with the very young and curious, with the development process, and with concepts shared by the inquisitive experienced. Much like yesterday's meeting, joy in learning is palatable. In each, media technology forms the connection point through which unpredictable discoveries are made—breaking down patterns that may exist in the world. It is a pointer to answers. Answers that include building technologies that celebrate learning, deepen our connectivity to each other and enable us to realize the potential of our shared humanity. Students, our digital natives, the millenials, are good guides in this pursuit. I find them a generation that seeks deep connections, desires to impact the world and is fluent at envisioning potential usages of emergent technologies. I am learning from them.

So why follow these stars? The poem concludes:

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

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