Comments on: Paper 16: Forget Dolly the Sheep; Clone Desimone

By: Horace Robertson

Horace Robertson — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 18:30:29 +0000

It is great to hear that there is an innovation club on the middle school campus allowing students to explore ideas for innovation among themselves.

I would like to hear from the student’s regarding how the Innovators club operates. Are the students taking innovation ideas into all their classes and seeking ideas from the subjects they are studying that would help them implement things in innovative ways?

If students are focusing on innovation projects in the club, I wonder how the school links with other students around the world to explore innovation solutions to critical problems identified by the students on Centenial campus at NCSU.

I wonder if the students are taking a course in career decisions at the middle school level to help them examine their talents and skills that could be used in various career pathways in innovative ways?

Is there a link between the innovation club operation and the Career Exploration Clubs which operate in the middle schools throughout North Carolina to help students enhance their personal talents and skills?

Is there any link between the innovation club and the work done by students throughout the USA as they celebrate innovative entrepreneurs during National Entrepreneurship Week each February?

We can learn a lot from these middle school students as they innovate with the help of teachers to ensure their public school experience meets their needs.

By: Leslie Boney

Leslie Boney — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:29:04 +0000

Students:
Thanks for the group of ideas! Great stuff.
Followup on one of them: Help me better understand how your “innovators club” works, how it’s organized, who’s in it and whether you think other schools could start something like it. FYI, given the school’s relationship with NC State, are there any folks at NCSU who could help you further develop your ideas, to see which ones have the most potential? Other public school folks out there, is this an idea that we could get to scale?

By: Alisa DeJoseph

Alisa DeJoseph — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:44:26 +0000

This message is from a group of seven 6th and 7th graders from Centennial Campus Magnet Middle school’s Leadership Academy
Question 1: If the North Carolina K-12 system could do one thing to increase the number of innovative graduates it produces…, it would be to:
1. Offer a specific class that teaches students how to be open-minded about careers and working with people, focusing on the amount of money that they could earn by thinking a certain way, comparing salaries from different professions.
2. Create incentives for students to graduate, for example – receiving scholarships for high GPA’s.
3. Offer more variety in languages offered to students.
4. Offering students the opportunity to peer-teach or tutor students who are not native English speakers.
5. Create more “innovators clubs” like we have here at Centennial Middle School in Raleigh. Possibly selling the rights to commercialize the ideas created by club members to a university in order to pay for tuition.
6. Focus more to help the students who fall behind in the school work with the use of peer-helpers.

By: mark rostick

mark rostick — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:03:32 +0000

I’m sure by now everyone has seen the stories detailing Google’s plans to deploy some “test” high-speed last mile connections in to-be-chosen communities around the US.

While it remains to be seen what the details of this offering may be, I think it would be in this region’s interest to investigate getting on the list.

The service providers we have locally in the Raleigh area are not leaders – neither TimeWarner Cable nor ATT are among those making a bet that building out higher speed networks today will lead to more business down the road. In Boston, Verizon is deploying last-mile fiber and its FiOS service and in the Valley, Comcast is deploying higher-speed infrastructure and service offerings.

I believe that high-speed internet access will be one of the criteria by which people choose to build a business. While other criteria are important, to be sure, high-speed access literally can change the entire product, business model and cost structure plans of most software companies today.

I’m not sure who can lead this effort, but doesn’t it make sense to take advantage of an high-profile opportunity to show what high-speed connections could enable for our area?

By: Leslie Boney

Leslie Boney — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:50:23 +0000

Mark: Thanks for the heads-up. I know what I have read about the model for Intellectual Ventures; you know what you have experienced, which is a more valuable screen.
Just to be clear though, what I was lifting up was the model they appear to be using, as an example that increasingly folks are getting the value of bringing together folks from different disciplines to watch the sparks fly and make connections that are innovative.
Thanks again. No subsititute for handson knowledge!

By: Around the Dial – Feb. 4 | South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Around the Dial – Feb. 4 | South By North Strategies, Ltd. — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:23:07 +0000

[...] Change Papers blogs about three factors that drive innovation. [...]

By: mark

mark — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:23:17 +0000

Leslie:

Be careful glorifying Intellectual Ventures…the business model is based on a 2-edged sword. On one hand, they do try to help foster certain types of innovation but on the other, they are seen by some in the industry as a new kind of patent “troll” which “encourages” people to invest them or risk being a target for patent infringement suits down the road.