So recently, the grade 10 cohort of PLP was given the opportunity to visit the second day of the #BCTECH Summit!
So what is the BC Tech Summit? Essentially, it’s a big convention that focuses mainly on technology and how it’s been affecting careers and the world in general. Tickets generally cost around a thousand dollars but because we were attending as a class, our teachers were able to apply for the Youth Innovation day which basically meant that they were able to argue the case for why we would benefit from attending an event like this. As you can see from reading this post, the art of persuasion ended up being on our side.
Either way, our BC Tech Summit experience consisted mainly of two things:
- Guest speakers who came to talk about what they do in the tech industry and their many experiences, worldviews, and stories.
- Booths filled with different technical innovations, programs for students who would like to follow technological filled careers, and everywhere in between.
To make sure we knew how to take the most out of our day at the Tech Summit, we were given a list of things that we needed to do during our time there. Now although it might sound like I’m saying, “yay, work…” that’s actually not the case. So the thing is, I didn’t actually know too much about the Tech Summit before showing up and sure, I looked at the website but I still wasn’t 100% what to expect. This is why the tasks were helpful for me as it kind of gave me a guideline of what I should’ve been taking away from our day at the Tech Summit. So what were our tasks?
Well starting off with our first task, we were told to look at the list of speakers who were presenting on the day we were coming. We then had to pick the two speakers who we found to be the most captivating from what we knew. From the given list, I chose Brent Bushnell and David Katz. So who are they?
Best known as the CEO of the Two Bit Circus in LA, Brent Bushnell is a dreamer and an innovator. He described himself as a nerd as a nerd is “someone who has the tools they need to solve a problem.” He mentioned that as a little kid, he was always interested in building new and interesting things and eventually, his passion for innovating and entertaining became the base of his dream, the Two Bit Circus. “What is the Two Bit Circus” you may ask? Well in essence, it’s an amusement park that mainly delivers its entertainment from technology and things that one might not normally see in a run-of-the-mill amusement park.
For example, you might expect to see a cloud that rains vodka or a dunk tank that surrounds its victim in fire instead of water. Aside from telling us about himself, he also gave advice on how to be successful by following our passions and how to “stretch” our brain’s muscles. He couldn’t stress enough how important it is to train our brains to be creative in order to become innovative and versatile people. There was a quote he mentioned which really stuck with me as it really deals with how technology is quickly integrating itself with everything we do in life;
Overall, I really took away the fact that we bring our passions into the lines of work which we do and that we can be creative and innovative and we can find new ways to look at how we do things.
Moving on to the founder of the Plastic Bank, David Katz is a realist who’s main goal is to heavily reduce the amount of plastic that is left on land and in the ocean. He’s doing this through the creation of the Plastic Bank. Essentially, it’s a system where people in countries such as Haiti are encouraged to pick up plastic bottles which they can then trade in for money, soap, first-aid, and other living appliances. The money that these people make is directed into online accounts where for the first time, many of these people will actually be able to experience security when it comes to their money and assets. The plastic that is bought off these people is then melted into beads called “social plastic” and are sold to companies in order to reuse them for their own plastic appliances.
It’s also worth mentioning that David Katz had brought his idea to the Dragon’s Den and even though they shot down his idea, he pushed through and is now planning to expand in the Philippines, Brazil, and Bali.
Moving on to our second task, we were told to explore the large variety of booths for post secondary programs that were set up at the summit and find some that were interesting for us. I ended up finding this really interesting start-up venture called NovionHealth from an entrepreneurship program at SFU.
Essentially, NovionHealth focused on solving the issue of sonographers experiencing Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders at work. They did this through creating an assistive robotic device which could essentially be controlled via joystick which can help prevent WRMDs for sonographers. Although I love this idea, I was actually more drawn to the way they got to this problem and the design process they went through to create a product that actually solves their problem. It seemed an awful lot like the way we do things in PLP and it was definitely cool to see that the processes you see in our projects are the same processes you see in these larger scale projects.
Our third and final task was to record an interview with a mentor during the Tech Summit which we would then turn into a video/podcast (we were also told to make a vlog which is why some of us made videos for the interview). The conditions for recording the podcast/video was definitely interesting as we were essentially interviewing our mentors in the midst of hundreds of other kids who were also at the summit. Speaking of which, what is a mentor? To keep it short and sweet, a mentor for us was essentially a person who has experience in the field of technology in terms of their career. These mentors were assigned to tables where we got to join them and ask them about their experiences. Either way, I won’t give too much away about our mentor. Instead, check out the video I made!
In the end, I really think that the BC Tech Summit was a very unique experience that got me thinking more about how technology is going to play a role in my life as well as everyone else’s lives, what advice I took away from that day which I’m going to apply to my life, and how I can make an impact on the world. It’s become increasingly clear that technology will be integrating its way into almost everyone’s lives, career, and hobbies, and it’s important that we all recognize how that will be impacting the way that everyone goes about doing things. From tech based amusement parks, to robot arms that help perform medical procedures, all the way to movements that want to eliminate plastic waste, the BC Tech Summit has given us a glimpse of what life will look like by the time we exit school and to be honest, I’m pretty excited to see what’s going to be in store for us as well as what we’re going to have in store for everyone else…
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