We all know I'm a big fan of technologies and gadgets... so when I read last week in the New York Times that one of the more innovative genetic mapping companies (23andme) had reduced the price of its Genetic Mapping service (which many companies sell for up to $2-3,000) from $999 to only a few hundred dollars, I decided it was an amazing amount of information and education to be able to get access to for that amount, so I took the plunge and signed up.
A day later, FedEx delivered a Spit Kit to my house, which requires about 10 minutes of spitting into and mixing together with a solution, and your DNA sample is ready to send back! And off it went to Los Angeles, California to a laboratory today. Funny enough, the FedEx Pak they provide specifically says "do not send liquids" on it :)
So in 6-8 weeks, I'll know where my ancestors are from, whether I'm genetically lactose intolerant, whether or not I love broccoli because I can't taste the bitterness in it, and whether or not I'm a bit more likely than average to get certain diseases or be susceptible to certain conditions in my lifetime, along with dozens of other interesting facts. For less than the price of a university course in genetics, I can view and learn much of the world's most up-to-date knowledge on the relationships between genes and personal/medical conditions personalized to my specific genetic data. How cool is that?
You can make a case against "messing with your life" this way (I had an interesting discussion about this with someone just the other night), but I think that given the great power we have as humans to be intelligent and understand life in a way that no other species can, we then have a responsibility to use it to maximize the potential of our lives. Right? I guess it's also just a bit of an extra motivation knowing that you're slightly more at risk than average to do something about it! (from 1-2 times more or less likely than the generally population, in most cases)
I'll check back in with the results in a few months!
I headed off in the morning to the Australian Science and Math School, hosted at Flinders University. The school is only a few years old, and is built with an open concept -- no classrooms, but instead a number of large spaces with desks and chairs that reconfigured in many different ways to foster teamwork and collaboration. We had a large group - about 50 teachers and school leaders, and had a really interesting day -- when I showed the "Are you listening?" video, a whole bunch of students gathered upstairs in the area overlooking where I was speaking to watch - I think they were really curious that so many teachers were learning about their way of using technology!
After a fantastic dinner by the water with a group of curriculum developers, I headed to sleep -- because I had to catch a 6:40am flight to Canberra!
I made it to the nation's capital early in the morning, and it was freezing! 0 degrees but it warmed up as the sun rose... I had a few hours to fit the gym and have lunch before heading to Canberra University -- the group in Canberra decided to have an evening workshop (4-9pm) with dinner. Although everyone had a full day of work before showing up, we still had a lot of active participation, and after wrapping up at 9 and getting back to the hotel around 10, it was time for sleep for another 6:45am flight back to Sydney for the last workshop of the trip!
Arriving in Sydney in the morning, with my 32kg on-the-dot bag faithfully appearing on the carousel, I headed off to Parramatta right on time, and arrived 3 minutes before the workshop was to begin! We had the biggest crowd of any session -- around 60 people, and so a lot of the interactive sections took a lot longer than usual, but they had great ideas and a large group of schools approached me after and wants to deeply engage their entire district with TIGed, which is exciting! After wrapping up and chatting with a bunch of the attendees, I was off to one of my favourite hotels in the world -- the Westin Sydney, to relax, enjoy their great gym, and have dinner with Jenny, who had the whole series of workshops organized, to debrief on the experience (yum, Tasmanian lamb!). After that, I met up with Jarra and Nick, and headed to Micky's for dessert (Banana Pancakes and Ice Cream!) to catch up and for me to celebrate the completion of 10 sessions in 11 days in 5 cities!
I'm writing this now on the flight to Vancouver -- I managed to get right to sleep after lunch on the 10am flight, which will hopefully mean I can work through the North American day and head to sleep at a proper time tonight. Saturday, we head to Quebec City for the World Youth Congress to meet TIG members from all over the world. I've also agreed to head to Brisbane on the 19th to speak at the Queenland Government's e-learning summit, and after that, I'll be ready to just settle down at home and enjoy the rest of the summer in Toronto :)
Now that I've been away a full week, I forced myself to carve out some time to reflect on the intensity of the time so far before kicking off the second stretch.
As always, our summers at TakingITGlobal are quite busy -- generally for the education "industry", most conferences are held during the summer when teachers have school holidays. This summer, as a follow-up to my keynote at last October's ACEL (Australian Counsel of Educational Leaders) conference (which was apparently quite good even though I was quite sick at the time), I was invited to be a "Traveling Scholar" for ACEL, presenting 5 full-day workshops on TakingITGlobal to school leaders and teachers across Australia. In addition, I started off the trip by keynoting a leadership conference at Melbourne Grammar School, and today keynoted the International Middle Years conference in Adelaide... so I've made quite good use of two weeks!
