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will.i.am on the importance of funding science education
Will.i.am in the Marketplace studio.
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Kai checking out Will.i.am's tweets.
Kai Ryssdal: You may know will.i.am -- assuming you know him at all -- as the frontman for the Black Eyed Peas. You probably don't know he's now the director of creative innovation at Intel. And that he's leading a push for better science and technology education in our schools.
Which is why he's teamed up with Dean Kamen -- the guy who invented the Segway scooter -- and Kamen's foundation called FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. They've gotten together to produce a television special called "i.am.FIRST: Science and Rock and Roll", about robotics championships for kids grades K-12. It airs on ABC this Sunday.
will.i.am's here right now. Thanks a lot for coming in.
will.i.am: Hey, good to be here.
Ryssdal: Tell me about this FIRST Foundation and Dean Kamen -- how'd you get involved?
will.i.am: I was on my Segway and I was thinking about all the innovation and imagination it took to create that. So I called a friend Ron Conway, like, 'Yo, do you know who invented this?' He was like, 'A good friend of mine, Dean Kamen.' I was like, 'You know this guy? Can you introduce me to him?' So he introduced me to him via email, and that's when he told me about U.S. FIRST. He was like, 'I've got this program that I've been doing for 20 years, teaching kids science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- and we have robotics competitions every year.' I aid, 'How come I've never heard of that?' He was like, 'That's the problem.' So I said, 'Well, if you have a robotics competition every year, we're performing at the Super Bowl, maybe we could perform, make a halftime show at your robotics competition.'
Ryssdal: Wow, really? Did he understand what he was getting with the Black Eyed Peas?
will.i.am: He thought maybe like I was going to show up and sing a song for the kids. So I called him two days later and said, 'You know Dean, I was thinking, if you want people know about this, just performing for the choir ain't good enough.'
Ryssdal: It's not going to do it, man.
will.i.am: 'Maybe it'd get a couple tweets.' I was like, 'You've got to let me turn this into a TV show.'
Ryssdal: All right, back up for just a second. You went to ABC and bought the airtime.
will.i.am: But these kids, right? If this little 13-year-old is building robots and writing code, I can at least go and buy some time on ABC to make a TV show out of it.
Ryssdal: Tell me about these kids.
will.i.am: You know when you watch the movie Waiting For Superman, you're like, oh man.
Ryssdal: That's the documentary on education.
will.i.am: You're all, 'Aw man, we're so doomed.' And your heart breaks. This is the total opposite of that. Here, you would think like somebody sprayed magic dust and out popped genius little kids.
Ryssdal: Yeah, but it's interesting because there's a clip, and we're going to roll this clip in now, it's a kid who is in a gang who got his girlfriend pregnant, and he didn't know what to do. And then this robotics competition --
will.i.am: Changed his life.
Man: And I thought saw what they did, and I got more interested in programming with Louis. Seeing all of this and robotics, it's really inspiring. I want to see myself doing something like that.
And he wants to build prosthetic hearts.
Ryssdal: Yeah.
will.i.am: How do you amplify that and duplicate it and spread it all across America?
Ryssdal: You wrote an article in the Huffington Post not too long ago that obviously I read, and you said, 'I don't understand trade deficits or debt ceilings or any of that stuff. I mean, I'm just a rapper.' But I guess that's the point right? You don't have to understand all that to know what the deal is.
will.i.am: It is rocket science. We need to put our money in rocket science. Geniuses are recession-proof. And geniuses make technology, and innovate. I would think that is our debt ceiling plan. Wouldn't you think that? I don't know.
Ryssdal: I would think so. So here's the thing: You're the guy who did the Yes We Can video during the Obama campaign; it was remarkably successful. Obviously you've got your music career. What's your sense of obligation, though? Where does this come from?
will.i.am: I made a career out of music and entertainment, and one day, I looked under the hood at what our entertainment was running off of -- and it was running off of technology. Yes, hum the songs, but that guitar that they strummin'? That's technology too. And that trumpet that they blowin'? That's technology too. But we don't know who invented the trumpet; we just know Miles Davis, right? That's the problem.
Ryssdal: Tell me about this robotics championship. What was it like?
will.i.am: The whole building was electrified. And without the concert, they would have been happy. They were just over the moon that there was entertainment there and we were celebrating education, we were celebrating innovation. All the people that came out, 'thank you guys so much for lending your time to support and applaud and acknowledge these kids' discipline.'
Ryssdal: will.i.am, thanks a lot.
will.i.am: Thank you.
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Thank you for airing this piece.
Bill B., thank you for highlighting the range of skills involved in a successful FIRST Robotics team. My daughter is artsy to the extreme, as in she attends a private arts academy. She was team captain of her FIRST Robotics team last year(at a different school)and is now in the process of starting a team at her new school. That means rounding up mentors, many of whom had never heard of FIRST, and developing a business plan... yes, a business plan. Funding sources are a necessity after the rookie year start-up support. She's written a guest column in a regional newspaper as part of her marketing & communications strategy too.
