Last year we got an office space.
We're a distributing company;
we're in five different time zones.
We work with a lot of
different smart people
and we work with a lot of
really interesting problems.
But one of the things that we do is
we offered what we call
junior engineering classes.
And these junior engineering
classes originally
began, actually, in my house.
We started teaching them 17 years ago
and it was mostly our
kids and their friends
would show up and we'd
teach everything from
mechanical engineering and 3D CAD design
and electronics and programming,
and then we have 3D printers,
so we 3D print things
and we have CAD and CAM machines,
and we take care of that,
and throughout the years,
the kids learned a lot.
And this is our last group.
This was a group that
went through last year.
Most of those kids are
either 12 or 11 and they
had been with us for four years.
And they work on a variety
of different things.
This time they were
building robots in order
to make it through mazes.
That was the goal of what
they were supposed to do.
There were a variety
of different ways that
they could solve that.
Languages that they could pick and such.
Robots are a great way for
kids to interact and to learn,
because it gets them
excited about programming.
In the process of
the things that we just do,
we heard about this particular
group, school, it's an
under-resourced school,
and they were wanting a Robotic
Club, but they didn't have
the funds for the parts
or the pieces, and so
we donated several kits, robotic kits
that were from the Lego line of kits,
so that they could actually have one.
And that same person who
leads that group said,
"Hey would you like to," this
year came to us and said,
"would you like to sponsor one
of our kids, so that she can
"go to this event that's
teaching young ladies about
"math and sciences and how
"to continue to get them involved?"
So we ended up, we sponsored 10 people.
And we then decided to pair up
with a group called City Year
that deals with under-resourced
schools and we're
developing a robotics program
for them for after-school,
in which we'll train
all of their staff and
teach them how to teach kids
and get involved with robots.
Now, the reason that I'm
telling you all of this
isn't so I can just tell
you what we're working on.
The reason I'm telling you about
this stuff is because of this:
Your commitment brings
about others' commitment,
commitment in other people.
This is what's called a PITW,
City Year is really into
these, this organization.
It's putting idealism to work.
And they believe in idealism.
It's sometimes something that
we will forget or we'll lose
as we get older, but they
really believe in it.
And their ability to believe
in idealism motivates
other people to try to get
involved with their communities
and with kids and push kids along,
and do something with kids.
So this story,
actually for the Robotics Club last year,
started with this young lady.
She, well let me tell
you another story first.
How 'bout that?
So there's this kid out on the beach.
And there's all of these starfish all over
and they're picking them
up, one by one, and this kid
is throwing them in the ocean.
And this older man comes over and says,
"you can't save all of them."
And she says, "yeah, but
it matters to that one
"that I just saved."
And that's the idea of what
they call starfish stories.
It matters to one person
that you can reach out
and do something for.
The tech community, in
general, we are like
we are a group of people
that in general are trying
to figure out, usually, how
to help people all the time.
We're concerned about
involvement of others,
we're concerned about
underrepresented groups.
And as I started teaching
this group, some of you will
recognize the young lady on
the right-hand side, as Jackie.
Jackie was kind enough
to send me a whole bunch
of information of her working in places.
This is her in Spain with
a robot she helped develop,
and that was inspiring.
It's not inspiring not
just because it's Jackie
and the girls were excited,
but their faces lit up,
it's because imagine being
able to work on robots in Spain
and you being able to go do that.
And kids get enthusiastic, just,
the enthusiasm builds and
they get super excited
about stuff like this.
So, the why am I telling you about this?
'Cause we would like people to join us.
All of us think about things.
We tweet stuff, we write things,
but it doesn't take a lot to get involved.
It doesn't take much for you to recognize
something that you know, and just start
teaching a kid somewhere.
So we came up with our PITW,
'cause we're nerds,
and ours is "To Git anything
done you have to commit."
So the question is
(chuckles from audience)
That.
(applause from audience)