Sunday - Wednesday: Melbourne
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Monday, I woke up nice and early and arrived at the charming greened campus of Melbourne Grammar, one of Melbourne's oldest and most respected private schools. To their enormous credit, they had invited students from a broad cross-section of Melbourne to attend the conference, in addition to a grade of their students. I was brilliantly introduced by one of their capable students, and my keynote was well-received - with more questions from students than we had time for. Following the keynote, a panel including a futurist, scientist, and Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson, who cited my presentation several times as they discussed issues of leadership in the 21st century and challenged students to act on the issues they felt challenged by. In the afternoon, I ran several hours of hands-on workshops guiding a small group of students through the TIG site and beginning the Guide to Action as a tool for action planning.
Tuesday morning, I visited Kilsyth, a suburb of Melbourne, and ran a 3 hour workshop with a group of teachers across that region looking at TIG and especially with an interest in Health education... it was a good challenge because we didn't have Internet except for a very slow 2G connection, so I was able to get well prepared and experiment with some activities for the following days' sessions!
That evening, I traveled to Mooney Valley Racecourse (home of Australia's best race - the Cox plate, worth $3 million!) and presented our work at TIG to about 150 principals, who also had some great questions, and I enjoyed meeting a teacher who grew up in Mississauga and had spent his recent years enjoying and exploring Australia's wilderness.
On Wednesday, I spent from 9 AM to 3:30 PM with an enthusiastic group of teachers and principals learning about TIG, exploring global issues, and understanding how to fit our programs and ideas at TIG into the curriculum and everyday use in their classrooms. I also shared our Best Practices on Global Education resource with them... and then I was off to the airport, heading to my next destination: Tasmania!
Thursday - Saturday: Hobart, Tasmania
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
After a short 2 hour break to refresh and do some e-mail, I headed off to the Hobart Yacht club, where I addressed about 50 high school principals, who weren't able to attend the day's workshop because they were having a leadership retreat. I had to pack 90 minutes into a 30 minute before dinner speech, so I think it was overwhelming, but many of them were quite excited by what we do... and I had delicious local Salmon which was a bonus!
The next day was my main day off. I decided not to head off to my next destination right away, but to stick around in Hobart and see some of the beautiful wildlife Tasmania has to offer. So I signed up for a Tasman Island Eco Cruise - having no idea how much of an adventure it would be! After a scenic bus ride to Port Arthur, one of the main convict colonies from the 1800s, we boarded a powerful boat (675 HP) that they describe as a 4x4 of the sea. Initially the ride was quite smooth - and we discovered some caves and amazing rock formations on the coast. The "swells" were only about 1 meter, and so it was just like jumping waves on a boat at home.
However, once we got out to the Tasman Sea, things got a lot more interesting. The waves and the winds were coming strongly from an unusual direction, and 2-3 meter waves and swells gave us quite a ride! I had chosen to sit in the 4th row (moved from the 2nd) and for close to an hour, we jumped waves and it felt like we were on a roller coaster as we plunged down after riding a wave.... but I stuck with my seat - a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
We arrived at two areas with Australian and New Zealand seals, and at a cove where dolphins chased our boat around until we had to leave - amazing to lean over and watch them at the water and bow of the boat jumping up playfully! A number of albatross with their huge wingspans also provided us with an amazing show - watching them fish and gracefully glide across the sky with nothing around us but huge rock and menacing water... or what looked menacing in my book. In 1998, however, the water was so rough that in the annual Sydney-Hobart race, five boats sank and six sailors were killed.
On Saturday morning, before heading to the airport, I spent a few hours enjoying the Salamanca Market, with hundreds of stalls offering delicious local treats and art and coffee and everything needed to pass a few hours and take in the culture of a place!
Sunday - Monday: Adelaide, South Australia
Now I'm here in Adelaide, where this morning I keynoted the International Middle Years of Schooling conference, and was again introduced by a fantastic student duo! I gave out dozens of bookmarks afterwards, with many many people promising to check out the site and connect their students into TIG. I was also followed by an excellent presentation by Professor Erica, who gave a talk on creativity that linked really perfectly and built on top of many of the themes I covered.
Tomorrow I'm off to the Australian Science and Mathematics School to do another day-long workshop, and then heading to Canberra the next morning... I'll be sure to check in soon with more! And I'll be editing this entry in about 2 hours with photos once they upload.
After having spent more than five months in Nepal, and witnessing devastating poverty, Christian Kroll, felt a strong desire to help people in need and founded OneCentPerSearch in May of 2008.
