Hi.

Since my class and I are in PLP we do a lot of different types of field trips, or field schools. We go on ones ranging from 10 day trips out of the country to one day excursions in the greater Vancouver area. And in our case, May 16th was a one day excursion.

We went to the BC Tech Summit Youth Innovation Day. This was located in the large Convention Center downtown Vancouver. Our class was extremely lucky to go as this event costs the public $999 per ticket. And since it was the youth day, there were a lot of other school groups there from all around.

This event featured all sorts of technology such as virtual reality, simulations, prototypes, robots, designs and much, much more. There were also multiple speakers such as the Honourable John Horgan, Brent Bushnell, David Katz and a few others. Another great feature at this event was the post secondary school booths that showed us students what their school had to offer. Overall the event was extremely interesting with some amazing technology, and amazing people.

But we didn’t go there to just have fun and wander aimlessly. We had a job to do.

1. Research Two Speakers

Before we embarked on the bus to get us to this event, we needed to do some research on two of the 5-6 speakers at the event. I chose my first speaker to be Brent Bushnell, and so I researched him beforehand, and took notes on his presentation while he was talking.

Brent Bushnell is a Los Angeles based entrepreneur, engineer, and CEO/co founder of Two Bit Circus, an experiential entertainment company. This company uses virtual reality to create entertainment for people that usually take the form of amusement parks. His tech is used to inspire kids about science, technology, engineering, art and math. Or in another form, S.T.E.A.M.  During his very inspirational talk, I got these main points. The world outside is changing and technology is at the heart of it. He said that 65% of children will have jobs that don’t exist now, meaning that technology will be disrupting our daily lives so much that the jobs we have now will be changed forever, and new ones will take over. This was just one of the many topics he spoke about. Brent Bushnell’s talk was my favourite out of them all since he talked a lot about how to be creative.

The other speaker I chose to research was Ryan Holmes, the CEO and Founder of Hootsuite, a social media management tool for businesses. This company, founded in Vancouver, is quickly becoming one of the many tech giants nowadays, at a value of around $1 Billion.

During Ryan Holmes’ interview on stage, he described his childhood to us, and it was interesting. Currently he is heavily involved in technology, but when he was a kid, his house in Vernon, BC, didn’t even have electricity to run a computer! Once he fell in love with coding on his elementary school library computers, he entered a competition and won a brand new Apple 2c computer. He could only run it off the battery of his moms car though. But something proven in his life story that applies to everyone today is that if you are really passionate about something and you are willing to pursue it fully, then there’s nothing that should stop you. He loved computers, and he didn’t let his lack of electricity stop him, and now he runs a big name company. At least that’s what I took away from his talk.

Onto to the next section.

2. Interview a Mentor

Another cool factor to this event was the brief 10 minute time frame we had to interview “mentors” sitting at tables in the main room. These were people attending the event that worked for businesses all over BC and came to represent their business. Me, adam, spencer, Kyle and Simon had the chance to interview a lady who worked at Lifelabs, a medical diagnostic service based in BC. These clinics provide patients with the opportunities to be tested for anything. Anyways, I made a short podcast on the answers she gave us.

(The podcast had some technical difficulties. Coming soon)

This was a cool experience and she gave us some good information, even in only 10 minutes.

3. Visit a Post Secondary School Booth

After we listened to all the speakers and mentors, we had a chance to walk around upstairs where all the booths with all the technology was set up. Our task for this step was to look into one of the post secondary recruitment booths that interested us. Naturally, I chose one that had a drone sitting in front of it. After some further explaining and questions, I found out that this booth was representing a mapping program in BCIT that utilizes drones to make detailed 3D maps. I found this very interesting how they were using normal drones to make complicated maps using a specific program. After this we were allowed to walk around and look at all the booths we wanted.

We started our day at Seycove at 7:00 am, and finished off when we got back at about 5:00 pm, so it was a long day. Oh, and we also had the option to make a “vlog” so me, Simon, Spencer, and Adam came up with this video:

(Video coming really soon in theatres near you)

Overall, this experience was a lot of fun and I actually learned a lot. I loved seeing all the creativity people had and pursued to actually make a product or design, and show it off at this convention. Brent Bushnells talk was definitely a highlight for me as he was very engaging and told us a lot about creativity. The positive and creative energy rubbed off on everyone, making the day very upbeat and fun. I didn’t know that this was a thing, and now that I’ve experienced it I’ll definitely consider returning next year.

 

Thats all for now,

See you