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!

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.

`````

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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