The 24-year-old German wanted to give everyone the opportunity to support causes they are passionate about, regardless of their own financial situation. For this reason, he started OneCentPerSearch after finishing his studies in business administration.
The goal of the OneCentPerSearch team is to achieve a high market share in the multi-billion dollar search engine market so that OneCentPerSearch can help as many people as possible.
I'm speaking tomorrow at PUSH, an interesting conference here in Minneapolis, MN
The first session that just wrapped up was quite interesting - Chandran Nair took us through a look at the world's problems and how many misconceptions there are about what can solve them. What I found striking was the comparison of world problems to spending on trivial/much less meaningful things:
Health & Nutrition ($13B) : Petfood Spending in the USA ($17B)
Water and Sanitation ($9B) : Ice Cream in Europe ($11B)
Education ($6B) : Cosmetics in the USA ($8B)
Jonathan Greenblatt, one of the co-founders of Ethos Water, also gave us a compelling look into the world of Water and how simple and cheap ($25/person) it is to solve. The one thing I don't get - on a $1.79 bottle of water, Starbucks (which acquired Ethos) donates 5 cents (10 cents in Canada oddly). They were founded on the basis of donating 50% of profits... I can't believe profit on that bottle of water is only 10 cents! (considering how much cheaper other bottled water is). Anyway, he now works with a new magazine - GOOD - which has a unique subscription model of giving away the $20 subscription fee to a charity of your choice.
How can this not inspire you with hope that the messages that captivate our friends in the U.S. voting this fall can be positive and not just negative? Messages that excite with the possibility of a positive future, not try to cast fear and uncertainty as the reason to select a person.
I'm very proud of them for ending the video with the simple message of "vote" - resisting the urge to squeeze it beyond need towards the candidate.
After having spent more than five month in Nepal, one of the world’s poorest countries, Christian Kroll felt the strong desire to help those people, who can't help themselves, and founded OneCentPerSearch in April 2008.
With OneCentPerSearch we give everyone the opportunity to help people in need, regardless of their own financial situation.
My apologies for this very geek-specific post. If you don't have a Dell m1330 laptop, you can ignore it!
My Dell XPS m1330 is my favorite laptop yet (I think it's my 10th in 10 years!), but Dell and Microsoft have made it far too hard to re-format it cleanly without Windows Vista Blue-screening on every second boot (caused by the AHCI setting in BIOS, but not providing AHCI drivers during install). It took me awhile to figure out how to do this properly, so I thought I'd share to help the rest of the Internet figure it out.
2) Run the file with a "-a" from the Windows commandline, which will put those files into the "C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage Manager" directory
3) Copy the files from the "Drivers" or "Drivers64" (64-bit Vista) directory onto a USB Key
4) When you install Vista from the DVD, pick the "Custom" option, then click "Load Drivers"
5) Click "Browse", and point to your USB stick. Load the drivers from it.
* Anger is the condition in which Tounge works faster than the mind.
* You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.
* Love and you shall be loved.
* God always gives the best to those who leave choice with him.
* All people smile in the same language
* A hug is a great gift one size fits all, it can be given for all occasion and its easy to exchange
* Everyone needs to be loved especially when they do not deserve it.
* The real wealth of a man is what he has invested in eternity.
* Laughter is God's Sunshine.
* Everyone has beauty but not everyone sees it.
* Its important for parents to live the same thing they teach.
* Thank god for what u have, Trust god for what yo need.
* If you feel your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.
* Man looks at outward appearance, but lord looks with in.
* The choice you make today will usually effect your tomorrow.
* Take time to laugh for it is the music of soul.
* If anyone speaks bad of you,live so none will believe it.
* Patience is the ability to ideal your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
* Love is Strengthen by working through conflicts together.
* The best thing parents can do for their children is to love each other.
* Harsh words break no bones, but they do break hearts.
* To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it.
* We take granted the things that we should be giving thanks for.
* Love is the only thing that can be divided without being diminished.
* Happiness is enhanced by others but does not depends upon others.
* For every minute u are angry with someone, you loose 60 seconds of happiness that you can never get back.
* Do what you can, for who you can, with what you have.
I'm generally a big fan of Rogers - I feel they are probably the best and generally most innovative of the telecom companies here in Canada (Bell, which many people have terrible customer service experiences with - my experience has been the same - and Telus is stuck with CDMA, which doesn't roam well, so that's not good for people who travel.)
The one thing that never ceases to annoy and frustrate me though is their IVR phone system. It's probably been 3 years that I've been calling and every time I get through, I complain and ask them to note it down. They always acknowledge that everyone complains and they say they're working on improving it, but it never happens.
