Technology Volunteers Rock!

Okay, I have to just unload some excitement in this blog because I am totally excited and stoked about the prospects and the future of the work that will be accomplished in the coming months.

Today I met with 2 volunteers on very different sides of the spectrum in experience and background, while also totally impressing and blowing me away with thier motivation and sincerity.

The first volunteer has knowledge in html and little database using MS Access. His name is Derek. He is 11 years old and in 6th grade. On his own volition, he sought this volunteer opportunity as a Technology Page and upon meeting him, I was mezmerized with his insight and his dedication to making the world a better place. So young!!! so young, yet so excited!

The second volunteer is also very inspiring. His name is Renato. What is truely amazing about this guy is that he and his wife just moved from Brazil, basically do not know anyone and he wants to commit hours of his time helping lead the project team on our new mysql database. To top it off he is very knowledgable both in database modeling and analysis in Oracle and many other platforms as well as software engineering. He almost singlehandedly built databases for major financial institutions in Brazil and engineered software to comply to best standards with thorough documentation.

This is why I am here. This is why I work so hard. This is why I am where I am; people like this truely inspire me to reach, learn, and deliver my very best every single day.

Babies, BABIES everywhere!!!

This past weekend I went home to visit some good friends and attend a baby shower! It was great! We got to play games and play with a bunch of kids. Being my first baby shower proved not to phase me since I wasn't the only guy there and I kept busy meeting a lot of Marc and Danyel's friends that I've never met before. It was fun, hot, and full of food. I made my sidedish staple, Lumpia, which is basically an eggroll filled with ground beef with spices and everybody loved it.

What was really crazy about the baby shower, and I don't know if I was just keen on babies since thats sort of the theme, but there were literally babies everywhere!!!! Cute cuddly, chummy, googly, BABIES! I'm a pretty baby friendly person so I fit right in playing with them.

Surfing....with impending hurricane season.

The time of year is again here! As an avid surfer for 13 years, hurricane season always brings excitement, danger, and anticipation for those sweet nice rides. However, living the furthest away from a beach than ever, I find myself missing it more than ever. The only way I can quench my desire to skip out on work and just sit at the beach and surf all day is to check out the latest contests in pro surfing via ASP World Tour and the local surf scene found where I grew up in the Central North Carolina District. Talking to non-surfers, and agreeably so, whenever the mention of hurricanes comes to topic, a shudder of danger and loathing soon follows. I completely understand, but with an almost macabre delight. Not to say that I want people hurt by a hurricane, but its the only time of year that a sustainable amount of good waves comes rolling through the outer banks, for weeks on some stints. This season proves to be more promising than ever, with all the hurricanes already formed this early...could this be a record?

Hurricanes aside, the CNC Eastern Surfing Association District continues to churn out some of the best Surfers on the East Coast, Kelly Nicely, for example attends NCSU and is currently ranked one of the best in the nation and is even on the International US surf Team. In an alternate world, I wish I could dedicate all my time to getting better at surfing and learning how to surf. I'm just lonely for waves....

2 cents on technology's role in social change

Realizing my role and upon my first days as a VISTA at NCCU, technology has permeated the very fabric of my purpose, both in my personal and professional aspirations/endeavors to engage citizens in communication, understanding, and change..

From the second day at 'work,' attending the "Raise Your Voice: Get a Job or Get a Life, or Both" to plucking away at the keyboard programming a webpage, communication remains the underlying dogma to which my motivations lie for exchanging knowledge, ideas, and culture. More than ever, technology is connecting people on very profound levels, finding common grounds to move towards a better world understanding. One of my charges as a VISTA is to combat poverty...through closing the digital divide gap, which still remains a major barrier to access with competitive job markets, functional literacy in communicating ideals, and actualizing dreams (i.e. business ownership, social justice) where distance, realtime information, and organizing find profound relevance and technology a weapon to combat inequality.

Dissolving those barriers to access via communication (digital divide) begets class mobility, confidence, and preserving one of our most valuable resources, time. This is my role, my purpose and the 'education' to which I am offering citizens of the 'Greater Durham Area' through my workings in creating a quicker, more easily usable web-database, teaching people web/graphic design, assessing CBO technology needs, and empowering volunteers both within the NCCU campus community and beyond with a sense of vision, hope, and opportunity for growth.

With communication increased and made more efficient, civic responsibility is strengthened and engagement is enhanced.

inspiration via Continuous Computing

Being a VISTA really has its perks, let me tell ya! Not only is Poverty your theme through living under 10K a year salary, crazy workloads charged with creating hope, opportunity, and change, but also it has to all be packaged with sustainability! Combine that with the label of volunteer which sometimes undermines your leverage in 'getting things done' and the fact that these 'real life' issues we fight daily through our work are so integrated, encompassing, and unrelenting that you try to understand how you can make a mark...a change, a dent in the world you live in.

My answer to that is you can make a mark, but only if you embrace the very things you instill in others. But also, and I feel more important, is to recharge your batteries by being with the ones you love, reading the books you enjoy, and to constantly revisit the reasons for your committment. Live through your actions, practice integrity, and by all means have a few beers with some friends!

While 'recharging my battery' on the July 4th holiday, I was reading one of my favorite magazines, "MIT's Technology Review," which has a lot of cool articles relating to cutting edge...also dispersed with neat links and places to wander in cyberworld. One article in the recent issue really stuck out to me and kicked me back into inspiration mode. The article is titled, "Social Machines" by Wade Roush.

In the article, they talk mainly about continuous computing, which is basically a term used to describe the ubiquity and continuity of computers and how they are 'always on', meaning in a train, park, bedroom, bathroom, classroom, meeting, etc.

The article really frames it in a social context(Social Machines, duh) by explaining how continuous computing enables people to constantly communicate, relate, and exchange experience, culture, and ideas and how it will 'continue' to progress and become more integrated in our interactions with one another.

The article really had an impact on me and reaffirmed my motivations for doing what I do in the technology arena. Connecting people and stripping communication down to the core meanings by providing more personal interactions and realtime 'feelings', I believe, is the core of causing change and what drives the engine of understanding....if you can get past the many words in this blog post, of course.

batteries recharged!