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!

I dreamed...

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It has been quite a while since I last posted. Partly this has been due to the fact that SO much has been going on, partly due to the pressure of insuring the EMC finds financial stability, partly to insuring that the students, project teams and partners are supported in non-financial terms, partly to insuring that projects  in-house deliver and are completed, partly to seeking funding to support said projects to completion...this all on top of normal operating and faculty responsibilities.

This is what I have not been able to report on—the students have produced enormous results: 

• Innovation Congress successful and we will be doing a variation of it at the VHA conference in May in San Antonio, 
• the Masie Learning 2008 team blew away all expectations with Teletrust, 
• CIMIT RIPS—solidly done and delivered, 
• America's Army—the online community commented that they may have been some of the best maps to come out of the line recently, 
• IBM project presented a concept so awesome I can't wait to see it on my desktop and now the project is going into Stage 2 funding, 
• UNFPA Violence Against Women—presented at MIGS, a digital concept successfully presented and Stage 2 received funds to extend development through to July, 
• Cystic Fibrosis game project—concepts to be released for testing in a month, 
• Burlington 3D—models excepted into Google Earth and funding extended through the summer (fly in and check out the models around campus), 
• and then there's all the other cool projects happening—the video blogs, the wiki, and now Twitter (see our roll on the right)!
  

But what I have also not been able to report on is our community! We've grown to over 114 students involved in varying ways in varying projects. We've grown in so many other ways as well.

Yet we have so much further to reach and to make happen. I'm writing once again from JFK. Today I was extremely fortunate to meet with a woman who blows me away and if we can create half what she has done, the world could be that much richer. President Finney introduced us via email, as she was a former colleague of his at NYU. 30 years ago despite the challenges that beset visionaries dreams, Red Burns began I.T.P. at Tisch . Meeting her, I felt as if I was meeting a sister soul. Perhaps today more than ever we need to share her vision—a dream of a collectively created future. Red sees humanity first and technology second—as an enabler, a connector, not as a vehicle for separation and disassociation. 

One last dream I wish to share comes from Wes Knee's blog. He begins "Last night I dreamed of Africa...". Perhaps this is how humanity calls out to those who have the ends to enable change—through our dreams. A call to share. Personally I can not dream of a better purpose for a teacher than to enable her students to follow these dreams.