I don't know how they can get it so wrong compared to other industries (airlines, banks, etc.) or even their U.S. competitors like Verizon which have great phone systems! Here are the steps to get to Wireless Customer Service for example:
1. Say "Wireless"
2. Say "Talk to a Representative"
3. Say "Account Changes"
4. Say "Blackberry" or "Phone" (how does this make any sense?)
5. Punch in your Phone Number
6. Be greeted by a representative, who then asks for your phone number again?! Then you have to verify your name, postal code, and DOB. What a waste of time... they should just instead let you pick a PIN and then use that instead.
The best part is that this happens even when you dial 611 from your phone! It could easily detect your number from caller ID and not even bother to ask you anything.
There's a great site called gethuman dedicated to frusturation about IVRs and phone systems, and they've developed a Gethuman Standard for well-designed phone systems. A key point from it:
"# Callers should never be asked to repeat any information (name, full account number, description of issue, etc.) provided to a human or an automated system during a call."
The day that Rogers implements a proper system that does justice to their innovation in so many other areas, I will officially call them a company I love.
The Xabbel team went to the village where the Sonam Lama’s family is living. Sanistar – the village of Sonam Lama is located 12 kilometers away from Kathmandu. This village has just a few houses, which are made of clay, wood and mud. The small house of the Lamas has temporary thatch roof. It seems like they don’t have enough room for their four family members.
Sonam also has a grandmother she is more than seventy years old and cannot do much on her own anymore. That’s why his parents have to take care of her.
Sonam’s father Mr. Dipendra Lama is working in a hospital as a caretaker since 11 years and he earns around US$ 60 per month. This is just enough to manage his household expenditures. Sonam has a happy family, but they simply don’t have enough money to provide him good education. Thanks to your searches at Xabbel this has changed now.
Every living being has some rights. Humans are considered the most superior among all the living beings. All the human beings have certain rights. They have rights to equality. All human beings are equal regardless of Race, religion, sex, caste. They have equal rights. They have same rights to education, voting, health etc. No human should be discriminated on the basis of race, caste, culture, religion. Xabbel is a charitable search engine which supports these issues ie " Promotion of human right"
Still in this 21st century there are lots of discrimination prevailing in our society. But there is still the lack of awareness. People have no idea what are there rights and how to fight for there rights. It also may be because of the lack of proper education in the society. There are many places where there are no schools and colleges and even if there are schools and colleges then there are no teachers.
Government seems to take no actions regarding these issues. While I am talking about these issues people may think that this happens in the developing countries only but the thing is that it is the same in the developed countries too. But the rate only differs.
ITs not just an issue of a particular country but its an global issue. As world is becoming a global village. We are becoming one. So wait a minute and think about this issue. How it is affecting us and the people around us.
Nepal is a small but wonderful country with lots of beauty stored in it. It proves the saying that beautiful things comes in small packages, Nepal is filled with various culture, art and great histories. Tourists are treated like god in Nepal, its rich for its hospitality. But as It is one of the developing countries in the world there is high poverty rate. There is high rate of illiteracy. The political situation can be considered very critical and lacks proper attention.
But to say it all in one sentence, NEPAL is a heaven.
Though Kathmandu is the Capital of Nepal, Kathmandu is also suffering from load shading. Within 7 days a week there is 5 days load shading ie 15 hrs a week. Thats hampering not only daily life but has put lot of negative effects in the students life and all the business also. Xabbel is also suffering a lot due these frequent power cuts. Due to the inefficiency of certain body the notice about he power cus was not properly circulated so, most of the general people don't know when the power cut is gonna be next.
After the trek from Toronto to Vancouver to Sydney to Melbourne, I knew the first thing I needed to do to keep my sanity was to spend a good amount of time at the fitness center at the Westin. What a great idea - it helped me refresh, have a fantastic swim in the beautiful infinity pool, and after a brief stroll that was quickly canceled when the rain started, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour.
On Thursday, I woke up and did it all over again, in a beautiful setting amongst Lemon trees at Lateare Gardens in Hobart with a fire burning to keep us all warm and cozy from the cold outside! I think the goals of what we do at TakingITGlobal really connected closely with some people - one teacher was literally in tears sharing how wonderful she thought what we did was... it's really a special opportunity (as exhausting as it is) to be able to share our work with people that are also dedicating their lives to helping young people develop. I think sometimes we all forget the power and opportunity we have to impact the lives of others - and I feel like a few people really felt reconnected to that opportunity, which is really an amazing opportunity to be able to stimulate.
