Make a STEM Difference: Hands-on Learning

Education is opportunity. Science education is infrastructure innovation opportunity. USA faces aging roads, pipes, transportation; developed a while back with technologies that we now know to be unsustainable. In true Silicon Valley style, we want to turn the challenge into an opportunity to invent completely new methods of building roads, bridges, supply pipes, aeroplanes; not only create environmental benefit, but even build in the IT infrastructure (can't do without computers now can we?) right into it - adding tomorrow to yesterday for a better future for all.

The message was heard loud and clear by about 70 junior scientists (5th-7th graders) with the help of some 20 senior scientists (volunteers from HP, Google and others) at the bay area National Lab Day back to school event. The scientists sat on tables of 10 with the assignment of discovering "What is OOBLECK? Solid, Liquid or Gas?" by doing experiments collaboratively. Josh Becker of New Cycle Capital led the afternoon which included a fun speech from Chandrakant Patel of HP Labs exhorting the junior scientists to get back to tinkering and getting their hands dirty. Speaking from the the trenches (i.e. us senior scientists amidst  budding future inventors), the energy generated from the OOBLECK experiment exceeded our wildest expectations . In just a few hours I saw the following:
- some grasped the notion of doing an experiment to validate/invalidate a theory
- some saw the importance of writing their findings
- all were engaged: one child who had been sitting with his head down interacting with no one - started talking and sharing once the lab got started
- all had fun: simply because real life intervened - when OOBLECK was "poured" into plastic bags - many bags had tiny leaks - for some OOBLECK flowed out - for others it dripped. As junior scientists started stopping the dripping - they learned and they got their hands and lab coats messy - creating much mirth and merriment.
- many junior scientists came up with "tests" of their own to try
- the senior scientists didn't have any better clue about what oobleck was than the junior - emphasising the importance of gathering your own data (and documenting - in case you got into an argument).

I thought the experiment design was really good and I hope gets replicated in other forums. It all worked at so many levels.  I have been engaged with STEM education in various capacities for many many years now - I saw an excitement from the children in short 3 hours that I have not seen before.

Hands-on, challenge based learning works. It also brought the kids together and it is FUN!

National Lab day: Back to School launch event

On Sept. 15, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View I have the opportunity to spend an afternoon of interactive hands-on learning with 75 fifth and sixth graders. HP is hosting the National Lab Day (NLD) Back to School launch event here in the Bay Area and participating in events like this reminds me why I am still loyal to HP.  HP’s support for NLD is part of a new social innovation in education program to help build the future generations of innovators. When I was director , Imaging Systems Lab at HP Labs I became convinced of the power of digital in attracting the young to Science and Technology Education (we did studies with K-12 through a grass roots effort called EIEIO) and this newest initiative gladdens my heart no end.

The HP Phenomenon: Why does HP Matter?

Monday, Dec 7, 2009 I (and a few hundred others) went to the Computer History Museum's book discussion event "Chuck House in Conversation with KQED's Dave Iverson- The HP Phenomenon: Innovation and Business" not so much to learn but to participate in the "feel good" aura that HP themed events seem to create. And I was not disappointed. Along with meeting several fellow HP'ers I enjoyed reliving HP stories. But the last Iverson question, "why does HP matter?" really got me thinking. As people know, I am a "dust to dust, ashes to ashes" kind of a person so why do I care that the HP story be told? Why do several hundred, maybe several thousands care?
After a great deal of thought, I know now why I care. And maybe why every leader should care. The answer as simple in concept as it is complex to execute and it is:
HP brought out the very best in everybody (employees, customers) - for innovation, for just being a better person, a better citizen. Because this is not easy to explain, we call it the HP way (respect for individual etc.) but it is more than that. There was an institutional element to the HP way - management walked the talk. Thus as a entry level software engineer, I stayed in the same hotel as my division GM when I travelled for work and on more than one occasion travelled coach with him on flights. The week I joined HP (after almost 4 interviews and one year) we went on "work 5 day and get paid for 4" work day schedule (this is in the book) to avoid layoffs - not in our division which was doing fine but another part of the company. We did it happily. So did management. As Chuck said, decisions were bottom up - it was our policy - we knew that good times follow bad times and so on - nothing special. Equally important was the HP way impact on community - wherever HP operated. I remember once (pre-Euro days) travelling in Europe, crossing a country border, when 2 members in our party were missing official documents. The gun toting border guards, when they found we were HP employees let us pass - as if that is documentation enough of our honesty. Another time, a new employee in my group, got an apartment rental without references because "Oh, you work at HP - you must be a good person".
HP is a leader in innovation. HP is successful. We were successful. We could be good people and we would be successful.
Good = Success. That is the HP way and HP was living proof of it.
In these turbulent times, when we make compromises with our principles every day, The HP story, that if you do your best you (and the world) will be a better place, matters.
It is the All American story.

Keeping your morale and sanity in tough times

Something that helps me weather challenging times, and is helping me right now is to focus on what I do have, rather than what is missing. My vehicle for this is a simple gratitude list. Try it for a week even. I simply list 10-25 things every night I am grateful for (big stuff like my good health, my son, the means to pay my bills this month usually appear on my list every night) but if you have a hard time coming up with other things it will force you to start looking for the good during your day, such as getting that parking spot in downtown San Francisco when I was running late, hearing back from a recruiter, or even how cozy my warm house feels right now in this frigid weather...I have also been looking for "bright lights" every day -- just observing people in the cars around me, or as I entered a crowded restaurant last week and I watched the (seemingly happy) Mom conversing with the two children sharing her table... Even just thinking about looking for bright lights seems to pick up my day, and I can almost feel those positive neural pathways burning in my brain...Wishing you all happy holidays,
-post from Janice Roberts

New Technology for Energy Savings - Why Bangalore?

New technology innovation and adoption can sometimes happen faster in a developing economy - it has the economic support for investment in new infrastructure because current infrastructure is poor and/or expensive.

This topic came up a few weeks back, at a seminar I gave at Stanford about the economics of innovation. The example I used to make the point is for a technology I am intimately familiar with - the HPLabs "Smart" Data Center. It is a data center cooling technology that can cut down energy use by 40-50%. You would think HP would be debut this technology in an expensive place like Palo Alto, Right?- but no- HP has released it first in Bangalore, India - Why?

Because in Bangalore, just like in other big cities in India, with its poor infrastructure and intermittent power supply, you get data center up time of 24/7 by supplementing grid electricity with diesel burning generators - which is expensive - more so than grid electricity in PA. And so economically it makes more sense to refine/test it there. Additional benefits of course are emissions reduction etc.

So the lesson is - if you have great technology, and it does not seem economically feasible to innovate further in a developed economy, with its good, cheap, reliable infrastructure, try it in an emerging economy - there will be economic as well as environmental incentives, i.e. a double bottom line. For details -check out the Businessweek article.