“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” —
Knight News Challenge: Alumn.us: awesome alumni networks for all schools -
1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]
Alumn.us will bring high-powered alumni networks to all 30,000 public high schools and community colleges in the U.S. by 2015.
2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]
SNS, fundraising platforms, and…
(Source: newschallenge1)
Honored to be one of the three honorary members of the Rotary Club of Livermore Valley (alongside “Mr. Rotary” Bob Tucknot and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty).
Bob and I were in attendance yesterday to hear Supervisor Haggerty discuss the latest transportation and economic news from Alameda County.
I forgot my tie in the car.
[video]
Great memories with fellow panelists / keynote speakers @jenmedbery @JeremyJ @marissalowman from @edtechup - just saw the photos #edtech
Hundreds of women + dozens of men = Women 2.0 PITCH, V-Day.
Incredible speakers. Inspiring entrepreneurs. Lots of new friends.
On multiple occasions, I was asked by female attendees if I now understood what its like to be the gender minority at tech events.
“No clue,” I said by the fifth time.
“Why?” they asked.
“Because you asked me how I’m doing.
We rarely ask.
You opened your circle when I approached.
We rarely notice.
How could I know what its like to be outnumbered 9 to 1 everyday,” I thought, ”at the most welcoming tech event ever?”
On January 8, 2011, in the horrific Tucson shooting, we lost one of our finest citizens in Christina Taylor-Green, the nine-year-old who had just been elected to student council.
Last month, around the one-year anniversary of that fateful day, I wrote a letter to her family, sharing a few stories and experiences I had rarely shared with anyone.
After receiving a kind email in response from Christina’s mom, I have decided to share portions of that letter with others. For maybe if enough of us believe in the world as it could be, the world that Christina had imagined, and maybe if we remember our ability to shape it, we will see brighter days ahead.
Dear CTG Memorial Foundation,
Christina inspires me.I believe there are few people who embody the community as so many of us wish it to be as Christina did.Christina reminded me of my ideal citizen: informed, kind, thoughtful, gracious, and forever focused on her family and on others, and the ties that bind us together.Sometimes, it seems the world forgets that we are all of one cloth.I don’t think of people as labels like Democrat or Republican or black or white. I try to see people on a plane of common humanity.I try to be my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. I try to promote a greater understanding in my life. Sometimes, I succeed. Sometimes, I don’t.And sometimes, I think I don’t, but later realize I did.I was once asked in a scholarship interview what I would say if I was in Namibia and a local person asked me to explain the difference between a Democrat and a Republican.I said I wouldn’t, at least at first.I said that I would focus on what it means to be an American, and what it means to be a human being - American and Namibian, together. I think the common bonds of humanity are more important than the divisions we choose to create, and more can be accomplished if we focus on our ties.The panel pressed me three times to change my response. “Is that what you would really say? You are this active in politics, and you can’t even offer one difference between the political parties?”It’s not that I couldn’t. It’s that, in the context described, I wouldn’t.Over the years, I’ve sometimes doubted that response.When I read about Christina and her steadfast belief in the ties that bind us together, she reminded me that my instincts were right. She reminded me of an important part of myself, as I try to be, and of the world, as it should be.Today and for many days to come, I remember Christina as a kindred spirit along the way.With love,Kevin
I saw Mitt Romney’s campaign logo for the first time today. I knew it looked familiar.
Seems others have seen a resemblance while brushing their teeth.
Originally published on the Alumn.us Blog:
Some of the deepest schisms in the U.S. between the haves and the haves-not stem from disparities in resources between schools and as a result of which schools our children attended.
These disparities are deeply rooted and seemingly intractable, and yet there is hope that they can be checked, reduced, or even eliminated - by us.
