#3 Let’s celebrate the 4th of July!!

Singularity University

And the 3rd week is over! This past week went by super fast. We’ve done so many different things and met people with so many different experiences that it’s difficult for me to process everything.

On Monday we had the opportunity to visit TechShop in San Jose and then the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco. We first went to TechShop, a vibrant, creative community that provides access to tools, software and space. One of their biggest succeses is DODOcase, a company based in San Francisco that makes beautiful handmade iPad & Kindle cases. And then, we went to the Autodesk Gallery, one of the coolest places I’ve ever seen. From 3D printed Nike shoes to examples of different movies that used the Autodesk software, this is a place that celebrates good design and the new & innovative.

On Tuesday, the founder of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun, came to Singularity University for a fireside chat. He talked about the MOOC Revolution, how education is becoming democratized and demonetized and the impact that this revolution is having on the high education systems around the world. I’ve to say that I’m not a huge fan of MOOC’s, because like Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, said “it’s just taking the content from the traditional classroom and putting it in a box”. Won’t argue the value that a democratize education has, but our education system needs a much deeper revolution, from curriculum to the classroom and the integration of technologies.

This week we had the chance to celebrate the 4th of July with a great BBQ and ice-cream. We also watched the fireworks and I spent some time improving my ping-pong skills ;)

The week ended with Nolan Bushnell talking about his new passion:Brainrush, a company that uses video game technology in educational software. Think Zynga meets Wikipedia as they’ve also developed an open-authoring system allowing teachers or anyone else to quickly create games in virtually any topic area. We had the chance to create some of these games, on the Global Grand Challenges, which was a great experience.

Funny Fact about Nolan:

In 1976 Steve Jobs went to Nolan Bushnell to get him to put in some money in exchange for a minor equity stake in Apple. Nolan remarked, “Steve asked me if I would put $50,000 in and he would give me a third of the company. I was so smart, I said no. It’s kind of fun to think about that, when I’m not crying.” Via wikipedia

Yesterday night, we had the second culture night. The South Americans did a great job and everyone had lots of fun, maybe too much fun ;)