FIRST Robotics is inspiring on many levels. Finally, Neal Bascomb wrote The New Cool about a recent FIRST Robotics season. It's an engaging and informative read.
This is my first time commenting on Marketplace, a show I always listen to.
Finally! It is unusual but so welcome to hear a celebrity acknowledge the importance of technology in all of our lives. There is not one item in our cars, house, workplace, etc., that wasn't invented and subsequently improved. Without innovation there is no modern economy.
I'm a FIRST team mentor (rookie year!). Before this last year I knew almost nothing about FIRST and the Robotics Competition. It was only through word of mouth that I learned of it. Will.i.am is doing an amazing service to FIRST in getting the word out on radio and network TV. All my friends are getting tired of me posting his videos and interviews, but I can't help myself.
This is so exciting. I am a science teacher and have been for 16 years. Please check out my website www.digitizelearning.org. This is the future of education. I have the ideas, just need to get them out there. In 15 minutes I can convince you that education needs a huge mental shift.
Thank you for running this interview. It was really uplifting. And it makes one think.
On "genius is recession-proof": But genius can be outsourced. Every country in the world has smart people, and a comfortable standard of living costs significantly less in most of them. US companies prefer hiring smart Indians over smart Americans because the cost of living, and thus the cost of compensation for an equivalent standard of living, is lower in India. When the FIRST kids grow up, we need good jobs for them *here*. (And we need to more fully employ the grown-up geniuses we already have.) Getting US companies to offer those jobs *here* is a major challenge.
On "I'm just a rapper": The arts explain and inform the *use* of technology: What controls make sense? What should they look like? What words should be used? Audio and visual artists have very important roles to play in product design. Study the examples in Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things."
On "We need to put our money in rocket science": The top graduates in advanced math fields have been joining Wall Street firms for quite awhile now. They can make more money developing complex financial models than they can make developing rockets, or computers, or robots, or advanced machinery. If we could fix the perversion that has diverted so much wealth to Wall Street and is being used to generate liquidity instead of wealth, we could put those geniuses to work developing advanced products that in turn generate real wealth (instead of liquidity).
On "we were celebrating education, we were celebrating innovation": The kids brought a whole array of skills: Some were planners, some were investigators, some were explainers, some were visualizers, some were organizers, some were makers, some were imaginers, some were negotiators, and I don't know what all else. STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) has served a useful purpose in providing a clear focal point that people can rally around to get the proverbial ball rolling. But we've decimated education budgets so much that technical and business skills are about all we teach anymore. The other skills contributed to those robots, too, as anyone who has witnessed an argument between geeks with opposing and incomplete points of view can attest. The robots demonstrated successful synthesis of many skills, *all* of which should be cultivated in our educational system.
Weather Excitement
The storms now occurring in the northwestern USA appear to come from a meeting of two flows. Air originates near the south end of the Red Sea and then crosses Africa, the Atlantic, across the continental USA and meets flow which originates in the Far East, then moves north and goes by way of high latitudes into North America. There, a 2 dimensional front is formed and stormy weather erupts. You look at the satellite pictures and say what you think is happening. National Search Lab scientists are doing this and developing programs to predict and modify the weather. This is extremely exciting, satisfying, and fun work.
Everyone on this planet must do the same or support those who know how or get out of the way. All the work created by Windows and its derivatives, like Face Book, BLOGGER, GOBBLE, etc where everyone is lost, is using up the human capability for communication and preventing the solutions to important problems on weather, earthquakes and healthcare. You are all like drone bees who do not contribute to the making of honey and must be eliminated from the hive.
Wake Up You
YES YOU!
Maurice Simon Cahn, Director of Research
mcahn2@roadrunner.com
Gary Alan Cahn, Chief Engineer
gcahn2@roadrunner.com
Phone: 760-888-2933
USA National Search Lab
120 S. Saturmino Dr. #1
Palm Springs, CA92262
National Search Lab TV Show
Everyone, including the Mayor of New Orleans, is crying about Katrina and what do we do to prevent another tragedy. We have on our computer the satellite pictures which show where and why every hurricane since Katrina started. We have programs to prevent further tragedies. We also have similar info for tornados and earthquakes. All world leaders are completely ignorant of our programs. Our computer programs will prove to anyone our programs work.
We also have musical comedy math and science shows which we have successfully presented at museums and colleges and we have top talent to go with it. We have Video tapes of these shows.
We plan to do a weekly science show on TV which is a cinch to go national. We can start tomorrow with a weather show which every TV station is doing now without the benefit of proper engineering knowledge.
People who now spend many hours of Internet time and not accomplishing any engineering must begin to use NSL programs. When they do we will begin to see the end of death and destruction, World peace, health, and happiness.
Maurice Cahn, Director of Research, mcahn2@roadrunner.com
Gary Alan Cahn, Chief Engineer, gcahn2@roadrunner.con
USA National Search Lab
120 S. Saturmino Dr. #1
Palm Springs, Ca 92262 Phone: 760-888-2933
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